Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait, everyone! It's been a busy past few months, but I'm finally ready to charge full steam ahead into 2021. This chapter actually got split in half while writing, so expect the next one very soon!

Chapter 48: Choice and Consequence

Falling. Air rushed past, streaming through my sleeves, whipping my hair back, stinging my face. In the back of my mind, I saw the ground rushing up at me, and my stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. But still I kept my eyes closed and my limbs outstretched as far as they would go. Focusing. Counting the seconds.

The wind shifted. He was beneath me.

I threw my arms out, caught hold of smooth scales, and immediately locked my arms around Aros's neck. His flight leveled, our momentum shifted, and my body flattened against his back as we pulled out of the dive at breakneck speed. Then I finally let myself open my eyes to see us shooting above the treetops, no more than fifty feet from the ground.

"Holy crap, you really left that one until the last second, huh," I said, heart still pounding.

"*I had it under control,*" Aros replied firmly.

"I know," I said, relaxing slightly. "I trust you." With how many times he'd saved my life, I couldn't not.

The cool September breeze was invigorating. My body felt lighter than air as the two of us darted over the foothills of Route 3, our flight comprised of rapid swerves and rolling swoops, ducking and weaving past invisible opponents. Every so often he'd pull an especially wild maneuver and I'd lose my grip, and there'd be that heart-stopping moment of terror as I fell, helpless. Then I'd force it back, and we'd use that opportunity to practice freefalls. And once he'd caught me, we'd know what moves we needed to focus on next. Holding on through barrel rolls wasn't that hard anymore. Somersaults were another story.

"*I could probably catch you even if you stayed limp and didn't grab on,*" Aros bragged.

I snorted. "I bet you could. I'd rather save that for when we have Firestorm as backup, though."

He gave a mildly disappointed huff but didn't press the topic. It was something we'd have to practice at some point, I just hadn't quite worked up the nerve yet.

We'd just finished pulling out of another freefall when I spotted the silhouettes of a Pidgeot and Charizard in the distance. I pointed them out to Aros and he made an indistinct sound of displeasure before flaring his wings to slow our flight and aiming for the ground.

"*Bout time you two showed up,*" Aros grumbled once the others had landed alongside us. "*Come on. I need some competition. Bet I can catch Jade faster than either of you.*"

Firestorm rubbed the back of his head. "*Probably? I don't really care which one of us is faster.*"

"*You should,*" Aros replied immediately.

Firestorm shrugged and threw a glance at Swift like he was waiting for him to speak. Swift pawed at the ground with a talon before meeting my eyes. "*You've been training for quite a long time. Shouldn't you take a break?*" he asked earnestly.

"*Yeah seriously, you're starting to look more tired than Aros,*" Firestorm added quickly. "*Take a break already.*"

I chuckled a bit. "It's kinda funny hearing that from you. Remember the way you used to train on Midnight Island?"

Firestorm rolled his eyes. "*We both know I was an idiot Charmeleon. Plus I was trying to evolve. Humans can't do that, so you don't have an excuse.*"

"I think you also wanted to show off to Stalker's Charizard."

Firestorm blushed and turned away quickly. "*Whatever! Just take a break or we'll drag you back to the Pokécenter!*" The Charizard gave a small huff before taking off with a gust of warm air.

Alright, they probably had a point. I patted Aros's neck. "I'm gonna call it here," I said, sliding down from his back. "Keep training by yourself if you want." The Flygon looked disappointed for a few moments but then vibrated his wings and took off.

I slowly shuffled over to the closest tree before collapsing against it, a bit lightheaded. My whole body still felt weirdly airy, and it took a good minute or so for my brain to get used to being on solid ground again. Yeah, they definitely had a point. I didn't even know how long we'd been flying.

Swift sat next to me with his feathers fluffed out for a few minutes before joining Firestorm in the sky. I sat there, watching the two practicing moves together. Firestorm was demonstrating something involving a powerful gust of wind, his wings glowing red as a heat haze warped the air in front of him. It seemed like an odd choice since Swift wouldn't be able to copy anything like that, but it was still nice to see them having fun. At least someone was.

"*I know what you're doing,*" a voice said.

I pulled my gaze away from the sky to see Chibi sitting down next to me with a stern look on his face.

"What's that?" I asked, already feeling like he'd caught me doing something wrong.

"*It's the same thing I was doing after I first joined you,*" the Pikachu answered, fixing his intense birdlike stare on me in that way that made it impossible to not pay attention.

I strained my memory to think back to last year. He'd spent all his time obsessively training, right?

"I figured that was because discharging power relieves your pain." Of course, I hadn't known that at the time, but…

The Pikachu's ears twitched. "*That's one reason. The other is because it's easy to avoid troubling thoughts when your body is flooded with adrenaline.*"

I bristled. "Look, I'm just trying to prepare myself. I can't even count how many times I got knocked off a flier last mission."

He looked unimpressed. "*We just established that things can have more than one reason.*"

Alright, he kind of had me there. When I was falling… it was like nothing else existed. And when Aros caught me, the only thought my brain could generate was 'I survived. I'm alive.'

"Yeah, yeah, I hear you," I said, awkwardly glancing away.

It had been nearly two weeks since the Hoenn mission. It didn't feel like it though. It felt like everyone else had been moving forward in time, and here I was stuck feeling the exact same guilt and frustration as I had the day after it happened.

"It's not… bad that I'm still bothered by what happened in Hoenn, is it?" I asked slowly.

Chibi was silent for some time. "*It's not,*" he finally answered. But there was an odd hesitation in his voice.

"I want to be able to relax and focus on other things like everyone else," I said, voice cracking slightly. "But the last time I did that, I ignored it all for nine months, and then it was hard to get used to it again." My mouth went dry, my brain flashing back to that moment when Moltres had appeared, and the illusion was shattered. Relentless flames. Dizzying speed. Falling. Always falling.

Chibi dropped his gaze, looking conflicted. "*You deserve to rest. I shouldn't have pressured you so hard back then.*" His paws clenched. "*I'm not sure why I did.*"

I tilted my head. Didn't he, though? "You said it was important, and that we couldn't hide from that."

"*It wasn't your job back then; I just acted like it was. And besides—you have your place in all this now. You're allied with the Legendaries.*" He paused heavily, a soft breeze ruffling his head feathers. "*It's made me realize that I still don't know my place.*"

I blinked at him. "You're with me—you're allied with the Legendaries too," I offered.

Chibi stared downward, brow furrowed. "*For you, it's by choice. For me it's… what I am. I was born into this role. Would I still want to do this if it wasn't literally a part of me?*"

For me, it was by choice. I chose this. I had no right to complain.

I crossed my arms behind my head, looking up at the clouds. "I mean. I dunno what my 'purpose' is. Don't really think I have much of one. Just trying to get by, you know?"

"*You don't need one,*" he said simply. "*You don't need to make up for your existence.*"

"You sound like Aros," I said, giving him a sideways glance. "Well, I guess it makes more sense for you. Legendary heritage and all. I won't pretend to understand that."

Chibi shook his head. "*He thinks he needs to be strong. I already know that I am. I just don't know what to do with it.*" The Pikachu glanced up at me, and his expression softened when he saw my face. "*You don't need to have an answer for that. It's just been on my mind, that's all.*"

I pulled out a few blades of grass, scattering them across my sneakers. "Well, the training's not just out of obligation, anyway. It's been nice to have something to work on with Aros. And I think it's been helping him."

"*You're enabling him,*" Stygian cut in suddenly.

I blinked at the sudden interruption. The Absol was sprawled out in a shaded patch of grass by the next tree over, idly sharpening her claws.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"*You're enabling him,*" she repeated, eyes closed, not looking at us.

I stared at her blankly, completely baffled. Where was this coming from? "Enabling what, exactly?" I asked.

"*His nonsense hopes of proving that he's strong by being useful in the fight against his creators, and surpassing his original,*" she said without hesitation, as if she'd already had it rehearsed.

I blinked. "Is that what he's doing? I mean, I already knew that proving himself was important to him, but that? What would even come of that? It just feels…"—I really hated to put it this way, but—"pointless."

"*It is pointless,*" she said, her ruby-red eyes practically boring a hole through me. "*It is a shallow, stupid goal. It will accomplish nothing.*"

I rubbed the back of my head. "It feels really rude to just tell someone that." Not that that was usually a concern to her. "What should I be doing instead? Anytime I try to give him advice on anything, he just tells me that I can't tell him what to do." I already knew that I couldn't tell him what to do. That wasn't what I wanted at all.

Stygian was silent for a bit, mulling over her words. "*I have that same frustration. My words seem to do little. I have tried to convince him that it is time to move on. To find a new path to pursue in life, rather than being bound to this one. He has not given me an answer.*"

So Aros was just using me to avoid making a decision. I mean, I kind of already knew that. And that was fine—if that was what he really wanted, then I'd let him. But while Aros was wasting time, Stygian was impatient to move on.

"You don't really want to be on the team, do you," I said finally.

"*I don't dislike it,*" the Absol said, licking her paws.

I swallowed. "That's not the best reason to do something."

"*We all have our responsibilities. You have yours, I have mine,*" Stygian said airily, without looking at me.

"I guess that's true but…" I trailed off, running a hand through my hair. Part of me still wanted to disagree, but I couldn't figure out how. Maybe it just wasn't something I could understand. So I just sat there feeling vaguely frustrated until a thought struck me, and I asked, "If you could do anything at all, what would you do?"

The Absol blinked, taken aback. But then, like she'd already had an answer prepared: "*I want to cross the land on my own feet, at my own pace. Traverse mountains, visit seas. Know that I may do whatever I like, whenever I like, dependent upon no one.*"

I shuffled a foot against the grass. "Sounds lonely."

"*Maybe. It's entirely possible that I'd grow tired of it,*" Stygian said distantly. "*But I wish it to be my choice, to follow as I like.*" She switched to meticulously running her claws along her blade, each stroke giving off a smooth scraping sound.

I was having a hard time putting my thoughts into words. "Is that something you want right now?"

She shook her head. "*Not yet. I can't leave just yet.*" There was no uncertainty. No hesitation. It was just the truth that she'd accepted.

"You really care about each other, huh."

She was silent for some time. "*You care as well, I know.*"

I sighed heavily. "I try." It was really all I could do.

Later that afternoon we ventured into Pewter City to catch up with Rudy and Darren. I hadn't gotten a reply from Rudy yet, so Darren was first. It wasn't exactly hard to spot him at the training park, surrounded by his whole team. I waved to grab his attention, and he gave a small wave back once he saw me. Then his team suddenly noticed mine, and within moments, all the Pokémon had rushed forward to greet each other. Firestorm didn't waste a second before striking up a conversation with Venusaur, who had launched into some outlandish story about beating an Arcanine. Aros and Stygian started a light sparring match with Sandslash and Golduck while Swift and Alakazam commented from the sidelines. And in the midst of it all, Weavile was skulking around with teary eyes, hiding behind Venusaur and trying her hardest not to let anyone see her (and ultimately failing).

"How's it going?" I asked Darren.

"Ah, you know. Hanging in there," he replied casually.

I gave the Pokémon a sideways glance and then held a hand against the side of my mouth. "Weavile doing okay?" I asked in a hushed tone.

Darren smiled weakly, but there was a heavy look in his eyes. "We just got done saying bye to Skarmory."

Oh, right. Darren had mentioned that a few days ago. Skarmory was leaving. He hadn't signed up for a war when he joined Darren's team, so… he was leaving, and that was that.

"That must've been sad, yeah," I said quietly. "Sorry you guys had to part ways."

Weavile let out a particularly audible sniffle that thwarted her efforts to remain unnoticed.

"He said he really did like training with everyone," Darren said distantly. "Hopes we'll be safe and everything. Was even hoping he could join us again, once we're done with… all this," he said, vaguely waving a hand through the air.

My mouth went dry. "Can't really blame him," I mumbled. It was bad enough that the rest of us were stuck being a part of this. At least we'd been trained for it, which was… something.

"Course, he might find another trainer before then, and that's fine," Darren went on. "We'll have to keep an eye out for him in the League next year. Wanna cheer him on."

"*If he joins another trainer you gotta find 'em and we gotta fight him!*" Weavile cut in, grabbing the tattered edge of Darren's jacket and shaking it insistently.

Darren smiled faintly and carefully removed her claws with the practiced motion of someone who'd done it a hundred times. "That's the idea."

We wandered around the park for a bit while our teams caught up with each other, then eventually made our way downtown, aiming to locate Rudy. Our group stood out quite a bit, what with there being twelve of us. Most trainers came here early on the gym circuit, since the gym had one of the best programs for newbies. Nearly-full teams were a bit odd—occasionally I caught glimpses of younger kids stopping and staring in admiration.

"Seen Rudy much?" I asked as we walked.

"Here and there," Darren said with a shrug. "You know he's busy as all heck. Too important for the rest of us," he added with a tone of mock sadness.

Ever since the tourney site at Indigo had been closed to the public, there'd been a frustrating lack of news from the League as to what was going to be done with the unfinished tournament. So in the absence of any actual guidance, the finalists had gotten together to organize their own finals. They'd settled on Pewter City for the location. It just seemed natural—it was the closest decent-sized city, it was part of the standard League circuit, and it had decent accommodations for both Pokémon and trainers. Sure, it wasn't designed to hold anything remotely on the scale of the League finals, but it wasn't like they were gonna have even close to the audience that the official tournament had on such a short notice. Maybe. The fan reaction had proven way bigger than anyone had expected. Turns out, people really wanted to see a champion get crowned.

The density of people around the stadium was noticeably higher than the blocks we'd just passed. An unusually high number of Pokémon were scattered about the sidewalks too, chatting with each other or idly waiting for their trainers. The parking lot across the street had already been roped off as a designated landing and teleporting zone, and though it was mostly empty right now, I suspected that wouldn't be the case for very long.

"Target spotted," Darren said in a hushed voice.

I followed his eye direction to see Rudy talking animatedly with someone in a gym trainer uniform. Nidoking and Breloom weren't too far from him, currently discussing something with a pair of Graveler. And… Jet was with them.

I hadn't seen Jet much the past week. She'd opted to spend time with Rudy's team since they were all busy with the unofficial League revival. And well, I could hardly blame her for finding that stuff more interesting than the kind of training I'd been doing. She'd waffled over learning Protect, complained about practicing it even though I tried to stress how important it was, and then made snide comments about Aros and Stygian's training until the latter snapped at her. Then she went off to sulk for about five minutes before coming back to complain loudly about all of us like we weren't within earshot.

But it'd been a few days since then, so maybe she'd be happy to see us now. Rudy was absorbed in his conversation and hadn't noticed us yet. So I walked up to the Floatzel and asked, "How've you been?" while doing my best to keep my tone casual.

"*Fine,*" she replied simply. No elaboration. We hadn't talked in nearly a week, and she was dedicated to pretending that she didn't care. And no matter how much I told myself that I shouldn't… I felt a little hurt by it.

"So you're doing okay, then?" I asked again.

"*Yeah, why wouldn't I be?*" the sea weasel said offhandedly, like the question itself was offensive.

Well, I still didn't feel like I was doing okay. I was very aware of how my mood had bounced all over the place the past week. So that was one reason it seemed appropriate to ask. And she'd been firmly pretending that nothing happened during the Aqua mission and had refused to acknowledge otherwise.

"I just figured I'd ask since we all went through a lot last week, and we haven't gotten a chance to talk about it," I said, choosing my words carefully.

"*Don't feel like talkin' bout it,*" the Floatzel said, turning away with a dismissive huff.

I struggled to get a grip on my frustration before it could go anywhere. This was… fine. She just didn't know how to process it all. No one could blame her for that.

"You know you can tell me if you're not feeling okay, right?" I said as gently as I could.

Jet stuck her nose in the air. "*I don't gotta tell anyone squat.*"

I sighed. "No, you don't have to. I just meant that if you wanted to, you could."

"*Good,*" she said with a tone of finality.

So she hadn't seen any of us in nearly a week, and this was how she was acting now? What was I supposed to do? I'd given her plenty of space. Was I supposed to just ignore it?

"So, are you planning on hanging out with us again, or are you on Rudy's team now?" I asked shortly, failing to keep the irritation out of my voice.

Jet rolled her eyes. "*Our team is boring. They never wanna do fun stuff.*" She threw a sideways glance toward her teammates. Firestorm waved awkwardly.

After a pause, Jet added, "*Okay, sometimes Firestorm and Swift do, I guess, but the other three are all serious and crap.*" The Floatzel stuck her tongue out. "*It's like they live for that stuff.*"

They kind of did. Maybe I should have been encouraging them to break away from that, but… no, they were perfectly capable of making decisions for themselves and didn't need me telling them what to do.

"I guess it's just… because of how they were raised, that's all," I ended up saying.

They'd been shaped by it all. I'd been shaped by it too. Jet didn't have to be. She didn't have to. If I could stop that from happening…

"You know it's fine if you want to sit out on missions, right?" I said, unsure of where I was going with it.

"*No thanks,*" the Floatzel said flatly, scratching behind her ears.

"I just mean, if you ever have any second thoughts like Skarmory…"

Her fur bristled, and she squinted at me suspiciously. "*You kickin' me off the team?*"

I blinked. "What? No, no that's not it at all."

"*I'm not gonna sit around while you guys are saving Legendaries,*" she said heatedly, tails lashing. "*There's no way I'm not gonna be a part of that.*"

So the others were too fixated on the war and that was bad, but she was determined to be a part of it too? Which was it?

"You know it's not just some fun game, right? Please tell me you know that." The rest of us were stuck, but she didn't have to be. Why couldn't she see that?

Jet paused, apparently realizing her argument wouldn't work on me. Then she let out a snort and said, "*Yeah well, it's not like we got a choice,*" and something about that phrasing set me on high alert instantly.

"You have a choice. You always have a choice," I blurted out without thinking, not entirely sure I was saying it to her.

The Floatzel stared at me incredulously. "*The heck are you on about?*" she asked, and I had the distinct feeling that I'd chosen the wrong thing to say. She gave a swish of her tails and turned to leave. "*This is stupid, I'm out.*"

"Wait. Please—" But she was already racing off on all fours, back to Rudy's team.

Aros hovered over, watching her go. "*Eh, leave her alone, she can do what she wants,*" he said, waving a claw dismissively.

"I know that," I said exasperatedly. "I'm just worried about her."

I didn't want to tell anyone what they could or couldn't do. I just… didn't want them to hurt themselves. Was that so wrong?

…Whatever. I didn't want to think about this right now. There was Rudy. I could count on him having a million things to say, at least some of which could help distract me.

"Hey Rudy, how's it going?"

He spun around suddenly, face lighting up the moment he saw me. "Jade! We got a date locked in! Friday, the 17th! Runs through the weekend. God, it's frickin' awesome, I can't believe this is happening. I swear we crowdfunded like five times the money we needed for the stadium, and now we've got a film crew to broadcast, and they've even got Rotom cameras on staff. Got plenty of judges, referees, and stuff—lotta them work at the gym, but Brock's been pretty psyched about helping out. Couple people even tried to get the Elite Four to show up but no dice so far. Oh, but we did get—"

"Alright, you can slow down, you're gonna have the chance to tell everyone at the meeting," Darren chuckled, elbowing him lightly.

Rudy glowered at him for a few seconds. "It's just cool feeling like I'm actually a part of this, y'know?" he added, giving me an earnest look. "Yeah, I'm just one trainer, but like, we're making this happen."

I grinned. "Heck yeah. It's awesome."

The inside of the stadium wasn't decked out half as much as the League stadiums had been, but there were some modest decorations that had obviously been added recently. Banners proclaiming the 'Unofficial Kanto League Finals' hung from the ceiling, and someone must have donated their giant Venusaur plush, because it now stood watch over the lobby from atop a huge pedestal.

"The League never actually published who all was gonna make the top cut, but one of the competitors went and calced it anyway," Rudy explained. "So we've got our top 16, and we're gonna start planning out match times and crap, and then—"

"Did you make it?" I cut in.

He stopped, blinking. "Huh?"

"Did you make the top cut?"

It actually took him a second to register my words, but then his face lit up. "Oh! Yeah! Pretty sweet, huh? Anyway, the place isn't rigged up for League-tier matches, but pretty much all the Pokémon agreed that they wanted to go all-out, so we had to…"

And he was already off again, rambling about everything from gym trainers volunteering as organizers to higher-caliber protect shields being installed in the stands. The fact that he'd made top cut—the thing that would have been the topic of the day only a week ago—was now only a footnote amongst everything.

Rudy wasn't standing still. He was getting things done, being a part of something important. I really had to stop feeling sorry for myself. Failing the Hoenn mission wasn't the end of the world. We'd save Latias. We'd figure out a way to come out ahead. We had to.

"So you're not gonna be too busy for the meetup tonight, what with how important you are now, yeah?" I asked him, with just the slightest bit of a smirk.

Rudy paused. "Oh hell yeah, looking forward to it."

"Hell yeah you're too busy, or hell yeah you'll be there?" Darren asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, shut your face."

It would be nice to get all of us together, including the Legendaries. We could come up with a plan for moving forward so that we'd never have to suffer that kind of failure again. We could figure out how to free the captured legends. We had to.

And maybe I could finally stop stewing in my own head. That'd be nice too.