Ash's Story (Part 6: Unova)

Chapter 12: Artificial Sun

The helicopter carried us out of Castelia City with the smell of smoke still clinging to our clothes.

Below us, the glass towers thinned into roads, docks, bridges, and then the wide stretch toward Desert Resort. Professor Juniper sat across from me with her scanner case strapped against her knees. Officer Jenny spoke into her headset beside the pilot, coordinating with Castelia police and the rangers already moving to guide the Venipede away from the city.

I kept looking toward the west.

The damaged relay Golly found in the sewers had not been enough proof to say the name aloud in Central Plaza, but it had been enough to make every part of me feel like a wire pulled too tight. Team Rocket had touched the city. Team Rocket had frightened the Venipede. Team Rocket had led us here.

Pikachu stood on my lap instead of my shoulder. His paws pressed into my jacket, and his meaning reached me with no softness wasted. "Do not disappear inside the anger. I cannot follow you there."

"I am not disappearing," I whispered.

Alice heard me anyway. "You almost did when Juniper mentioned the relay."

I looked at her, and the words I wanted to argue died before they reached my mouth. Alice sat close enough that her knee touched mine whenever the helicopter shook. Her eyes kept moving over the windows, the pilot, Juniper's case, and the distant sand. She was not just afraid of Team Rocket. She was afraid of what Team Rocket did to me.

Golly had not sat down properly since takeoff. She braced herself with one hand against the wall and reviewed the photos on her phone with a cold focus that made Iris look uncomfortable.

"If this becomes a field confrontation," Golly said, "we collect evidence before anyone destroys the source. We keep witnesses together. We do not make declarations we cannot prove in front of people who do not have clearance."

Iris frowned from beside Cilan. "You keep saying things like clearance. Are you sure this is just Team Rocket?"

"No," Golly said. "That is exactly why I am saying it."

Cilan's face had lost its usual performance brightness. "A dangerous flavor is still dangerous even when the recipe is hidden."

Eve sat beside Alice, but she watched me. "And nobody runs ahead alone because someone says Giovanni's name."

The name landed in the helicopter like a blade.

My hands tightened until Pikachu nudged one wrist with his head. I forced my fingers open.

"I will not run alone," I said.

Alice did not relax. "Promise it."

I looked at the desert growing closer beneath us. "I promise."

The desert below looked peaceful from above, and that made it worse. Sand spread around Relic Castle in pale sheets, hiding old paths and half-buried stone. Nothing below looked powerful enough to terrify a colony of Venipede, but the ugliest machines often hid behind ordinary silence.

Professor Juniper noticed me watching the ruins. "The energy line is too direct to be natural."

Golly glanced up from her phone. "Then the sewer relay was guiding fear."

Then Golbat slammed into the windshield.

The pilot cursed and pulled hard to one side. More Golbat rose from the ruins below, wings flashing through the sun, mouths open in sharp cries. Officer Jenny grabbed the overhead rail while Professor Juniper's case nearly slipped from her lap.

"They are driving us down!" Jenny shouted.

"Those Golbat are not wild by accident," Golly snapped.

The helicopter dropped toward the sand near the edge of Relic Castle. I saw figures moving between broken walls and scaffolds, dressed in black uniforms marked with a red R.