Slowly, Jay’s eyelids fluttered open. He smelt soil, felt warm darkness pressing around him.
Where am I?
Memory came flooding back, like water bubbling from a spring. The lab. Pallet Town. Death. His parents…
He sat up, adrenaline flooding his body, a sick knot of tension in his gut. He was nestled against a rock wall, the gloom of the Victory Road cavern extending before him. His hand went instinctively to his belt, feeling for the Pokeballs. Meen’s was warm, of course; Jay only let him out around water. Florian’s was cold, empty…
“Damn,” Jay breathed. His muscles ached and his belly burned with hunger. For a moment he was tempted to close his eyes and slip back into dark, peaceful oblivion. Only for a moment. No, he couldn’t give up now, not when he was this close to his destination.
He bundled up his sleeping bag and stuffed it into his pack. He took a deep draught of water from his canteen and slung the pack over his shoulder. He could see the exit in the distance, a blaze of light in the gloom. Beyond it lay the Indigo Plateau, the Crusaders… and his last chance at redemption.
They killed everyone. Every single person.
He jogged towards the exit, his feet pounding on the hard ground.
“Florian!” he called, his voice hoarse. “Florian!” The sound echoed from each flat, stony surface. It was stupid, he knew. He risked attracting the attention of wild Pokemon, which were incredibly strong and vicious in these parts.
He passed through the portal, bursting into a world of warm sunlight, the glare so harsh that it hurt his eyes.
“Bulba! Bulba, bulba!”
“Florian!”
The little Bulbasaur raced towards him, its vines full of fruits and nuts it had gathered. Jay knelt to embrace him.
“Thank you, you clever boy. I was so hungry I was about to eat my own fingers.”
They shared the food, gobbling it down quickly, before Jay called Florian back into his Pokeball. Jay felt vulnerable out in the open, and he wanted to keep moving.
Slowly, cautiously, he passed below the arches of the now disbanded Pokemon League. The silence was deafening. Buildings lay in ruins, once proud sculptures shattered and strewn across the ground in a thousand pieces. Bodies of humans and Pokemon slumped here and there, in various stages of decomposition. Bug Pokemon like Venonat and Paras were drawn to the corpses, sucking on the blood, tearing strips of flesh off with their pincers. Jay quickly averted his eyes. The stench of death blanketed the air.
He passed through the last sad, broken set of columns, and saw the stadium looming above him, mostly intact. It heartened him, in a way, to see that while the rest of their world had fallen into ruin, at least this part of it survived.
He took a step forward –
WHAM!
Something slammed into him so hard and fast that he saw stars. By the time he came to his senses, he realised he was sprawled in the dirt.
“What the hell is this?” a rough voice demanded.
“Omega spy. Looks pretty weak. Guess they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel since we wiped out their experienced patrols.”
“You want to kill him, or should I?”
“Go ahead. My Leon is too proud to squash a bug like that.”
Jay blinked his eyes against the sunlight. A large Scyther stood above him, pressing one of its deadly blades against his throat. It was flanked by a man and woman dressed in identical uniforms.
“I’m not an Omega spy!” Jay protested. “I would never work for them. I was a student at Oak Labs… they killed everyone… my family…” Moving very slowly, so as not to provoke the Scyther, Jay produced his ID card and thrust it at the two.
“Looks legit,” the man said. “Maybe you’re not a spy. Too bad, kid. You shouldn’t have come here. This is a warzone, not fucking kindergarten.”
The Scyther’s blade pressed closer against Jay’s throat. Desperately, Jay thought of something, anything that would save him. He remembered a name he had heard, a name whispered by members of the resistance.
“Wait! I’m here to see Rolph McEnroe.”
There was a pause.
“How do you know that name?” the man asked.
“An Omega agent would know that name,” the woman said sceptically.
“Let him go, Katana.” The Scyther moved back. “Go on in, kid. Rolph can deal with you. I hope you are what you say you are, for your sake. Otherwise you’ll wish we finished you out here.”
Jay didn’t need to be told twice. He rose to his feet, turned and ran into the stadium.
