Pokémon Finding Strength Through Suffering

[elyvorg]

Well, here I am, somehow writing a Pokéfic again for the first time in forever. The kinds of fic I do occasionally write these days are always canon character-focused, which I never in a million years expected to want to do in the Pokémon fandom. But by some unprecedented miracle, the Pokémon games have finally figured out good nuanced complex character writing and have given me a character I absolutely adore, in Kieran. So naturally, as many good writers are wont to do with characters they love, I’m here to make him suffer more.

This is primarily a Kieran whump fic that exists to put my new favourite boy through the wringer, but in the process it’s using that as a catalyst for some character study of him as well. If you like both Kieran and whump, this story ought to be extremely up your alley. If you like just one of those two things and are at least okay with the other, you might enjoy this, too.

The plot of this is its own standalone thing that doesn’t require any knowledge of the SV DLC plot to be able to follow what’s happening. That said, there will be a bunch of spoilers for the DLC story in here, and a lot of the character stuff going on probably won’t mean nearly as much if you’re not familiar with Kieran’s canon arc.


Content warnings: Whump, obviously (which is to say, violence and suffering) but presented in a way that ought to be hypothetically suitable for children. I’ve aimed to more or less match the narrative tone of the Pokémon games themselves, just, you know, if they were whumpier. No blood, only very mild strong language, and things will turn out okay in the end.

Feedback preferences: Try not to dig too hard into the plot logistics here; while I’ve tried to make it all make reasonable sense, the plot basically just exists to facilitate the whump and character moments. In general, I don’t mind the occasional pointing out of an awkward bit that can be easily tweaked, but for the most part I’m not really that much about concrit these days. More than anything, I’d just love for people to engage with the story! Especially with regards to the character writing and the whump, of course.

Length-wise, this is going to be a short chaptered fic, so I’m hoping to get it finished within a reasonably quick timeframe. Not sure on projected wordcount just yet, but the rest of the chapters should be quite a bit longer than this bite-sized first one. Enjoy!

Spoiler: more specific spoilery CW for chapter 1, if necessary

This chapter depicts a near-drowning experience.

~~~​

Chapter 1​

– It’s because I’m weak –​

Kieran drew in a deep breath of ocean breeze as he watched the sun rise slowly over the waves. He was leaning into one of the round open holes on the east wall of the bridge, which gave the perfect view, something no-one else seemed to have discovered. The whole entrance area of Blueberry Academy was deserted at this hour, aside from a few wild Wingull – it was just him, here enjoying the sunrise alone.

Most students who woke up this early would be down in the Terarium right now, getting in some morning training before classes began. Not so long ago, Kieran would have been down there too, doing precisely that, every morning without fail, awake long before anyone else, relentless—

…Perhaps that was the very reason he’d taken to spending his mornings out here instead, even if it meant being on his own. The Terarium was an amazing place, and perfectly fine to hang out in in theory, but… sometimes the atmosphere in there just felt suffocating.

Besides, Kieran liked it out here for its own sake. It seemed kind of silly to think it, but this spot on the bridge was special to him. It was right here that he’d somehow mustered up the courage to ask Juliana if they could be friends again, after everything he’d done… and she’d just smiled and nodded eagerly like there could never have been any other answer. The thought of it still made him marvel, even now. It helped put his mind at ease, especially with Juliana back in Paldea for a while since a couple of weeks ago.

And hey – it wasn’t as if he was entirely alone, either.

“Mornin’, Dragonite.” The chubby orange dragon greeted him with a yawn as he sent her out. “Wanna go for another morning flight?”

She nodded, crouching to let him climb onto her back. Once he was sure he was secure, he gave the word, and they took off, flying out from the bridge to soar towards the sunrise.

Kieran readjusted his hold on Dragonite, trying to relax into the flight. This feeling of freedom, the wind in his hair, the sight of the ocean waves so far below unnerving yet exhilarating at the same time.

Only a moment later, he tensed up as Dragonite jolted briefly and water splashed over his leg. It was just a Wingull, it turned out, cheekily firing a Water Gun that Dragonite probably barely even felt – she yipped at it in annoyance, her antennae crackling with warning sparks, and the bird Pokémon quickly thought better of its mischief and flapped away.

With a long, steadying breath, Kieran forced himself to loosen his grip on Dragonite’s neck. Flying was still kind of scary at times… but it was really fun, too. There was nothing else quite like it. Which meant it was worth it to push through his nervousness and do it anyway – the only way it’d stop being scary at all one day was if he kept at it.

Dragonite was facing forwards, preventing him from seeing her expression, her body shifting subtly beneath him with every beat of her wings. Not for the first time, Kieran found himself wondering if things wouldn’t be so bad if he could just fly on any of his Pokémon except her. And then as soon as he’d had that thought, he wished he hadn’t.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her – really, it wasn’t. It was just… Dragonite was the only one of his Pokémon he hadn’t caught for himself. She’d been traded to him as a Dratini by his sister, during that time when Carmine had been visiting all sorts of other regions with Ms Briar, and he’d been… well, obsessed with training. For the rest of his Pokémon, Kieran had proven himself in the battles to catch them, allowing them to choose him as their trainer – but not Dragonite.

Still, he hadn’t ever had any problems with her disobeying him or anything like that. He knew he was probably overthinking it, being stupid, but even so, he could never quite shake the feeling that… maybe she just didn’t respect him like his other Pokémon did. (Why would she?)

Kieran shook his head, pushing the uncomfortably familiar thoughts of his mind. This had gone around and around in his head enough times before, and there was nothing he could do about it anyway. He nudged Dragonite to fly a little lower, watching the ocean waves rush by, smiling at the way they glittered in the sunrise.

Then an icy blast exploded into him out of nowhere. The world pitched and spun, his stomach lurching with it – and something large and flat slammed into his whole body.

The shock of the impact escaped his mouth in rippling salty bubbles, a heavy, cold sensation closing in around every inch of him. Water. He was underwater. His brain scrambled to piece it together: Dragonite had been attacked and he’d fallen into the ocean and he couldn’t swim!

Kieran clamped his mouth shut, more precious air leaving his nose in an exhaled grunt of terror as he fought the urge to take the breath he’d need to scream. Flailing his limbs, weighed down by his clothes, he opened his eyes against stinging seawater, straining to even figure out which way was up.

There…! One direction was brighter than the rest. He threw himself towards it with everything he had, grasping with his arms, thrashing with his legs, struggling with all his might to reach it. He didn’t know how to swim, but he had to try, he had to, he had to…!

One arm and then his head breached the surface, and Kieran gasped in desperate lungfuls of air. “Dragonite!” he screamed with his newfound breath, as loud as he could. Where was she? “Help me!” He needed her, he couldn’t keep himself afloat for long, his limbs were already burning with the strain of it, where was she…?!

There she was – some distance away, half-submerged beneath the waves, bellowing in urgent alarm as she caught sight of him. Sea spray kicked up around her, her image blurring towards him with the swiftness of an Extreme Speed – but then her trajectory swerved to the side and back again, around and around, caught in a swirling ocean current.

A… a Whirlpool?! She was trapped, unable to reach him… No, this couldn’t be happening…!

Dragonite looked beaten down, too, panting and grimacing as her spinning momentum slowed. How come…? Her Multiscale should have let her shrug off almost any attack from full health, even an Ice move, especially from a wild Pokémon. Shouldn’t it…?

No, that didn’t matter…! Kieran strained to keep his head above the surface, fighting against his sodden, heavy clothes that threatened to drag him down. He forced his jumbled mind to work with him, grasping for another way out, any other option – his Pokémon! He had other Pokémon that could help – Politoed…! Pokéballs couldn’t release underwater, but if he could just…

He stopped flailing one of his aching arms to reach down to his Pokéballs – and as soon as he did, his head went under, stinging saltwater rushing into his eyes and nose and mouth. Blind panic overtook him; he flailed again, harder, somehow just barely managing to resurface, spluttering and gasping. It took everything he had, both arms working non-stop just to keep himself from drowning, burning with the effort yet freezing from the cold at the same time.

No, no… there was no way he could reach his Pokéballs; he wasn’t strong enough…! Dragonite was his only hope, but…

He struggled to focus his stinging, streaming eyes to look over at her again. There was another shape in the water near her, a dark blue shell with spikes – a Cloyster? That had to be the source of the Whirlpool – if she could just take it out…!

Dragonite must have thought the same; she was roaring, her antennae crackling with the beginnings of a Thunder. But then she hesitated, glancing Kieran’s way for just a moment, and the sparks faded. She charged at her foe instead, slamming her tail into its tough shell. The Cloyster shrugged off the Breaking Swipe, retaliating with a point-blank Ice Beam that sent the dragon careening backwards with a mighty splash and a weak cry of pain.

“Dragonite!” Kieran screamed again, his head so horribly low to the surface that he couldn’t even see where she’d ended up past the waves all around him. Had she fainted? Why… why hadn’t she—

Something wrapped tight around his midriff and pulled him under.

Another bubbling gasp escaped him as he clamped down again on the urge to hyperventilate from sheer panic. Flailing his limbs was a hopeless endeavour; whatever had grabbed him was pulling him inexorably further and further away from where Dragonite had fallen, heedless to his struggling. He tried to tug against the long, thin appendages that had hold of him – tentacles, so many of them; a Tentacruel?! – but his aching arms were useless, sapped of all strength by the brief time spent fighting to keep him afloat. There was nothing he could do.

Why was this happening…? One aggressive wild Pokémon was bad enough, but two, at the same time? Did luck really have it in for him that much?

Kieran grimaced in terror, already struggling not to breathe in as the Tentacruel’s grip tightened, dragging him through the freezing water like hapless prey. He had no hope, no chance of getting out of this – unless…

Dragonite…! Please, please…

…But if she could have, she’d have reached him by now.

She wasn’t coming to save him. He hadn’t trained her to be strong enough.

(Or maybe she just didn’t care enough about him to try.)

He was going to drown. He was going to die, out here in the cold of the ocean where no-one would ever find him, alone and helpless and weak. All just because of some wild Pokémon, something any halfway-decent trainer should have been able to deal with – but not him.

His chest throbbed and writhed in pure reflex, his lungs begging for relief, begging him to stop denying them and let them breathe. It crossed his mind that he might as well just give in, let go, get it over with – but he still didn’t want to. The thought of water rushing in and flooding his body was too much, too terrifying. Even though he knew it was inevitable, he couldn’t stop fighting to put off that horrible fate for just a little longer, just a little longer, just a li—

There was a splash and his head broke the surface and – air!

He didn’t care how or why; he just breathed, gasping in great desperate relieved lungfuls of precious, sweet air. Sweet and sickly and… catching in his throat, making him cough, in a way that had nothing to do with the water.

Kieran opened his eyes, blinking seawater out of them to find his face surrounded by a cloud of yellow spores – spores that he’d been unthinkingly inhaling like his life depended on it.

Past that, the image of a red-and-white mushroom Pokémon, an Amoonguss, swam into blurry view, along with several dark-clad human figures, standing on the edge of a small boat of some kind. Huge concrete pillars towered even further back – he was under the entrance bridge…?

This wasn’t just a random attack from wild Pokémon. This was… a kidnapping…?

That realisation ought to have been even more terrifying. But with the spores still floating around him, coating the inside of his nose and mouth, Kieran couldn’t seem to remember how to be afraid right now. Everything was descending into a sleepy haze, his limbs floppy and useless as he felt the men drag his body up and over the edge of the boat, heard them saying words his brain couldn’t make out.

He landed in a soggy, crumpled heap on the deck, just briefly managing to hold onto one last thought before his consciousness slipped away.

Why’s… this happening…?

Why… me…?

~~~​

 

[elyvorg]

Spoiler: more specific spoilery CW, if necessary

This fic contains torture – however, as mentioned in the general CWs, it’s carried out and depicted in a way that should be fairly in-line with kid-friendly media, despite the intensity of it.

~~~​

Chapter 2​

– You’re just okay being this weak forever? –​

It was cold and his body ached. He groaned, shifting, the surface beneath him hard and uncomfortable. This… wasn’t his bed…? This was—

Fear jolted Kieran fully awake as everything came flooding back. On instinct, he tried to get his limbs under him and push himself upright, but something dug into his wrists and ankles, keeping them in place.

He was tied up, he realised with dread, his arms behind his back, with what seemed to be another length of rope connecting them to his bound feet so that he couldn’t even stretch out properly. His body felt bruised all over, probably from when he’d hit the water, his still-damp clothes leeching cold into him. He shivered.

“Sir,” came a voice. “Kid’s awake.”

Kieran looked up to see a man in a dark outfit speaking into some kind of walkie-talkie while leaning by the door of this small, dimly-lit room. A guard, to make sure he didn’t escape. Not like he could even try like this. He tugged at his bonds on the off-chance, but his wrists were bound way too painfully tightly to stand a hope of slipping free.

“H-Hey! Wh-Where am I?” he asked the guard, his voice shaking. “What… what do you want with me?”

The guard glanced briefly down at him like he was no more interesting than a piece of trash, then shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the opposite wall, giving no answer.

Hating how horribly small he felt on the floor like this, Kieran managed with some effort to pull himself up into a sitting position. As he did, something even worse hit him: his hands were tied behind his back, right where his bag, his Pokéballs, should have been – but there was nothing there. No Pokémon. He was utterly alone.

“My… My Pokémon, wh-where are they?” he tried asking. Like there was any chance the guard would tell him – of course he didn’t respond. “Wh-Why’d you bring me here?” he tried again. Still nothing. “C-C’mon, just say somethin’, at least!”

The guard continued to ignore him entirely. As if he wasn’t even there.

Kieran shrank in on himself, grimacing. He wasn’t exactly unused to this feeling, but… it’d been a long while since he’d last felt it. It wasn’t a welcome return.

He swallowed, still shivering, and not just from the chill in his clothes. There was a lump in growing his throat, tears pricking at his eyes – but he shook them back. Crying wouldn’t help right now. He had to try and… and do something. If he even could.

Kieran twisted around to get a better look at the room he was trapped in, but it was almost empty. Just a shabby bunk bed, which made his stomach drop at the thought of how long they might be keeping him here. A round window was set into the back wall, but it looked too high to reach, too small to fit through… not that he could even try while tied up like this, anyway. There wasn’t a single thing he could use to escape. Of course there wasn’t.

He still couldn’t believe this was happening, couldn’t wrap his head around why. The only thing that remotely came to mind was Pokémon thieves, but they’d have no reason to keep hold of him like this after taking his Pokémon. And it couldn’t have just been a random choice, either. Kieran thought back to the way he’d been attacked, the Whirlpool preventing Dragonite from reaching him – this had been planned. They had to have been going for him in particular.

But absolutely nothing about that fact made sense. What could any kind of bad guys possibly want with him? He wasn’t important, or special, or strong. He was just… just Kieran.

For a while longer, he cowered there, shivering, his heart pounding in his ears, wishing he at least understood if nothing else. Waiting for something to happen, anything to break this unbearable anticipation, while simultaneously dreading whatever it might turn out to be.

Then at last, the door to the room swung open. The guard snapped to attention as another man entered, silhouetted by the light from outside. He wore a similar dark outfit, but it was smarter and more elaborate than the guard’s, and his iron-grey hair and beard seemed styled with a sharp, deliberate precision. More than anything, he carried himself with an air of lofty authority, as if it was self-evident that he owned the place.

This was… the boss, probably? The one who’d decided, for some unfathomable reason, to go after Kieran of all people.

“Gustavus, sir,” the guard acknowledged with a deferential nod. “Should… should I stay here?”

His boss spared him a withering glance. “I hardly think I need assistance against a restrained, unarmed child,” he remarked, a condescending sort of tone to his voice. “Do you?”

A chill ran through Kieran at hearing himself described that way. Unarmed. Small. Defenceless.

“R-Right, of course, sir,” said the guard. “I’ll, uh… I’ll just be outside, then.”

And he left, closing the door behind him. Shutting Kieran in here with his kidnapper.

Kieran tensed like startled prey as the man slowly stalked towards him. He tried in vain to shuffle backwards across the floor, wishing he could raise his hands to shield himself somehow, helpless to do either with the way he was bound.

“Y-You’re the one who…” he began to say, but his voice faltered. Paying no heed to his words, the man drew closer, towering over him. “I-I mean, what… what do you…” His captor bent down and grabbed Kieran’s chin in a rough grip, forcing his head upwards. “Aagh!” he cried out, struggling, failing to pull away. “G-Get off me—!”

The man held up some kind of device that flashed a light into Kieran’s eye for a heart-stopping moment – and then he released his grip. Kieran recoiled, grimacing, breathing hard, savouring the brief flutter of relief that he hadn’t been hurt – much.

As his captor took a step back, Kieran looked up at him again and realised what the device in his hand was. Just a Pokédex – a familiar model, too—

“Wait, that’s…! That’s my Pokédex!” he protested. And scanning his eye – the same thing he always did to verify his identity in order to access his PC boxes, which meant…! “No! Leave my Pokémon alone!” he begged, lurching forward in his bonds. “P-Please…”

His voice trailed off, swallowed up by the horrible reality of how completely helpless he was to prevent this. The man ignored him, frowning at the device, thumbing buttons to scroll through Kieran’s boxes as casually as if they were his own.

Then he let out a frustrated huff. “…Really?” he said irritably. “The ogre isn’t in your active party or on your PC? You don’t have it?”

Kieran’s eyes widened. “The… the ogre…?” he echoed numbly, as everything finally slotted into place. “Y-You want… the ogre… That’s why…”

That was why these people had kidnapped him. Because they wanted Ogerpon.

…Because they’d thought he was Ogerpon’s trainer. It was so ironic, he couldn’t help but splutter out a shaky, broken laugh.

This wasn’t really about him; of course it wasn’t. They’d just made a stupid mistake.

“Yes, well,” muttered the man – Gustavus, hadn’t the guard called him? He pocketed Kieran’s dex and turned on his heel to face his captive. “I had assumed that for a trainer to become Champion of Blueberry Academy’s league so remarkably quickly, shortly after returning from a field trip to Kitakami, the obvious explanation would be that you had captured the ogre whilst you were there.” He tilted his head back slightly, looking down at Kieran with one eyebrow quirked. “Apparently I was mistaken.”

Staring up at his captor, Kieran felt everything settle into a cold, stark kind of clarity in his head. This man, this villain, Gustavus, wanted Ogerpon. And he had the resources and the willingness to go as far as kidnapping someone to achieve that. How much further would he go?

Kieran shifted in his bonds, his shoulders lowering. He tried to kneel up to lessen the height gap, but the rope connecting his wrists and ankles pulled taut, keeping him on the floor. Instead, he leaned back, gaining slightly less of a steep angle to look up at Gustavus with. A scowl formed itself on his face.

“…Looks like your info’s out of date,” Kieran said. Without really meaning to, he found himself speaking carefully, enunciating his words the Unovan way, hiding the Kitakami twang. “I used to be Champion. Wasn’t even for that long.”

Masking his accent was just as well – he didn’t want Gustavus realising he was from Kitakami and hadn’t simply visited. Not if he could help it. The less this man knew, the better.

“Really?” asked Gustavus, a patronising note to his voice. “You lost the title so soon?”

“Yeah,” Kieran responded, like it was nothing, brushing away the echoed pang of the agony he’d felt upon his defeat back then. “‘Cause someone else was stronger than me. That’s how this stuff works.”

And it was nothing. He didn’t mind nowadays that he was no longer Champion. He knew that kind of thing wasn’t what mattered. But…

“It is, isn’t it. Pity.” Gustavus’s raised eyebrow was back again. “I had imagined you might be somebody to be reckoned with, but it seems… not.”

His gaze was withering, and Kieran couldn’t hold onto it. He glanced off to the side, scowling, letting out a long breath. Hearing this man act like it did matter, like it made Kieran lesser – it…

Still, this… this was good, right? If Gustavus knew Kieran was nothing to him, didn’t that mean he’d just… let him go?

But instead, he and his men would go after – Juliana…!

Or, would they…? If they’d gone for Kieran first, it meant they had no idea right now who Ogerpon’s trainer actually was.

…It suddenly hit Kieran that he really didn’t want Gustavus probing into who’d dethroned him as Champion.

“Why… why are you so interested in the ogre anyway?” he asked, hoping the change of subject wouldn’t be too obvious. “What is it to you?”

Just ‘the ogre’. Just ‘it’. He needed to be sure to refer to Ogerpon that way – he couldn’t let on how much he knew. Just had to let himself slip back into old habits, the terms he’d thought of her – it – by for most of his life.

“Why wouldn’t I be interested in it?” Gustavus replied, an undercurrent of fervour entering his voice. His hands came out from behind his back, gesturing along with his words. “The ogre that emerged victorious, one-on-three, against such powerful foes; the masks that further bolster its abilities in battle. Such a fascinating tale. What potential that Pokémon must have…!”

He knew the legend…? “You’re… from Kitakami, then…?” Kieran wondered. Was that possible? Mossui Town was small enough that surely he’d have seen this guy around, taken note of anyone else who actually seemed to like the ogre too. And he didn’t have the accent… not that that proved anything, of course.

“Not quite,” Gustavus admitted, “just a nearby province. Close enough for word of your local legend to have made its way to where I grew up.”

‘Your’…? Before Kieran could finish that thought, he had to fight the urge to shrink back as his captor lowered himself to one knee, approaching his level, uncomfortably close – though still decidedly higher up than him.

“Kieran, isn’t it?” said Gustavus, sending a chill through him. There was something unnerving about hearing this man address him by name. “I’ve heard about you: the Kitakami boy who’s always been fascinated by the ogre, too. It must be such a privilege to live there, in the very shadow of the ogre’s mountain itself. Don’t you think?”

So… no point in hiding his accent, then. Gustavus already knew that part. Kieran inched backwards just a little, as casually as he could, trying not to seem intimidated at being in such close quarters with his kidnapper.

“Didn’t exactly feel like a privilege,” he responded, finding himself still pushing back the local twang regardless. Talking this way helped him think before he spoke, after all. He had to keep being careful not to let anything slip. “I visited its den on the mountain a bunch of times, but the ogre never showed up for me. Guess I just wasn’t important enough.” He shrugged, trying to seem far more dismissive than he’d ever felt about that fact.

“But, hey,” Kieran went on, a little bolder as an idea came to him, his eyeline somewhere around his captor’s bearded chin. “If you’re that obsessed with the ogre too, why don’t you go to Kitakami and look for it yourself?” Which, of course, wouldn’t bring Gustavus anywhere near Ogerpon and would ideally just waste his time. “Maybe you’ll have better luck than me.”

Gustavus gave a patronising frown. “What kind of a fool do you take me for? Do you really think that wouldn’t have been the first thing I tried?”

…Yeah, it… it had been a pretty long shot to think that tactic would work, hadn’t it.

“We scoured the land of Kitakami quite thoroughly, I assure you. My scientists detected no readings of abnormally powerful Pokémon that could be attributed to the ogre. The only possibility is that it is no longer there.”

Scientists…? Not only could this group carry out an elaborate kidnapping plan, they had scientists too? Just how powerful was this man’s organisation?

Gustavus leaned closer, his eyes narrowing. “But something tells me that you know exactly where it disappeared to.”

Kieran froze, his heart pounding, his face carefully blank, trying very, very hard to think about anything except Juliana.

Shifting his gaze, he grasped for something else to focus on, any way to not directly answer that implicit question. From this close up, he could make out an insignia on Gustavus’s breast pocket. Three draconic heads with serpentine necks entwined together, the middle head larger than the others. It reminded him of—

He glanced away to the side. “…Maybe it was never real,” he suggested, breaking the tense silence. “The ogre. Maybe the stories are just… stories.”

“Of course it’s real!” snapped Gustavus, so forcefully that Kieran couldn’t help but flinch. He should have figured – he’d always hated that too, back when— “Your townspeople buried corpses of their local heroes in the wake of the ogre’s rampage,” Gustavus went on in a snarl. He rose to his feet again, pacing back and forth. “Are you really going to deny the truth of the part where it killed them? Is that not precisely why you admire the ogre?”

“H-Huh…?” Kieran stared up at Gustavus, a cold disgust creeping over him as it sank in, even as it wasn’t remotely surprising – this man believed the legend’s angle that Ogerpon was the bad guy, yet… he admired it anyway? And… he thought Kieran ought to feel the same way…?

Of course, Kieran couldn’t deny that the ogre fighting and winning while outnumbered against the Loyal Three was his favourite part of the stories – the only part he’d ever liked to think was true. But… that didn’t include the part where it had killed them. He’d never wanted to believe that’d truly been the end result, had always tried to imagine that was just an exaggeration made up to scare people, like the ridiculous thing about the ogre stealing souls.

And yet, Kieran knew the true story now – Ogerpon had killed the Loyal Three in their battle after all. That part really had been the truth all along. But, still…

“I… I always admired it, yeah,” he admitted, finding his voice, “but, not… not like that.”

Because he’d admired Ogerpon’s strength, to not give in, to hold her own and triumph even when so overwhelmingly outmatched. He shivered down there on the floor, struggling to hide his fear as his kidnapper towered over him, peering down at him like he was something small and insignificant.

Kieran really, really wished he could have any of that kind of strength right now.

“I should have realised,” Gustavus scoffed. “Despite our shared interest, it seems you simply lack the drive that I have. And all your pathetic townspeople, too terrified of the ogre to even go near it. Only I have the vision, the strength, to make its power my own.”

…Yeah. Of course it was about this. Gustavus hadn’t quite said so in as many words until just now, but it had been pretty obvious this was what he was after.

Kieran tilted his head, trying to seem sceptical, unimpressed. Not afraid in the slightest of what might happen if this man got his wish. “What makes you so special, that you think it’d choose you?”

Something flashed in Gustavus’s eyes. “As I said,” he snarled, “I have strength. I began from nothing, working tirelessly to amass this organisation, all through my own hand. Subordinates who follow my every command, who plucked you from your prestigious academy and brought you to me at my behest. I have more than earned the right to possess the ogre’s power too, if I so wish.”

As if Ogerpon would ever choose to partner with someone who’d stoop to kidnapping. “What if the ogre doesn’t think so?” Kieran challenged. “Ever considered that?”

…He hadn’t considered that, back then, had he? – hadn’t wanted to – the notion that, even if he could have proven himself stronger than Juliana, perhaps Ogerpon still wouldn’t have chosen him just based on that.

“What it thinks is hardly going to be relevant,” Gustavus snapped back, rising ire in his tone. “I haven’t come this far to leave my ultimate goal down to chance.”

Those words hit Kieran like a blow to the chest. “You’re not… not planning on giving it a choice…?” He winced, blinking away images of a Master Ball sucking Terapagos inside.

“And what about after?” he demanded, heated disgust creeping into his voice as he tried not to think about that blast of Terastal energy flying straight towards— “If you have to force it to join you, do you really think it’s gonna listen to you?”

“What do you know?!” spat Gustavus, rounding on him in furious indignation. “All Pokémon exis—!”

Then he stopped himself, taking a breath, regaining his composure.

Warily, his heart hammering, Kieran watched his captor pace back and forth in silence. Clearly he’d hit a nerve somewhere. He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or an extremely bad one.

After a moment, Gustavus came to a stop, pivoting on his heel to look down at Kieran again. “You’ve heard of Team Rocket, no?” His voice was as calm and collected as ever, as if nothing had just been amiss.

“Huh?” This was a sudden swerve of topic – or was it…? “Yeah…” Kieran remembered hearing about Team Rocket sometimes on the news when he was little – Kanto and Johto were the most populous regions near Kitakami, after all. “But… didn’t they disband years ago?”

“Back when they were active, they had a motto: ‘All Pokémon exist for the glory of Team Rocket’,” Gustavus said. His voice turned sour. “The latter part there was never the important part, of course. Team Rocket turned out to be weak – its leader vanishing for such a pathetic reason, its executives pining after him rather than learning to stand on their own.” His contempt faded as he clenched a fist in front of him. “But I knew better. I saw the true meaning in that motto: all Pokémon exist for the glory of those who are strong enough to seize them for themselves.”

What with the kidnapping, Kieran figured he should have already known he was in something pretty deep – but hearing what sounded like first-hand knowledge of an actual criminal syndicate made it feel that much more uncomfortably real. “So… you were a member of Team Rocket?”

Gustavus didn’t respond, his face tightening – which gave Kieran a pretty good idea of the answer.

“There have been other teams besides Rocket that thought along those lines,” Gustavus went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Plasma – the Neo faction of it, at least. Cipher and Snagem – well, mostly Cipher, of course. Groups who researched ways to bring out a Pokémon’s true power, all while keeping them tightly under human control. Not all of that work was lost when the teams were dismantled – many of the members slipped through the cracks, just as I did.”

Plasma and Cipher…? Kieran hadn’t known much if anything about them, but he sure didn’t feel good hearing their methods right now. Not with everything else Gustavus was spouting. And especially not with Ogerpon as his target.

“So I sought them out. I earned their obedience, made them answer to me, and they’ve been working to refine that technology ever since. Now all the fruits of their research are mine, to do with as I see fit.”

A spark of indignation hit Kieran beneath his mounting dread. “You went and just… took all their work? You didn’t even put in any kind of effort yourself, you just…”

“I earned it,” Gustavus insisted. “I put in the effort by gaining more strength, and I proved that to all of them. The people who did that research respect my authority, because I am the strongest of anyone here. That makes it mine.” He gave a patronising smirk. “If they have a problem with that, it’s their problem for being weaker than me.”

Disgust contorted Kieran’s face. “So, if… if you did find the ogre, to make it listen to you, you’d…” He was beginning to hate how his voice still wouldn’t stop pushing back his accent, talking the same way he’d done when— “You’d mind-control it? You can just… do that?”

“Exactly. As I said: what it wants will not be relevant.” Gustavus drew himself to his full height, still smirking, like a Persian that was exceedingly pleased with itself. “And not only that – my machine will draw out the ogre’s full might, to a far greater extent than it could naturally exert on its own. Already such an incredible Pokémon, brought to the very peak of its power… Won’t that be magnificent?”

The thought of Ogerpon, mindlessly chained to this madman’s will, forced to lash out with a terrible degree of power somehow even greater the strength she already had… it wasn’t magnificent. It was awful.

“Won’t that… hurt it?”

A frown flitted across Gustavus’s features, like that was a meaningless question. “Well, obviously. You can’t obtain strength without the weak having to suffer. That’s just the way of the world.” He clasped his hands behind his back, leaning forwards, fixing Kieran with a steely gaze. “The only thing I need now is for you to tell me where to find it.”

All of the anger and disgust that had been simmering inside Kieran – he could feel it coalescing into something greater: a fierce, fervent, burning determination. He was not going to let this villain anywhere near Ogerpon. Not as long as there was anything he could do about it.

“What makes you think – even if I did know – that I would ever tell you?”

Gustavus huffed in impatience, yet Kieran caught a flicker of a decidedly unsettling smile as he drew himself back up. “I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the situation that you’re in here.”

With a flash of Pokéball light, a Rotom materialised and zipped forwards to hang in the air beside Kieran. Its lightning-shaped plasma appendages flicked back and forth, uncomfortably close to his face. A subtle yet unnerving staticky hum filled the room.

“I’m not asking.”

The Rotom’s eerily blank eyes stared through Kieran as the slow, horrible realisation sank into him. The fire in his blood drained away, vanished, consumed by an ice-cold, gut-wrenching terror.

No. This couldn’t be. This couldn’t be what he thought it was. This couldn’t be about to happen, to him, it couldn’t, it couldn’t—!

There was a quiet chuckle from Gustavus somewhere above him, but Kieran didn’t look up, couldn’t look up, his wide-eyed gaze fixed helplessly on the Rotom filling his vision as if it was the only thing in the room. The only thing that existed. It jittered up and down, giggling along with its master.

“Funny how weak even an ex-Champion becomes with no Pokémon at his command, isn’t it?”

Weak. Helpless. No Pokémon, no defence, no way out. Utterly at this villain’s mercy.

“Now, then. You will tell me where the ogre went, or you will suffer the consequences of defying me, for however long it takes for you to see reason.”

Kieran’s mind was numb, his breaths coming sharp and fast. He blinked several times, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to remember how to make words.

“I d… I don’t know…!” he finally found himself gasping, babbling, his brain latching unthinkingly onto this one chance, his only hope of maybe having this not happen to him because it couldn’t be about to happen. “I-I swear, I dunno, I dunno anythin’ about it, please, I don—!”

Fingers clicked, the Rotom flashed, and everything became pain.

It flooded every inch of him, blinding electric agony overwhelming all else. Too much, too intense – it hurt so much worse than he’d already been so afraid it would…! It sent his back arching, his face contorting into a wide grimace of anguish, yet he was powerless to even cry out. The lightning had his lungs, his whole body, seized tight in its terrifying, unbreakable grip.

Then it released him, and Kieran doubled over with a choked gasp. A long scream found its way out of him now that it finally could, a desperate, horrified release of the pain and the shock of what he’d just gone through, degenerating into pathetic shaky moans as he shuddered uncontrollably. The brightness against his vision faded, leaving him staring wide-eyed at the floor between his knees, hardly able to comprehend what’d just happened.

“Impressed?” came a voice from above him – Gustavus’s. “This Rotom of mine is quite skilled at maximising pain while causing no permanent damage to a human body. And you’ll be pleased to hear that humans lack the fainting reflex that makes a Pokémon fall unconscious before it can endure too much pain. There will be no reprieve from this, not until you tell me where the ogre is.”

This… this was so unreal. Kieran had heard this exact kind of villainous spiel before, a bunch of times – but in movies…! If this happened at all, it was supposed to be to the sort of characters who could face it all down with witty quips and an unbreakable spirit – heroes, who were strong, and cool, and larger than life, and absolutely nothing like him…!

This couldn’t be happening to him. It just… it just couldn’t be. This searing ache in his muscles, this horrible trembling all over, it couldn’t have been because—

“I-I don’t know…!” he repeated between gasping, shaking breaths, clinging to this one desperate hope, his only possible way out. “P-Please,” he begged, hearing his voice break, “I don’t know anythin’ about the ogre, I’m not, I’m not important, I’m no-one! I-I’m just—”

At the snap of Gustavus’s fingers, vicious lightning blindsided Kieran again. The agony, the sheer overpowering reality of it tore through his mind, shattering every defence, snuffing out any pathetic effort to deny it. This was real. This really was happening, to him, right now! And yet…! He tried to pull away from it somehow, begging his seizing muscles to work with him, to save him, please – but there was no escaping the pain. He couldn’t break free of it, couldn’t even fight it, couldn’t do anything but hurt…!

Only when the lightning let up did Kieran regain control, gasping, screaming out his anguish on a delay. Something was pressing uncomfortably into his shoulder, and he realised he’d fallen sideways onto the floor. He hadn’t even noticed it when he’d collapsed. The Rotom still hung there, somewhere just above him, its ever-present staticky hum sending his skin prickling.

“But you’re not no-one, are you?” insisted Gustavus from far overhead. He said that in a strange way, as if it was… true? “Your hometown knows you as the boy who’s always been obsessed with your precious Ogerpon.”

That word sent a spike of fear into Kieran. “Oger… p-pon…?” How…? Had – had he messed up, let slip the name without realising…? The past conversation was scattered in his head, fragmented by lightning – he couldn’t, couldn’t recall…

“Don’t play games with me,” Gustavus hissed. “Your whole town knows its name now. There was a big fuss there some months back, the true story of Ogerpon revealed, or some such, some people even claiming they saw it.”

He knew…?! He knew that much already? Why hadn’t he…

“And it was you who told them the truth, wasn’t it?”

“No…!” Kieran blurted out automatically. His mind was scrambled, fumbling to find words – the right words; he had to get this right…! “I-I didn’t know!” he insisted. “Whatever… whatever happened with the ogre, I didn’t have anythin’ to do with it!” (Which wasn’t even really that untrue, was it?) “I swear, I – I was just, just left out of everything, like al—”

In a snap and a flash, the pain swamped him mid-sentence, again, drowning him out, crushing him beneath his tormentor’s heel like he was nothing. Hurting from more than just the lightning’s wrath, he found out he could scream in the midst of it after all, a tight, strangled noise of fervent anguish that took all of his effort to force out of him. But it still didn’t help – it didn’t make the agony any less overwhelmingly impossible to bear—!

“Let me clarify my previous statement,” continued Gustavus overhead once it ended, as if nothing of note had just happened, as if Kieran wasn’t shuddering and gasping down here, moaning in desperate, precious, fleeting relief. “I know for a fact it was you who told the townspeople the truth about Ogerpon. Several of them outright named you as the one who did so. Whatever led to the ogre’s disappearance following those events, you must have been involved.” The pair of boots that faded into view before him paced impatiently. “I had assumed you’d captured it, but that isn’t the case – so what is?”

Tears rolled sideways down Kieran’s face as he blinked rapidly, trying to process what he’d just heard. He knew. Gustavus knew he’d told the town, so he couldn’t deny that part, but—

“I-I told ‘em, but, j-just…” He swallowed, grasping to string together a coherent thought despite the searing ache in his body and the frenzied pounding of his heart. The Rotom glowed above him, its staticky hum filling his ears, ready to hurt him all over again the instant he said something wrong. “I just… just found out my gramps was hidin’ the real story, s-so I tho… I wanted everyone to know… B-But that’s all…! I swear, I never even saw Ogerpon! I never met—”

His voice cut out, strangled, shut down, as agony overtook him once more. Reeling, knowing it was a hopeless effort, he fought anyway to push back against the raging torrent of pain, screaming with all his might, clinging to the words, the thoughts it was trying to deny from him. He hadn’t met Ogerpon. He hadn’t. If he could just – just hold onto that, his one chance, his one possible way out of this, then maybe this unbearable nightmare would—

“I didn’t!” Kieran screamed urgently, the moment the lightning let go and he had the capacity to form words again. “I’m tellin’ ya, I never met her!”

There was a scuffing sound, one of boots shifting decisively. “…Her?”

Horror stabbed into Kieran’s gut, twisting like a knife. No… No, no, he’d messed up, he’d messed up…!

“Not one of the townspeople mentioned the ogre’s gender when I spoke to them. To discover that on your own, you would have needed to get close enough to perform a Pokédex scan. And yet you claim not to have met it?”

“No…! I just…” Lost, frantic, he scrambled to form thoughts past the urge to scream at himself in frustration for being so stupid. How on earth could he explain this away, how…?! “J-Just a guess!” he blurted out, desperate. “I just… a-always imagined the ogre to be female, that’s all—!”

“Liar!” bellowed Gustavus. “You’re a LIAR!”

With a furious snap of fingers, the lightning lashed into Kieran, searing that word into his mind. Liar! the electricity roared as it coursed through him – liar! – proving just how weak he was as it overwhelmed him with ease – LIAR! – punishing him with its savage agony for daring to think he had the right to lie. Everything was a blur; he was screaming too, wasn’t he…? – lashing back, futilely crying out against it, it hurt so much, the lying, it hurt, it hurt—!

—And then the pain let up, and he choked out a sob, and – and he couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want to be a liar, didn’t want to lie (didn’t get to lie), especially not about Ogerpon…!

“O-Okay!” he conceded, his voice wracked with tears of helpless impotent anger. “Okay, fine, I – I did meet her!” He took a shaking breath through gritted teeth, screwing up his face, something burning and unstoppable bubbling up from within. “And I do know where she went – but I’m never gonna tell you!” burst out of him with every bit of force he could muster. “I’m never gonna let you hurt her! Never, never, never—!”

“Double it!” Gustavus roared, and with a deafening crack like thunder, the lightning’s might crashed down upon Kieran in retaliation. His defiance, his fervour, all of it was swept away by the sheer force of the agony surging through him – and he should have known, he should have known, why had he done that?! He was still fighting, screaming back against it, but what was the point? No matter how much he tried, he was always just met with more pain, again and again (just like he deserved).

And it wasn’t letting up. It was still going…! The electricity wrung him tighter and tighter in its vicious, unrelenting grip, his muscles searing, twisting, contracting so hard he felt like his whole body was on the brink of splintering into pieces. It was so much, too much, he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe, and there was no end to it, it was never going to end, never, never—!

Then, like some kind of miracle, it was over, and Kieran was writhing there on the floor, sobbing, gasping, choking. Wondering why he’d ever believed he could try and lash out against this, when of course it was just going to make things so much worse. (It only ever made things worse.)

“Never is a very, very long time,” the voice above him hissed, with dangerous emphasis on every word. “Are you quite sure you’re ready to find out just how long it really is?”

The threat sent ice through his veins, that horrible staticky hum ever-present in his ear. Why…? Why had he said that…?! All he’d done was stupidly dash his one hope of ever getting out of this…! Now that he’d gone and admitted that he knew, this would never end. This would never end…!

Wracked by uncontrollable shudders, Kieran pressed his face into the floor, whimpering in abject terror. “Please…” he mumbled hopelessly to nobody at all, his voice broken, choked with sobs, barely coherent. “Please no, please, please, please, please…”

“Pathetic child! Are you making fun of me?!” raged the voice. “Acting like you don’t already know exactly how to make me end this. Where is the ogre?!”

With a wretched grimace, Kieran fell silent. Shivering. Waiting. He didn’t bother trying to brace himself – he knew it’d be too much for him, like it always was.

“Look at you! You’re weak! You are nothing compared to me! So you will tell me!”

With those words, the lightning consumed him – and he was, he was so, so weak, he was nothing in the wake of this all-devouring agony. He gave up trying to scream; it was futile, a pointless waste of effort, as if someone like him would ever, ever be able to fight back against such devastating power.

It kept on for so long, crushing him, smothering him, demonstrating his unassailable worthlessness to him with every moment. This pain was on him, all of it, for being this horribly, helplessly weak. If he’d wanted out of such endless suffering, he should have just been stronger. But he wasn’t. (Of course he wasn’t.)

At last, he collapsed into an instance of brief, merciful relief. As the blinding brightness faded, he found there was a dark curtain shrouding his vision instead. His hair, so much of it, falling over his face. He didn’t know how or when it’d got there, but he welcomed it, blocking out the world from him.

Far above him, a voice was shouting, something about the ogre again. All the way down here in his shuddering heap on the floor, he ignored it, cowering behind his mask of hair, trying not to think about anything at all. Wishing he could just hide, and shrink away, and disappear.

But he couldn’t. And the lightning kept coming.

He didn’t know how many times. His whole world became nothing but the pain, the lightning, this raging force of nature that snatched him up, surged into him, tore him apart, then flung him to the ground, only to do it all over again. He didn’t bother fighting it, couldn’t do anything at all in its grip other than silently, helplessly beg for it to end.

Except it didn’t make a difference, because even when it did let up, it’d never be for long. Always too brief a reprieve, never enough. Each time, the voice above him raged, yelling out words that didn’t matter. He couldn’t allow them to matter. So he ignored them, wretchedly letting himself be swept up over and over into the storm of endless, insurmountable pain.

An eternity later – or maybe not much time at all? it didn’t matter – he found himself somehow in another of the lulls. His body ached even then, lying on the floor, breathing hard, hearing the constant staticky hum, and the voice. He couldn’t make out the words, but he knew what they’d be. Always the same, every time. Demanding to know where the ogre was.

The ogre was with Juliana, of course.

Everything else in his head was a murky blur. He couldn’t remember a thing about where Juliana was right now, or the name of the place she was from, or anything of the sort. He wasn’t even sure he knew where he was from any more. There was nothing, nothing except the cold hard floor, and the lightning, and the pain.

But… the ogre was with Juliana. He knew that much. He always knew that much.

And he couldn’t put either of them in danger. He couldn’t let this monster who’d go this far in hurting even someone like him get anywhere near them. He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t.

His body jostled. This was… different. Something was jabbing him in the chest, something other than the lightning. It hurt infinitely less, so he didn’t mind. The words from above had changed to something new… but they still didn’t matter, weren’t worth listening to.

Then another new sensation against his scalp, sharper and more painful, his head being pulled up by his hair. He blinked with the discomfort of it, and as a face swam into view in front of him, he remembered that his eyes were for seeing with. They’d been open already, but he’d forgotten that, somehow.

Something about the sight of the man speaking to him made the words coalesce into actual meaning in his mind. “…beyond all coherence. So I am giving you some time.”

Time…? Did that – could that mean… time without pain…?!

He blinked again, groaning, pushing himself to listen better, in case…!

“…you use it to think very carefully about your situation. Nobody knows where you are. You have no other way out of this. As long as you continue to defy me, your life here will continue to be a living hell. Do you hear me?!”

He did. He didn’t like it, but he heard it, so he let out a wretched whimpering noise. It was the only acknowledgement he could muster.

His head hit the floor again with a thunk. In a flash of light, the Rotom vanished. That ever-present staticky hum that had consumed his whole world – gone.

“I will be back.” With those words, the boots stormed their way out of the room, the door slamming shut behind them. And then he was alone.

It was… over…?

It was over, but… only for now.

For a long, long time, he just lay there. Curled up in a heap, his eyes open but glazed, hidden behind his hair. He didn’t want to do anything except lie here and breathe. That was all he could manage. Just that alone was an effort.

Even with the worst of the pain gone, he still hurt. His body was gripped by a mind-numbing ache in every muscle, his wrists and ankles sore on top of that from the ropes digging into him. Trying to move even a little felt like way too much of an undertaking. And it wasn’t like he could go anywhere anyway.

Somewhere during the endless stretch of this listless, aching, empty nothing, he realised he’d started shivering again. He didn’t think it was cold any more, didn’t see the point in it, yet there it was. It would’ve taken effort to stop it, rather than the opposite, somehow. So he let it happen.

Not much longer after that, without knowing where it came from… Kieran found himself beginning to cry. Small, quiet, sniffling sobs. He didn’t have the energy for more, barely had the energy for even this – but the tears kept coming nonetheless.

This whole thing, this hellish nightmare he was trapped in – it was never, ever going to end. Sooner or later, the man and the Rotom would come back, and the pain would start all over again, and there was nothing, nothing he could do to stop it.

(There never was. There was never anything he could do.)

Through his tears and the hair shrouding his face, his gaze flickered dully around, trying to focus on his surroundings. The bare walls, the metal door, the utter lack of anything else in the room.

There was no point in looking, because there was no way out. Even if he wasn’t tied up, even if he had any strength to move his body, even if the door wasn’t almost certainly locked as well as guarded on the other side, there was just no way someone like him would ever be able to escape. He didn’t have a clue where he was, didn’t know a thing about the organisation that had him trapped here other than how much terrifying power it possessed.

Kieran was useless in the face of all that. Weak and helpless and worthless. (Just like always.)

If… if it were Juliana here instead of him, she’d know what to do. She’d be so much stronger, not a pathetic wreck like him, facing down the bad guys with heroic defiance, finding the perfect way to escape.

But then again… since she was so much stronger – wouldn’t she have just been able to prevent herself from getting captured in the first place? Of course she would have. She was too good to ever end up in here.

Even then, even knowing that, just the thought of it – of the bad guys going after Juliana, of any of this happening to her in his place… it wasn’t right. Kieran was so glad it was him trapped here and not his best friend, so glad that they’d made the stupid mistake of thinking he was worth anything at all and going for him instead.

This way, Juliana, and Ogerpon too – they wouldn’t get hurt. Both of them were so special, so much more important than Kieran could ever be; they deserved absolutely none of this. If somebody had to suffer in this nightmare forever… of course it should be him. That was just obvious. Just how things ought to be.

Kieran still hadn’t stopped crying, but it didn’t make sense why, because this was right. So long as Ogerpon and Juliana were safe, it didn’t matter what happened to him.

He didn’t matter.

~~~​

 

[elyvorg]

Chapter 3​

– This wasn’t supposed to happen –​

The tears had stopped a while ago. Which was good, really, because it meant Kieran didn’t have to think about whatever reason he could have had for crying. He could even mostly ignore the pain, now that it’d lessened to a dull ache. It only really hurt if he tried to move, so he didn’t. He just lay there. Not waiting.

It’d been… some amount of time. Hours, probably a lot of them – only he wasn’t thinking about just how long it’d been, because the longer it’d been, the more likely it became that any minute now—

Kieran wasn’t thinking about any of that. He wasn’t. He was just… existing. That was all. Nothing else. He was absolutely not waiting for anything at all.

And then the faint sounds of approach came from outside the room.

An icy spear of sheer terror stabbed into Kieran. The pain reawakened, flaring up in every muscle like it had never faded, just a fraction of the agony that was in store for him again—!

He struggled through sharp, rapid breaths to stamp down this pointless fear, get a handle on it before it consumed him. He didn’t matter. He didn’t, so this was fine, it had to be…!

Except – the sounds from outside were… different to what he’d have expected…? A whole variety of footstep noises, not just one set, and a voice, faint and muffled though it was, that sounded higher-pitched than the voice he’d been dreading, strangely almost… familiar—?!

“This one?” Kieran could make it out now, it was right in front of the door— “He’s in here?”

It was – he could barely comprehend it, but, there was no mistaking it…!

“Kiki!”

“Sis…?!”

A sudden mess of confused, indescribable, overwhelming emotion swelled up inside Kieran and burst out of him in a sob. “Sis, please, get me out of here!” he found himself crying out.

It was kind of a pointless plea when she was already working on doing just that, furiously rattling the locked door handle. But… it felt good to say it, somehow.

The rattling stopped after a moment. “Kiki, if you can hear me, get back from the door, okay?” Carmine’s voice warned. “We’re gonna break it down!”

“But… I can’t… move…!” he protested, struggling again to do so, but it only made the pain worsen, and that wasn’t even getting into the stupid ropes.

Instead of a response from Carmine, something powerful slammed into the other side of the door with a massive crunch, visibly denting the metal inwards.

It occurred to Kieran that his sister didn’t seem to be able to hear him – his voice, even with all his force in it, was still just a feeble croak. At least he was probably far enough back to be safe anyway? …He hoped.

He flinched as another huge impact buckled the door so much that strips of light made their way in around the edges. One of the hinges had snapped completely. Did Carmine even have a Pokémon that could deal this kind of damage to a metal door…?

“That’s it! Just one more!” came her voice, clear as day now. “They don’t call it Breaking Swipe for nothing!”

Wait, huh—?!

With an oh-so-familiar roar and a final heavy crunch, the crumpled door was defeated. It swung open, hanging limply on just its top hinge, revealing—

“Dragonite…?”

There she was, framed by the light from outside, twisting to peer urgently in at him with… concern…?

Before Kieran could begin to wrap his head around that, Carmine rushed into the room, her Mightyena at her heels. “Kiki! Oh, I knew we’d be able to find you, I just knew it, I knew it!” She skidded to her knees in front of him, pulling him upright despite the groan that escaped him as his stiff muscles protested. “But look at the state of you!” she went on, frantic, almost babbling as she looked him over. “Sheesh, as if locking you in here like some kind of criminal wasn’t bad enough, they had to go and tie you up, too?!”

Her hands fumbled with his bonds for a moment before she withdrew and went for a Pokéball instead. “Leavanny!” The leafcutter bug appeared beside them in a flash of light. “Cut Kiki’s ropes for him – just… just be careful.”

As Leavanny got to work, Kieran’s mind was numb, struggling to keep up. Everything was happening so fast, so unexpectedly, so completely the opposite of what he’d been dreading and trying not to think about for all those hours. Carmine was here, and Dragonite, and…

“How…?” he mumbled, trying to latch onto just one out of so many questions. “How did you find me…?” Nobody was supposed to have known where he was, right? He’d thought…

“You’ve got Dragonite to thank for that!” said Carmine eagerly. Kieran blinked. “She just showed up at the Academy entrance this morning, freaking out something crazy, and – and you weren’t there.” She grimaced and glanced away. “We figured out that she wanted us to follow her, and she led us all the way here. Then once we were inside this place, I had Mightyena track your scent to find you – pretty smart of me, huh?”

“But…” Kieran fumbled to sift through all this information, trying to make sense of it. Dragonite was here. Dragonite had gone and fetched help, had come all this way, to save him.

She was still crouching there just past the doorway, too big to comfortably fit through. Her gaze shifted between him and the room outside, as if she was on the lookout for danger – protecting him, even now. Mightyena, too, had positioned herself near the door, facing outwards, like a guard dog.

“But… when I was attacked, I thought…” he mumbled, “I thought Dragonite got knocked out…?” She had, hadn’t she? She’d taken at least two Ice Beams, maybe more – he hadn’t been able to see, but…

“Huh,” Carmine remarked. “I guess she must’ve forced herself back to consciousness way faster than normal, in time to follow the bad guys who took you. Just goes to show how worried she was about you!”

She said it without hesitation, as if it was obvious. As if Dragonite would never have done anything else.

“Dragonite… I…” Kieran murmured, his breath catching in his throat, the confusing mess of emotions inside him gaining yet another indescribable flavour. He stared in astonishment at the big orange dragon – his big orange dragon, who met his eye and gave a low, rumbling croon.

“And speaking of worried, so was I! C’mere!”

All of a sudden, he found himself pulled tight against Carmine – too tight, reawakening the pain in his stiff muscles, and he couldn’t help but cry out. “Ow! Sis! It hurts!”

“Ah! Sorry! I’m sorry!” She released him and pushed him back in an instant, tensed up like he was something fragile that might break any second. Then she frowned. “Hold on, it’s not just me – you’re hurt…!” Her thumb brushed against a bruise on his shoulder. That was just from him hitting the water, but…

Leavanny had finished cutting the ropes, Kieran realised, and yet his arms were still there, stiff and aching, behind his back. Carmine was running her hands down them, gently testing their mobility – or lack thereof. “You’re paralysed?!” she added, aghast.

Some detached, strategy-obsessed part of Kieran’s brain helpfully pointed out that with that many Thunderbolts, paralysis was practically guaranteed. The rest of him shuddered.

“Kiki.” Carmine’s voice had lowered to one of deadly seriousness. Something fierce and dangerous burned in her eyes as they locked onto his. “These people – did they hurt you?!”

Kieran let out a choked whimper, closing his eyes with a grimace, his mind beset by flashes of lightning. All he could answer with was a nod.

A quiet growl came from near the door, too rough to be from Dragonite – Mightyena’s.

“Who was it? Who did this to you?” demanded Carmine. “Tell me who, because I swear to you, I will grind them into dust.”

“I—” Kieran bit back the reflex to say he didn’t know; he didn’t want to lie to her. “I-I think… he was the boss…? G-Gus… something…” He shivered, opening his eyes to try and combat the irrational sense that the man was there in the room, towering over him, about to bring down the lightning once more with him helpless to— No. Carmine was right here, but… “P-please…” he mumbled, seeing his sister’s expression still demanding, “it hurts…”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, Kiki, I’m sorry—! Hang on a sec…” She fished inside her bag for a moment and came out with another Pokéball and a Cheri berry. “Always gotta keep a few emergency berries on hand!” she said with a definitely-forced smile as she popped the fruit into his mouth.

Kieran made a face before biting down on it. At least the painful spicy heat was something to focus on that wasn’t the aching all over his body and the awful memories playing at the edges of his mind.

As he swallowed, he noticed Carmine had sent out her Sinistcha, who floated just in front of his face, rattling in… invitation? “Sinistcha’s healing isn’t as potent on humans, but it should help,” Carmine explained. “Go on!”

Kieran peered at the green liquid that seemed to be an extension of the goopy ghost Pokémon’s body within the teacup. He’d seen other Pokémon drink Sinistcha’s matcha a bunch of times from its Hospitality ability, but he’d never thought about… what it was they were drinking exactly. With a wince, he closed his eyes and firmly decided he wasn’t going to think about it this time either. If it’d ease the pain, it was worth it.

It tasted surprisingly like actual matcha, it turned out, if a little more viscous. The initial bitter flavour helped combat the spice, then after a moment, it gave way to a pleasant, mellow sweetness. There was something strangely soothing about it.

“Well?” Carmine asked as Sinistcha drew back. “Feel any better?”

“I…” Kieran winced as he tried to focus on the state his body was in, but… it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been. He felt looser, almost lighter, somehow. Just a little more like himself. The ache was still there, but fainter. Manageable.

And more than anything – he drew his arms forward of his own accord, flexing his hands. He could move freely. He had control again. “I think so, yeah,” he answered. “Th-Thanks.”

Carmine smiled at him, a real one this time, and Kieran returned it shakily, something heavy catching in his throat. His big sister was right here. She’d come to rescue him, and he was going to get out of here, and he’d never have to go through any – his breath hitched abruptly – any more of That—

All at once, the huge mess of emotions inside him found their way out. With a sudden lurch, Kieran clung to his sister as tightly as he could and broke into massive, desperate sobs.

“Huh…? Kiki…?!” He felt her flinch in surprise, but he didn’t let go, burying his face in her hair, the tears surging forth like a dam had burst. After a moment, she held him back, one arm around his heaving shoulders, the other gently stroking his hair. “I-I’m here, alright?” she said, a hint of flustered uncertainty in her voice. “I’ve… I’ve got you.”

He continued to shudder with loud, hysterical sobs, wringing out all of the nightmarish agony, the lightning, the helplessness, the indescribable relief that it was over, it was over, he was safe now. Everything he’d been through was allowed to hurt, was allowed to matter, at last, because it was over.

Carmine was holding him, increasingly tight, and as he breathed in her familiar scent between sobs, he remembered that – that he mattered. At least a little bit. He mattered to her.

His sister let out a choked noise above him, not unlike one of his own. “Dammit,” she mumbled, her voice strained. “Kiki, what did they do to you…?!”

Kieran flinched, his breaths coming tighter. All of it was flooding out of him right now, but the thought of trying to get actual words around it was too much, too impossible—

“S-Sorry!” Carmine exclaimed, her hold loosening just a bit. “Rhetorical question! You don’t need to answer that!”

He relaxed a little, still buried in her shoulder. The flood had begun to die down some, lessening to a stream of shaky whimpers.

“But – but listen, you’re safe now, okay?” she went on. Gently, she pried him off her so that she could look at him, brushing some of his hair out of his face. Her eyes were watery too, but a familiar spark of fierceness burned in them nonetheless. “I’m not gonna let those pathetic wastes of human flesh lay another finger on you, d’you hear me?!”

Sniffling, Kieran broke into a smile. “Yeah, Sis,” he said. “I know.”

Man, she could drive him mad sometimes, but… sometimes she was the best big sister in the world.

He took a moment to collect himself, wiping his face and having a much-needed drink thanks to a tissue and water bottle she produced for him. He felt a little better now, at least – like he often did these days after a good long cry.

“And guess what?” Carmine was saying as she unfastened one of the bags around her waist – she’d been wearing two of them, Kieran realised. She passed that one to him. “We even found where they were keeping your stuff on the way here! Your Pokémon are fine – it doesn’t look like they were hurt. Dragonite’s a little tired from the flight here, but we healed her up with some potions back at the Academy.”

“My Pokémon…!” Kieran murmured, opening the pocket where his Pokéballs were lined up. He hadn’t been expecting the kidnappers to have done anything to his Pokémon beyond keeping them away from him, but still… it was a huge relief to see them safe.

Five of the balls rattled in their pocket, the cries of each Pokémon echoing faintly from inside, relieved in turn to see him safe. Kieran laid his hand over them, choking back another sob. “Th-Thanks, you guys…”

He resisted the urge to send them all out – now wasn’t the time for a big reunion. Not when he still needed to get out of here.

As he turned to fasten the bag around his own waist, Kieran noticed a yellow cloth lying on the floor just behind him. It took him a moment to register what it was – his hairband.

He winced as he pictured himself lying helpless down there on the floor, thrashing and gasping in agony. …Yeah, it made sense that would have worked it loose, wouldn’t it.

Kieran picked up the headband and slipped it over his wrist. His hair was too much of a dishevelled mess to bother with fixing right now.

Carmine had recalled Leavanny and Sinistcha, leaving just Mightyena – and Dragonite. “We shouldn’t hang around here much longer,” she said, catching his eye. “You up for walking?”

Tentatively, Kieran nodded. He reached an arm around her shoulder to get her help in heaving himself to his feet. Standing up was still a bit of a struggle, but with her there to lean on, he could manage it. “Y-Yeah, I think so.”

“Good thing, too!” said Carmine, her arm tightly around him to support his weight, a cheeky twinkle in her eye. “‘Cause if you couldn’t, I was gonna have to give you a piggy-back ride outta here!”

Kieran spluttered, indignant. “I’m too old for that now!”

His sister chuckled and beamed an infuriating grin. “Just saying! Offer’s still open if you need it!”

Smiling despite himself, feeling a little lighter, Kieran made his way towards the door with his sister’s help, one step at a time. Mightyena slunk quietly outside as they approached, leaving just Dragonite.

She was still standing there as steadfast as ever, peering at him, her expression unmistakably one of affection and concern. Had… had she really always looked at him like that, and he’d never noticed it?

Overcome with emotion, Kieran staggered a couple more steps forwards and just sort of fell into her, his free arm reaching around her in a hug. “Th-Thank you…!” he gasped amongst a renewed burst of sniffling sobs. “I-I didn’t… I thought…”

His voice cut off, choked with guilt, because how could he even finish that sentence? How could he tell her that he’d been afraid she didn’t care about him, after she’d followed his kidnappers all this way and then gone back to fetch help, all while badly hurt on the brink of unconsciousness, all for him? She was hugging him back as best she could with her size, one paw on his shoulder, her snout nuzzling the top of his head, her low croon of affection and relief reverberating through him.

“Th-Thank you…” Kieran managed to say again, still feeling like it was thoroughly inadequate. She’d saved him from this nightmare. Without her to lead the way, it’d have taken Carmine so much longer to track him down – how much more would he have had to suffer in the meantime?

And… why hadn’t it even crossed his mind that of course his own big sister would be out there, looking for him, searching forever until she found him?

He felt Carmine tug at him, a gentle reminder that they were in the middle of escaping and they needed to keep moving. There was still so much swirling through his mind, but he could finish wrapping his head around it all later.

Kieran took a step back from Dragonite. Here outside the room he’d been trapped in, it was just a narrow corridor lined with a bunch of other doors – barely enough space for the big dragon to manoeuvre in. He tried to recall Dragonite to her Poké Ball, only for it to vibrate in his hand as she resisted the beam with a soft yip of protest. He stopped, hesitating.

“Don’t worry, Dragonite,” Carmine told her. “I’ve got him. He’ll be safe.” A bark of agreement came from Mightyena by her feet.

She was still worrying about him? “Yeah,” he managed to say, looking up at Dragonite. “Rest up. Just… just in case I need you later.”

That seemed to satisfy her, and she relented and allowed herself to be recalled.

Leaning on Carmine, Kieran let her steer him through the corridor as Mightyena padded along just ahead of them. Walking was becoming a little more manageable, though he still wasn’t sure how far he’d be able to go without his sister’s support.

At the end, they reached a door that led out into a much more open room. Huge square pillars ran down the middle of it, with several other doors in the distance leading who knew where. There was no sign of the outside, not even a single window. It was all cold artificial lights and metal – somehow exactly the kind of thing Kieran had been imagining as the huge imposing villain base he’d been trapped inside.

That sense of overwhelm, of helplessness to escape this place alone, gripped him for just a moment. But… he wasn’t alone. His sister was right here, with her Pokémon leading the way. They could do this.

And… he had his own Pokémon back now. He could defend himself, too, if it came to that.

“H-Hey!” came a voice from somewhere near the floor. Kieran looked down to see a man in that dark outfit, thoroughly trussed up and immobilised by the kind of silk threads a bug Pokémon might use. Was this… the guy who’d been guarding him earlier?

Carmine flashed the guard a dangerous smile. “Oh dear, still uncomfy down there, are we? Well, maybe you lowlifes should have thought twice before kidnapping my brother, hm?!” Mightyena punctuated her words with a sharp growl.

Kieran stared at the unfortunate man for a little longer as she steered him away. He’d almost forgotten just how scary his sister could be on his behalf sometimes.

He glanced up at her warily, but she just beamed at him. “Stun Spore and String Shot make a great combo for dealing with bad guys, don’tcha think?”

He wasn’t even sure what to say to that.

“Still, these guys aren’t total pushovers,” she went on, not waiting for an answer anyway. “The other half of my team’s down from battling my way here. Good thing I kept Mightyena out of things, or…” She trailed off.

“Where… what even is this place?” Kieran managed to ask, still somewhere between awed and intimidated by how elaborate this base seemed to be.

“You don’t know? Tch, I guess they must’ve knocked you out when they brought you in here, huh,” Carmine remarked, scowling. “This’ll surprise you, then – we’re on a ship! Some big fancy abandoned ship, just sitting by an island off the coast of Unova. Something about Team Plasma, apparently? Not so abandoned on the inside, though, it turns out.”

Team Plasma…? That was… one of the teams that the boss had mentioned recruiting former members of to his new group, wasn’t it? It figured that they might reuse an old Plasma base, then, if that was what this was.

“And get this,” Carmine added. “Y’know what this gang of losers call themselves? ‘Team Hydra’. Guess they think they’re hard to kill or something, but we’ll see about that!”

Despite his sister’s triumphant grin, hearing that name just sent a shiver down Kieran’s spine. He remembered the insignia on the leader’s – Gustavus’s – jacket: the three-headed dragon, with its middle head the largest.

“But hey, never mind them.” Carmine nudged him, oblivious to his discomfort. “You’ve got a way better hydra than any of those chumps!”

Even back then, it’d reminded him of his own Hydrapple, one of his most treasured Pokémon partners. Like the universe was just rubbing in how horribly, uncomfortably similar to him that man was.

“I… I dunno about that,” he mumbled, hiding his gaze from his sister behind his hair.

At least he was saved from having to think about this further as they reached a corner of the large room. There were no doors nearby, just a glowing green circular panel on the floor. Mightyena stepped onto it ahead of them, and in a flash of light, she… vanished?

“C’mon,” Carmine said, like this was totally normal. “We’d better step on together, or it might get weird.”

Kieran tried to mutter his confusion, but with her already pulling him forward, he didn’t want to find out what that weirdness could be. As they stepped onto the panel, a sudden blinding light enveloped everything. Kieran flinched, his breath hitching, clinging tighter to his sister in a split-second panic – but it didn’t hurt at all. His hold on Carmine kept him upright through a dizzying lurch, and then the light faded, and they stepped off, and…

“Huh?!” He blinked as he took in the entirely different room they were in now. “W-Wowzers… We’re… somewhere else?!”

“Yeah, warp tiles, duh! You’ve heard of them, right?” said Carmine. Mightyena was there waiting for them, and the two of them continued following her lead through the ship. “Didn’t we even use one as a shortcut out of Area Zero that time?”

“Y-Yeah, but, still…” Kieran had known about the technology existing, but it was the kind of hi-tech thing exclusive to big corporations, and fancy laboratories, and… and evil villain bases, he supposed. “And they’re all over this place?” He smiled a little, despite himself. “Way cool… this really is kinda like a spy movie!”

“Haha, you’re right!” Carmine grinned and struck a dramatic pose with her free arm as they moved along. “Just call me the beautiful, brilliant spy heroine, swooping in to save the day!”

Kieran grinned back. His sister really would make a good hero in a spy story.

But as for him… He was just the poor schmuck who needed rescuing, nothing more.

His mood suddenly dampened, Kieran dropped his gaze to the floor. “Sorry, Sis…”

“Huh?!” she responded. “Where in the world did that come from? What have you got to be sorry for, Kiki?”

“For… for still relyin’ on you so much,” he said, shrinking in her grip. “I’d – I’d really been tryin’ to get better with that, but—”

“Seriously?!” she protested, cutting him off. “What are you talkin’ about? This has nothing to do with any of that stuff! I mean, sheesh, these guys took your Pokémon, then had you guarded, locked up, tied up and paralysed!” She counted each thing off on the fingers of her free hand to emphasise her point. “Nobody could get out of all that on their own!”

Kieran couldn’t help but feel like the heroes they saw in the movies would find a way, somehow – except that the imaginary hero he pictured in his head somehow ended up being Juliana instead. For a split second, he wanted to think that she could too, but… no. That was a stupid thought, wasn’t it? Even someone as strong as her would have needed some help, surely, if she’d been trapped just like he had.

“C’mon, Kiki.” Carmine nudged him again encouragingly, oblivious to where his thoughts had ended up. “Of course I’m gonna come save you from something this bad. That’s just what big sisters are for!”

It… it was, wasn’t it? Maybe it was still okay to rely on her for at least some things.

“‘Sides,” she went on, “you saved me and the whole town from that Pecha-whatsit thingy, didn’t you? Even I couldn’t get out of that one by myself! So just… think of this as me returning the favour, if you like.”

The Pecharunt thing…? Almost on instinct, Kieran wanted to protest that all the real heroics there had been Juliana’s doing, just like always, but… he supposed he had helped out, too. At least a little.

They kept on making their way through the base, passing a few more silk-bound grunts that Carmine glared silent daggers at as they walked by. Kieran was ready this time for the lurch of the next warp tile they took – but as soon as they stepped out into the new location, everything was suddenly a lot noisier.

This was just another empty set of corridors, but further away behind the walls, he could hear the telltale sounds of battle: the roars and cries of Pokémon, the blasts of attacks, the indistinct voices of trainers yelling commands.

Before Kieran could ask his sister what was going on, she grinned down at him. “Hah! Sounds like the Elite Four are still giving those grunts a good thrashing!”

“Huh?” Kieran blinked – yet another new fact that he hadn’t been expecting. “The Elite Four…? From… Blueberry?”

“Yeah, keep up!” He’d almost stopped moving out of sheer bewilderment, but Carmine kept pulling him along. “C’mon, even I’m not reckless enough that I’d come charging in here all on my own – not if I didn’t have to, at least.”

It suddenly hit Kieran what his sister had meant all the times she’d said ‘we’. He’d thought she was just talking about herself and her Pokémon, but…

“They… came to help… save me…?”

“Duh! You’re their friend, silly, of course they came to help!” she insisted. “Even Drayton – man, you wouldn’t believe how serious he got all of a sudden when we realised you were missing. Maybe that bozo’s not so bad after all… but don’t go telling him I said that, okay?! I’d never hear the end of it!”

Drayton, too? That was… actually, genuinely unexpected. On reflection, perhaps the other three being here to help wasn’t such a surprise, not really. But Kieran had been under the not-so-subtle impression that Drayton still basically hated him for everything he’d done as Champion, despite his efforts to make amends. And yet… Huh.

Something else he’d have to puzzle out later. Carmine supported him carefully up a flight of stairs, and then suddenly they were up on the top deck of the ship – outside.

Kieran took a long, shaky breath, not having realised quite how suffocated he’d felt in there. He’d never been more glad to taste fresh air and see the sky. It looked like early evening or so – had it really been less than a day?

His sister seemed preoccupied, peering at something on her phone for a moment. “It’s this way, right?” she muttered to herself, turning towards another door that wasn’t far away. “You got his scent, Mightyena?” The canine Pokémon barked an affirmative, and Carmine gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Good girl.”

With that, still following Mightyena’s lead, she pulled Kieran towards the door.

“Wait!” he protested. “Wh-Where are we going?” He’d thought they’d been about to leave, but…

“There’s some big lab kind of room this way,” she told him. “Well, at least as far as I can make out from the floor plans Penny sent us.”

Even Penny…? Kieran frowned. He couldn’t quite place why, but something about the fact that their friends from Paldea knew about this too was… very, very worrying.

“Seems like a real important room, at any rate,” Carmine was saying. They were through the door now, into another open corridor-like space with little in it except for a single warp tile at the far end. “We figured if the big boss man’s gonna go anywhere when his base is under attack, it’ll be there.” Her face darkened into a scowl. “Juliana went on ahead to wipe the floor with him, but she better have left some for me – I’m gonna give that lowlife scumbag a piece of my—”

“Juliana?!” Kieran blurted out, his stomach dropping in terror. This was it. This was why. “She’s here? She’s battling – him?!” This was all wrong, this couldn’t be happening – what if she’d brought Ogerpon?!

“Yeah, she flew here from Paldea as fast as she—”

“No… no, no, she can’t be…!” Of course she’d have brought Ogerpon, she’d be pulling out all the stops, bringing her strongest fighters – but, she didn’t know—!

“Huh?” said Carmine, stopping them both in their tracks, wasting time, not getting the problem…! “Of course she can, you’re her friend too, duh! Or did you go forgetting that again?”

“No, that’s not it!” Kieran wrenched himself off her, stumbling his way past Mightyena, towards the warp tile – he had to warn Juliana…! “She can’t be here!”

“Kiki, wait!” Carmine called out, frantic. “Take it easy! What’s gotten into you?!”

“He wants Ogerpon!” Kieran exclaimed. “That’s why he—” His voice cut out, the words ‘tortured me’ too huge, catching in his throat, choking him. At a sudden halt, he gave his head a shake, gasping in a breath, fighting to stay upright past the lightning flashing through his mind. “He… He was tryin’ to make me tell him where Ogerpon is! And now she’s here!”

He looked back at his sister just long enough to see her raise a hand to her mouth, her expression horrified, as the stakes dawned on her. That was all he needed – Kieran turned and ran for the warp tile as fast as his shaky legs could carry him, desperately hoping he wouldn’t be too late, that he’d still be able to stop this, somehow…!

His foot hit the tile, and the blinding flash of disorientation swept over him—

“—finish it with Ivy Cudgel!”

No…!

He tried to keep running, but the dizziness was too much – the room lurched, and he only made it a few steps before collapsing to his hands and knees. Ahead of him, he heard the crunching smash of stone, looked up in time to see a grey-cloaked Ogerpon slamming her cudgel into the middle head of a Hydrapple (why did it have to be a Hydrapple?).

Juliana was there too, on the near side behind Ogerpon, and Gustavus was at the back, recalling his fallen hydra, and – and this was an important room, just as his sister had guessed, because of the huge, elaborate machine that dominated the far wall. The machine that Gustavus had gloated about, that would mind-control Ogerpon and force out her power, this had to be it – and Ogerpon was right here…!

“No!” Kieran cried out, as loud as he could. “Ogerpon! Get – get her away…!”

“Kieran?!” Juliana twisted around at the sound of his voice, her eyes widening in shock and worry as she saw him there. “What happened to you? Are you alright?!”

Ogerpon turned along with her trainer, her face hidden behind the Cornerstone Mask. “Popon?!”

“Re… recall her!” gasped Kieran, reaching out uselessly with one hand, his clumsy, aching body resisting his efforts to do any more than that. “Now!”

Ignoring the soft whoosh of the warp tile behind him, he looked up at Gustavus helplessly, and he could have sworn the man caught his eye for just a split-second before breaking into a twisted grin.

“You’re MINE!” he declared, and in one swift, fluid motion—

—he threw a Master Ball right at Ogerpon’s back.

Time seemed to stand still, everything in the room frozen except for the ball. It sailed through the air, bouncing off Ogerpon from behind before she could dodge or block it.

And it sucked her inside, as if nothing were more natural.

“Huh?” spluttered Juliana.

The ball fell to the ground and began to wobble. Kieran watched it helplessly, hoping against hope that somehow, magically, Ogerpon would just break out (just like he’d half-expected Terapagos to), and everything would be okay.

But she didn’t. The Master Ball did as it was made to do, trapping the legendary Pokémon inside it with a click.

“But…” Juliana had Ogerpon’s Friend Ball in her hand now, pointing it uselessly at the ball on the floor. Hers seemed to have gone inactive. “How…?! You can’t just…”

“Snag Ball,” said Gustavus, briefly pressing buttons on a Pokédex, casually shifting another Pokémon to his PC like Ogerpon was just his now, as he strode forwards to pick up the Master Ball. He caught Kieran’s eye again and gave a victorious smirk. “Didn’t I tell you where my grunts came from?”

Kieran didn’t have a clue what that meant, but neither did he care. Something acrid and appalled was bubbling up inside him, boiling into a haze of white-hot outrage. This was like some kind of sick joke, just rubbing it in. The nerve of him, from behind, with a Master Ball, like—

With a scream of fury, Kieran was on his feet, throwing himself bodily at Gustavus, grasping for the ball in his hand. “You can’t do that!” he yelled. “She’s not yours!!”

He wrestled with the man, fighting to pry the Master Ball out of his grip with whatever it took, smaller and weaker but fuelled by the sheer force of his disgusted anger at the one who’d dared to throw it, for acting like he had the right to just take what would never be his…!

In frenzied desperation, he sank his teeth into one of Gustavus’s fingers. The man gave an indignant yelp, the hand loosened, and Kieran seized the ball, firmly in his own grasp.

An instant later, the back of that same hand slammed into his face. The world pitched, and he hit the floor, hard, one whole side of his body lighting up with pain.

Kieran’s head was spinning, but, the ball – he still had it…! Nothing else mattered – he just had to hold onto it, as tight as he—

A heavy boot smashed down onto his hand, crushing it. He cried out in agony, his grip lost, the ball rolling away – no…!

Before he could try to reach out further, the boot jabbed into his stomach like a piston, right below his ribs, and suddenly Kieran couldn’t even breathe.

He gasped and wheezed, pain flaring all over, struggling to suck in air, helplessly watching through his hair as Gustavus bent down to pick up the Master Ball again like nothing had just happened. Like all of Kieran’s efforts had been utterly useless.

And then a guttural growl from behind him rose up into a hellish shriek of rage.

“Mightyena!” Carmine roared. Kieran twisted his head back, catching a skewed glimpse of a terrifying wildfire blazing in his sister’s eyes as she pointed straight at Gustavus. “Thunder Fang him!”

The canine Pokémon snarled, leaping in to tackle Gustavus to the side. He hit the ground with Mightyena on top of him, her teeth crackling with sparks – and she sank them right into the man’s shoulder. Trapped, helpless, Kieran watched Gustavus’s body tremble and jerk horrifically, his face a grimace of agony from the lightning coursing through him.

Gustavus let out a strangled scream once the electricity faded and Mightyena released her fangs. His eyes wide, bulging, he stared frantically between the Pokémon pinning him there and the trainer towering over him.

“That’s right! See how you like it, you sick bastard!!” Carmine thundered down at her victim, twisted by a monstrously wild, triumphant fury. “Again, Mightyena!”

Without a second’s hesitation, Mightyena charged up her fangs once more and dug them into Gustavus’s other shoulder. The nightmarish lightning and convulsions grew even worse – Kieran was immobilised, unable to tear his gaze away, hurting from more than just physical pain as phantom electric agony shot through him too at the sight of it.

The moment the attack faded, his sister’s Pokémon let out a furious roar right in Gustavus’s face before he could even try to scream, her lightning-laced fangs terrifyingly close to his throat. Everything was closing in on Kieran, crushing him, smothering him – he couldn’t do anything, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe—

“Carmine, stop it!”

It was Juliana’s voice. Her reassuring firmness cut through the nightmare, letting Kieran gasp in a breath.

“Please…” she said, and he finally managed to look away from his sister’s victim to see Juliana staring pointedly right at Kieran himself.

Her fire halted and hesitant, Carmine followed her gaze – and then her eyes widened in horror as she caught sight of her brother.

“Kiki… I…!”

She screwed her eyes shut, clenching a fist over her chest. Her shoulders shook as she took several long, shaking breaths through gritted teeth.

When Carmine opened her eyes again, they looked… safer. Still with anger simmering in there, but – more like the big sister Kieran knew.

“Mightyena, return,” she said, her voice tight, holding out her Pokémon’s ball without looking at her.

The large canine vanished from on top of Gustavus. His body jolted in an effort to get up, but before he could, Carmine strode forwards and planted a foot firmly in his chest herself. “Don’t think you’re going anywhere,” she hissed.

Gustavus’s arm made awkward, jerking movements, like he was trying to reach for her leg but couldn’t, somehow. He was scowling furiously, probably in an attempt to mask the pain.

“Oh, paralysed already, are we?” simpered Carmine with a venomous smile. “Good.” She pulled out another Pokéball. “Leavanny, make sure this waste of human flesh won’t be moving another inch.”

As Leavanny emerged and got to work with String Shot, Kieran managed to relax a little. Carmine was just immobilising the man now, nothing more. That was… that was better. It meant he could focus on other things, like trying to breathe properly – that blow to his stomach had knocked the wind out of him something fierce, never mind what’d come after.

“Kieran!” Juliana hurried to crouch beside him, one hand on his shoulder, her expression full of worry. “Are you alright?”

Before he could even try to answer, a staticky hum pierced his ears, faint but hideously familiar. His body tensed, pain shooting through his muscles – no, he wasn’t alright at all…!

That Rotom, it was here, where was it…?! There, behind Juliana, emerging from the huge machine against the back wall. The Rotom jittered forwards in Kieran’s tilted, hair-shrouded view, and for a terrifying moment it seemed to be coming for him. But the reality was even worse – lying there in its path, forgotten where Gustavus had dropped it upon being attacked, was the Master Ball with Ogerpon inside.

“Ohhgh…!” Kieran gasped. He was too weak to get up, wheezing for breath too hard to form coherent words, but he had to tell Juliana, warn her – “Ohhhhghph…!”

“It – It’s okay!” Juliana tried to reassure him, still worrying about him like he mattered right now. He flopped one hand uselessly on the floor in an attempt to point, but his crushed, stinging fingers weren’t working properly. “Don’t, don’t try to move, if you can’t…”

No – the Rotom was right there, it had the Master Ball, it was already taking it back to the machine, it was going to be too late—!

“B-Buhl…” spluttered Kieran in desperate helpless frustration, trying for a different word, an easier one – “Ball!”

“The ball…? Ogerpon!” Juliana whirled around, just in time to see the Rotom deposit the Master Ball onto a pedestal at the front of the machine and then zip back inside it. Mechanical claws extended around the ball, locking it in place as the machine lit up and began to hum and whir into life.

“He had a sixth?! I should’ve thought—!” Juliana exclaimed, rushing up to the machine. “No! Give her back!” A burst of sparks flowed through the pedestal, shocking her as she tried to grab the ball. “Aagh!” She flinched back, clutching her arm.

A twisted, disjointed sort of chuckle arose from off to the side – Gustavus, laughing in spite of his paralysis and his almost-finished silk bonds.

“What’s so funny?” Carmine demanded. “What’s that big machine doing to Ogerpon?!”

“It’s too late…!” gloated Gustavus, his tone deranged and hysterical. “Even if you could get past Rotom, the ball and the machine are connected now! Removing it won’t change a thing! The ogre is mine to control!”

“Control her?!” Carmine’s gaze snapped to the floor, where Gustavus’s hand was awkwardly, surreptitiously trying to work some kind of small device out of his pocket despite his near-immobility. “Leavanny, that thing, destroy it! Now!”

Quick as a flash, the bug Pokémon kicked the device across the floor and sliced it clean in two with one of her blades. Had that been… a remote control for the machine? Then, that meant…!

“Hah!” Gustavus spat. “You really think I wouldn’t have installed an automatic setting as a failsafe? That alone should be more than enough for the ogre’s might to overwhelm you.”

“Automatic?” Juliana’s gaze snapped between him and the machine, frantic. “There’s… really nothing we can do?!”

“Ogerpon, come forth!” crowed Gustavus in triumph. “Show me your true power, and get rid of these fools!”

With a flourish of lights all around the machine’s exterior, the Master Ball on the pedestal released Ogerpon into the middle of the room.

Kieran braced himself for something terrible, but as she stood there, she seemed almost… normal? …Almost. She wasn’t wearing a mask, which let him see the look in her eyes – or an unnerving lack thereof, staring vacantly ahead.

“Ogerpon?” Juliana crept around to her front, peering at her carefully. “Are you alright?”

Ogerpon didn’t respond. One by one, all four of her masks floated out from underneath her poncho and began to circle around her, animated by some invisible force.

“Are you in there?” her trainer tried, waving a hand and forcing a smile. “It’s me – Juliana.”

“Po…?” Blinking, Ogerpon looked up in recognition, herself again – but then her gaze flitted anxiously between the masks circling her, like this wasn’t under her control. Like she couldn’t stop them.

“No… Get back, Juliana…” Kieran found himself saying, gripped with a horrible apprehension. “I-It’s not safe…!” This machine, the power Gustavus had – he’d dared to hope for a moment, but even Ogerpon couldn’t…

Juliana backed up just a small step, not taking her eyes off her Pokémon.

“Grr… Grah…” Ogerpon gasped, increasingly frantic, trembling from either fear, or something worse. “Ponoooo!” she cried out, fixing her trainer with an urgent, desperate stare. Eyes widening, Juliana backed away faster.

With a surging thrum of power from the machine, dark lightning seized Ogerpon’s body out of nowhere, making her arch and grimace in pain. All four masks around her exploded at once into dazzling, blinding Terastallisation.

And Ogerpon screamed.

~~~​

Spoiler: A/N

Whoops, did I say this was a Kieran whumpfic? Well, perhaps he might not have been the only member of the DLC cast that I had plans to put through the wringer here.

 

[elyvorg]

Chapter 4​

– I can’t help anyone –​

“Miraidon! Just… just shield us!”

Juliana’s violet dragon emerged with a roar of alarm, already in its glowing battle form. A crystallised cudgel lunged forwards, but Miraidon met it with a pulse of energy that shattered it before it could land.

In the centre of the circling shield of Terastallised masks, lit up with dark lightning, Ogerpon was a constant flurry of movement – kicks, somersaults, cudgel swings, chaining over and over without a moment’s rest. With each move, one of her masks lashed out haphazardly with a crystal facsimile of the attack. Four times the masks, four times the offence. While most struck nothing but empty space around her, Miraidon was forced to swoop in and intercept any that went near Juliana or Carmine.

But none reached Kieran. He lay forgotten in a crumpled heap near the edge of the room, separate from it all behind his mask of hair. The glittering cacophony of rampant Terastallisation kept echoing, too loud and sharp in his ears. A legendary Pokémon, Terastallised and out of control, and it was—

He was too hurt to move, helpless to do anything but watch, unable to look away from each brief glimpse of Ogerpon between her circling masks. The way she grimaced, her body jerking and contorting as that horrible dark lightning puppeteered her against her will.

She was in pain. She was suffering, because of—

(All his fault.)

This was the one thing, the only thing in this whole ordeal that had been up to Kieran: keeping Ogerpon safe from precisely this. He was the one who’d known the danger; he was the one who’d been in a position to prevent it. He’d been trying so hard, and yet… it’d all been for nothing. In the end, he’d just messed up and made things worse, like always.

All because he was weak. Because he’d got himself kidnapped and hurt, because he was nothing but a burden on his sister and Juliana, forcing them to waste time worrying about him when they should have been focused on Ogerpon. If it hadn’t been for him and his weakness, Juliana wouldn’t even have brought Ogerpon here in the first place.

(All his fault, all his fault, all his fault.)

And now, not only was Ogerpon suffering, but Juliana and Carmine were in danger, too. They were at risk in the fight, all while Kieran lay back here, out of the fray, a useless pathetic mess who couldn’t do anything.

…Why? Why is it always like this?

In amongst it all, there was a wild cackling from off to the side. Gustavus, trussed up with silk and also out of Ogerpon’s immediate range, yet filled with manic delight, gloating some nonsense about the ogre’s true might. It made Kieran sick. The man just had to rub it in, this villain who was like an awful twisted version of Kieran himself, except that he was actually strong enough to get what he wanted.

Kieran grimaced, trying to focus on anything else – his sister was saying something, too. “It’s that big machine making her do this, right? Can’t we just… smash it?”

“Fools!” crowed Gustavus amidst mad laughter. “I told you, Ogerpon and the machine are linked now! Destroy the machine and you’ll destroy the ogre’s mind along with it!”

“Sheesh, this guy! Leavanny, do us all a favour and shut Gus up, will you?”

An indignant yell of protest quickly became muffled among the soft hiss of a String Shot attack. The gloating laughter mercifully subsided.

“He’s gotta be bluffing. Hasn’t he?” Carmine’s voice continued. “He… he just wants us not to try so Ogerpon can beat us and he’ll get away. There’s no way breaking the machine would actually… Would it…?”

“…I’m not risking it.” Juliana’s voice was firm. “We… we’ve got no choice but to fight her. If we win, it should stop, right?”

Ogerpon hadn’t let up the entire time, twisted into attacking over and over without end. Kieran couldn’t take his eyes off her, yet could hardly bear to watch. It had to stop. It had to be stopped.

Somewhere in his periphery, Miraidon vanished, replaced with Juliana’s Ceruledge. “Be on guard, she’s even tougher than usual! Keep away from the masks you’re weak to, and try to get in some Bitter Blades!”

“Alright, Leavanny, get in there and help! Mind the Fire and Rock masks, and go for X-Scissor when you can!”

As the Hearthflame Mask swung around in front to block Kieran’s view of Ogerpon, Ceruledge took the chance to dart forwards and swipe at it with flaming swords. The blow hardly left a mark on the crystallised mask, but a cry of pain sounded from behind it.

In the meantime, Leavanny had raced to the other side of the battlefield to keep between the Teal and Wellspring Masks. Just the two of them, against what amounted to four hugely powerful opponents… was that really enough? Carmine had mentioned earlier that half her team was down; Juliana, too, had probably lost a few Pokémon against Gustavus. Could they really take on Ogerpon like this?

Both trainers were battling with uncharacteristic caution, prioritising evasion, shouting warnings to their Pokémon to help them dodge each and every attack. Carmine’s fists were clenched, her face alight with an intense expression that Kieran knew meant she was more anxious than she wanted to let on. And Juliana… even her usual confident gaze held an undercurrent of something else.

They needed more help. They needed—

“Kiki! Juliana’s in trouble! You need to HELP HER!”

Here and now, the girls were focused entirely on the fight, not even trying to call out to Kieran, not like before.

(Because he was useless—)

—Because he was hurt; they didn’t expect him to be able to help. They were just trying to keep him safe. That was the whole reason they were here in the first place.

But even then, even though he was aching all over from everything he’d been through… was there really nothing Kieran could do?

“Come on, Kieran! Let’s do it together!”

…No. He could help. He knew he could. His big sister, his best friend – and Ogerpon – they needed his help.

And more than that, more to the point, no matter how hard or how frightening…

I want to help. I want to help them!

Kieran could feel it – that fervent, burning determination coursing through him. The same as he’d felt back in that awful room while staring up at Gustavus, desperate to protect Ogerpon at any cost. Perhaps it had never really left.

So long as there was anything he could do, he had to try. He had to.

It took a monumental effort just to stand, his body aching with every movement, his head throbbing something fierce. But the fire within him let him push through the pain, forcing himself to his feet regardless, staggering to stay upright.

“Kiki?” Carmine turned to him, alerted by the groans he’d made on his way up. “What are you doing?! You’re hurt – you should stay outta the way!”

“But I can help!” Kieran protested as he managed a few steps forward. “My whole team’s still fresh!” He blinked, distracted by his hair shrouding his view of the battlefield. Clumsily, he tied his bangs up out of his face, his injured hand fumbling with the hairband. It was still a mess, probably, but he could focus on the battle better like this.

The fray was hectic, Ceruledge and Leavanny dashing around the outskirts of the circling masks, trying to stay in line with the ones they weren’t weak to and dodge the constant crystal onslaught. Even with their trainers’ guidance, only rarely could they find a safe chance to dart in and attack. If there were just some way to mitigate Ogerpon’s relentless offence, give them more openings…

Kieran met his sister’s gaze, urgent. “Please, I… I want to help.”

She looked at him with that concern in her expression for another second before relenting. “Alright, just… just be careful.”

On his other side, Juliana caught his eye and gave him an encouraging grin.

Kieran nodded to steel himself, then pulled out two Pokéballs and threw them into the fight. “Grimmsnarl, use Reflect! Hydrapple, Syrup Bomb! Slow those masks down as much as you can!”

Grimmsnarl emerged and instantly raised his arms to summon shimmering barriers of light that hung in front of all four combatants on their side. After a pause and a glance back, he flicked a hand again to conjure another, larger Reflect to shield the trainers as well.

Beside him, Hydrapple began lobbing glob after glob of syrup into the fray. As it coated each mask that came around, their circling slowed, and so did Ogerpon’s flurry of movements. Crystallised attacks still lunged out from the masks, but less often, easier for their side to dodge, mitigated by the Reflect if they still struck true.

“Oh, yeah – Ceruledge, get in a Will-O-Wisp, too!” Juliana called. Her Pokémon nodded, summoning a small spectral flame that floated forwards and landed easily on the much slower-moving Cornerstone Mask. Ceruledge leapt away handily before the mask’s follow-up attack could come near it.

They were doing it – they were weakening Ogerpon’s offence! Maybe this really was possible after all…?

Just a moment later, a crystalised foot smacked into Leavanny on the opposite side of the field. Barely a glancing blow – and yet, on impact, every one of the Reflect barriers shattered into pieces. Kieran flinched, instinctively trying to shield himself from the shards near him, but they were just harmless energy that dissipated right away.

“Seriously?!” exclaimed Carmine, her eyes wide. “She knows Brick Break?”

“Sorry!” Juliana spluttered, raising her hands in exasperation. “She learned a lot of good TMs!” Then she frowned. “But hold on… Brick Break shouldn’t be on her moveset right now… How is she…?”

Kieran stared as he realised what this meant. Gustavus had said the machine would bring out Ogerpon’s full strength, never mind if it hurt her. “…You mean, she’s breakin’ the four-move limit?”

Pokémon could only safely channel the energy of four different moves at a time; it took some out-of-battle coaching to shift which ones they had ready to go. If the machine was overriding that, forcing Ogerpon to draw on every move she’d ever learned, all at once… how much strain would that put on her? How long could she endure something like that, before—

…And how much more impossible would it be, to take down an insanely powered-up Ogerpon with access to every single coverage move Juliana had ever taught her?

Kieran’s mind raced, fighting to stave off rising panic. He needed to do something, and quick. They needed some kind of edge, some way to tilt things in their favour…

“Hydrapple!” he called, as a spark of inspiration came to him. “Use Dragon Cheer on Ceruledge!”

“Right!” Juliana’s face lit up in acknowledgement. “Ceruledge, take it and use Shadow Claw!”

Hydrapple raised all five of his heads in a mighty roar, summoning energy that coalesced into a glowing aura around Juliana’s Pokémon. As soon as it did, Ceruledge leapt into action, its swords cloaked in ghostly tendrils. It darted forwards with supernatural precision that just so happened to let it slip through the gap between two of the huge circling masks—

—where it sliced its swords directly into Ogerpon herself. The ogre let out a scream of pain and alarm, staggering backwards.

Kieran’s hands flew to his head as his stomach dropped in horror. Ogerpon was the target of a critical hit, not the masks. Of course she was. How could he have been so stupid? What was he doing, trying to hurt her more when she was already suffering enough?!

“I-I’m sorry!” he blurted out. “Juliana, you gotta recall Ceruledge – Dragon Cheer was a mistake!”

Juliana was also staring wide-eyed at Ogerpon as Ceruledge emerged back outside the circle of masks, peering at her questioningly. A crystal cudgel slammed into the off-guard Pokémon from behind before either of them could react, trailing drops of water as the Wellspring Mask passed by. With a cry of pain, Ceruledge crumpled to the ground and didn’t get back up.

Wincing, his fingers clutching at his hair, Kieran watched Juliana recall her Pokémon for a whole different reason. “S-Sorry…” he mumbled, uselessly. (All his fault.)

“Kieran, watch out!” He felt a sudden hand on his shoulder pull him backwards as a crystallised foot smashed into the ground perilously close to where he’d been standing. Miraidon reappeared in a flash of light, taking up a defensive position. Juliana was there beside Kieran, catching his eye.

“It’s alright,” she said with an anxious smile. “I messed up, too. We need to rethink this!”

Kieran nodded, taking a moment to try and collect himself. Miraidon was in front of them, blocking and deflecting attacks like before, though they were far less frequent this time thanks to Hydrapple. The hydra was still firing syrup at any nearby attacks to slow their approach, withdrawing into his apple if they came close.

Grimmsnarl had already summoned a new Reflect, which was still standing – Ogerpon hadn’t instantly gone for another Brick Break. Perhaps the machine’s automatic setting just selected moves at random, with no strategy behind them? Kieran glanced back at Gustavus, still trussed up with silk near the edge of the room. It was a good thing they’d managed to destroy his remote, or else…

“Yeah, any bright ideas?” Carmine called as she approached the two of them. Leavanny had fallen back as well, blades raised defensively to deflect attacks but nothing more. “How the hell are we supposed to win this without, you know, attacking Ogerpon? Even hitting one of the masks still hurts her!”

It did, didn’t it? Kieran had seen Ogerpon flinch and grimace when moves had struck the masks, as if she’d been attacked directly. And even though the Will-O-Wisp had landed on a mask, the telltale embers of a burn flickered there across her own body, in amongst that dark lightning.

“I was thinking this was like a Stellar Tera,” Juliana mused. “You know, boosts offence, but still just Grass-type defensively. But is that really it…?”

“M-Maybe it isn’t,” Kieran piped up. He thought back to the Bitter Blade he’d seen land on the Hearthflame Mask, the way Ogerpon had cried out while the mask had barely shifted. And was he just imagining it, or did the Cornerstone and Wellspring Masks have more globs of Hydrapple’s syrup lingering on them than the other two…? “I think… Ogerpon’s still Grass, but the masks all have their own types. So… what if we used types that’re super-effective on the masks, but not very effective on Ogerpon?”

“Huh, yeah!” Carmine remarked. “That’d be our best shot at keeping her safe!” She eyed the Pokémon on the battlefield. “So, Electric and Grass for the Water-type mask…”

“Grass for the Cornerstone Mask, too,” Kieran put in. “And Water and Ground for Cornerstone and Hearthflame. That’s… a lotta options!” Maybe they really could do this? His mind buzzed, running through his team members, grasping at half-formed strategies. “It’d be best if we focused the masks down one at a time, right? And, um… I think we should start with the Wellspring Mask! Once it’s down, I’ve got an idea…”

“Politoed, yeah?” Juliana said, catching his eye. Kieran blinked, then nodded, caught off-guard by her remembering one of his team’s strategies so quickly.

“But… what about the Teal Mask?” Carmine asked. “It’s the same type as her!”

Doubt flickered in Juliana’s eyes for a moment. Then she faced forwards, determination set into her expression. “We’ll worry about that when we get there! Kieran’s plan is good – let’s do it! Miraidon, you heard him, right, bud?”

The violet dragon roared, and all at once, sparkling Electric Terrain spread from the ground beneath it, its ability kicking in as it fully engaged with the battle.

“Got it!” Carmine called. “Leavanny, no more X-Scissor – use Leaf Blade instead! Aim for the Water mask!”

Kieran stared at the battlefield, at Hydrapple and Grimmsnarl glancing his way expectantly, but his brain was stuck, not quite kicking in to figure out what orders to give.

Kieran’s plan is good. Juliana had said that, about him, so casually, like it was—

Never mind that right now – he needed to focus. Grass and Electric… he had Hydrapple, and Dragonite’s Thunder, but the girls probably had the offence covered already, especially with a powerhouse like Miraidon. Plus, while Ogerpon was about as slowed as she was going to get, there was still more he could do to make her attacks less threatening, wasn’t there?

“Grimmsnarl, keep the Reflect up! Try and deflect stuff with Sucker Punch! And Hydrapple… come back for now!” Cursing his furiously stinging hand, he fumbled to switch Pokéballs and managed to throw the new one out beside Leavanny. “Incineroar, go! Use Fake Out on the nearest mask!”

The bipedal tiger emerged with a mighty roar, the force of his Intimidate reverberating through the masks and Ogerpon. Then he leapt forwards with blinding speed, smacking a huge paw into the Teal Mask. The mask juddered to a halt, crystals in front of it vanishing as Ogerpon flinched and actually stood still for a handful of seconds – which gave Leavanny the opening she needed to slice her glowing green blades into the Wellspring Mask beside it.

That was good, but… Kieran watched Incineroar poised there waiting for more orders and realised he couldn’t do much else beyond this. If only Intimidate was a move and not an ability, then he could use it over and over to keep lowering Ogerpon’s attack power…

…Then again, there was still a way to do that, wasn’t there?

“Hey, Sis?” he asked. “Can I borrow Mightyena? I’ve got an idea…”

“Huh? Sure,” said Carmine, passing him a Poké Ball. “Uh, her current moveset’s—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kieran cut her off. “Incineroar, return! Mightyena, go! Just Intimidate her!”

He had to throw the ball awkwardly with his left hand as his injured right one was refusing to co-operate, but Mightyena replaced Incineroar on the field just fine and let out an equally furious roar, weakening Ogerpon’s attack further.

It crossed Kieran’s mind that Mightyena definitely at least had Thunder Fang at the moment – but the Wellspring Mask was on the other side of the field right now, too far to be worth it.

“Okay, great, now come back! Inciner— agh!” Fumbling with both balls at once, Kieran’s stinging fingers finally betrayed him, dropping Incineroar’s ball. He bent down to reach for it, groaning and swaying as his aching muscles protested the sudden movement, and then flinched as static electricity from the terrain coating the ground pricked at his injured hand.

Kieran froze, staring at the ball lying on the floor amidst crackling sparks. Why couldn’t he just pick it up? Why was he—

“Hey, Kiki.” Carmine’s hand was on his shoulder, steadying him. “I see what you’re going for here – want me to take over?”

He hesitated for a moment, but then nodded, shrinking.

Carmine patted his shoulder once more and beamed at him. “Great idea, by the way!” she said, before scooping up Incineroar’s ball without flinching and tossing him back into the fray.

Kieran blinked, taking a step back as he watched his Pokémon halt Ogerpon in her tracks again with another Fake Out. Great idea. Even if he’d been too weak to pull it off himself, his sister still thought…

At least, with his Pokémon knowing what to do for now and Carmine handling the switching, he had a moment to pause. He cradled his stinging hand, catching his breath, taking in the state of the battle.

Mightyena was back out, going for an opportunistic Thunder Fang as the Wellspring Mask circled around in front again. Kieran caught sight of Ogerpon in between the masks, just in time to see her grimace at the pain of the attack being transferred to her. Or, no – not the pain, a weaker Electric move like that would barely hurt her at all – something else. Fear…?

He kept his gaze on Ogerpon, straining for those fleeting, awful glimpses of her as the masks circled. Grimmsnarl was busy with Sucker Punches, pre-empting any of her attacks that went near him by smacking the offending mask first. And Sinistcha – Sinistcha? Leavanny must have gone down at some point – kept up a barrage of scalding green matcha in the general direction of the Wellspring Mask.

Each time an attack connected, Ogerpon would grimace and recoil. It was hard to make out in the short glimpses he got, the brief seconds between the lightning puppeteering her into her next move, but… it really did seem like she was afraid. Like she was trying to hide herself away, even though it was impossible.

Kieran knew that feeling. He’d felt it all the time, when he was little, when he’d been picked on for being small and weak. And now they were attacking Ogerpon, the same way. Just like the villagers had shunned her back then…

“Grimmsnarl, don’t – don’t Sucker Punch the masks,” he found himself saying. “Just deflect the attacks with it, okay?”

Grimmsnarl glanced back at him, tilting his head for a moment – but he nodded and did as he was told all the same.

Kieran gritted his teeth as his gaze was drawn to Ogerpon’s suffering again, wishing this would be over faster. How was the Wellspring Mask still standing? And… come to think of it, why hadn’t he spotted Miraidon’s big flashy Electric move going off? He’d seen it in action before – that attack was too spectacular for him to have failed to notice.

The violet dragon was off to the side, panting and grimacing, sparks crackling and building over its body, but… not enough…? “Hang in there, bud.” Juliana stood nearby, encouraging it. “I’m sorry, I know you’re worn out, but Ogerpon needs us!”

Miraidon was struggling to attack? Juliana must have ridden it here all the way from Paldea, so Kieran supposed it made sense that it’d be exhausted from the flight. But to think that even such an amazing legendary Pokémon could have trouble like this…

Emboldened by its trainer’s words, Miraidon kept pushing, straining to summon more electricity. The Teal Mask approached, forming crystals before it – but then Incineroar was there to smack it with a Fake Out, sparing Miraidon from the distraction, giving it the time it needed.

With a fierce bellow, the legendary Pokémon finally mustered up its signature move. It morphed itself into a dazzling wheel of electricity that crackled with power and shot into the Wellspring Mask at lightning speed. Ogerpon cried out in anguish, covering her face with her stubby arms – and the Terastallised mask shattered into dissipating shards.

“Yes!” Carmine exclaimed, punching the air. “One down, three to go!”

The remaining masks juddered to a halt. In the centre, Kieran saw Ogerpon’s eyes widen in horror for a split-second before the dark lightning twisted her again. A glowing aura coalesced out of nowhere, sinking into her.

And the three masks closed in and resumed circling, alarmingly fast.

Incineroar tensed, but the Teal Mask slammed a crystal cudgel into him before he could begin to dodge. He flew across the room, landing in a crumpled heap of red and black fur. Ogerpon was weakened; he resisted it – he should have been able to take the hit just fine, and yet… Had that been a lucky crit…?

The next moment, the Reflect shattered again. Kieran flinched and shielded himself instinctively, and when he looked up, Grimmsnarl was splayed out on the floor beside Incineroar, both of them unconscious.

“Huh?!” Frantically, Carmine threw out a Pokéball. “M-Mightyena! Try to—”

The emerging canine was barely halfway through her Intimidating roar before another mask swung around and smashed into her with lunging crystals. With a pained whine, she collapsed to the ground and didn’t move.

“What?!” spluttered Carmine, staring at the fallen Pokémon then back at Ogerpon. “What gives? How’d Ogerpon suddenly get so fast again?”

“She must have nullified her debuffs,” said Juliana, her eyes wide. “You know, that thing from raid dens?”

“She can do that, too?” Carmine clenched her fists, indignant anger failing to mask her fear. “Sheesh, how are we meant to counter that?! She’s just too strong!”

A soft whimper sounded from in amongst the shattering crystal noises, and Kieran’s gaze flew to Ogerpon in time to see her flinch and grimace. She hadn’t been attacked – that was at… Carmine’s words? Too strong…

Ogerpon shuddered, her whimper rising into a scream of anguish as the dark lightning seized her again. The Teal Mask passed in front, blocking her from view, and a crystalline foot lunged out, right towards – Juliana—!

She was too far forward, too close, it was going to—!

With a desperate roar of alarm, Miraidon swooped in front of its trainer. The impact smashed into the legendary Pokémon, sending it slamming into Juliana, and the two of them skidded backwards in a heap.

“Juliana!” Carmine cried out, as Kieran’s heart leapt into his throat. “Are – are you alright?!”

“Ngh… I, I think so,” she managed, struggling to sit up with Miraidon limp on top of her, reverted to its violet-and-silver base form. “Mostly. But Miraidon…” She patted the dragon’s side sadly before recalling it to free herself. “Thanks, bud.”

“What… what do we do?!” Carmine’s eyes were wide, one hand out uselessly in front of Juliana, who was staggering to her feet. “How do we stop her?! She’s too strong!”

Again, Ogerpon whimpered at those words. Kieran caught another glimpse of her in there, lost and afraid, hunched over like she just wanted to disappear – and it hit him.

Too strong. All this time, she’d been shunned because she was too strong…!

It’d never even crossed his mind before. He’d always been so in awe of her strength – it’d never occurred to him that she might see it differently.

A lifetime of being shunned and hated and attacked by the villagers, all because of her incredible strength. And now here she was, forced to unleash that strength on her own friends, attacked by even them, even the person she trusted most, for doing so…

This… this had to be Ogerpon’s worst nightmare, didn’t it?

Overcome with desperate emotion, Kieran found himself rushing forwards. He didn’t really know what he was going to do, but he had to do something, no matter the risk. (And better if she attacked him than the others, right?)

“I’m not afraid of you!” burst out of him without thought, instinct latching onto what he hoped was the one thing she most needed to hear. “I’ve never been afraid of you, Ogerpon!”

Dark lightning flashed, and a blast of crystals shot out of the mask that circled in front of her. Kieran flinched and tensed but stood his ground. The attack smashed into the floor just by his feet, raining dissipating shards over him.

Kieran’s heart hammered, his breaths coming fast. Okay, he was scared, he couldn’t deny that – but he was scared of that horrible machine and what it was doing to Ogerpon. Not of her. Never of her.

“P-Popon…?”

In the brief glimpses between the masks, through the dark lightning that controlled her almost every movement, it was difficult to make out her expression. But that cry had been more than a grunt of effort or anguish – it was a response. She was listening to his words… right?

Crystalline attacks continued to shatter all around, but Kieran forced himself to ignore them. He and Ogerpon were the eye of the storm. Nothing else mattered.

“I know you don’t wanna hurt us,” he assured her. “I’ve – I’ve always known you weren’t a monster, no matter what the stories said.”

And yet, the stories said she was a killer. Gustavus had reminded Kieran not so long ago of that fact that he’d preferred to forget. She had killed the Loyal Three in their fight. But—

“You… you never meant to kill them, did you?” he said, voicing the realisation as it came to him. “The Loyal Three.” He’d never even wanted to think about it before, but suddenly the answer was obvious. “You were just… too strong. And – an’ you were upset, and angry, and you went too far, because…” Kieran found himself glancing back at his sister, eyes widening as understanding dawned on him. “…‘Cause they’d hurt someone you really loved.”

Carmine stared at him for a moment in surprise. Then she clenched a fist over her chest and looked away with a wince.

“But you didn’t deserve to be hated forever for that one mistake!” Kieran went on, turning back to Ogerpon, wishing there was more he could do for her than just say this. “I’m sorry we’re attackin’ you. We don’t wanna hurt you, but it’s the only way we might be able to save you from that machine.”

“P-Pon… Poni…?”

Were his words helping her…? Ogerpon was still being puppeteered into attacking, crystals lunging out all around her, but none had come as close to Kieran as that first one. Was she… trying to hold back…?

“So… so please, hold on!” he begged. “Keep tryin’ to fight that thing! I know you can do it! ‘Cause… ‘cause you’re strong, Ogerpon!”

“Po…?”

She was, he knew that, had always known that with his whole heart. But all at once, Kieran realised what it really meant.

“I don’t… I don’t mean it like you’re powerful,” he said, fumbling to find the words to express what he was suddenly so certain of. “I mean, you are, but that’s not the point! You’re strong, too, really strong! ‘Cause – ‘cause you’ve suffered, right? All that time bein’ shunned and hated by everyone, but you never gave in! You never stopped bein’ you, an’ you never gave up on what you cared about, did you?” A flash of phantom lightning echoed in the back of Kieran’s mind as his view of Ogerpon blurred – when had he started crying? “Even when it hurt real bad.”

“Kieran’s right!” Juliana rushed forwards to join him, placing herself just slightly in front of him, even though…

“Po… Ponyopo…?”

“Ogerpon, I’m so sorry! I was just thinking of this as another battle I had to win, but it’s not like that at all, is it? I wish there was a better way – but, he’s right, I know you can fight this! We’re all here for you!”

Carmine came to join him on the other side, also just a little in front of Kieran, as if he wasn’t the one Ogerpon would be least upset to accidentally hurt.

She drew herself up to her full height, all traces of her earlier anxiety vanished. “Hah, didja think I was scared for a second there? Of course I wasn’t!” she declared. “I’d never be afraid of our cute pal Ogerpon! Don’t you worry – the Mask Retrieval Squad is back in action as the Ogerpon Rescue Squad! We’ll free you from that stupid machine!”

“P-Ponpon…!” the ogre gasped. “Pon… Ponyaaaah!”

With a great cry, she grimaced and shook, but Kieran could tell this was different. This wasn’t her being helplessly controlled – this was her fighting back against the dark lightning.

And as she did so, the circling of the masks slowed again, just a little. Even without any debuffs, Ogerpon was holding herself back, as much as she could manage.

“That’s it, Ogerpon!” Kieran exclaimed, breaking into a huge grin. “You got this! I knew you would!”

A firm hand grasped his shoulder – his sister, pulling him back and further out of Ogerpon’s range anyway, just in case. Sinistcha still floated by its trainer’s side, the only Pokémon to have escaped Ogerpon’s earlier onslaught.

“Okay, let’s get back to it!” Juliana declared, taking several steps back herself. “Just hang in there, Ogerpon! Kieran – Politoed?”

Kieran’s eyes widened as he remembered his idea for the next phase of the battle. “Uh, r-right!” He fumbled to recall Grimmsnarl, the only one of the fainted Pokémon still out, and threw two more Pokéballs onto the field. “Politoed! Use Weather Ball! Hydrapple, Hydro Pump! Both of you, go for the Hearthflame Mask! Just be careful – she’s still strong!”

Politoed emerged with his usual reverberating croak that heralded dark clouds condensing against the ceiling of the huge room. Already the rain began to fall, and Politoed summoned an orb that drew glowing blue energy from the droplets. Hydrapple reared his main head, preparing a jet of water in his mouth.

Off to the side, Juliana threw out a ball. “Go, Terapagos! Use Water Pulse on the Hearthflame Mask!”

Wait, Terapagos…?

Kieran almost did a double-take as he watched the little tortoise appear and shift into that disk-like battle form. He’d been so mentally thrown back into the Underdepths by everything going on that he’d practically forgotten: Terapagos was fine. It – no, he – was right here, safe with Juliana. There’d been no lasting consequences to Kieran’s awful decision back then.

“Alright, Sinistcha, you’re on official healing duty!” commanded Carmine. “Keep everyone going with Life Dew!”

Sinistcha rattled in acknowledgement and summoned a sparkling mist of droplets around itself and its three teammates as they pelted the Hearthflame Mask with jets and orbs and pulses of water.

Behind the masks, Ogerpon shuddered and grunted in pain, continually forced into her own flailing attacks. The Water moves couldn’t have hurt her that much, but that dark lightning was something else. It was constant, never letting up, barely giving her a moment of relief in between each shock.

Kieran grimaced, his heart aching at the thought of how much agony she must have been going through. He knew what that felt like. All too well.

“It’s gonna be okay, Ogerpon,” he murmured under his breath. “Just… stay strong.”

A moment later, one of her attacks burst out of the Teal Mask as it circled around near Politoed, and Kieran had to call out to his Pokémon to dodge, just in time. He gritted his teeth – as much as he hated it, he couldn’t afford to be caught up on Ogerpon’s suffering. Not when he needed to focus on the battle, for her sake. He knew she was doing all she could to slow herself, weaken her attacks, have them miss, but her efforts could only do so much. She was counting on them, too.

Taking in the patter of rain, that familiar sound present in most of his serious battles, Kieran forced himself to shift his mentality and focus on only his Pokémon. Just Hydrapple, Politoed, and the trio of crystal masks that threatened them. Following the flow of the battle, noticing openings, calling out to his Pokémon – when to dodge or withdraw, when it was safe to go for an attack. Just as Juliana was doing beside him, guiding Terapagos in the same way.

Somewhere in the back of Kieran’s mind, he was reminded of another equally hectic battle, that crazy night in Kitakami, when he’d fended off the villagers possessed by Pecharunt. He’d held his own back then, and he was still managing it now, despite everything. Maybe he really was…?

Even then, by the looks of his Pokémon, they were being steadily worn down. Despite everyone’s efforts, Politoed couldn’t help taking some glancing blows, Hydrapple’s apple beaten and dented from all the times he’d hidden inside it to shield himself – and it seemed like Sinistcha’s healing wasn’t quite making up for it.

“Rrgh…” A frustrated grunt from his sister suggested she’d noticed the same thing. “Sinistcha, go for a Stun Spore!”

Kieran tensed. Stun Spore had a limited range, wouldn’t that—?

Just as he’d feared, Sinistcha had to swoop forward, veering around Hydrapple. Before it could summon any spores, the nearest mask lunged out clumsily with a crystallised foot, perfectly placed to just miss Hydrapple – but it slammed into Sinistcha instead.

The teacup Pokémon clattered to the ground, a small pink berry falling out of it, and Carmine swore loudly. Kieran winced in shared frustration – of all the attacks to land on the Ghost-type, it had to be Knock Off.

A loud whimper from Ogerpon drew his attention back to her. She shuddered, clutching her head as if in guilt. Then the dark lightning took over, twisting her to attack with greater ferocity than a moment ago.

A crystal cudgel shot out of the Teal Mask as it passed in front, so close to—

“Politoed, dodge!” Kieran yelled, only its range was even further than he’d expected—

—and before he could think, he was throwing himself to the side as well. His legs buckled beneath him from the strain of the sudden movement, and he collapsed to the ground in a fresh wave of pain.

“It’s okay, Ogerpon!” he heard Juliana calling out as he struggled to regain his bearings. At least he’d avoided being hit by her attack, but… “You’re doing your best! Keep fighting it!”

Kieran grunted in pained frustration, struggling to push himself to his feet and get back into the fight. He had to keep doing his best too, but it was so hard, his head was throbbing, everything hurt. He wasn’t, of course he wasn’t…

“Kiki.” Suddenly Carmine was there, crouched beside him, one hand on his shoulder. He saw that look of fear and protectiveness in her expression, braced himself for her to tell him to stay out of this, let her take over with his Pokémon because he was too weak to help—

“You need to focus on the battle, right?” she said. There was something else there in her worried gaze, something he’d never noticed before.

Taken aback, Kieran nodded.

“Then just leave the rest to me,” his sister declared, pulling his arm around her shoulder and heaving him to his feet. She grinned, that spark of something else clear in her eyes. She had… faith in him? “What is it you always say? You got this!”

“Y-Yeah!” Kieran managed half a smile back. He turned his attention back to the battle – just in time to see a crystallised vine slam into Politoed, knocking him to the ground, unconscious.

Kieran grimaced, a familiar flood of shame welling up inside him, but he forced it down. He had to keep trying. “S-Sorry, Politoed,” he said, recalling his fallen partner. “You did your best.”

But still, even as the rain was beginning to peter out, the Hearthflame Mask looked soaked, dripping with water, covered in a web of hairline cracks. “One more, Hydrapple!” he called. “It’s almost down!”

“You too, Terapagos!” Juliana added. “Quick, while the rain’s still up!”

Together, Kieran’s partner and Juliana’s legendary Pokémon summoned the power of the remaining rain to hit the fiery mask with two great blasts of water. For a moment, Kieran feared it wouldn’t be enough – but then the mask shattered into pieces, stunning Ogerpon and halting the attacks she’d been preparing.

Like before, the pause was brief. The Teal Mask and Cornerstone Mask closed in to fill the gap, but this time, with only two of them, they didn’t circle. They just stayed there in front of Ogerpon like a wall. Easier to hit, perhaps…? But harder to avoid, too.

Ogerpon glowed for a moment again, and a large shimmering shield formed in front of the two giant crystal masks. Then the dark lightning took hold, forcing her back into attacking.

As another glancing blow landed against Hydrapple’s apple, Kieran blurted out, “S-Syrup Bomb! Cornerstone Mask!”

“Just… stay back for now, Terapagos,” he heard Juliana say.

Hydrapple shot a glob of syrup towards the grey mask, but it splattered against the shield, barely causing any shift in the mask behind it. Even so, he could see the effects of it transferring to Ogerpon, her movements beginning to slow, just a little.

“I thought so – it’s one of those barriers,” said Juliana. “We need to Terastallise to break it.”

“Hang on,” Carmine put in, “can we even Terastallise here? We’re in Unova – there’s no source of Terastal energy!”

And yet, the crystallised chaos of Ogerpon’s Terastallisation was right there in front of them. Was that nothing but the machine’s doing? Or was there…

“No, there is – Ogerpon’s masks are the source!” Kieran realised. They had some kind of Tera crystals embedded in them, didn’t they? Perhaps the machine had amplified that…

He reached into his bag, feeling a familiar if somewhat concerningly intense thrumming, and fished out the item responsible. “Look, my Tera Orb’s reacting!”

“Mine too,” added Juliana, peering at her own. “But… it doesn’t feel stable. I… I don’t want to risk Terapagos like this.”

Right – the only other time the orb’s energy had felt this intense had been down in the Underdepths, and the effect of that on Terapagos… Kieran grimaced. The last thing they needed right now was a second out-of-control legendary on their hands.

“But regular Pokémon should be fine, right…?” he said. “Hydrapple?” He glanced at his longtime partner, worried. Hydrapple’s main head ducked to dodge a strike that was aimed just above him, then caught his trainer’s eye and gave a determined nod, despite how worn-down he seemed.

Should be fine. Juliana’s other Pokémon had been fine Terastallising against Terapagos that time. He had to hope that was enough. And Hydrapple was willing to take this risk – he knew how important this was, too.

“Alright, let’s do this!” Leaning against his sister, Kieran had to brace the thrumming Tera Orb in his uninjured left hand. He winced as it charged up with blinding energy, then tossed it clumsily at his Pokémon. “Use Tera Blast on the Cornerstone Mask! As many as you can!”

Dazzling crystals exploded around Hydrapple, fading away to reveal him sparkling, all five heads roaring, with the fist-shaped Tera Jewel atop the middle one. Ogerpon didn’t resist Fighting, which wasn’t ideal, but it was still the best shot they had. They were running out of options.

To Kieran’s relief, Hydrapple seemed perfectly in control of himself as he began firing off blasts of crystallised energy that smashed into the glowing barrier. At Juliana’s command, Terapagos joined in with Earth Power – his attacks would be greatly dampened by the barrier, but it was better than nothing.

Still, only two Pokémon on their side of the field, and both had already taken a beating, however much Ogerpon had been trying to weaken herself. Kieran had two more in reserve, but Dragonite couldn’t do much against Rock, and Porygon-Z—

No, wait, Porygon-Z wasn’t on his team at the moment. Which was probably a good thing, because the last thing he wanted to do right now was Hyper Beam Ogerpon again.

Instead… “Go, Furret!” It must have seemed ridiculous, sending out a Furret against a superpowered legendary, but Kieran had been trying out doubles strategies with his pal lately, and Furret had the perfect move for this. “We gotta keep Hydrapple and Terapagos up as long as possible, so… use Follow Me!”

Furret gave a squeak of determination and rushed into the fray between his teammates. Waving his paws in a cute little dance, he summoned a small glowing orb that swayed tantalisingly in front of him.

Both attacks shooting out from each of the masks swerved from their original paths, converging on Furret instead. Kieran grimaced as the blows landed, feeling a pang of guilt that his partner’s most useful role in battle was this. But Furret was willing to do this for the team; they’d been over this when he’d learned the move.

And it wasn’t like he didn’t have a back-up plan to help him out. Furret skidded backwards, dazed and battered from the impacts but still standing, the Focus Sash around his neck fading to greyscale. Collecting himself, Furret darted forwards again with an equally determined squeak and began conjuring another Follow Me before Kieran could even order it.

On either side, Hydrapple and Terapagos were taking the opportunity to bombard the shielded Cornerstone Mask with everything they had. Both of them looked to be on their last legs, barely holding on, but they needed to stay in the fight. Kieran didn’t know if they’d manage to break that barrier without the power of a legendary and a Tera Pokémon on their side.

At the sound of a shattering impact and a pained squeal from Furret, Kieran suddenly found himself wrenched sideways with a cry of alarm from Carmine. Something smacked into his shoulder, and he belatedly registered it as Furret, sent flying backwards across the room.

Clinging to his sister, his heart pounding, Kieran fought to steady himself. He turned back, Poké Ball shakily in hand to recall the fallen Furret, only to see the Pokémon’s long body twitch and stir. With a grunt of effort, Furret pushed himself to his small feet, battered and panting from exertion but still determined.

“Furret…!” Kieran gasped in surprise. His Pokémon should have been on the brink of fainting already before taking that hit, and yet… “But… how…?”

A little more slowly than before, Furret scampered forward towards the fray. He stopped for just a moment to rub against Kieran’s side as he passed, as if in silent communication of how and why he’d endured the hit – for you.

Kieran’s breath caught in his throat, the sudden affection from his partner throwing him off-balance. Fleetingly, a part of him wanted nothing more than to pull Furret into a big hug and break into tears.

But now wasn’t the time. They both needed to keep being brave.

“O-Okay! One more!” he called out, somewhat unnecessarily – his Pokémon was already busy summoning another Follow Me light. While Furret braced himself, Carmine gently edged Kieran further to the side, just in case.

This time, as the crystallised attacks slammed into Furret and sent his limp form skidding across the floor, he didn’t rise again. Yet Kieran still couldn’t have been more proud of him.

“Thanks,” he said, recalling his Pokémon, internally apologising once more for having ever thought his precious pal was weak. “You did really, really great.”

Kieran turned back to the battlefield, hoping Furret’s efforts had bought Hydrapple and Terapagos enough time. Despite their exhaustion, they were still valiantly bombarding the Cornerstone Mask with their attacks. The barrier was weakening, covered with a webbing of cracks, almost broken, probably…?

A tinkling cry of pain came from Terapagos as a crystallised foot swept low and clipped him in the side. The tortoise drooped, his eyes closing, and with a grimace, Juliana recalled him. He really had been hanging on by just a thread, hadn’t he?

Kieran gritted his teeth. “Come on, Hydrapple! One more Tera Blast! It’s gotta be almost down!” he urged, desperately hoping that was true, because there was no way Hydrapple could be in any better shape than Juliana’s legendary Pokémon had been.

The hydra roared in determination, his four other heads emerging from the apple to help deliver the latest mighty blast of Terastal energy. At the same time, Ogerpon was forced to swing her cudgel, and the crystallised copy of it emerged from the Teal Mask. It slammed right into Hydrapple, the hydra too focused on attacking to defend himself.

Deafening shattering sounds filled the room. The barrier, the Cornerstone Mask and Hydrapple’s Tera Jewel – all of them disintegrated in the same moment. Kieran flinched, unable to cover both ears with one arm around his sister’s shoulder.

As the noise died down, he recalled Hydrapple and took a look at Ogerpon. Despite the brief moment of respite that the destruction of a mask gave her, she was shuddering, gasping for breath. Kieran’s heart clenched painfully. She looked worse than exhausted, like she should have fainted a while ago, and yet…

Then the lighting seized her, forcing her into attacking again, with no Pokémon between her and the trainers—!

Juliana looked at Kieran, eyes wide, raising her hands in a helpless gesture. “I’m out!”

“H-Huh?!” he spluttered, barely processing that he was somehow the only one left. Just a single Pokémon – “D-Dragonite!” he cried, frantically throwing her ball in front of him.

The dragon emerged with a sharp growl, quickly moving to put herself directly between Kieran and the Teal Mask. A moment later, the floor lit up in sparkling green as Ogerpon summoned Grassy Terrain. Powering up her Grass moves despite Dragonite’s resistance.

Kieran forced himself to think fast. They hadn’t come up with a strategy for this part. Dragonite could use Hurricane for big damage, sure, but with the state Ogerpon was in… He caught another glimpse of her panting and mirrored her grimace. That awful machine must have been overriding her fainting reflex, forcing her to stay conscious and fighting way beyond her body’s safe limits. Kieran didn’t even want to think about what might happen if he attacked her much more like this.

“Just… just defend us,” he said to Dragonite, who nodded. She could buy them time, at least, while they came up with a different approach. But what?

A surprisingly small crystallised lump shot towards Dragonite, and she shifted to take it full-on. The lump stuck to her body, extending small vines that wrapped around her to drain her energy. A Leech Seed…?

“Hang on,” said Juliana. “Aren’t these the first status moves Ogerpon’s used the whole time?”

“Huh!” Carmine remarked. “Now that you mention it, you’re totally right! She’s used nothing but attacking moves until just now!”

“Does… does that mean…?” muttered Kieran. Perhaps the machine had been forcing her to go all-out with offence, which meant… “She’s… got more control now?” Now that there was only one mask left, the power manipulating her could have been weakening, maybe…!

“Grrrah!” An urgent grunt from Ogerpon sounded like a response, like a confirmation. As lightning surrounded her, she shunted her head forwards, and crystalline branch-like horns shot out of the Teal Mask. Dragonite swung her tail, shattering them before they could connect.

That was… Horn Leech…? Another move Kieran didn’t think he’d seen until now. Horn Leech, Leech Seed, Grassy Terrain…

“You’re trying to heal yourself!” Juliana exclaimed, right as the realisation hit Kieran, too. “Just keep hanging in there, Ogerpon! We’ll think of something, I promise!”

Kieran’s heart lifted, just a little, once again in awe of the ogre’s strength. Even with everything she was going through, Ogerpon was still fighting desperately to survive.

“Dragonite, I’m sorry, but… can you just let Ogerpon drain your health?” he asked. “She really needs it.”

Dragonite gave a nod of understanding and swooped directly into the path of the next Horn Leech, barely grimacing as it sapped her strength. At least her double resistance would keep her going for a while yet.

“But what else do we do?!” protested Carmine. She had a point – even with Ogerpon’s greater control, the machine hadn’t relinquished its grip on her. She was still being forced to attack, one way or another.

“We can’t risk destroying the machine,” Juliana muttered, her brow furrowed in fierce thought. “Not when it might kill her. Because the machine’s linked to her now, he said, so taking the Master Ball out won’t help, either.” She let out a frustrated grunt, her fists clenched, seeming uncharacteristically at a loss. “How are we meant to break that connection?”

The mention of the Master Ball tugged at Kieran’s mind, dredging up that outrage he’d felt when it had sucked Ogerpon inside it, his dread as it’d been dragged into the machine. That was how she’d become trapped like this, connected to the machine – through the ball. Except that they couldn’t break the machine’s link with the ball, apparently, not even by pulling it out…

A fleeting memory struck Kieran: the feeling of another Master Ball shaking and juddering in his hand, the sudden painful jerk as the ball snapped in two.

…But they could break the ball’s link with Ogerpon…!

“I’ve got it!” he burst out with. The sudden flash of inspiration, of hope, of surety that this would work – it had to – pulled Kieran out of his sister’s grip despite her protest, carried him on his own two feet around the battlefield to the machine as if he were barely injured. “Ogerpon, remember when Terapagos went crazy?” he called out to her as he went, knowing she had enough strength to be listening through her suffering. “At the start, I tried to recall him, but he fought back, and he broke the Master Ball! If he could do that, you gotta be able to do it, too!” She could, right? She had just as much unnatural power right now as Terapagos had back then. “That’s how we’re gonna free you!”

He heard a grunt of acknowledgement from Ogerpon, heard Dragonite’s wingbeats as she shifted to keep herself between her trainer and Ogerpon’s attacks. On shaking legs, Kieran came to a halt by the machine and stared at the Master Ball on the pedestal at its front, locked in place by a trio of metal claws. That was all they needed. Even if pulling it out alone wouldn’t break the link, Ogerpon could.

As if the machine knew what he was planning, threatening sparks of lightning flickered across the pedestal. And Kieran’s stomach opened up into a gaping maw of ice-cold dread.

Ohhh, man…!

Somehow, he’d forgotten all about that Rotom. He’d forgotten it was hiding there inside the machine, protecting the Master Ball, ready to attack anyone who tried to remove it. Waiting to hurt them, punish them, tor—

And yet, if Kieran wanted to save Ogerpon, he had to… he had to…

“D-Dragonite,” he mumbled, licking his lips, his mouth suddenly very dry. “There’s… there’s a Rotom in this machine. If it comes out after me, I – I need you to beat it with Breaking Swipe, okay?”

In amongst another Horn Leech impact, he heard Dragonite’s uncertain bark of acknowledgement, could only picture her worried expression, because he couldn’t look away from the blinding blue-white sparks around the Master Ball. Afterwards wasn’t the problem, really. Kieran knew he was just stalling, taking any excuse to put it off, even for a few more moments.

“Kiki, wait, you…” Carmine’s halting voice was just over his shoulder; of course she’d had long enough to realise why he was hesitating. “Y-You don’t have to… I mean, one of us can—”

“No, Sis,” Kieran insisted, surprising himself with just how firmly he cut her off. “L-Let me do this. Please.” Even as his insides twisted with gut-wrenching terror at the thought of it, even if he couldn’t express why, he knew this was how it had to go. “I… I gotta do this. Y’know?”

And he could do this. He could. Because he already had.

Just one more. For Ogerpon’s sake.

…Just like they’d all been, hadn’t they?

In a sudden blaze of determination, he reached for the Master Ball with both hands.

Nightmarishly familiar agony overtook him, and Kieran screamed. Then he realised that he could scream, freely – he wasn’t seized in place and helpless like before. The Rotom wanted him to let go, was trying to force him to do so with every ounce of electric pain that coursed through him. But he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t; as long as Ogerpon still needed him to hold on, he was never going to let go.

His searing fingers gripped the ball as tightly as he could, pulling on it with everything he had, and yet it was barely budging. All the while, the pain wrenched back against him, dragging him under, threatening to overwhelm him. Telling him that he was still weak, that nothing had changed since the last time he’d been crying out his agony while pathetically yanking at an object lodged in a pedestal just like this one.

“You can do it, Kieran!”

But outside the raging sea of pain, there was a voice – voices.

“Kiki, I… I believe in you!”

And he had changed, hadn’t he? Things weren’t the same as back then, not any more.

“P-Popon! Ponyo!”

With all of it spurring him on, Kieran redoubled his efforts, screaming with exertion as much as pain, pulling like his life depended on it – and the ball popped loose.

Gasping in relief as the lightning let go, he staggered backwards from the force of his pull, fingers locked tight around his prize. His balance gone, he braced himself to hit the ground, but then his back collided with something large and rubbery that nudged him gently and kept him upright. Dragonite.

“I… I did it…!” Kieran panted, staring at the Master Ball in his hands, hardly able to believe it.

Then he froze as that horrible staticky hum pierced his ears. The Rotom emerged from the machine, jittering towards him—

With a furious roar, Dragonite swooped around Kieran with impressive agility for her build, swiping her huge tail into the plasma ghost and sending it slamming against the wall.

Blinking tears out of his eyes, Kieran tried to stamp down the flare of panic, push past the lingering pain, get a hold of his racing, buzzing thoughts. Dragonite would deal with Rotom. The machine was still lit up and active, as expected, but it wouldn’t be for much longer.

He turned to Ogerpon, flinching as a clumsy Horn Leech shot out of the Teal Mask in his general direction. The attack missed him by a large margin – she was still fighting back. It struck Kieran only now that the machine would surely try to prevent her from resisting the recall beam. But at this point, with the greater control she had… It had to be enough. Right? It had to be.

“Okay! R-Ready, Ogerpon?” he called out.

“Pon…!”

“You just gotta fight back and break the ball! I believe in you!” Kieran pointed the Master Ball at her, bracing his arm in his other hand, his stinging fingers fumbling to press the recall button. “Come back to us!”

He couldn’t see Ogerpon’s form through the glittering Teal Mask as the recall beam hit it, but he could hear her fierce grunt of exertion. She was fighting hard, ripples of light pushing back against the beam, making the ball vibrate in his grip. Kieran had to fight too, just to stay standing, to keep hold of the ball and keep the button pressed, never mind the searing pain in his hand, for however long he had to.

C’mon, please let this work, it can’t all be for nothing, please…

He flinched at a sudden, painful snap against his grip, the same as he’d felt once before, and his heart leapt. Split into two pieces, the Master Ball clattered to the ground. The Terastallised Teal Mask faded away in sparkles of light, leaving Ogerpon standing behind it, finally free.

A laugh of delight and relief burst out of Kieran. “You did it!” he exclaimed, clumsily punching the air, a huge grin on his face. “Wowzers… W-We really did it…!”

His cheer faltered as he saw Ogerpon’s state of sheer exhaustion, the way she staggered like she could barely stay upright.

“Ogerpon!” Juliana rushed forward and skidded to her knees in time to catch her Pokémon before she collapsed. “It’s okay now,” she murmured. The ogre sank into her arms, shuddering and whimpering softly. “You’re gonna be okay.”

“Po… Ponyopo…”

From somewhere off to the side, a series of furiously indignant muffled grunts were making themselves heard. Kieran had almost forgotten that Gustavus was still here, at the edge of the room. Dragonite was staring in his direction but doing no more than that, which meant the man must still have been safely trussed up and immobile.

Kieran almost turned around to make sure with his own eyes, but he couldn’t find it in him to muster the energy. It struck him that Gustavus just… didn’t matter any more. He hadn’t mattered, hadn’t had any power, for the entirety of the battle. There was something incredibly freeing about that thought.

“I’m so sorry,” Juliana was still saying to Ogerpon, gently, soothingly. “I’m so sorry we had to hurt you, it must have been horrible, you must have been so scared. But you were so brave! You fought so hard, I’m so proud of you!” She kept holding Ogerpon, stroking her back as the ogre’s shuddering gradually steadied. “It’s alright now. It’s over. You’re safe, just leave the rest to me, okay?”

Something about the way Juliana was speaking was somehow different from what Kieran was used to from his friend. As he watched her comforting her Pokémon, it dawned on him that… maybe this had always been why Ogerpon had chosen Juliana. Not because of her strength, but simply because she was able to make Ogerpon feel safe, in the way she needed most.

She really was safe now. They’d done it, and it was over, and… and Kieran was utterly exhausted. All of his body’s aches and pains that he’d been forcing himself to ignore were flaring up in earnest. He groaned, his head spinning, wondering how on earth he’d managed to stay on his feet for so long. No chance of that any more—

“Kiki!” Suddenly Carmine was there, catching him, taking his weight before he could fall. “I gotcha, don’t worry.” With a grateful mumble, Kieran leaned into her, hearing a low croon from behind him as he felt Dragonite’s paw against his back.

“Kieran…” said Juliana, turning to him in concern. Despite his pain and exhaustion, Kieran smiled. He wasn’t alone either.

Weakly, Ogerpon pulled out of the embrace just enough to look at him, too. “Popon, poni?”

Without a mask covering her face, Kieran could see something new in there, something he’d never…

“Ogerpon… You’re… worried about me?”

Ogerpon blinked and tilted her head slightly with an expression that seemed to say, why wouldn’t I be?

Staring at that look in her eyes, Kieran’s instinctive rebuttals faltered. Why wouldn’t she be worried? For some reason, he’d had it in his head that Ogerpon just didn’t care about him one bit, but on reflection, that was a pretty silly thing to think, wasn’t it?

“Yeah… Thanks, Ogerpon.”

Of course she cared. A strange warmth welled up inside Kieran, bringing more tears with it as that simple truth sank in. He hadn’t been able to become her partner, but… he still mattered to her, didn’t he?

Perhaps that was all he’d ever really wanted all along.

~~~​

 

[elyvorg]

Epilogue​

– One foot in front of the other –​

Everything after the battle went by in a blur. The others were a flurry of activity, rounding up Gustavus and all of his Team Hydra grunts, calling in medics and police, making sure everything was dealt with. Injured and exhausted as he was, Kieran was content to just let himself get swept up in everyone else’s arrangements. He trusted his friends to handle things, taking comfort in the knowledge that the worst of it was over. Ogerpon was safe, and so was he.

He found himself brought to a hospital in a nearby Unovan city. Carmine insisted on coming with him, staying at his bedside as much as she was allowed to, which was fine by him. She kept him company with her usual chatter, relaying periodic updates from the others’ texts about how things were going.

The Blueberry Elite Four were helping get everything sorted out with Unova’s law enforcement, thanks in part to some of them being related to Gym Leaders. Juliana, meanwhile, was staying at the Pokémon Center to be there for Ogerpon. The rest of their Pokémon had been fine with just a regular heal, but after that awful mind-control forcing Ogerpon to overexert herself so badly, she needed much more intensive care than a simple healing machine could provide. Juliana reassured them that apparently her condition was ‘serious, but stable’.

Kieran tried to push down the pang of worry he couldn’t help but feel. He knew Ogerpon would pull through. She was strong.

Thankfully, all of his own injuries were relatively minor. There were just… a lot of them. He needed rest, but there was no reason he couldn’t do that in more familiar surroundings. After that first day in hospital, Kieran was allowed back to Blueberry Academy, on the condition that he stayed in his dorm room and avoided going to classes or training for a week.

At first, he worried it’d be a lot like his break in Kitakami, with nothing to stop him from dwelling on everything that had happened. But it turned out not to be nearly as bad, because he had friends to keep him company.

Crispin spent a lot of time hanging out with Kieran in his room, rewatching episodes of their favourite show together, chatting as if everything was completely normal. He even made a concerted effort to actually take notes for the classes Kieran was missing, which Lacey then helped Kieran decipher and learn the material from.

The tutoring sessions with Lacey were another refreshing piece of normality in amongst everything. Kieran didn’t even mind that he wasn’t really getting out of having to do schoolwork – it was good to have something to take his mind off things. Writing with his left hand was a little frustrating, but he managed. And he didn’t have to worry about missing the battling classes, since he was already way ahead in those.

As for Drayton… well, Drayton had finally stopped calling him ‘ex-Champ’, at least. Kieran took this as a chance to try and probe further about smoothing things over between them, but Drayton just acted oblivious to the idea that there’d ever been any tension at all, leaving Kieran still unsure where he stood. Even so, hearing the older trainer use his actual name now felt like some kind of progress. And Drayton had put a genuine effort into mounting the rescue mission, according to Carmine of all people, which had to mean something. Probably.

Carmine visited him a lot, of course, often with Amarys there as well. On one such visit, Amarys insisted on giving him the last of the syrupy apples that Carmine had brought for her from Kitakami. Kieran savoured the taste of it when he had the chance. It reminded him of home, and happy days.

Each time night fell, though, things grew harder. Lying in bed trying to sleep, without friends visiting or activities to keep him busy, Kieran found his mind beset by thoughts of what had happened after all.

Even then, he wasn’t alone. He had his Pokémon. This was another thing that was different from his break in Kitakami back then: his Pokémon seemed to get it more. Last time, even aside from all of the painful apologies, Kieran had struggled to articulate what the problem had even been in such a way that his Pokémon could grasp. But this time… well, he still had difficulty getting words around things, for a rather different reason, but by the sounds of it, Dragonite had filled the others in on what she knew.

In the end, he supposed that ‘he was kidnapped; he was hurt; he’s safe now’ was all they really needed to understand. In a way, that was all Kieran could manage to wrap his head around for now, too. Despite his injuries being physical proof, now that he was back in familiar surroundings, it all felt so distant and unreal. There was a part of him that could barely believe something that overwhelmingly awful had really happened to him.

But it had. And he’d made it through, and he was still here.

Here, in the night-time dimness of his dorm room, he was surrounded by the Pokémon who’d been his only friends for so many years – Applin, Sentret, Yanma, the Poliwag siblings, all grown-up and evolved now. They didn’t judge, or pity, or ask difficult questions like a human might. They were just… there, knowing he’d been through hell and caring so much.

Here, in their company, Kieran found himself overcome with indescribable emotion, and it burst out of him in floods of tears.

He found himself clinging to Furret, burying his face in the Pokémon’s soft fur as he sobbed his heart out. Furret didn’t mind, pressing into him, wrapping his long body around Kieran in his best approximation of a hug. All the while, Yanmega, Poliwrath, Politoed and Hydrapple stayed close, not alarmed by his outburst, just making quiet noises of sympathy.

It was as if Kieran’s Pokémon knew that he needed this, and… maybe he did. The ordeal was long over; he was completely safe here, and yet the shudders and sobs wracking his body felt just like they had when Carmine had first arrived to rescue him. Letting all of the pain out, now that he finally could.

Dragonite was there too, separate from the rest of his Pokémon. She was too big to fit into the bedroom area of his dorm room, at least without risk of her huge tail knocking everything off his desk, so instead, she sat quietly in the hallway section, watching the door. Guarding it. Kieran knew – and Dragonite must have known, too – that the chances of anyone coming after him again were basically zero… but all the same, it was a great reassurance to have her there.

He appreciated her devotion more than he could express, but it still mystified him – why she’d gone so far to save him, when he wasn’t even her original trainer. When he’d never done anything more than train her for battling.

In the end, Kieran wound up voicing this confusion to Carmine, during one of the mornings she was there keeping him company.

“Huh? Of course that makes sense!” she responded, beaming back at his look of bewilderment. Then her expression shifted into concern. “See, when you said you wanted to trade for Dratini, you were… well, you know… all obsessed with training and getting stronger. I could barely even talk to you back then. So I told Dratini about how different you were acting, and how worried I was, and I just… asked her to look out for you, y’know? ‘Cause I couldn’t. Seems like she really took that to heart, huh?”

That was all there was to it. Because Carmine had asked her to. Because his sister cared about him, so did Dragonite. Maybe there didn’t need to be any greater reason than that.

The daytime hours continued to pass with plenty to keep him occupied. There were regular check-ins with the school nurse, as well as visits from members of the Unova police to reassure him Team Hydra were being taken care of, and to discuss his options going forward. Carmine relayed updates from Juliana, too: Ogerpon was doing well, recovering slowly but surely.

After a few days, Kieran received letters from their friends in Paldea, who must have heard about everything that had happened from Juliana.

Arven shared his sympathies for what sounded like a rough time, and relief that Kieran was doing okay. His letter also included some recipes for meals that might help injuries heal, which Crispin helped Kieran cook in his kitchenette. He didn’t know whether or not they did anything for his health, but they sure tasted good.

Nemona seemed disgruntled that she hadn’t been part of their battle against Ogerpon, and wished in particular that she could have seen how awesome Kieran was back there. She promised to battle him even more than normal next time she visited, to make up for it. Kieran imagined that was her way of trying to cheer him up. It would be fun to take her on again, no stakes, just battling for its own sake.

And Penny’s, written in a near-indecipherable scrawl, contained awkward but sincere well-wishes, followed by a tirade about how annoying and inconvenient it was to send letters in this day and age, and how on earth did he survive without a phone. She had a point there, Kieran supposed. Now that he actually had friends to keep in touch with, he really ought to finally get himself a phone one of these days. Just… maybe one without a Rotom in it. For now, at least.

His Elite Four friends continued to visit, but the more they did, the more Kieran became uncomfortable about the state his dorm room was in. Even though none of them made any comment on it, it still bothered him. He’d always meant to tidy things up ever since he got back from Kitakami, but if he was honest, he’d been avoiding the task until now by hardly ever spending time in here. Now that he was stuck here for a week, though, it was a lot harder to ignore.

Eventually, he mustered up the courage to ask his friends if they’d maybe be willing to help him with the tidying – and to his surprise, they were happy to do so. Well, except for Drayton, who suddenly remembered something vague yet very urgent he needed to do elsewhere and made himself scarce. Crispin looked alarmed when the idea was first suggested but then threw himself with gusto into cleaning up the kitchenette, while Lacey and Amarys, along with Carmine, helped Kieran find ways to slowly organise the mess in the main bedroom area.

As the task progressed, throwing out piles of empty vitamin bottles and sorting through stacks and stacks of scrawled strategy notes, Kieran began to understand why he’d really been putting this off. Not because the tidying itself was especially daunting, but because it meant facing up to the person he’d been back when the room had become this way.

The memories were still there, clear as day. How much he’d bullied himself relentlessly, demanding he stay awake for yet another hour, making yet another page of notes that he could barely focus on through his exhaustion-fogged brain. Sometimes he’d even fallen asleep at his desk, only to wake up way too early from his alarm and drag himself down to the Terarium to begin the day’s training. He couldn’t afford rest, he’d thought, couldn’t afford to let up for even a single moment, or else…

…Or else what? His memories didn’t have a proper answer to that. With his friends here alongside him, helping him out simply because he’d asked them to, he knew more than ever that there never had been a good answer, no matter how convinced he’d been that he had no choice but to do this to himself.

Perhaps he just hadn’t quite had it in him to confront all of that, until now. That he’d caused so much suffering for himself, and so many others, for no good reason.

But Kieran knew now that he wasn’t that person any more. And he’d make sure he never would be again.

In a way, it felt satisfying to finally pack up that chapter of his life in a neat, organised way, and put it behind him. He kept most of the strategy notes – he might want to use them later, whenever he got back into battling competitively, after all.

Meanwhile, Kieran’s night-times slipped into what was almost a routine. He’d crawl into bed, cuddle with Furret, and wait for the tears to start flowing. Sooner or later, the darkness and the quiet would always dredge up different memories from his ordeal, bringing the flood of painful emotions along with them.

The lightning, the fragmented flashes of agony that he’d been forced to – no, that he’d chosen to endure, for Ogerpon. Perhaps worst of all, his sheer helplessness to escape the pit of suffering that had felt like it would go on forever. Somehow, it had never even crossed his mind that of course his sister and his friends would be looking for him. He really had been utterly, dreadfully convinced that it would never, ever end.

Yet here he was, safe in his dorm room with his Pokémon. Poliwrath and Politoed sat on the floor nearby, while Yanmega perched on the end of his bed. They surrounded him with a gentle, steady chorus of croaking and chittering sounds, blocking out the echo of the Rotom’s horrid staticky hum completely. Through his sobs, Kieran focused on their voices, slowing his shuddering breaths to match their rhythm.

Sometimes instead it was the water pressing in on him, flooding him, his aching, leaden limbs flailing desperately to no avail. The terror of feeling so completely small and powerless in the grip of such an overwhelming force of nature, convinced that he was going to drown, all because he was—

But Hydrapple laid his head on Kieran’s pillow, filling the air with his sweet, syrupy scent that was nothing like the acrid taste of seawater in his mouth. He breathed it in steadily between sniffles. It was a nostalgic smell, almost like the syrupy apples from the festivals in Kitakami, but with a hint of something different and new.

And once or twice, he’d be gripped by that crushing sense of failure from lying there on the floor, battered and useless, unable to stop Ogerpon being captured and controlled no matter how hard he’d tried.

Then Kieran opened his eyes, and Dragonite was there in the dim light of his room, steadfastly watching the door as always, his silent guardian. His friends and his Pokémon had dropped everything to come and save him from that nightmare, just like he’d given it his all to save Ogerpon from hers. Despite everything they’d both suffered, they were going to be okay.

So many things to shed tears over. Yet he was pretty sure that these sobbing sessions towards the end of the week had become at least a little less intense than they had been near the beginning. It was almost strange how comforting the crying could be, just holding onto Furret, running his hands through his Pokémon’s soft fur and letting everything out.

It reminded Kieran of a time when he’d been so much younger. Overwhelmed by everything that’d made him feel small and weak, there’d been many nights when he would hug Sentret hard and weep into his fur, promising that one day they’d become strong together.

It’d been a much more rocky, regret-filled road than he’d ever imagined back then, but… here they were, all the same.

By the end of the week, Kieran’s injuries were doing a lot better. His bruises had mostly faded, and he could flex the fingers on his right hand without them hurting too much. After all that time in his room, he was eager to stretch his legs and see somewhere else for a change.

On the morning he was finally allowed to do so, just as he was thinking about where he might head first, he received a knock on the door. Expecting it to be his sister or maybe one of the Elite Four, he opened it, only to find…

“Huh? Juliana?”

“Hi, Kieran!” she said, beaming. She paused there in the doorway, almost awkward, until suddenly she stepped forward and hugged him.

Kieran froze, taken aback, but then he leaned gratefully into his friend’s arms.

After a moment, Juliana pulled away, still smiling. “I heard you got off bed rest today!” she said. “And guess what?”

Before Kieran could respond, she opened a Poké Ball in a flash of light, and Ogerpon was standing there in his dorm room hallway, peering up at him. “Popon!”

“Ogerpon…?” Kieran breathed, his heart filling with relief to see her looking healthy again. “Does that mean… you’re all better now?”

“Poni pon! Ponyo!” she responded with a little bounce in her step.

“Yup!” Juliana confirmed. “She got out of the Pokémon Center last night! Though she’s still got to avoid any serious battling for another week or so.”

“Hehe… Same here,” Kieran said to Ogerpon, grinning. “But I sure am glad to see you’re okay!”

“Poni! Pon…” Ogerpon glanced away shyly, hesitating – then she ran forward and wrapped her stubby arms around Kieran’s waist in a hug.

“H-Huh…?!” Wowzers… Kieran looked down at her, dumbfounded, hardly able to believe this was happening. Was she… thanking him…?

“Um… Y-You’re very welcome…” he managed to say, hugging her back gently. “I just… just really wanted to do my best for you, y’know?”

Ogerpon stepped away and beamed up at him. “Pon!”

From there, the three of them decided to head down to the Terarium together. Ogerpon ran in happy circles around them as they made their way through the school building to the elevator, only stopping to hide behind her trainer when other people walked past. Kieran chatted away to Juliana, filling her in on the things he’d been doing with his sister and the Elite Four for the past week, and the letters from their friends in Paldea.

There was just something about Juliana that made her easier for Kieran to talk to than anybody else he knew. She wasn’t that talkative herself, but not in a timid way – in a way that felt like she was interested and happy to listen, without judging or talking over him or putting him down. It was that same quality that had given Kieran the courage to share with her how he’d felt about the ogre, way back during the school trip when they’d only just met.

That felt like such a long time ago now.

By the time they made it out into the Terarium, Kieran’s legs were beginning to ache just a little, a sign that he still wasn’t quite done recovering. He didn’t feel up to a big trek through any difficult terrain, so they settled for setting up a picnic nearby in the Savanna Biome. Simply being out in the open air again was enough for now.

Besides, it was already a handful just keeping an eye on their two teams of Pokémon to make sure none of them got into trouble. Kieran had picked a spot next to a waterhole for the sake of his Water-types; Poliwrath promptly set to chasing off some local wild Sobble and a Doduo that had stopped for a drink, so that she and her brother had a nice damp spot to wallow in. Yanmega buzzed excitedly around the trainers’ heads, forgetting as she often did since her evolution that she was now six feet long. Ogerpon was playing a game of trying to hit Meowscarada’s levitating flower with her cudgel, while Miraidon sat down very close to Juliana, peering at her expectantly.

That meant sandwiches, of course, and Kieran ended up helping Juliana to make Ogerpon’s favourite kind, as a treat to celebrate her recovery. There was relatively little squabbling between Hydrapple’s heads over who got to eat his portion, now that Kieran had taken to cutting it into five smaller pieces. Then once everyone was done eating, he treated Furret to a nice bath – it seemed only right after all the tears that had been staining his fur lately.

As Furret basked in the warm air to dry out, Kieran sat down to relax with his back against Dragonite, who’d dozed off sitting up. Juliana sat nearby, and Terapagos, remarkably unassuming in his base form for such an incredible Pokémon, toddled over to receive some chin scratches from her.

Watching the little tortoise, Kieran found his mind wandering. There was that familiar pang of guilt for what he’d done to the legendary Pokémon, even though he’d apologised and Terapagos didn’t seem mad at him any more. That thought spurred the memory of a different Master Ball sailing through the air, the biggest gut-punch in a long line of all those uncomfortable familiarities about Gustavus.

…Or rather, Gus.

That was another thing. It turned out the man’s real name was actually just Gus; the longer name was nothing but a self-styled moniker. It shouldn’t have made a difference, really, but something about that simple fact put things into perspective. Despite his attempts to play himself up as intimidating and all-powerful, Gus was nothing but an ordinary person with a twisted view of strength.

In a lot of ways, it helped Kieran to be able to think of his tormentor that way. But at the same time, it was unnerving to realise that any regular person could end up like him. All they had to do was think of strength in the wrong way and made a series of bad choices…

It had been on his mind a lot, since what had happened. The day he’d tidied up his dorm room, he’d found himself wanting to voice these thoughts to someone – perhaps his sister, who’d come to hang out with him for the evening. She’d been there for most of it, after all.

But as soon as Kieran mentioned that he wanted to talk about Gus, Carmine grimaced and looked away. “You mean… the bit where I had Mightyena attack him?”

He hadn’t meant that at all, but now that she’d brought it up, he couldn’t help but think back to that awful moment. To see his sister be capable of something so cruel…

“It… You really scared me,” he muttered, hiding his gaze behind his lock of hair.

“I know,” she said, sighing. “I’m so sorry, Kiki. I never wanted to do that to you.”

They sat there on his bed in silence for a moment, as Kieran tried to figure out how to come out with what he’d actually wanted to say.

In the end, Carmine broke the silence first. “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about that thing you said to Ogerpon,” she mused. “How she went too far ‘cause someone she loved had been hurt. I guess… I’ve gotta learn from her mistake, right? I don’t want people thinking I’m a monster like they did for poor Ogerpon. ‘Specially not you.”

“Yeah…” Kieran murmured. It lifted his spirits a little to think that what he’d said to Ogerpon had helped his sister, too.

“Still…” Carmine went on. Her gaze darkened, not meeting his eye. “I get that it was bad, and I’m not gonna do it again, but… part of me doesn’t regret it, y’know? That lowlife scumbag… knowing what he did to you, I just…” She screwed up her face, her fists clenching tight against the bedsheets.

“It’s okay, Sis,” Kieran said. He put a hand on her arm and tried to give a reassuring smile. “I’m gonna be okay.”

Even so, her reaction had very much made him drop what he’d been planning to voice to her. It didn’t exactly seem like she’d be receptive to Kieran’s worries that he was similar to the man.

But Juliana was different. “There’s, um… something I wanted to talk to you about,” he said to her, tearing his gaze away from Terapagos. “About…” He swallowed. “About… Gus.”

She merely nodded and watched him expectantly. Not putting words in his mouth – just waiting for him to find them for himself.

“He… I mean, I…” Man, this was hard to admit out loud, even to her. “I…” He screwed his eyes shut and tried not to think about it, to just blurt the words out all at once. “I felt like I might be the same as him…!”

As he opened his eyes with a wince, he found Juliana looking at him in surprise. “Huh? What are you talking about?! You’re nothing like him!”

“I… I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Kieran peered at her nervously through his lock of hair. “Throwin’ a Master Ball from behind, at a legendary Pokémon…?”

Juliana glanced at Terapagos, eyes widening in recognition. She fell quiet, concerned, giving Kieran room to speak.

“I-It’s not just that,” he went on. “There was a lotta stuff he said to me. He was obsessed with Ogerpon too, ‘cause of how str— how powerful she was. An’ he kept talkin’ like, because he was stronger than everyone else, he could just do what he wanted. Like that gave him the right to just own her, and use her, and…”

Kieran broke off, his voice tight with guilt and shame. Could Juliana really not tell how much it sounded like he was talking about himself? He took a moment to breathe, blinking away some of the tears that were pricking at his eyes.

“I-I mean… wasn’t I a bit like that, too, when things were bad?” he asked, not quite able to look at his friend. “I keep thinkin’… if it’d gone differently, if I’d made more bad choices… I coulda turned out like him. It’s… well, it’s a scary thought,” he finished awkwardly.

He wasn’t sure how he expected Juliana to respond. She took a moment to do so, peering at him thoughtfully like she was trying to understand.

“But you didn’t turn out like him,” she said at last, matter-of-fact. “You… you made better choices, in the end. Right? So you’re better than him.”

Kieran let out a breath. “…Yeah, you’re right.” he agreed. “I guess… I knew that already. But it feels good to hear you say it too.” He managed a smile, and Juliana beamed back at him.

Kieran hadn’t ended up as bad as Gus had, had he? And he was determined never to do so. That was what mattered.

He supposed this was another part of that ‘real strength’, the kind he’d only begun to understand as he was calling out to Ogerpon during the battle. With everyone treating her like a monster already, it would have been so easy for Ogerpon to have let herself actually become one. But she’d stayed true to herself, despite the pain it brought. And so had Kieran, in the end.

Even when it had been so hard, and everything hurt, and a desperate part of him felt like he had no choice but to keep going down that path as a way to escape it all… on some level, Kieran had always known what he was doing was wrong. At the time, it had felt impossible to break free, and yet somehow, he’d found the courage to do so. That made all the difference.

He sighed and leaned back against Dragonite, brushing those thoughts aside. The Terarium really was a beautiful place, and in his best friend’s company, just here to have fun and relax, the air in here felt a lot lighter than it had in a while. Terapagos lay down and curled up against Juliana’s side, beginning to doze off. Meowscarada was also taking a nap in the warm pseudo-sunlight, so now Ogerpon was engaged in some light sparring with Ceruledge, cudgel against swords. And it looked like Politoed had made peace with the Sobble, since one of them was now perched atop his head.

With a twitch of his ears, Furret scampered up to snuggle into Kieran’s lap – or try to, at least, though only about half of him fitted there. Kieran smiled and ran a hand through his Pokémon’s fur. It had only just dried, so it was wonderfully fluffy right now.

Having Furret there, that familiar comforting presence, gave Kieran a spark of courage. There was another thing on his mind, something he’d made a silent resolution about during all that time hugging Furret in bed.

“Actually, um… There’s somethin’ else I wanted to tell you!” He hadn’t voiced it aloud yet – but if he did, it’d help make sure he wouldn’t run away from his decision.

Juliana looked at him, inquisitive.

“See, I made up my mind,” Kieran said, taking a deep breath. “I-I’m gonna testify to the Unova police, about Gus.” His hand tightened on Furret, who nuzzled him reassuringly. “About what he did to me. How he t… tortured me.” The word came out with a wince, and a pang somewhere within him, but nothing more.

“Huh?” Juliana responded, and for a moment he was afraid that she hadn’t known – but no, it looked like Carmine must have told her. There was no shock there in her expression, only sympathy and concern. “Are you sure? You don’t have to—”

“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “The police lady said so too, that it was up to me.” And though a part of him had wanted to take that easy way out, to never have to talk or think about it ever again… he knew now that wouldn’t solve anything. “But… I wanna do it. I know it’s gonna be real scary, talkin’ about it… but I think I can manage it.”

It really was going to be hard, putting that awful experience into words. But in some ways, it didn’t feel any scarier than the thought of apologising to everyone in the League Club had, and he’d managed that, hadn’t he?

Furret peered up at him and gave an encouraging squeak.

With a small smile, Kieran scratched behind Furret’s ears, feeling a little bolder. “I wanna do whatever I can to make sure he can’t ever hurt anyone else like he hurt me an’ Ogerpon. That’s why I’m doin’ it.”

Juliana was still staring at him, but her concern had given way to something else. “Sounds like you’re determined!” she said. After a pause, she added, “…You’re really something, Kieran.”

Kieran’s eyes widened, his mouth hanging open, just at hearing that from Juliana of all people. And somehow, she wasn’t even the only person he looked up to who’d said that to him recently – so had his sister, that evening they’d talked about what she’d done to Gus.

“Y’know, Kiki, you’re really something.” Carmine took hold of the hand he’d laid on her arm, gripping it tight. “I mean, you’re the one all that awful stuff actually happened to, and yet look at you! You’re really showing your big sis up here.”

Kieran frowned. “What do ya mean?”

“C’mon, don’t make me come out and say it!” She gritted her teeth in frustration and glanced away, her voice lowering to a mumble. “That you’re… you’re better at this than me.”

“Huh? Better at what?”

“I dunno, this.” Carmine gestured vaguely at the two of them, then dropped her arm back onto the bed, as if in defeat. “Dealin’ with tough stuff. You tell me.”

Squeezing his sister’s hand back, Kieran almost wanted to protest that he wasn’t good at it at all. She hadn’t seen all those nights he’d spent sobbing into Furret’s fur, she didn’t know the half of it— but something stopped him. It was hard, dealing with it all, of course it was, but now that she mentioned it, well… he was managing, despite that. After all, being kidnapped, being tortured – he’d have expected something like that to turn him into a total wreck. And yet, under the circumstances, wasn’t he actually handling it all… surprisingly well…?

“I mean it,” Juliana said, and Kieran was pulled back into the present, realising that he’d been doing nothing but stare dumbly at her since she’d complimented him. “I’m…” – she paused, as if she was struggling to find words – “…really, really proud of you.”

Kieran let out a brief laugh of surprise. A funny, tingly feeling spread through him, the same as he’d felt the first time Juliana had called him a friend. “F-For real?”

It was a reflexive question, but now that he looked, he could already see it was true. That expression on her face, one he almost hadn’t recognised because he never dreamed he’d see it – that was admiration. From her, towards him.

“Of course!” Juliana insisted. She paused again, glancing away, like she was feeling awkward, embarrassed, even though that didn’t make any sense for her. “I mean… remember when we first met?” she said, haltingly. “You were so shy… You’ve… you’ve been through so much, and… well, I just think it’s really cool,” she concluded. “How far you’ve come.”

She gave a smile, one that really was kind of awkward. “Sorry, I’m… not good with words sometimes,” she confessed. “But I mean it.”

“Wowzers…” Kieran breathed. He chuckled nervously, one hand going to fiddle with his lock of hair, hiding his flustered gaze. “Th-That sure means a whole lot, comin’ from you…”

He was spared from any more compliments he didn’t know how to process as Ogerpon strolled towards them, still with a bounce in her step. She must have been so glad to be out of the Pokémon Center and able to run around again after all that time forced to rest. Kieran knew how that felt.

“Hey, Ogerpon, guess what?” Juliana said. “Kieran’s gonna help make sure that bad guy won’t hurt anyone else again!”

“Pon? Ponyo!” Ogerpon turned to him with a fierce look of determination, like she was cheering him on for an upcoming battle.

Kieran managed a shy smile. It wouldn’t exactly be anything like a battle, but… “I’m… I’m gonna do my best…!”

With a squeak and a perk of his ears, Furret unspooled out of Kieran’s lap to scamper towards the ogre. Ogerpon’s face lit up, and she dashed away together with him. Ceruledge seemed to have had enough of sparring, but now Ogerpon had Furret as a playmate, the two of them chasing each other back and forth in what looked a bit like a game of tag.

Kieran beamed as he watched them, relieved beyond words to see Ogerpon so lively and energetic. After everything she’d been through, she’d bounced back remarkably well. That really was the kind of strength he’d always admired in her the most, even if he hadn’t quite realised it for all that time.

And, as incredible as it seemed to think it… that same kind of strength was something Kieran could admire in himself, too.

~~~​