Chapter Text
Beca clutched Pidgeot’s feathers tightly as they took to the air. Her Pokémon stuck close to Chloe’s, as well as Cynthia’s Togekiss, as they started their journey along the coast of Sinnoh. She hoped everyone at Sunyshore would be alright during their absence, but she took solace in the knowledge they had left the majority of their Pokémon behind to help defend the city.
“All around the world, you said?” Chloe yelled from atop her Dragonair.
“Best we can tell,” Cynthia nodded. “We need to get to the Ranger Union in Almia right away. If anyone has a clue as to what’s happening, it would be them!”
Their Pokémon rocketed through the sky as fast as they could, the wind whipping Beca’s hair around her face. Wiping some of it from her eyes, she sucked in a surprised breath. Out at sea, dozens of watery twisters had formed, slowly making their way towards the shore.
“What the fuck is that?!” she screeched, drawing Chloe’s and Cynthia’s attention to the completely unnatural phenomenon.
“Bad news!” Chloe responded. “Should we go look?”
“No,” Cynthia decided for them. “We don’t have time to waste on the symptoms of … whatever this is. We need to get to the root of the problem!”
“Those twisters are headed straight for Pastoria City, though!”
“Crasher Wake will have to deal with that,” Chloe groaned, looking supremely unhappy about it.
They continued their journey, not slowing down or changing their course for anything. From up here, Beca had a good view of the land beneath them - she could see groups of people fleeing from burning villages, herds of rabid Pokémon destroying buildings behind them.
“We need to veer south!” Chloe yelled after half an hour, pointing out an immense thunderstorm ahead of them, the lightning seeming to strike every high building in Jubilife City repeatedly. “If we fly through there, we’re toast!”
Following Chloe’s lead, their Pokémon flew around the thunderstorm, strong winds buffeting them and making it hard to stay on course. “If there’s so much wind, why aren’t those thunderclouds moving at all?” Beca wondered out loud.
“The questions just keep piling up!”
Their flight seemed to take forever - Almia wasn’t exactly around the corner from Sinnoh - and the more they flew, the more disasters Beca witnesses - tidal waves of immense size washing away entire coastal settlements, villages and small cities ablaze, freak thunderstorms and blizzards, and countless people running for their lives. Best Beca could tell, everyone was trying to take shelter in the larger cities, where more trainers were around to protect them.
It was a relief when Cynthia’s Togekiss began descending, their trajectory seeing them land right in front of a large building, easily twenty floors tall. As they came closer, Beca could make out multitudes of people running around, all clad in the bright red Pokémon Ranger uniforms.
“Chairperson Erma is on the top floor,” one of the Rangers called to them the moment they landed. Returning their Pokémon to their balls, they made their way into the Ranger Union Headquarters, which was - Beca could only assume - much busier than normal.
Rangers were running in every direction, calling and yelling to each other, giving orders and relaying information. Still, they moved out of the way as the three of them made their way towards the elevators. Beca heard various variations of ‘maybe they know what’s going on’ as they passed the Rangers by. Boy did she wish that was true.
The silence in the elevator was tense and Beca mentally cursed the mechanical contraption for not getting them up to the top floor any quicker than this. When the door finally did open, they found themselves on a slightly raised walkway.
In front of them stood Chairperson Erma atop a small, heightened plateau, Professor Hastings by her side. They were both focused on the opposite wall, which was covered from floor to ceiling with screens depicting different scenes.
“Mt. Chimney is erupting, Chairperson Erma!” one of the operators called out. “We’re receiving video confirmation from Flannery at the Lavaridge Gym, putting it up on screen forty-eight!”
“Professor! We’re getting reports from Blaine in Cinnabar. While the volcano is still heating up further, the seas around Cinnabar Island and the Orange Islands seem to have actually frozen solid. Putting the feed up on screen twenty-nine!”
“Erma! We’ve lost all contact with Jubilife City. Jubilife TV is offline!”
“We have Steven Stone on the line, Chairperson Erma!” another voice called out, louder than the others. “He tells us Mossdeep Island is… gone!”
“Gone?!” Erma responded sharply. “Submerged?”
“No, ma’am! Vanished.”
“An island does not just vanish!” Professor Hastings responded with a shake of his head.
“Putting the feed from Alola on screen fifteen, Professor. It appears to be… an eclipse?”
“The sun shines on the whole world. One region does not suddenly get plunged into darkness!”
“Erma!” Cynthia called out, striding out of the elevator with Chloe and Beca hot on her heels. “This is it, it has to be.”
“Ah, Cynthia, thank goodness you’re here. Please tell me you know what is going on.”
“I was hoping you would know,” Cynthia sighed with a shake of her head.
“Oldale Town is evacuating!” an operator updated them. “Rangers are escorting them to Petalburg, which is holding so far, even though the Pokémon from the Petalburg Forest keep attacking the city.”
“It’s exactly like the cave drawings in the caves of Celestic Town,” Beca murmured, looking at some of the screens - people running from burning villages, Pokémon chasing them from their homes. “What has gotten into these Pokémon?”
“The whole world has gone crazy,” Erma informed them. “It seems that wild Pokémon everywhere have gotten unnaturally aggressive towards humans - Pokémon that were caught by trainers appear unaffected. We’re trying to put out fires wherever we can, but we’re just fighting the symptoms of a problem we don’t understand.”
“The only cities that seem reasonably safe at the moment are those with a Pokémon gym,” Professor Hastings added.
“Because gym leaders have tons of Pokémon, which can help defend the cities,” Chloe nodded. “Most of ours are in Sunyshore doing just that.”
“What do you need us to do, Erma?” Cynthia asked, and for the first time Beca could hear the worry and panic in the older woman’s voice. Cynthia had always seemed so calm and collected, and Beca had assumed she would be one of the frontline champions against this unnatural occurrence. To hear that she, too, had no idea what to do sent a chill down Beca’s spine.
“I need you to do whatever it was Mewtwo needed you to do,” Erma told them. “We’re going to keep trying to combat this where we can, get people to safety… But you were chosen for a reason. The Ranger Union’s full resources are at your disposal, but whatever you do, please do it quickly.”
Beca watched Cynthia take a deep breath. “Then I need to find the others. We need to put our heads together to figure this out.
“Indeed,” another voice sounded from behind them. Beca turned on her heels, watching Steven Stone stepping out of the elevator. “I just watched Mossdeep Island blinking out of existence, so we will need everything we can bring to the table. Cynthia, if you locate the others and bring them here… I suggest Beca, Chloe and I begin looking into whatever could be causing this.”
“Where's the most dire situation right now?” Beca asked Erma.
“Rhythmi?”
“Canalave City is continuing to be assaulted by water Pokémon coming out of the ocean,” a blonde operator informed them. “The water level has also steadily been rising, a third of the city is mostly submerged by now and our Rangers are helping everyone to get to higher ground.”
“Chlo?” Beca asked. “It’s not like we’re going to find the cause of all this standing here…”
“We just flew here,” Chloe groaned. “Dragonair and Pidgeot can’t fly us all the way back to Sinnoh now.”
“There’s helicopters on the roof,” Erma told them. “Just tell one of the pilots where you need to go. I’ll make sure they know to do as you say.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
“Is there a PokéTransfer here?” Chloe asked. “We could call my father and ask to send a few extra Pokémon over if they’re not needed in Sunyshore right now.”
“I’ll take a helicopter, too, Erma,” Cynthia told the Chairperson, already stalking off towards the stairs.
“Good luck girls,” Steven told them. “I hope you find something useful.”
“This way for the Pokétransfer,” one of the Rangers gestured.
Getting to the elaborate machine, Chloe frantically dialed their own gym. “Dad!” she exclaimed, clearly relieved, when Barry Beale appeared on the screen. “You’re at the gym?”
“Obviously,” her dad grinned tightly. “Things have been quiet here since you guys left, but we’ve got trainers all over the city, on the lookout for trouble. Have you guys figured out what’s happening yet?”
“No, but there’s trouble all across the world,” Beca told him. “We’re headed to Canalave to see if we can find some answers there. Do you have any of our Pokémon there?”
“Most of them,” Barry nodded. “The gym is a nicely central position from where we can provide assistance all around the city if we need to. I think we have all of yours here, Beca, and all but Chloe’s water Pokémon too.”
“I only have Umbreon, Gallade, Venusaur and Pidgeot with me right now,” Beca thought out loud. “Can you send Feraligatr, Scizor, Teddi, and Gengar over?”
“You’re only allowed six-”
“I think the Pokémon League rules don’t really apply right now,” Beca interrupted him.
“Fair enough,” Barry nodded. “Chlo?”
“Just Froslass,” Chloe nodded. “I don’t want you guys to be left without enough Pokémon to defend yourselves if you need to.”
“You got it,” Barry nodded. A few minutes later, five Pokéballs came rolling out of the machine.
“Thanks dad!” Chloe smiled. “We need to run now!”
“Thanks!” Beca told him as well. “Keep our home safe, okay?”
“You got it, girls. Your mom and I will do our best.”
–
Sitting in the helicopter, Beca couldn’t help her leg from nervously bouncing up and down as she looked out the windows. No matter where they flew, she could see cataclysms happening, and the fact she couldn’t just go there and fix things was eating her up.
The helicopter banked sideways sharply, their pilot cursing under his breath as he tried to correct their course. “These winds aren’t natural!” he told them gruffly. “Been flying this baby well over thirty years and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“No one has,” Chloe responded, sounding far more calm than Beca felt. “How long until we get to Canalave?”
“In this weather? We may crash before we get there!”
“Please don’t say that,” Beca groaned, her knuckles turning white as she squeezed the armrest tightly.
“Fine, fine, fifteen minutes, give or take an hour, then,” the pilot grumbled.
Looking out the window again, Beca took in the distant ocean on their left. “Babe, is that… Sunyshore?”
“Yeah,” Chloe nodded with gritted teeth, not even looking.
“Is it… snowing? That can’t be a blizzard, right?”
“It is,” Chloe confirmed, still not looking at their hometown, which had to be covered in snow and ice by now. “A surprise winter isn’t the worst thing that could be happening. Mom and dad will handle it. They’ll be fine.”
“Of course they will be,” Beca assured Chloe. “They’re both amazing trainers, and they’ve got the majority of our awesome Pokémon with them too.”
“Yeah,” Chloe nodded. “We’ll figure this out. We have to.”
They lapsed into a silence, watching a blizzard rage on their left while violent winds whipped around them, causing their helicopter to shake and shudder.
“Coming up on Canalave City,” their pilot eventually informed them. “There’s a problem though. More than half of the city is gone, and I’m not going to be able to land.”
Looking out the window, Beca watched a large wave washing up on the shore - the canal was entirely gone, the buildings around it either completely submerged or only parts of their roofs still visible above the water. The part of the city built higher up on the hill seemed to be fine for now, but there was no telling for how long.
“There’s people on the rooftop of the gym,” she informed their pilot. “Can you hover there, low enough we can just… jump out?”
“That’s insanely dangerous,” their pilot huffed.
“But can you do it?” Chloe backed Beca up.
“One crazy-ass maneuver coming on up. If either of you ends up losing your head or breaking all the bones in your body, don’t blame me.”
“Noted,” Beca grunted, already unbuckling.
Their pilot steered them towards the gleaming, cylindrical bastion that was the Canalave City gym, hovering over its flat roof low enough that the people gathered on the other side seemed to back away from them in a mild panic.
“Here goes nothing,” Beca told herself, sliding the door open and haphazardly jumping out. Her sneakers slipped on the wet surface for a moment, and her wrist stung as she caught herself from falling entirely. Next to her, Chloe landed with the grace of a Luxray, already helping Beca to her feet while the helicopter lifted off again.
“Beca, Chloe!”
“Byron!” Chloe exclaimed, seeing the grizzled gym leader coming their way. “What’s going on?”
“You tell me! This is madness.”
“We know,” Beca told him. “The whole world is going to shit, we’re working on it. But what’s going on here?”
“Volunteering trainers are having their water Pokémon get people from the lower parts of the city, we’re putting them up at the gym for now. Hoping the water won’t come this high. Wild Pokémon make the work difficult though… I don’t know what’s gotten into them, but they’re attacking everything that moves.”
“Yeah, we had to fend them off at Sunyshore too,” Chloe told him. “Dragonair, come on out and help with the evacuation!”
“Feraligatr, Pidgeot, you too!”
“My Pokémon are helping with the defense,” Byron told them. “But my steel-types aren’t too good against all this water.”
“We need to figure out what’s behind this and put a stop to it,” Beca decided. “Are you good to keep doing what you’re doing here? Chloe and I can go down there and investigate.”
“Be careful,” Byron told them, clapping them both on the shoulder. “Don’t go running into anything you can’t handle, alright?”
“Who? Us? We’d never,” Chloe grinned.
“Riiiight,” Byron chuckled grimly. “Off you go, then!”
“Scizor, come on out,” Beca released her Pokémon. “Can you carry us down there?”
“Sci!”
Without too much effort, Scizor managed to get them off the gym’s roof and onto the streets below, where they found a group of trainers being ushered into the gym by an all-too-familiar blonde. “In, in, in, come on, hurry up!”
“Aubrey?”
“Chlo? Please tell me you’re here to help?”
“Yeah,” Chloe nodded. “Dragonair’s already working to help with the evacuation. Beca and I are going to see if we can find out what’s causing this. Weird stuff is going on all over the world.”
“Alright,” Aubrey nodded, clearly choosing not to be hostile given the circumstances. “Stay safe. Get anyone you encounter to come back here. Even at this rate, it’ll be a few hours before the gym floods, and it has five floors so we should be good for a while. I’m staying down here as long as I can.”
“Thanks,” Beca told her. “Byron mentioned attacking water Pokémon. Are you going to be okay or do you need some extra Pokémon to back you up?”
Aubrey grinned, pushing her raincoat off to the side and revealing her Pokéballs. “I think I’m good,” she told them, and for a moment Beca could see how she and Chloe might’ve gotten along, back in the day.
“Sweet,” Beca nodded. “We’ll be off then. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. If you need to go inside, go, alright?”
Aubrey gave them a nod, and Beca turned into the city, Chloe by her side and Scizor hovering above them as they made their way down. It wasn’t long before they encountered fleeing townsfolk, escorted by a host of different Pokémon, all headed towards the gym.
They made their way downhill until they were up to their knees in water, looking out at the roiling ocean in front of them. “I can’t believe it,” Chloe sighed. “Such a huge part of the city just… gone.”
A Gyarados burst out of the water a little way out, firing a powerful Hydro Pump in their direction. Given the distance, they were able to move out of its path, but to have a wild Pokémon attack them so violently was disheartening - even for a Gyarados.
“Froslass,” Chloe released her Pokémon. “Use Shadow Ball.”
“Gengar, come on out. You too, Gallade,” Beca released her Pokémon, seeing more shapes emerging from the water. Gengar appeared just in time to use his Psychic attack on an advancing Tentacruel, lifting him up and throwing him back out into the sea.
“What are we doing, Chlo?”
“I have no idea,” Chloe sighed, looking as distraught as Beca felt. “We came here to figure out what’s going on, but I have no idea how to do that. We… We’re gym leaders, not… whatever is needed here.”
“No,” Beca shook her head. “Maybe not. But we are here. Not someone else. So we better make the most of it.”
“Right,” Chloe nodded, pulling herself together. “The water couldn’t rise like this on its own, even in a storm. Something’s causing it.”
“Find the cause, put a stop to it, water level drops again?”
“That’s the idea,” Chloe confirmed, staring at the water while her Froslass sent out an ice beam to deter an advancing Golduck. “The Pokémon won’t make it easy on us.”
“But whatever is causing this has to be in the water somewhere,” Beca followed Chloe’s line of thinking. “So either we get it out of the water… or we go into the water?”
“Not sure how to do the first, definitely not a fan of the latter,” Chloe grimaced.
“Me neither, but I’m not going to stand here until I get pneumonia, babe.”
Taking a gleaming whistle from her pocket, Chloe blew into it with all her might. Beca waited patiently, until a few minutes later Dragonair and Feraligatr caught up with them, awaiting their orders expectantly.
“Can’t believe I’m saying this,” Beca groaned. “But we’re going for a swim, guys.”
Chloe mounted Dragonair, and Beca clambered onto Feraligatr’s back, wrapping her arms around his strong neck and holding on for dear life as her Pokémon dove forward, into the tumultuous waters.
Even though Feraligatr did a good job keeping Beca - mostly - above the water, she still got a face full of salty water every few seconds, stinging her eyes and obscuring her sight. She was grateful for Scizor, Gengar and Froslass, who were in the air around them and fired off regular attacks to fend off any Pokémon coming too close.
It was almost impossible to discern where the sea was supposed to be, but Beca felt they were getting pretty close to that point when they went a few minutes without seeing any rooftops around them. The very moment she thought about it, however, it felt like she fell into a deep hole.
She barely managed to inhale a lungful of air before the downward current pulled her under. It felt like an eternity - time during which up and down lost all meaning and she felt like she was being battered by currents from all sides. The water stung her eyes, but she still had to open them to determine which way to swim - and to see if Feraligatr was anywhere to be found.
She almost opened her mouth when she looked around - Canalave City looked like a perfectly preserved ruin hidden under the waters in its current state, like the sunken city of Atlantis. Everywhere she looked were water Pokémon, however - Gyarados and Magikarp, Remoraid and Mantine, Seadra and Kingdra, Lumineon and Tentacruel, hundreds upon hundreds of Pokémon, some of which Beca had never even seen.
Feeling her lungs burn, she began kicking herself upwards, her Pokémon nowhere to be found. She struggled against the downward currents, her efforts entirely futile as she only seemed to sink deeper and deeper, pulled down by a relentless current.
She spotted Chloe next to her, also in the process of swimming up - or trying to. Suddenly, Chloe ceased her efforts, her attention drawn by something by the looks of it. Following Chloe’s gaze, Beca too looked into the depths of the ocean beyond Canalave’s port.
At first, she had no idea why Chloe was staring down there, rather than trying to swim up. Then, out of nowhere, red lines began to shine in the darkness. For a moment, Beca was puzzled, no clue what she was looking at. Then, the lines moved, shifting subtly but unmistakably.
A Pokémon.
An impossibly large Pokémon.
Two eyes, gleaming purple, opened, staring at them from the dark depths. Shocked, Beca opened her mouth on instinct, trying to gasp and only getting a mouthful of water. Panicking, she kicked her legs and waved her arms, trying to break free from the current.
Chloe, similarly, seemed to be struggling to hold her breath, frantically trying to free herself from the downward pull as well. Her vision began to blur, and as she squeezed her eyes closed colorful spots filled her vision. She mentally berated herself for losing focus, allowing herself to get stuck down here under the waves, but she also knew that, with that humongous Pokémon down there… escape might never have been possible.
Something smacked into her from behind, hard enough to jostle her. She felt something grabbing a hold of her, not the current this time, but a Pokémon. Closing her eyes, Beca surrendered to the darkness, letting this Pokémon pull her into the depths of the ocean.
They failed. She failed.
Something slammed onto her back, hard enough to jostle her. Coughing, she felt the water leaving her lungs, replaced with sweet, sweet oxygen.
“Fucking hell, woman, you scared the living hell out of me,” a voice sounded, far away. “Deep breaths, you’re gonna be fine.”
Beca inhaled deeply, spluttering and coughing immediately. “C-Chlo…”
“She’s fine,” that same voice told her. “Take it easy for a few seconds, then carefully try sitting up. We can’t stay here long.”
“Where?”
“Roof of the library… Or what’s left of it, I guess.”
Blinking her eyes open, Beca looked at the gray clouds overhead, thick droplets of rain still falling down on them. Following the instructions she’d been given, she took a few more deep breaths before pushing into a sitting position.
A few feet away, she saw Chloe sitting, taking similarly deep breaths under Aubrey’s instructions.
“What happened?”
“You guys went into the water and got pulled under somehow,” Aubrey told her. “You took way too long to get back up, so I sent Empoleon and Floatzel out to check on you. They barely managed to pull you out of the currents and get you onto this roof.”
“You saved us,” Chloe panted. “Thanks, Aubs.”
“Technically my Pokémon did,” the blonde shrugged. “Dragonair and Feraligatr are back at the gym, as are your other Pokémon. What happened down there? They should’ve been more than strong enough to pull you back to the surface.”
“There’s something down there,” Beca explained, ignoring the stinging in her lungs to get to her feet. “Something… huge.”
“Like… Wailord huge?”
“No,” Chloe shook her head. “Far, far bigger. And very, very angry.”
“Great.”
“How’s the city doing?” Chloe continued.
“We finished evacuating the lower part of the city. Almost everyone is accounted for,” Aubrey told them, looking out at the waves. “The storm seems to be dying down, and the water Pokémon have ceased their attacks… at least for now.”
“That’s something, at least,” Beca groaned.
“My house is somewhere down there,” Aubrey muttered quietly. “Guess it’s a good thing I decided not to mop my floors last week, huh?”
Unexpectedly, Beca heard herself laughing at Aubrey’s joke. “Humor in the face of catastrophe. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
“Gotta deal with it all somehow,” Aubrey shrugged. “Let’s get back to the gym.”
Aubrey’s Pokémon helped them through the waters, and while Beca was afraid of being pulled under again every single second of the journey, they made it back onto the rain-slicked streets without issue.
The moment they reached the gym, they were swarmed by their Pokémon. The concern was clearly visible in their posture and eyes, and they took a minute to assure Dragonair and Feraligatr that everything was fine, before recalling everyone to their Pokéballs for the time being.
“I don’t know what you did down there,” Byron told them as they stepped inside. “But it seems to have bought us some reprieve.”
“Only thing we did was drown,” Beca scoffed. “So I doubt it was something we did.”
“Probably just dumb luck,” Chloe sighed, rubbing her neck. “The attack on Sunyshore also let up eventually. Maybe it just comes in waves.”
“Whatever it is, we’re going to be okay for a while,” Byron nodded, scratching his scruffy stubble. “Between my Pokémon and the trainers of Canalave, we should be okay to defend ourselves. Ranger Union called to let you know ‘your friends’ have all arrived, whatever that means.”
“Great,” Beca sighed. “How do we get back there? Our pilot bailed as soon as he dropped us off.”
“Alakazam can teleport you about… halfway there,” Aubrey supplied. “If that helps at all.”
“It does,” Chloe nodded. “Gardevoir should be able to teleport us the rest of the way. Thanks, Aubs.”
“You can thank me by figuring out what is going on and stopping it,” Aubrey told her with a nudge to her shoulder. “And maybe don’t drown again, while you’re at it.”
Chloe nodded with a faint smile. “Guess we can try.”