My eyes snapped open with a ragged gasp.
Colress leaned over me, watching the neural monitor spike off the charts. His expression remained completely blank.
"Fascinating."
It was the only word he could get out before the roof blew apart above us.
The explosion punched downward in a storm of concrete and dust. Light flooded the lab as the ceiling ripped open and debris scattered across the floor like shrapnel.
"Down!" someone shouted.
Skyla dove through the smoke, her hair wild from the flight over. Her face was carved with a fury I'd never seen from her. Swellow and the rest of her team swooped in beside her. Police officers dropped in on grapple lines as half a dozen PAP Enforcement drones descended in a metal storm.
The Plasma grunts opened fire immediately, and the Cresselia spun toward the commotion, her psychic energy still pulsing.
In that moment, her concentration slipped for a single second.
That one second was all he needed.
Dakashi hurled himself against the psychic barrier restraining him and unleashed an Ice Beam so violent that the entire lab crackled with frost. The attack shattered his psychic cage and hit Crescelia's collar with a marksman's precision.
The device shattered in a pop of crimson sparks.
Cresselia blinked once, and the red glow left her eyes like mist. Her wings flared, and she seized Dakashi in a gentle psychic catch, lowering him safely from where he was about to fall in exhaustion.
Another pulse radiated outward, bright and impossibly soothing.
Dakashi's wounds sealed, and my aneurysm vanished like it had never happened. My mind snapped back into full control, and all the agony, fear, and pressure detonated.
The psychic shockwave that erupted from me tore my restraints apart and blasted Marcus, Colress, and every plasma grunt in the immediate vicinity off their feet.
Surgical tables overturned, and the overhead light fixtures bloomed and exploded as their internals short-circuited.
I stumbled free and gasped before hastily grabbing my Poké Balls from the side tray. Just in time, too, as an enforcer, Arcanine tackled the grunt guarding them.
I threw them outward with a scream.
"Make some noise!"
Zoey tore into existence in a whirl of shadow.
Swampert slammed into the ground with a bellow.
Scizor burst out beside me, his claws snapping with metallic fury.
Trilla materialized in a halo of psychic light as Simon flew overhead.
Nick landed and immediately sent a support pillar into a moving Plasma vehicle, crushing the cab and the two grunts inside before they could run an officer over.
The battle exploded around us.
From across the chaos, I saw Colress rise to his feet with a patient and calculating posture. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a compact pistol before leveling it at me.
"If I cannot study you," he said calmly, "then no one can."
The gunshot cracked, but the bullet never reached me.
Because something moved faster.
A flash of red and green light parted and revealed that Scizor had Mega Evolved.
Light spiraled off his body as his armor elongated and sharpened. His wings blasted outward in a flare of green energy, and his claws expanded into enormous crimson pincers that hummed with a barely retrained power.
He landed between me and the bullet and caught it square in his armored chest.
Enough!
His mind slammed into mine for the first time since I rescued him from that warehouse. His tone was sharp and furious.
Before Colress could blink, Scizor blitzed and tore the gun away from Colress, the mad scientist's hand coming with it in a spray of red.
Colress looked down at the stump with mild annoyance, as if noting a mathematical error.
"It doesn't matter," he murmured.
Those were his last words as Scizor appeared behind him in a shimmer of after-images. The rugged claw locked shut around Colress's torso, and with a sound of snapping rebar, the doctor's body came apart in two pieces.
THAT was for all of my friends you murdered!
Scizor said as Colress's remains hit the ground.
"Dad!"
I sprinted down the corridor that the grunts had dragged my father toward. He was still strapped to the stretcher, blood dripping down his thigh. His face was swollen and desperate.
"Hang on! I've got you!"
Scizor reached him next, and with a single swipe of his massive pincer, he split the metal restraints cleanly.
Dad collapsed forward into my arms with a broken sob.
"I've got you," I whispered, voice shaking. "I've got you, Dad."
His eyes shot up suddenly, and he grabbed a nearby sidearm that one of the grunts had dropped. In a split second, he shot a charging Ariados between the eyes and went limp. A medic rushed in and took him gently from me.
I turned back toward the lab just in time to see Marcus bolting for the exit.
Hatred spiked through me like lightning.
Dakashi, he's running!
Dakashi vanished from Cresselia's side like a shadow pulled into a vacuum.
He rose from Marcus's own shadow in front of the doorway, solidifying inch by inch like smoke turning to flesh.
Marcus skidded, terror, jerking across his ruined face.
"Not again! No, no, no!"
Dakashi's eyes burned violet.
"Last time I tried to kill you, and you lived."
He reached out, placing one long hand on each of Marcus's temples.
"You don't get that opportunity this time."
Marcus screamed as Dakashi pulled him into a nightmare so deep and so hateful that the air seemed to vibrate. A nightmare crafted by a Darkrai who had waited seventeen years to finish this.
The moment Marcus's screams were swallowed into Dakashi's darkness, my body finally realized the fight was over.
The world tilted sideways as my knees buckled and I hit the floor hard, palms slipping in a streak of blood and dust. The sounds of battle faded into a hollow, buzzing static in my skull.
My chest heaved, and every nerve in my body flickered. The psychic shockwave had taken more out of me than I'd thought.
Then someone shouted my name,
"Atrea!"
Shapes moved around me. Blurred armor plates, shining drones, and streaks of blue and red uniforms flew past my foggy vision. The lab lights pulsed like strobes above me and seemed to stab into my retinas.
I tried to push myself up, but my arms trembled uselessly.
"Atrea, stay with me! Stay with me, hey!"
Skyla's voice cut through the static like a rope tossed toward a drowning swimmer.
She slid onto her knees beside me and cradled the back of my head as medics rushed in around us. I felt gloved hands pry open my eyelids. Cold metal pressed against my neck as someone checked my pulse.
"She's tachycardic."
"Get her a Neuro-Stim."
"Her vitals are unstable. Was she hit?"
"No. Neuraltrauma."
Skyla shot them a look that could kill a Tyranitar.
"Back up and give her space! She needs to breathe!"
She dragged me against her chest and wrapped her arms around me.
I could feel her shaking.
"You're okay," she whispered fiercely. "You're okay. I'm right here."
My heart finally slowed a little.
Zoey appeared at my side. No illusions this time. She pressed her forehead to mine.
Don't you dare leave, she rasped telepathically, her voice raw. I can't handle that. I can't.
Swampert crouched protectively behind us as Trilla knelt and placed a hand on my forehead, easing the fading migraine.
Simon and Scizor were helping the officers in the distance.
I exhaled shakily and let my body go slack against Skyla's arms.
Her grip tightened like she was afraid I'd vanish from her arms.
"You scared the hell out of me," she whispered into my hair. "You didn't answer my calls when I landed, and your Poké Balls wouldn't respond. We never would have found you if you hadn't left a pool of blood in that parking lot outside Drayden's teleport room."
I reached weakly for her hand, threading my fingers through hers.
"I'm here, Sky…" I whispered. "I'm here."
She pressed her forehead to mine, breathing hard.
"I'm not leaving you again," she said. "And I know I keep saying that, but I mean it this time."
"I believe you," I said as both of us let out an exhausted laugh.
The PokéBots hovered overhead, their scanners sweeping the ruined lab.
"Sector A secured. Plasma personnel detained. Structural integrity compromised. Beginning evacuation."
More Police officers flooded the hallways to secure the rest of the building.
A PAP Sergeant stepped through the haze and gave Skyla a nod.
"Gym Leader Skyla? Your team cleared the east wing. You saved a lot of lives today."
She didn't respond.
The captain's gaze lowered to me.
"Miss Morgan? You're safe now. We just need to get you both topside."
Dakashi drifted near the ceiling like smoke coalescing. He watched everything with those unblinking violet eyes.
For now, no one dared go near him.
Later, after Scizor helped carry me past some fallen debris, I found myself alone with Dakashi for a moment.
He floated a few feet above the cracked asphalt, his eyes dim but steady.
"You saw it," I whispered. "All of it."
He nodded.
"You were there," I said. "You've always been there."
Yes.
"Then why? Why me? Why did you save me that night?"
Dakashi's gaze softened, barely perceptible, but real.
Because your injury was my fault. I begged Chloe to let me battle one of her challengers, and she reluctantly obliged. I then proceeded to sweep Sinclair's entire team on my own. He was there that night to get revenge on Chloe for something she didn't do. When you were hit, Chloe pleaded for me to intervene. To save you.
I swallowed hard.
"And the cost?" I whispered. "What did my mom give up?"
Dakashi's gaze drifted to the sky.
Absolutely nothing. You paid the price. The attack ravaged your mind and should have killed you. I believe that the only reason you survived the hit in the first place was how young you were.
I nodded slowly.
As humans develop, their minds build up a resistance to psychic manipulation. If Medicham had hit your mother, it would have simply killed her instead of overloading her senses like it did to you.
"So where do my abilities come from?"
Me. On accident. The procedure was psychic in nature and could have resulted in you becoming paralyzed, going insane, or stroking out. I have no idea how you managed to not only survive intact, but also emerge stronger than before. Your ability is a miraculous anomaly I did not intend to produce. As for the cost… I was forced to remove several of your childhood memories that overlapped with the damaged parts of your mind.
"You did what you had to do, Dakashi. Thank you."
Despite lacking anything resembling a mouth, he managed to form a relaxed smile before fading back into the shadows.