“Auri!” yelled Darren as the rubble sped towards the two. Joey’s Espurr stopped the attack midair and flung it to the side.

  “Auri, control yourself. What are you doing?” said Darren.

  “Is the pipsqueak still upset about the time we stole her?” said Joey. Ducky sighed.

  “Discretion, Joey. Is that the next thing I’ll have to teach you about? But am I glad we found you. We’ve been looking-”

  It took a couple of breaths to register what they were talking about, but when it did click, we all acted at once. With a breakthrough that in any other situation would have made me proud, Flaaffy achieved her first Thunderbolt, the electricity arcing towards Espurr. Darren did a complete one-eighty and switched to ordering Auri to attack. With anger I hadn’t seen on him before, he struggled to form coherent words, but the message was clear, and Auri was more than keen to oblige. On the surface, Sunny was more restrained, but Hector and Caviar were firing Water Guns, and she was the first to summon her other Pokémon, Coral, taking a defensive stance in front of our group. I was but a second behind her as I chose Junior to be the expression of my rage.

  Our enemies weren’t idle either. Or, well, one of them wasn’t. Joey brought forth the rest of his team. His Hattrem and Staryu I’d seen before, his Inkay was new to me. They were quick to set up a series of psychic barriers that shielded them from the onslaught of attacks aimed at them.

  Ducky, meanwhile, put her hands behind her head and laughed like she always did.

  “Need any help?” she asked. Joey grunted in reply.

  “Good, come this way,” she said. She turned around and sauntered down the direction she came from.

  “What?” exclaimed Joey. He grit his teeth and began a backwards retreat following her.

  Ducky’s attitude only incited further anger among my companions and me. Even Capsakid was shooting Bullet Seeds without the go-ahead from his trainer, though, thinking back on it, he probably wanted to join in because he thought it was fun.

  The initial clash was disorganised and chaotic. None of our actions synergised, and Joey’s Pokémon had a rather easy time fending us off simply by taking it in turns to cycle through Light Screen, Reflect, and Protect. Worse, we got in each other’s way; while Junior was laying into a barrier with Fury Swipes, she had to dodge the long-range attacks coming from behind her.

  Darren had great instincts as a trainer, though, and he didn’t take long to cool off, even if his eyes were still hard. He got Auri to coordinate with Sunny and her Pokémon, trying to overload Joey’s defences by attacking at the same time, or aiming for the brief moment when one shield went down and another was going up. Flaaffy, another one with a good head on her fluffy woollen shoulders, adapted to their strategy too. Even with all that, and Junior having free rein to rain down Cross Chops on her opponents, Joey was an unbreakable wall. He didn’t command his Pokémon verbally, but their teamwork was so seamless, I suspected there was a psychic connection between all of them with Joey at the centre. The narrow corridor worked in his favour, as he had us in a bottleneck, unable to surround him. Even still, the pressure had mounted on him, and the good news is his Pokémon didn’t have many openings to counterattack. The few they did manage to get off were intercepted by Coral with Wide Guard.

  In this way, we were stuck in a stalemate, with Ducky and Joey retreating and with us steadily advancing.

  “You were the ones who took Auri and Wish,” said Darren.

  “You got them back, didn’t you?” replied Ducky. “It all worked out in the end. Also, this is a historical site; shouldn’t you think twice before causing such a commotion?”

  “You hurt Auri; something happened to her while she was gone.”

  Ducky winced.

  “Yeah, it was pretty bad. I’d hoped something like that wouldn’t have happened.”

  “What did you do to her?”

  “Us? Nothing,” said Ducky. “It was this child’s father. He treats Pokémon like he does his children.”

  Espurr, sitting on Joey’s shoulder, turned her head towards her, and Ducky crashed down hard onto the floor. In retaliation, Hawlucha burst out of his pokeball and manhandled Espurr to the ground before she could react. Joey bent double, crippled with pain, head between his arms as the two started fighting between themselves. Hawlucha got the first few hits in, but Espurr’s type advantage became clear once she grabbed him with psychic. Before she could land the finishing blow, Ducky’s Pidgeot, Crest, materialised and clasped a claw around Espurr’s head. Espurr froze, fear in her eyes. The first emotion I’d ever seen in them.

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  The infighting gave us ample opportunity to take advantage of the situation, and without Joey keeping his team together, they fell apart under the barrage of attacks. Junior got her claws on Inkay and battered the little guy so much that I had to recall her before something happened that I would seriously regret. The rest of his Pokémon were easily dismantled by the rest of us once their barriers were torn through.

  Just when I thought we had them, Down, the Togekiss intercepted our advance and blew a Fairy Wind at us. While not overly powerful, in the sense that even a strong Gust could be, Fairy Wind was simultaneously ticklish and suffocating, a pink hue suffusing in the air, making it almost impossible to go forwards.

  “Alright, change of plans,” said Ducky, having picked herself up and still with that chuckling lilt in her voice. “We fly. Joey, recall your Pokémon. Grey Skitty, I thought we’d reached an arrangement, but it seems I’ll have to deal with you again later. Down, pick up Joey, Crest, with me.”

  With a speed I couldn’t hope to match, the two large flying-types turned, stretched their wings so that the tips brushed against opposite walls, and somehow managed to fly in the cramped space. Ducky jumped onto Crest’s back, and Down picked Joey up with her mouth, right when he finished retrieving his Pokémon.

  We chased after them, also recalling our slower-moving Pokémon.

  “Was Ducky really involved in Auri’s kidnapping?” asked Kurt. He ran alongside us, looking more confused than scared. “It doesn’t seem like something she would do.”

  “She just admitted it,” I hissed. “And it’s perfectly in character for Joey.

  “Maybe, but shouldn’t you give her a chance to speak?” he said.

  I didn’t reply, only in part because I was saving my breath for the sprint. The chase took us down winding corridors, our quarry always just within range of Flaaffy’s Flash. Ducky was leading us somewhere; it was clear. They weren’t going as fast as they could have, and her actions from before indicated the same.

  We were going down. That’s what it felt like. There was a slope to the floor taking us deeper into the earth, a fact confirmed when Ducky swerved into a staircase leading us ever further downwards. At some point, though, she must have taken a wrong turn, because she came up against a dead end, and we had them cornered.

  “Ducky, what’s going on?” asked Kurt. Darren, Sunny, and I got back into battle mode, and Joey took out Staryu.

  “Try catching me to find out,” taunted Ducky. It succeeded in triggering Auri, and she sent another powerful Rock Slide their way. No barriers were put up this time. Instead, just before the attack hit, they disappeared. The rocks, having lost their target, crashed into the wall behind and smashed it. There was another room, or corridor, or something on the other side, but strangely, it didn’t shatter the way it should have. It cracked into large pieces, which then fell forwards. When the dust settled, it became clear why. A transparent psychic barrier was behind it. It wasn’t a simple wall, this time. Peering through the hole, I could see that the barrier formed a cube. Within the cube, sitting with arms clasped around her knees, was a Pokémon I instantly recognised despite never having seen one before. She had green hair and light blue eyes, and the ghost of the sweetest melody I’ve ever heard emanated from her, despite her not making a sound. Raising her head, Meloetta looked at us with a sort of depressed curiosity.

  “Guests? How unfortunate,” said a voice, muffled, as if under water, by the barriers.

  I looked up, only then noticing that the cube was in a large hall lit up by torches. A gaunt man who was sitting cross-legged and was almost familiar had spoken. Next to him was a Pokémon with yellow skin, levitating half a metre above the floor. It had a bushy beard and some kind of purple tunic, a red gem in its forehead, and spoons floating around it.

  It could only be a Mega Alakazam. But that wasn’t possible, because that meant I knew who the trainer was, and if I was right, that was very bad news for everyone.

  “That’s Killian? The champion?” gasped Sunny.

  “Ex-champion,” I corrected, even as overwhelmed with the scene before me, I maintained the presence of mind to defend Elaine. She was my friend.

  I looked again at Killian. He was very different from the last time I’d seen him on TV. He was tall, even sitting, that much was obvious, but whereas before he used to be physically imposing, he was skeletal, skin seeming to hang off him as if there was no meat underneath. It made him look far older than he was. I didn’t remember his exact age, but he should have been somewhere in his thirties. He looked sixty. His hair was roughly cut and greying. He was cleanly shaven and gazed back at us as he calmly popped a tomato into his mouth. The action brought to my attention the spread of different foods laid out before him.

  “True, it’s ex-champion now, isn’t it? I’m still not used to that. Who took my title? Nevermind, I’m not interested.”

  “Mr Curmin,” said Kurt, reminding me of Killian’s last name. “Explain what you’re doing here, and what you’re doing to Meloetta.”

  “Should I, I wonder. It is dreadfully unfortunate you are on the other side of Kazzy’s barrier. If you were over here, I would deal with you myself. As it is, I’m going to have to ask some bounty hunter to take care of you. In your position, I would run. Get as big a head start as you can. If you want to waste time listening to what I’m doing, I don’t mind explaining. It only reduces your chances of escaping.”

  Despite being almost as scared by his threat as I was by the Parasect, I didn’t move, and neither did my companions.

  “As you wish,” said Killian. “It’s very simple. I want Meloetta on my team. There was a reason I only trained five Pokémon, I was saving a spot just for her. She is somewhat reluctant to join, which is a pity, so we made a bet. If she could escape, I’ll let her go, and if she gives up, she submits to me. Fair.”

  “Not fair,” said Sunny. “You can’t force Pokémon, especially ones with the intelligence of Meloetta to work for you.”

  “Why not? Are you going to stop me?”

  “Why does it need to be Meloetta? Surely you could find many other strong Pokémon who would love to join your team.”

  “Maybe so, but it needs to be Meloetta. I’ve been the undisputed champion of Silín for a decade, the strongest recorded trainer in history. And do you know what people say? They say the Hero was stronger. The only evidence they provide is that the Hero had Meloetta, a supposedly Mythical Pokémon. Absurd, isn’t it? She’s strong, I’ll give her that. Kazzy’s barriers can only contain her when he’s Mega evolved. But she is still, as you can see, trapped. No, I deserve to have her; she is a symbol, after all, the symbol of the strongest in Silín. Myself.”