Anne's world was reduced to the ringing in her ears and the cold dust on her lips. She knelt by the destroyed tunnel, staring at the hole in the ceiling where Elias had vanished.
Then, from the ruins of the cavern, a deep chuckle cut through the silence.
A mound of shattered rock and melted metal shifted. With a powerful heave, a Rhyperior rose from the debris, shedding rubble like water. In its protective hulk's shadow, Giovanni stood up, brushing dust from his suit. A few scratches marred his cheek, but he looked otherwise untouched, exhilarated even.
His gaze swept over the annihilated cavern, and his chuckle bloomed into a full, rich laugh.
"Magnificent!" He breathed, his eyes alight with a feverish glow. He looked at the hole, then back towards the ruins of the cavern.
He stepped over a still-glowing patch of floor, his boots clicking on the vitrified stone. He stopped, looking at Anne as if just noticing her.
"Did you see the power of Corodity?" He asked, looking at her. "That thing far exceeded my expectations. It was powerful... I wonder how strong Faradity if it managed to seal that power."
Anne pushed herself to her feet, her whole body trembling with rage. She faced Giovanni, Decidueye rising shakily beside her.
"You're sick!" She spat. "That thing is a catastrophe! Releasing it means the destruction of this region! No one will be able to stop it."
"No one?" Giovanni's amused smile didn't waver. "Then that is precisely why it must be captured."
He took a step, his hands clasped behind his back.
"At first, my plan is to find Faradity and use its power for control. But then, I found this mountain. The Mala's Spine." He looked down, as if remembering something. "I made my grunts dig and dig until we stumbled upon the history. I didn't understand it at first, but I have a strong feeling that it's hiding a secret. I sent my executives all across the region, searching for the history that might connect what was carved in the stone—"
Before Giovanni could say anything further, the mountain shook.
A deep cracking sound, echoed through the ruined cavern. A massive chunk of the ceiling, broke loose and crashed down behind Giovanni, missing him by feet and sending up a new plume of dust and debris. The floor beneath Anne's feet shuddered and tilted.
The entire mountain was coming down.
"It seems the mountain itself is crashing down without the foundation." He said, his voice cutting through the rumbling.
He recalled his Rhyperior in a flash of red light. Then, he threw another ball, releasing a Charizard. It materialized with a roar, its wings beating against the choking dust.
Giovanni mounted it, and cast one last look at Anne, stranded on the tilting floor as the world collapsed around her.
"The hunt begins." He stated, as if to himself.
With a powerful downbeat of Charizard's wings, he shot upward, aiming straight for the hole Corodity had created. He vanished into the dark, leaving Anne and her wounded Decidueye alone in the shuddering, crumbling mountain.
"Decidueye!" Anne screamed over the roar of falling rock. Decidueye, despite its injuries, was at her side in an instant. The cavern was collapsing in earnest now—chunks of rock the size of cars were plummeting from above.
Anne's eyes darted desperately. The staircase they'd originally come from was half-buried under a landslide of rubble. The tunnel Corodity had made was their only visible way out.
Another quake nearly threw her off her feet.
There was no time.
"Decidueye, can you fly us up?" She yelled, pointing at the hole.
Decidueye looked up, then at its own singed wings. It gave a determined nod, wrapping its talons around the back of Anne's jacket. With a straining beat, it lifted them both off the floor.
Each labored flap sent a jolt of pain through the bird, mirrored in the tight grip of its talons on Anne's jacket.
Anne clung to Decidueye's legs, her knuckles white. The roar of the collapsing mountain below was a constant, growing thunder. Chunks of debris, shaken loose by the tremors, began to rain down around them. A piece of rebar whistled past her head, missing by inches.
They were only halfway up the sheer shaft when Decidueye let out a pained cry. Its left wing seized, a muscle torn from the strain. Their ascent stalled, then began to falter. They started to sink, the gaping maw of the collapsing cavern below seeming to suck them back down.
"Decidueye, no! Hold on!" Anne's voice was raw with panic.
Then, a red light erupted from inside the sling bag still strapped across Anne's chest.
The pokeball shot out of the bag's open flap. It flew straight at the tunnel wall beside them and smashed against the rock.
CRACK.
SHATTERED.
Krookodile materialized on the wall, then instantly raised its arms.
In a fraction of a second, a massive pillar of stone erupted from the wall, catching Anne and Decidueye in its upward surge.
The pillar, propelled by Krookodile's power, punched upward like a piston. It carried them, riding a wave of solid earth, through the last of the tunnel and out into the blinding, chaotic freedom of the open sky.
For a dizzying second, Anne, Decidueye, and Krookodile were suspended on a platform of living rock, high above the devastation.
The view was apocalyptic.
The Mala's Spine was no more. The peak where the hangar door had been was now a smoking crater. The hole Corodity had carved was buried under an avalanche of rock and the mangled, smoldering wreckage of an airship.
Forests for miles around were burning, ignited by stray blasts of energy or falling, superheated debris. Thick, black smoke stained the sky, turning the morning sun into a dull, bloody eye.
And in the center of the cataclysm, standing in the middle of the chaos it had created with its mere awakening, was Corodity.
It was even more colossal outside the mountain. A titan of thorn and fiery aura, its form seemed to drink the light, casting a vast, chilling purple twilight across the ruined landscape.
On its back, a tiny figure stood flanked by two smaller forms.
The stone pillar beneath Anne's feet stopped extending, its momentum spent. For one moment, they were simply… falling.
Then, a shadow streaked towards them. With a beat of wings, Makarell's Charizard swooped down. The exhausted Elite Operative leaned perilously far over its neck, his arms outstretched.
His hands, moving with a surprising, desperate strength, clamped around Anne's wrist.
"Got you!" Makarell grunted, his voice tight with strain.
Anne wrapped her arms around Makarell's neck. Decidueye summoned the last of its strength, and gave one final, powerful flap, carrying Krookodile the last few feet to crash-land onto Charizard's broad back behind Makarell.
"Thank you, Makarell." Anne said, breathing hard. Her gaze fell below, watching the chaos unfold.
On a lower slope, Caesar stood beside his Noivern, staring up at Corodity with an expression of profound horror. Rein, Ellen, Faith, and Robert were scrambling over the broken terrain towards him. Around Corodity, Giovanni's Charizard was circling, throwing attacks at it.
And on the slopes near the crashed airship, John and his Xycle operatives were forming up, their gazes also locked on the catastrophe.
Makarell's Charizard banked, putting distance between them and Corodity's radiating aura.
"Giovanni's making his move." He rasped, nodding towards the circling Charizard.
Giovanni's Charizard dove, unleashing a Flamethrower that washed over Corodity's thorned hide. The legendary pokemon didn't even flinch. The black brambles seemed to absorb the fire, glowing briefly hotter before the flames dissipated into smoke. Corodity turned its massive head, one purple eye fixing on the insect buzzing around it. A single, thorned vine, thicker than a tree trunk, lashed out from its shoulder with blinding speed.
Giovanni's Charizard barrel-rolled desperately, the vine whistling past its wingtips.
"He can't touch it." Anne breathed, her grip tightening on Makarell's jacket. "Not like that."
Her eyes were drawn back to the figure on Corodity's back. Elias stood motionless. Alpha Scraggy and Staravia flanked him, their bodies still shimmering with that unstable purple aura.
Corodity itself seemed to be surveying its new domain. Its head swung slowly, taking in the burning forests, the shattered mountain, the tiny, scrambling figures below.
On the lower slope, Caesar watched Giovanni's futile assault, his expression grim. Rein and the others reached him, forming a ragged cluster.
"We need to get down there." Anne said, her voice firming. "We need to regroup. We can't just watch."
Makarell gave a weary nod.
Charizard began a careful descent, aiming for a relatively clear ridge of rock near where Caesar stood. It touched down on the unstable ridge with a heavy thud, its wings sending up a final gust of smoke. Anne slid from its back, her boots crunching on the scorched earth.
Caesar turned as they landed, his eyes sweeping over them.
Rein, Ellen, Faith, and Robert stumbled to a halt beside him. Ellen's Pikachu was trembling violently, its sparks weak. Robert looked like he was going to be sick. Faith adjusted her glasses, her analytical gaze fixed on Corodity, but her usual composure was frayed.
"What is that thing?" Ellen whispered, her voice barely audible over the distant roar of fires.
Before anyone could answer, a new, more rhythmic pounding echoed up the slope. John crested the ridge with Viktor and a squad of Xycle operatives in close formation.
John's gaze skipped over Caesar, pausing only a moment on the Champion's ruined suit and exhausted posture, before landing on Anne and Makarell. A wide grin spread across his face.
"Anne, my dear! And Makarell, you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards through a hedge. I like the new look!"
He clapped his hands together, the sound sharp in the tense air. He then turned, spreading his arms as if to address an audience.
"Alright, listen up, everybody, 'cause the situation's looking grim! The mountain's toast, we gotta make our move 'cause we're next."
He planted his feet, and pointed a finger at Corodity.
"That's our target, babbyyyy!"
The silence that followed John's last exclamation wasn't just stunned; it was thick with disbelief and disapproval.
Caesar stared at him, his expression a mix of exhaustion and barely-concealed contempt. Robert and Ellen's mouth hung slightly open. Faith's lips were pressed into a thin, unamused line. Rein just looked annoyed.
Caesar was the first to speak:
"If there was any other option on this burning rock, I would not be standing here listening to this." He took a step forward, his eyes locked on John's Xycle insignia. "I do not team with X Legion. Your organization's goals are a disease."
John's grin didn't falter. If anything, it grew wider, more challenging. He held up both hands in a placating gesture, but his eyes sparkled.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, big guy! Pump the brakes! X Legion? There's no X Legion here, my man. You're looking at Team Xycle. X-Y-C-L-E. We're a whole different brand of ambitious."
He dropped his hands and jabbed a thumb at his own chest.
"And we're here for one reason, and one reason only." He paused, his gaze sweeping over the shocked faces before landing squarely on Caesar. "Elias. That kid up there, riding the thorny god of bad vibes? He's one of ours. An Elite Operative of Team Xycle."
The words landed like a physical blow.
Caesar's breath hitched. His shoulders seemed to slump under a new, heavier weight. The color drained from his face. He looked from John's smug expression to Anne—who couldn't meet his eyes—to Makarell in his Xycle uniform, and finally back up to the distant figure on Corodity's back.
"Elias... is Xycle?" The question was a whisper, torn from somewhere deep and wounded.
John nodded, his demeanor shifting from theatrical to deadly serious in an instant.
"That's right. And right now, he's not just our operative. He's the key to that thing. Which means getting him back isn't just a rescue mission for us. It's the only shot this region has at not becoming a permanent thorn garden."
He turned his back on Caesar's shock, addressing the whole group again.
"Giovanni wants to capture it. We can't let that happen. Everyone will turn their attention to this catastrophe, which means the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four. That's right, guys! We'll get help. Don't lose hope, I'm sure we're winning this since that kitty cat doesn't have its full power."
He turned his attention back to Caesar.
"You. Help us. Be the Champion. Wait... you're the champion."
He pointed at Anne and Makarell.
"You two get close. We need to get Elias off of that thing."
Finally, he gestured to his own team.
"We handle everything else. The fires, the stragglers, the cleanup. We make the space for them to work."
He clapped his hands once, the sound loud in the tense air.
"So? Are we doing this? Or are we all just going to stand here and watch the world end?"
The challenge hung in the air.
The distant roar of Corodity was answer enough.
They were out of time, and out of options.
Caesar closed his eyes for a second, a wave of profound weariness passing over him. When he opened them, the grief was still there, but it was now forged into a hard resolve.
"We're going to fail miserably." He said, his voice hollow but firm.
John's smile was back, but it was thin, understanding.
"Then we all fail together. It's the only play we've got." He turned to his operatives. "Viktor! Light 'em up! Heal his Noivern and give him a path!"