Giovanni's Charizard hovered arrogantly in the sky.
Anne is hanging on to the prickly vines, preventing herself from falling completely. Her gaze landed on Elias again, who was now completely out of it, and glaring towards Giovanni.
Their only chance is gone. The window for other opportunities is now closed. Anne looked down, remembering what Martin had told him.
Protect him even if it cost your life.
She lifted her other arm to grab the prickly vines, then, she began to pull herself up.
She reached the relative plateau of Corodity's back, her boots finding ground on the hide. Her gaze snapped to Elias. All his attention, every ounce of the chaotic will channeling through him, was fixed on Giovanni.
As Anne's mind raced, the sky erupted.
A blur shot past her, riding a sonic boom. Caesar. Noivern tucked its wings and aimed directly towards Giovanni's Charizard.
"Giovanniiiii!" Caesar's roar was lost in the wind, but the intent was clear.
Corodity threw its head back, its maw opening wide. Deep within, the purple energy of a beam gathered.
But it never fired.
Dynamax Exploud lunged forward. It threw its massive arms around Corodity's lower jaw and slammed its own body upward, using its bulk as a wedge.
Corodity's jaws were violently forced shut by the desperate tackle. The half-formed beam detonated internally with a muffled, sickening thump that shook Corodity to its core. Purple light leaked from between its clenched teeth. It stumbled, a roar of choked fury vibrating through its entire form.
Dynamax Exploud held on, its own body cracking under the strain.
On Corodity's back, the world tilted violently again. Anne was thrown to her knees. Elias staggered but remained standing, the connection to the wounded beast sending a fresh spike of agony through him, making the purple veins flare.
Anne pushed herself up, her vision swimming. Beside her, Makarell's Charizard landed with a thud.
Makarell himself slid off, stumbling slightly before catching himself.
"It's finished... Anne." He mumbled, his voice barely audible over the groans of the beast and the distant sounds of battle. He walked over to Charizard, unclipping a heavy, compact device from its saddlebag. It was a large, mechanical clamp with thick, rubber-coated jaws, attached to a coiled length of high-tensile cable that fed back to a winch on Charizard's harness.
He dragged it over to Anne, the cable clinking against the ground.
"Here." He said, shoving the heavy clamp into her hands. "This is the only way, right?"
***
Before Anne and Makarell made it on the back of Corodity...
"I have a plan... Anne." Makarell said, lifting his exhausted eyes. "You see that thing on Elias's feet?"
He pointed below. Elias's feet were wrapped in prickly vines on Corodity's nape.
"Yes, I see it." Anne nodded. "What should we do?"
"You need to buy me some time. Maybe three or four minutes. We'll pull him out." Makarell's spoke in a hurried tone, wanting to get over this instantly to rest.
***
Now... Anne stared at the cold, heavy metal in her hands. So this is his plan... The window for gentle words and emotional connections had shattered the moment the Solar Beam hit. This is the only way.
She looked at Elias. At the tears still falling, at the glowing veins pulsing with hateful power.
She turned and sprinted towards Elias, the heavy clamp swinging in her grip.
"Elias! I'm sorry!" She cried, not sure if he could even hear her anymore.
As she reached him, Corodity gave a massive, shuddering heave. Dynamax Exploud's grip finally failed. It was flung away, its Dynamax energy dissipating in a shower of red light as it shrank and plummeted towards the ground, unconscious.
Corodity's jaws snapped open, and a roar of rage erupted, shaking everything. Its head began to turn, its gaze seeking Giovanni, seeking Caesar, seeking everything.
Anne lunged, clamping the heavy jaws around Elias's left arm, just above the shoulder where the glowing veins were thickest. She wrenched the lever.
SNAP!
The clamp locked shut with a metallic sound.
Elias's head snapped down. The purple fire in his left eye blazed, meeting her gaze.
"Now, Makarell!" Anne screamed, throwing herself backward, away from him.
On Charizard's back, Makarell slammed his hand on the winch release.
"Pull! Charizard! We're going to take a long rest after!"
Charizard roared, beating its wings with a force that created a small hurricane.
The vines wrapped around Elias's feet ripped to shreds. Elias was yanked off his feet.
The purple veins on his neck and chest stretched, glowing blindingly bright. A sound escaped his lips—not a scream, but a choked, agonized gasp.
He was ripped from Corodity's nape and shot through the air like a ragdoll, trailing the cable behind him.
On the beast's back, where his feet had been planted, a patch of thorns blackened and died instantly. Corodity itself let out a shriek of a piece of its own rage being torn away.
It whipped its head around, its fury now absolute, undivided, and homing in on the fleeing Charizard and the boy it carried.
Anne watched, clutching her bleeding hands to her chest, as Elias was reeled in towards Charizard. He was unconscious, the purple fire in his eye extinguished, the veins on his skin fading to angry, red scars.
The purple aura flickering around Alpha Scraggy and Staravia shattered like glass.
Alpha Scraggy blinked, its eyes clearing, the fury replaced by confusion. It looked at its own fists, then at the raging titan beneath it, and let out a low, bewildered grunt.
Staravia shook its head fiercely, the crackling purple energy around its feathers dissipating into harmless sparks. It saw Krookodile, still holding a defensive stance, and let out a relieved, familiar chirp.
Krookodile's head snapped towards Anne. It jerked its head sharply towards the edge of Corodity's back, then back at her.
"Decidueye!" Anne yelled, recalling the exhausted Amaura to its ball. "We need a ride!"
Decidueye flew. It swooped low, and Anne leaped, grabbing onto its legs.
"Krookodile, lead them!" She shouted, pointing towards the scrambling Alpha Scraggy and the circling Staravia.
Krookodile gave a sharp bark of command. It turned and bolted across the shifting landscape, towards the edge.
Alpha Scraggy gave a wordless roar and charged after Krookodile. Staravia shot ahead, scouting the path.
Corodity took a massive step forward. The movement was like a tidal wave. The edge of its back rushed up to meet the fleeing pokemon.
Krookodile reached the edge first. It launched itself into open air, then swung its tail in a wide, powerful arc and used Bulldoze on the air. A shockwave of earth energy blasted downward, slowing its descent and carving a temporary, unstable ramp of compacted dust and debris in the sky behind it.
Alpha Scraggy hit the edge and jumped without a second thought, plummeting after Krookodile.
Staravia dove, tucking its wings to accelerate.
Decidueye shot over the edge right behind them.
Above them, Makarell and Charizard, with Elias secured, was beating a desperate retreat, Corodity's footsteps shaking the very atmosphere as it gave chase.
From the vines on its shoulders, one lashed out. It moved faster than sight, and struck the junction of Charizard's right wing.
Charizard let out a shriek of agony. Its wing folded uselessly.
Anne watched from Decidueye's back, helpless horror freezing her blood.
"NO!"
"CHARIZARD!" Makarell's cry was stripped of all exhaustion, raw with panic.
Charizard didn't give up. Even with a shattered wing, fire burned in its eyes. It twisted in the air, using its good wing and its powerful tail to spin, to fight the plummet. It angled its body, becoming a parachute to slow their fall down.
Makarell clung to its neck, his eyes wide in terror.
They were still hundreds of feet up, but falling fast. There was no soft landing here.
Charizard saw it too. With a final, guttural growl of effort, it flared its good wing and tail to their absolute limit. It stopped spinning and instead aimed itself, pulling out of the steep dive into a slightly shallower, skidding trajectory.
It hit the slope of a shattered hillside. It plowed a trench thirty yards long, throwing up a wave of dirt and stone, before finally sliding to a stop in a cloud of dust, half-buried in its own makeshift grave.
Elias was ripped from the air and slammed into the churned earth a dozen feet from where Charizard lay, skidding to a stop in a limp heap.
Makarell was thrown clear, tumbling through the dirt before coming to rest against a scorched tree stump, motionless.
Decidueye altered its own descent. It came in low and fast over the trench, releasing Anne. She hit the ground in a stumbling roll, coming to her feet running towards the devastation.
Krookodile, Alpha Scraggy, and Staravia hit the ground around her in rough impacts, scattering dust.
Anne's eyes darted between the three fallen forms, and she took one step towards Elias's still form, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs.
Then, he moved. It was a violent, full-body thrash, as if he were being electrocuted. His back arched off the ground, a raw, guttural sound tearing from his throat that was not human. He rolled, clawing at the dirt, and somehow found his feet.
He stood hunched, trembling violently, head hanging low.
His right eye was squeezed shut, a tear of blood tracing a path through the grime on his cheek. But his left eye… it was open. And it was filled with fiery purple of Corodity's aura. It flickered and pulsed, as if the energy inside him was searching for its anchor, lost and furious.
The red scars where the purple veins had been now glowed with a faint, sickly light from within.
His gaze swept across the burning landscape before locking onto the approaching source of his agony. A low, continuous growl rumbled in his chest.
He took a shaky step forward, towards Corodity. And before he could take another, Anne threw herself at him.
She wrapped her arms around his torso from behind, locking her hands together over his stomach, and planted her feet in the earth.
"Elias, stop!" She screamed into his back, her voice breaking. "You can't! You have to fight it!"
He jerked against her hold. One of his elbows caught her in the ribs, driving the air from her lungs with a pained gasp, but she held on, her grip slipping on his torn shirt.
From the edge of the trench, three figures came sprinting over the rise, their pokemon at their heels. Rein and his Magmortar. Ellen, Pikachu, and Hunter. Faith, Glaceon, and Meowscarda.
They skidded to a halt, taking in the scene.
"Elias!" Ellen cried out, her hands flying to her mouth.
Rein's eyes narrowed, his fists clenching.
"He's still lost in it!"
Faith adjusted her glasses, her mind racing.
"The physical connection is severed, but their will remains the same."
Near the crashed Charizard, Makarell groaned, pushing himself up on his elbows. His eyes, bleary with pain and concussion, focused on his partner. With a pained cry, he scrambled on hands and knees towards Charizard, which lay still, one wing bent at a horrible angle, its breaths shallow and labored.
The world narrowed for Anne to the feel of Elias's heaving ribs against her arms. She could feel the heat from the glowing scars through his clothes.
And that same heat is expanding towards her body.
Then the world dissolved in a violent flash.
The crushing pressure was gone. The roar of fire and massive footsteps vanished, replaced by the gentle hum of summer and the distant, happy shrieks of a child.
Anne stumbled, her arms now empty. She blinked, disoriented. She was standing in a sun-dappled backyard. Lush green grass stretched to a white picket fence. A large, flowering tree provided shade over a patio where a woman sat in a wicker chair.
The woman had long, flowing white hair that caught the afternoon light like spun sugar. She wore a simple, pale blue dress and held a book in her lap, though she wasn't reading. She was smiling, her gentle blue eyes fixed on the scene before her.
Chasing a gleeful, splashing Mudkip in circles around a small, stone birdbath was a little boy. He couldn't have been more than four or five. His hair was a wild mop of white, and his laughter was a bright, clear sound that filled the tranquil space.
Anne's breath caught. She looked down at her own arms. The purple veins were still there, crawling from her fingertips up past her elbows like vines, but they felt cold now.
And the scene before him...
Is it Elias's?