The ultra ball sailed through the air, clicking open in a flash of light that seemed to suck the warmth from the very sun.
A massive, green figure slammed onto the ground, cracking the concrete in a web of fractures. A low, tectonic groan rumbled from its chest as it straightened to its full, terrifying height, dwarfing the surrounding scrap heaps. Spikes ran down its back, and its tail swept behind it with enough force to shear the rusted legs off a nearby crane carcass.
A Tyranitar.
The air grew thick with swirling dust—its Sand Stream ability, whipping up a localized, abrasive storm around the behemoth.
Archer, standing in the shadow of his pokemon, seemed to regain a shred of his shattered composure. His laughter was raw, edged with hysterical relief.
"You see?! This is the difference between us, child! You play with your clever tricks and your little birds! I command power!"
Tyranitar roared. The sound was a pressure wave that made the remaining van windows shatter and forced Anne to shield her face on her crane perch. Even the Alpha Scraggy took an involuntary step back, its own considerable bulk seeming suddenly insignificant.
Elias shielded his face, but the force of the wave cracked his glasses. Staravia flew away, hiding behind a scrap to shield itself. Krokorok, however, doesn't seem affected much. In fact, it was standing across from Tyranitar even though its size alone dwarfed it.
The sandstorm howled, a gritty, suffocating veil that turned the area into a blurred landscape of stinging sand.
Archer rolled back the sleeve of his uniform, revealing a heavy metallic bracer set with a polished, iridescent orb.
"You think you've won because you crippled a few grunts?" Archer shouted over the roar of the wind. "I am an Executive of Team Rocket! I will never lose to a kid again!"
He pressed two fingers to the stone. Streams of prismatic light erupted from the bracer, leaping across the distance to connect with the Mega Stone embedded in a heavy iron band around Tyranitar's neck.
Tyranitar's silhouette shifted. Its hide cracked and expanded, two red gaps glowing like magma appearing across its chest and knees. Its back exploded with even more lethal, elongated spikes. The Sand Stream intensified, the grit now moving fast enough to strip the paint off the rusted machinery.
Mega Tyranitar let out a roar that wasn't just sound—it was a vibration that rattled Elias's very bones.
Elias felt the frame of his glasses snap at the bridge. One lens fell into the dust, leaving his vision lopsided and raw. He watched as his Krokorok stood its ground, its feet sinking into the shifting sands, its eyes locked onto the mountain of prehistoric rage before it.
"He's lost it!" Anne yelled from above, her voice barely carrying through the gale. "Elias! That thing will level the entire area! We need to move!"
"I don't think we can escape this thing." Elias said in his mind.
"Tyranitar, Stone Edge! Bury him!"
Mega Tyranitar slammed its massive arms into the ground. Giant pillars of crystalized earth erupted from the flats, racing toward Elias.
Suddenly, a blur of green dived. Decidueye swept low, its talons snagging the back of Elias's shirt. With a powerful beat of its wings, it hauled him upward just as the pillars collided with the spot he had been standing, erupting in a shower of stone and dust.
It dropped Elias onto the high metal platform beside Anne. He stumbled slightly, his broken glasses hanging precariously off his face. He pulled them off, casting the useless frames aside. His vision was blurred, but the sheer scale of the pokemon below required no glasses to see.
"Krokorok!" Elias shouted over the wind.
Beneath the sandstorm, Krokorok had dived underground saving itself from the crushing force of the attack. Farther back, Alpha Scraggy had used the initial shockwave to leap behind a massive, rusted turbine.
"He's insane!" Anne gripped the railing of the crane, her hair whipping wildly in the sand. "A Mega Tyranitar in a scrapyard? If he uses Earthquake, the whole foundation of this district could collapse into the flats!"
Elias blinked rapidly, trying to force the world into focus. Without his glasses, everything was a smear of rusty brown, violent green, and the swirling, particulate tan of the sandstorm. Shapes were indistinct, distances impossible to judge. He could hear the Mega Tyranitar's roar, feel the platform shudder under its power, but he could no longer see the specifics of its movements, the tells that might give him a half-second of warning.
He turned his head towards the blur of pink that was Anne.
"My eyesight..." He said, his voice strained but level. "The sand… it's worse now. I can't see clearly."
Anne's head snapped towards him, her expression shifting to alarm. She saw his unfocused gaze, the way his eyes didn't quite track on anything specific.
"We need to run." Elias continued, speaking quickly. "But not into the city. He'll destroy it trying to get to us. We lead him east, towards the rocky plains. It's an open space. Nothing to collapse. He can throw all the attacks he wants there."
He reached out a hand, his movement slightly hesitant, groping in the air until his fingers brushed against the jacket sleeve.
"But I can't lead. I can't see the path. You have to guide me. Tell me where to step. Fast."
Below, the Mega Tyranitar was turning its wrath on the crane's support structure. A single, thunderous punch from its massive fist sheared through a steel beam. The entire structure groaned and tilted violently.
"No time to argue!" Anne yelled, grabbing his outstretched hand in a firm grip. "Decidueye, Amaura—cover our retreat! Lay down a screen, buy us seconds!"
Decidueye took to the air, firing a volley of feather arrows at the Tyranitar. Amaura, from a safer distance, unleashed another Icy Wind, this time aiming to create a slick, frozen path between the crane and the eastern flats.
"Now! Go!" Anne pulled Elias towards the crane's emergency ladder. "Left foot down, three rungs! Now right!"
Elias moved on pure trust, his feet finding the rungs as she called them out. He was a liability like this, a blind weight, and the knowledge was a knife in his gut. But it was the only play. Letting Archer rage in the scrapyard meant countless civilian casualties. Luring the monster out was the only way to contain the destruction.
"Straight for twenty paces! Now hard right around this compressor!"
Behind them, the crane gave a final metallic shriek and collapsed in a cloud of dust and tearing metal. Mega Tyranitar roared in frustration, its glowing red eyes pinpointing their fleeing forms.
"They're running!" Archer's voice, crazed with fury. He leapt into the driver's seat of the least-damaged van. "You think you can outrun me?! You think you can hide?!"
The van's engine roared to life, its tires spitting gravel as it swerved around the wreckage and gave chase.
"He's coming in the van!" Anne panted, pulling Elias over a low ridge of compacted scrap. "The rocky plains are a mile east! We'll never make it on foot!"
"We don't have to outrun the van." Elias said, his breathing labored but his mind clear. "We just have to make him angry enough to follow us on foot. Staravia!"
From its hiding spot, Staravia shot into the sky. It flew directly at the windshield in a blur.
"Peck the windshield! Don't stop!"
Staravia obeyed, becoming a feathered jackhammer. A spiderweb of fractures exploded across the driver's-side glass, obscuring Archer's view.
The van swerved violently, clipping a pile of rebar and spinning to a halt. The door flew open. Archer emerged, his face a mask of pure rage.
"Damn you, Elias!" Archer screamed, pointing a trembling finger. "Tyranitar, after them!!"
"Keep guiding me, Anne." Elias said, his world a terrifying blur of motion and deafening footsteps that grew closer with every second.
"Ditch ahead, jump on three! One, two, THREE!"
Elias leapt, trusting her timing completely. He landed on the other side, his ankles jarring on the hard ground.
"Now left, around the slag heap!"
He squeezed through a gap between two towering mounds of industrial waste, the rusty metal scraping against his shoulders.
Then, halfway through the tight passage, Elias stumbled to a sudden halt.
It wasn't a physical obstacle. It was a feeling. A disorienting shift in his heart. The constant, abrasive roar of the sandstorm in his ears seemed to mute, replaced by a strange, resonant hum that vibrated in the center of his chest.
"Elias! What are you doing?! Move!" Anne's voice sounded muffled, far away.
He turned his head towards her blurry form. He forced his legs to move, the action feeling mechanical.
"Right! Now, straight!"
He scrambled after her, his hands finding holds on her palm. As they continued, the character of the wind changed. It was cleaner and sharper.
"We're here! The plains!" Anne gasped, her voice hoarse.
Elias stumbled to a stop, doubling over with his hands on his knees. His heart hammered against his ribs. He straightened up, trying to squint the world into some semblance of shape. He could make out the massive, green silhouette of the Mega Tyranitar approaching. It had maybe a minute before it closed the distance.
"Anne." He said, his voice ragged but focused. "We stop here. We make our stand."
Anne stared at him, her chest heaving.
"Here? In the open? Elias, that thing will—"
"We can't escape this. It's either we die running, or we die standing."
The brutal truth of his own words hung in the air. There was no sugarcoating it. They were basically cornered here. They can't outrun it.
But as the finality of his statement settled, another thought pierced the despair. He wasn't entirely alone here. Staravia circled above him, letting out a defiant cry. And Anne was beside him.
Anne's team was here.
Decidueye is already perched on a high stone, its bow drawn. Amaura is standing protectively in front of its trainer.
Hope was a fragile, dangerous thing. It could make you reckless. But in that moment, with the blurry titan closing in, it was the only weapon he had left that Archer hadn't already smashed.
"We're not dead yet." Elias said, his voice gaining a sliver of strength. He was speaking to Anne, but also to himself. "Krokorok is smart. Scraggy is... restless. They're somewhere behind that thing. If we can just… hold on. If we can distract it, create an opening… they'll find a way."
He turned his blurry gaze towards Anne, willing her to see the conviction he was trying to fabricate.
"Your team, Anne. They're perfect for this. Decidueye can perfectly counter it. And Amaura… it can be its support. I also send a backup signal to Commander. We just need to cling on. We just need to last long enough."
He was building a plan out of desperation and spit, but he could see the idea taking root in Anne's eyes. The panic receded, replaced by a fierce, focused glint. She wasn't a brawler like Rein, she was a tactician. And he'd just given her a battlefield and a role.
"You're right." She said, her voice dropping into a low, steady register. "I think we can make this work. Maybe I have a plan already. But you're far more smarter than in terms of battle. Let's believe in each other."
The world was a violent motion. Elias could hear the thunderous steps of the Mega Tyranitar. He could feel the sharp, cold wind kicked up by Amaura's power and the drier, rustling energy of Decidueye's preparation. But he could see none of the details.
"Staravia." He said, his voice calm despite the chaos. "We'll support for now."
"Decidueye, use Leafage! Amaura, use Blizzard!"
Decidueye's bow twanged. A whirlwind of razor-sharp leaves shot, swirling directly into the Mega Tyranitar's glowing eyes. At the same instant, Amaura reared back and unleashed a concentrated, howling vortex of ice and snow at the ground in front of the titan.
Elias felt the shift in the air. The dry rustle of leaves, the sudden, biting plunge in temperature. He heard the Tyranitar's roar of irritation as the leaves peppered its face, and the heavy, unbalanced scrape as its foot hit the newly-formed ice and slid.
"Staravia, now! Use Gust! Push the leaves deeper and swirl the blizzard!"
Staravia dove, its wings beating. It pulled a sharp, localized gale from the side, exactly as Elias had envisioned. The Leafage became a stinging, persistent cloud driven into every parts of the Tyranitar's face. Staravia's wind whipped the Blizzard into a miniature ice storm, scouring the beast's legs and making the footing even more treacherous.
Mega Tyranitar, blinded by the swirling leaves and off-balance on the ice, roared in pure fury. Archer, watching his ultimate weapon being harassed by what he saw as insignificant pests, finally snapped.
"Enough of this games!" He shrieked, his voice cracking with rage. "Tyranitar, use Hyper Beam!"
The command cut through the chaotic symphony of wind and roaring. A terrible silence fell for half a heartbeat as the Mega Tyranitar shook its head, clearing the last of the leaves. Its massive jaws gaped open. Deep within its throat, a white light appeared. It swelled, condensing into a sphere of pure, annihilating energy. And it wasn't aimed at Anne, or her pokemon. It was aimed straight at Elias.
The Hyper Beam fired.
The sound was a deep, shuddering vwhoom that swallowed all other noise.
Elias didn't close his eyes. He watched the end come, a blur of overwhelming white filling his world.