The city hit me like a wave. The smell of wet pavement, beignets, and car exhaust all tangled into something strange but comforting. Neon signs glowed in the drizzle as our cab wound through the French Quarter, each turn flashing by with streaks of orange, purple, and green from old Mardi Gras lights that someone had never bothered to take down.
Skyla pressed a hand to the window. "It's so alive here," she murmured.
"It's breathing," I said without thinking. "You can feel it in the air."
She glanced at me like she wasn't sure whether to be impressed or concerned. "You've been hanging out with too many Psychic-types."
"Probably," I admitted.
The taxi dropped us off near our motel, a modest place between a record shop and a street-side bar spilling trumpet notes into the humid night. I could barely hear myself think over the laughter and the beat of a distant drumline. Even so, the rhythm had a pulse to it that didn't feel entirely... human.
I woke up later that night. Skyla had dozed off with her phone still glowing in her hand. The rain had stopped hours ago, but the city still smelled like it, damp concrete, old brick, and jasmine carried in from the bayou. Thunder murmured somewhere deep in the distance, like it hadn't decided whether to leave for good.
Sleep wasn't happening. My thoughts kept orbiting the same things: Noctis, Plasma, the weird pulse I swore I could feel under this city. Every time I closed my eyes, the noise just got louder.
I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and looked over at Skyla. She was sprawled diagonally across her bed, one leg poking out from the blanket, her red hair fanned over the pillow like a spill of fire. The neon light from the motel sign outside painted her face in pink and blue streaks.
I smiled faintly. "You look too peaceful to wake," I whispered, already knowing I was going to do it anyway.
I stood, slipped on my jacket, and reached for my sketchbook. The chair leg scraped just enough to make her stir.
Her voice came out drowsy and low. "Where are you going?"
"Didn't mean to wake you," I said softly. "I just... can't sleep. Thought I'd take Altaria out for a short flight, get above the lights for a bit, maybe sketch the city from up high."
Skyla blinked, pushing herself up on one elbow. "It's two in the morning, Atrea."
"I know," I said with a small laugh. "But I can't stop thinking about how the skyline must look from above. Everything's glowing down there, even the fog."
She gave me a look halfway between amusement and exasperation. "You're unbelievable. Only you would decide to draw at two a.m."
"I'll stay close," I promised. "I just need some air."
Her eyes softened. "Go on, then. Try not to fall asleep mid-flight, Van Gogh."
I grinned, slinging the strap of my sketchbook over my shoulder. "Yes, ma'am."
She smiled, already drifting back toward sleep. "Don't get lost in it."
Outside, the air was thick and warm. Streetlights buzzed like fireflies, and the only sound was the whisper of tires on wet pavement somewhere blocks away.
I stepped into the open lot behind the motel and released Altaria's ball. The light broke the darkness like a small sunrise. She unfolded gracefully, her cotton-cloud wings glowing faintly in the moonlight, her song a low, melodic hum that vibrated in my chest.
"Sorry for the weird hour," I whispered, patting her neck. "Couldn't sleep."
You worry too much, sweetheart. She said, her voice soft as fog.
"Yeah, I've noticed."
She lowered herself with a gentle sigh, and I climbed onto her back. With a single beat of her wings, we rose above the rooftops, the city unfurling beneath us in a sea of lights and shadow.
From up there, New Orleans looked alive, breathing. Steam curled off the streets. The river glinted black and silver. I could almost feel the heartbeat of it all against the soles of my feet.
Altaria's thoughts brushed against mine again. Beautiful, isn't it?
"Yeah," I said, pulling my sketchbook free. "If I can see enough to draw it."
I balanced the pad on my knee, pencil scratching softly. The graphite dragged stubbornly across the page, too little light, too many shadows. I frowned. "Lighting's awful," I muttered. "Guess a two a.m. flight wasn't my brightest idea."
Altaria tilted her head back toward me. Light?
"Yeah. I can't see a damn thing."
Without another word, her body began to glow. The light gathered at her chest and bloomed outward, soft, pink, and silver. The air itself seemed to shimmer as a perfect Moonblast formed above her wings, casting gentle light across the clouds.
My breath caught. The city below shimmered like a reflection on glass, every droplet of rain glinting under her light.
"That's perfect," I whispered. "Altaria, that's... beautiful."
She hummed quietly, holding the glow steady. Draw.
So I did. The lines came easier this time, the sprawl of the Quarter, the river's curve, the veins of streetlight carving through the dark. She stayed still the whole time, the faint pulse of her Moonblast keeping the night at bay.
When I finally closed the sketchbook, she looked back over her shoulder, eyes half-lidded. Done?
"Yeah," I said softly, touching her neck. "You're amazing, you know that?"
Altaria let out a sound between a trill and a yawn. Sleep now.
"Yeah," I murmured with a tired smile. "That sounds good."
Just as she began to rotate toward the hotel, a glimmer of light bloomed from the swamp below us.
You're gonna hate me, but can we-
I could never sweeheart, we'll check it out. Hold on.
I grabbed hold of the reins as she dove down. As we descended, the temperature dropped a few degrees, enough for the bead of sweat at my neck to feel like ice. At first, I thought the glimmer was a reflection, a streetlight catching a ripple. Then the water shivered, not from wind but from breath. A wet, ragged breath. Something moved along the bank. Massive, hunched. The glimmer came again, dull and pained, off the curve of a muddy, blue-gray forearm.
Swampert.
He sagged against the reeds, sides heaving, one eye swollen shut. Mud clotted a jagged gash at his shoulder; splinters of white bark stuck to his hide like shrapnel. He tried to push up and slid instead, forelimbs trembling.
Between us and him, the fog... blinked.
My throat went dry. One pair of eyes hovered in the murk, glowing yellow, pinpricks at first. Then a second pair. A third. They multiplied like candles in a church you didn't want to be in, spreading in a ragged circle. White manes unfurled out of the dark, stained crimson at their roots, drifting without wind. The air smelled faintly sweet, like rotting flowers.
Hisuian Zoroark.
Predators that loved cruelty. The stories weren't exaggerating.
A chill climbed my spine like a hand with too many fingers.
Altaria's wings stiffened. Atrea, we need to leave. Now.
"Get Skyla," I whispered, never taking my eyes off the bank. "Wake her. Bring help."
Altaria hesitated, then brushed my cheek with her soft chest, a quick, apologetic nuzzle, and shot upward, vanishing into low cloud with a single, muffled beat.
I hit the water's edge in a crouch and threw three balls in one motion; a fourth I palmed and skimmed low.
Zoey burst out mid-stride, already peeling a veil of darkness off her shoulders; Simon's wings unfurled with a gravelly hiss as his feet found mud; Scizor landed with a heavy double-step, servos clicking; the fourth flash arced and resolved into Trilla at my side, eyes wide, breath fogging in quick pulls.
The eyes watched us. Smiles followed, thin, stretching sideways beyond the line of a muzzle. One Zoroark lapped at the air like tasting fear.
These aren't mine, Zoey's thought knifed into my head, sharp and cold.
The first one glided forward, claws trailing the surface just enough to leave ghost ripples. The others matched it, a ring tightening. Their manes floated as if submerged in an invisible current.
"Close," I breathed. "Stay tight."
The fog thickened, then moved. It wasn't fog at all. It was them. The ring broke and doubled, then tripled, images bleeding into images until we were staring at a hundred yellow eyes and not a single footstep stirred the water.
Illusions. Meaner than Zoey's. Designed to disorient and savor.
"Simon," I began.
The swamp exploded.
A dozen pale shapes slammed into us from angles that didn't exist a second ago. Simon took the first, rolling, his tail hammering down to buy space; the impact sent a tremor through the mud. Scizor parried two, thrusters whining as he slid in a low arc, venting heat to scorch reaching fur. Zoey vanished, reappeared with Night Slash already singing, but her blade met smoke and a giggle. Claws raked across her ribs from the blind side. She snarled, stumbled, bled, and laughed back, a feral sound that wasn't amusement.
We fought shadows that cut like knives.
Protect! I shoved the thought at Trilla as something blurred out of the fog, jaws open, fangs slick with a quiet kind of joy.
Her barrier snapped into existence a breath before impact, the Zoroark hit it with a howl and a grin that didn't falter as cracks spidered the green light. Another struck from our left. Another from behind. They pressed until the construct trembled and whined like glass under a diamond tip.
I felt the failure a heartbeat before it happened.
The shield shattered. A Zoroark slipped through the break, body sideways like a swimmer, and carved a clean red line across Trilla's shoulder. The wound flashed black around the edges as dark energy burrowed where it wasn't welcome.
Trilla cried out, the sound thin and human in my head. It hurts!
"You're alright," I said, forcing calm. "With me. With me."
Another illusion rolled over us like a wave. In an instant, Zoey, Simon, and Scizor were gone, erased from the world. Trilla and I stood alone in a pocket of silence carved out of chaos. The ring of eyes tightened.
One broke off, casual, almost bored, and padded toward Swampert, who watched with dull, resigned eyes. He tried to rise and slid again, claws digging furrows he couldn't finish.
"Don't," I said, voice shaking.
The Zoroark smiled without warmth and stepped over him, claws lifting.
Trilla's mind tore through mine like a bell. You will not hurt him!
The swamp went white.
It wasn't light so much as absence. Trilla rose, bleeding and trembling. The air cinched inward around her like it was caught on barbed wire. Her dress whited to porcelain, fractal lines of luminescent silver racing through it like cracks in glass, knitting themselves shut. A black, starless void haloed her chest where the red horn had been; her pink eyes became clear and endless, a color now freighted with gravity. Her hair fanned in an unseen wind. The swamp leaned back as if it had the sense to be afraid.
I stood there stunned.
This was Mega Evolution
Then I saw it, a thin line of red traced down her dress from her concealed nose.
"Trilla, stop," I said, breathless, voice small in a cathedral. "You're killing yourself! You'll-"
Her voice came through doubled, the sound of one person remembering another's words. I couldn't save Harley. I can save him.
She lifted one hand.
The world rippled.
Psyshock didn't lance or detonate; it unfolded as countless concentric rings raced outward from her palm at the speed of a thought, shallow waves that somehow struck deep. Each ring rushed through me like cool air and left me whole. When they touched the Hisuian Zoroark, the reaction was violent. They combusted in torrents of purple fire. The attack seemed to unmake them. No charred fur was left behind. Just absence, hot and immediate, like paper winking out in a flame you couldn't see. Trees beyond them buckled and flattened, every leaf cut free and set adrift in silent rain.
The circles crossed the water, gentle and terrible, and the swamp lay flat and clean for a hundred yards.
I took one step toward her, and the world tilted. Something soft caught me, mud, but my skull rang as if it were stone. The light dimmed at the edges as Trilla's silhouette trembled and shrank. The night rushed at me like a hallway with no end, and the swamp was gone.
I came to with a taste like pennies in my mouth and the world filmed over, as if I'd slept with my eyes open.
I was standing. No. Not really standing, more like placed, in a small living room washed in amber. A single lamp burned on a side table. The rest of the house was dark. The air smelled like old wood and whiskey.
A rocking chair sat turned away from me. The man in it breathed too shallowly, then too deep, then not right at all. A half-empty bottle rested on the floor within reach. His hand was open, palm up, empty. A red-and-white ball lay beside that hand, a fine crack ticked to its center with each back-and-forth creak of the chair.
Harley? A young, soft thought whispered. It wasn't a word so much as a reaching.
The ball rolled, a brittle little sound like glass beads slipping. It struck the leg of the chair and shattered wide.
A Gardevoir, smaller, thinner than my Trilla, stood where the light from the lamp fell away, hands at her chest. She didn't step into the circle of light. She didn't need to see him fully to understand.
His voice came raw, like he'd been talking to no one for a long time, and the words had worn grooves. "You deserve better than me, sweetheart." He swallowed, a hitch that hurt to hear. "Better than I can be. I tried. I really did."
Harley, she breathed, and took a hesitant step.
He reached for the bottle and missed. His hand hovered, trembled, then settled in his lap. The chair rocked once more. Then it didn't.
Trilla's eyes stayed on his back a breath too long, as if the body might still offer one more word. The silence pressed in until it had shape. She took one half-step more, then folded where she stood, small hands covering her mouth.
I felt that sound more than heard it, the way a sob bends the shape of a room.
The floor shifted under me. The amber broke.
I woke on my back in cool mud, fog beading in my lashes. My head ached like a bell had just struck. The swamp was a bowl scraped clean. Where trees had stood, stumps steamed. A hard line marked the edge of devastation like a tide.
Zoey knelt over me, illusion burned away, fur matted with blood, eyes blown wide. Don't move. She pressed my shoulder down with a clawless hand, gentler than she looked. You slammed into nothing. And then everything.
"Trilla?" My own voice sounded far away.
Zoey's jaw tightened; she stepped aside.
Trilla lay ten feet away on her side, gown smudged and torn, hair limp with cold water. The luminous fractures that had run through her were gone. So was the black hole at her chest. She looked like a statue someone had set down and forgotten, eyes open, but not seeing. Her nose had bled and dried.
"Trilla?" I crawled to her and cradled her head. "Sweetie. Hey." I brushed wet hair from her face. "Trilla, can you hear me?"
No answer. No blink. Her mind was a room with the light off, furniture still warm.
Wind tore through the fog with a metallic scream. Skarmory's silhouette knifed into view and dropped like a thrown blade, wings braking at the last second to land in a blast of spray. Skyla hit the mud at a run, already shouting my name.
"Atrea!" She skidded, knees in muck, hands on me, then on Trilla, then on me again. "Are you- are you hit? Are you dizzy? Look at me." Her words tumbled over each other. "I swear to God, if this is a repeat of New York, I'm chaining you to the bedpost. You're never leaving my sight again. I'm kidding," she added too fast, voice cracking around the edges, "except I'm absolutely not."
"I'm okay," I lied, throat tight. "Trilla's not."
Behind her, three silver shapes dropped through the cloud cover like fallen stars, thrusters hissing. PokéBots fanned into a triangle, lenses irising, floodlights sweeping across the flattened swamp. They clicked and hummed, scanning until their little arms unfolded with pristine efficiency.
"Emergency triage," I snapped at the nearest. "Now, on her." I pointed at Trilla.
"Recognized: Trainer Atrea Morgan," it replied in that polished, neutral tone. "Registered Pokémon 'Gardevoir' detected. Administering aid."
A red beam of energy crackled out as an Audino and a pair of Beheyem materialized. They each let out a Heal-Pulse directed at me and my partners. Light washed over Trilla, gentle and smart, but seemingly insufficient. Her body didn't respond.
"Transport," Skyla said, already standing. "We move. Now."
Skarmory crouched, wings open to receive. I eased Trilla up; Zoey slid her arms under Trilla's legs without being asked. Scizor stepped in to shield us, plates still smoking. Simon loomed behind, flanks heaving, eyes narrow and hot.
A low, wet groan drew my head around.
Swampert still lay where he'd fallen, breath shallow, pupils blown. He watched Trilla with an animal focus that made my stomach twist. He'd seen. He knew she saved him.
"Help him," I told the second Bot, waving it toward Swampert. "He won't last."
"Unable to comply," it said politely. "Directive: On-scene services reserved for registered Pokémon. Wild subjects are ineligible for treatment."
My vision snapped tight. "He's bleeding out."
"Recommendation: Capture procedure to enable care. Awaiting confirmation."
I swallowed hard and slid on my knees through mud and broken reeds until I was at Swampert's side. Up close, he smelled like brine and iron. His gills fluttered weakly. His good eye tracked me, then Trilla, then me.
"I know you don't know me," I said softly, aware of the storm of heat, light, and noise around us and how small my voice was. "But she," I looked back at Trilla, limp in Skyla's arms, "she did that for you." My throat burned. "Let me keep you alive. Stay with us. Please."
His thoughts came slow, heavy, like stones pushed through water. I heard only two images: the Zoroark's lifted claws; Trilla standing between them and him, becoming light.
He blinked once in assent. It was clumsy, but it was enough.
I pressed a ball to his chest. The click felt like a heartbeat I'd been holding. The capsule jerked once in my palm and stilled. As soon as the process finished, I deployed him.
"Subject registered," the Bot intoned instantly. "Administering aid."
Its arms unfolded like a flower; cool light washed Swampert's wounds. He exhaled, a sound halfway to a sigh.
Skyla's hand touched my shoulder, quick and fierce. "We're wheels-up to the Center in sixty seconds," she said, voice back in command mode even as her eyes shone too bright. "And when this is over, I'm filing a complaint that's going to make Lucy Maxwell herself call you to apologize." She swallowed and tried to smile. "You hear me? You are not allowed to do this to my heart twice in one lifetime."
I nodded, unable to speak. The swamp was very quiet. In the distance, sirens woke.
Skarmory lifted us into the night. The Bots rose after, their lights combing the gouged earth, already stitching the world back together.
The first thing I felt was the hum.
Soft, steady, mechanical, the rhythm of healing machines cycling through their rounds. The Pokémon Center always had that lullaby hum, like the world trying to remind you it was still spinning.
I blinked into the half-light of morning. The rain had finally stopped. Skyla sat in a chair across the room, head bowed, hands clasped around a paper cup that had long gone cold. She must've been there all night.
Trilla lay in the recovery capsule beside me, motionless beneath the glass dome. Her chest rose and fell in perfect, artificial rhythm. The monitor beside her scrolled data in calm blue lines: heart rate, psychic pulse, brainwave stability. Alive, but silent.
I pressed a hand to the glass. "We're heading out soon," I murmured. "But I'll come back."
Skyla stirred, voice hoarse. "You don't have to do this today, you know."
"I do."
She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "You and your definition of rest..."
Before I could answer, the door hissed open. Zoey padded in, wiping condensation from her mane with the back of one claw. Her fur was slick with morning dew.
Morning, she said, stretching her arms behind her head. I took the new guy out for a run. He's built like a tank.
"Swampert?"
She smirked. He's got power, I'll give him that. Can't outrun a SlowPoké, but when he hits, he hits. I think I like him.
I smiled faintly. "Guess you made a friend."
Don't push it.
Skyla stood, adjusting her jacket. "You really sure you're ready?"
I looked back once at Trilla, her form glowing softly under the capsule light. "I need to be."