Child of Thorns - A Pokemon Sinnoh Reimagining

Atop Mt. Coronet's peak, a light like that of a star burned through the growing darkness of the coming night, parting the sky in two. Red and yellow and pink mixed and twisted, swirling up into a multicolored vortex, climbing up and up, so high it was hard to tell where it ended. Reiko stood in the center, unfazed. Her crimson hair flowed weightlessly behind her, floating upwards in the same way the flames did. Her blade was like molten lava, her eyes shone like burning coals.

Behind her, two wide flares of light extended past her shoulder blades, dwarfing her in size. Combined with the pillar of flames, they formed a most striking silhouette.

Moltres, the Flame of Cinnabar, bated its fiery wings and stared down at their opponent through Reiko's eyes, paralyzing its movements if only for an instant.

"This night of ours has been long. So very long…"

Reiko's voice echoed as she raised her blade forward. That gesture finally pulled M3 out of its dazed state. It blinked, then took a sudden step back, the outline of its body flaring with psychic energy.

"This chain of hatred has gone on for long enough." Reiko slid her foot back, falling into position, and pressed the pommel of her tachi against her palm. "It started with that first bullet, nineteen years ago, and it will end with you, and me, and this flame's last conflagration. I, Reiko Chabashira, shall put you rest and end this long nightmare once and for all!"

M3 screeched, unable to understand, and threw itself forward with clear intent to kill. It flew like a bullet toward Reiko, hands raised to the sides, forming balls of swirling psychic energy. Reiko responded in kind, stomping the ground and letting out a bellow of her own.

"Heed my call; Moltres, the Flame of Cinnabar!"

With fluid, almost instantaneous movements, M3 slammed its hands together right before reaching Reiko, unleashing an explosion of psychic energy so powerful it completely stopped its momentum, leaving it hovering in place for an instant.

An instant that Reiko took advantage of, as she was no longer where the explosion had hit. She moved like lighting. Like smoke filtering through one's fingers. A zip of light cut through the air and suddenly she was behind M3, feet sliding through the ground, tachi wound back behind her.

"Ia!"

The beast tried to react, but for the first time its body was not fast enough. It barely managed to look over its shoulder, vision suddenly filled with white and red. The flaming slash severed its right arm at the elbow like it was made of butter, and it would have cut through its torso just as easily, but it teleported out of the way just in time.

It reappeared closer to the crater's center, stumbling back a step, its psychic growl rumbling around its feet like a small tremor. Sprays of yellow-ish blood stained the ground. Soon, however, the wound closed and its arm was enveloped in a soft purple light, the limb slowly starting to regenerate. But it was slow, much slower than before, and that healing light seemed to be flickering on and off.

Its energy was starting to run out. It couldn't hold on much longer.

"Not so fast!"

Reiko fell upon M3 with the fury and speed of a rampaging Tyranitar, her blade making a beautiful arc as it fell toward the creature's head, a half-moon slash of flames. It hit solid air as M3 created a barrier, exploding outwards and making a sound like a bell being struck. The momentum pushed Reiko back a few inches, and before its arm had fully regenerated M3 threw itself forward, slashing at the air with its other hand, a blade of psychic energy formed from his fingers. Reiko parried with the spine of her tachi and then spun on the ball of her feet, cutting in a circle around her.

Another flash, and M3 was no longer there. Reiko felt a shiver and instantly looked up, squinting at the brightness of the s-

That was not the sun. Eyes shooting wide, she saw as M3 hovered a good distance above her, forming in its one remaining hand a massive sphere of glowing light, pulsing with a crackling, destructive heartbeat. It raised it over its head, ready to throw it.

Reiko jumped. At first it seemed as though she'd simply vanished, teleported just as her opponent did, but then the shockwave exploded around where she'd previously stood, sending a wave of dust and heat through the crater. Above, M3 blinked, seemingly confused as to where she'd gone. Then it heard a boom like that of a gunshot, and suddenly there was a flare of red and white under it. Then another boom, and it was on its left. Then another.

It understood too late, as the final boom came and Reiko barreled toward it from its blind spot, a jet of flames propelling her forward. M3's eyes could not follow her movement, only the faint trails of fire left behind with each burst. An alien sensation of panic flooding its body, it tried to turn around and slam the sphere of energy against her, but if his eyes could not match Reiko's speed then its body was even further behind. A sound like a rolling roar was the last thing it heard before the searing pain cut through its body again.

An arc of blood spurted from its chest to its stomach, instantly hissing and vaporizing against the heat of the blade. The sheer force of the slash sent M3 flying, its broken, shrill cry echoing through the air like nails on a chalkboard. The sphere of energy flew out of its hands, shooting toward the horizon. Mere moments later, a large flash illuminated the coming night, and the wave of force from the explosion reached them all.

M3 flickered away, but a much shorter distance than before. It did so again and again, escaping Reiko's reach with a mix of flying and short-range teleportation, the regenerative glow unable to keep up with the speed at which it was acquiring wounds. Desperate, it looked over its shoulder as it flew and readied for a counterattack, but it didn't see Reiko following.

She was dropping. The momentum from her previous bursts ran out and she slammed against the ground as a massive fireball, sending waves of dust around. M3 let its breath escape. A moment's reprieve. If only a moment.

"Hh-hhhghaaaaAAAAA!"

Because Reiko only gave herself a single breath before jumping again, gathering Moltres' power into her legs and exploding off the ground with a sound like that of a jet engine. A golden and silver streak, like an arrow of light shooting straight for M3's heart.

Its eyes shot wide, their crimson glowing gold for a moment; Cyrus' Will, manifesting through it, burning up even stronger than before. And suddenly, it didn't feel as much pain. Its wounds started to heal faster. Its energy began to renew with greater speed.

M3 stopped in mid-air, and shot in the opposite direction, toward Reiko, its body now alight with renewed power. Reiko saw this, in the infinitesimal moment before they clashed, and a terrible anxiety gnawed at her heart.

We can't prolong this, she thought. Our power is finite, but the energy fueling this thing is not. We have to end this, Moltres!

The way her blade roared as its flames cut through the air could have been mistaken for the legendary phoenix' response, a bellow of war, a rushing, bursting sound like a fire's last burst before it went out.

Their clash shook the sky, echoing with a deafening sound. They shot off from each other in thin bursts of luminescence, shooting like threads of light through the air, M3 zipping in short circles, Reiko bursting from one point to the other, before clashing again. And again. A shower of sparks and fireworks, of roaring flames and crackling psychokinetic energy filled the air in cracks and booms. Trails of purple and crimson dancing around each other, streaking through the sky together before clashing repeatedly, their battle booming throughout the skyline above Mt. Coronet.

Below, near the peak of the mountain, three trainers and their small army of Pokemon looked up in amazement and consternation. Flint was the first to speak. He clicked his tongue and slammed his foot against the ground, frustration clear across his face.

"Damn… what are we supposed to do against a monster like that?" he said.

"It's incredible. I don't think our Pokemon would be much help, even if we could follow the battle," Aaron replied. "Lucian said to help her while he took care of Cyrus, but…"

The old woman between them slammed her cane against the rocky ground, startling them.

"Do not be fretting about like skittish Caterpie!" she bellowed, gaze glued to the battle above. "We must provide what little help we can! Are we not Sinnoh's last line of defense, now that Cynthia is gone!?"

Her words seemed to invigorate the two young men, burning away some of the fear in their expressions.

"Yeah… yeah, you're right," said Flint, looking up with a lopsided smile. "Heh, can't have a foreigner be solving all our problems for us."

"Look who's talking," Aaron whispered. "Besides, that's not fair to her. She's fighting so hard to protect our land… regardless of her reasons, that makes her one of us, if in Spirit only."

"And we Sinnohans protect our own, come hell or high water!" Bertha exclaimed. Then she raised her cane and pointed it up at the sky. "Everyone, attack! We shall take as much of the load off her shoulders as we can!"

"Ja!"

The army of Pokemon cried out alongside their trainers, the sound echoing like a war cry throughout the sky.

Streaks of light and energy cut through the dark purple of the coming night, like cracks spreading throughout the sky. Red flashed, white answered. A series of booms and shock-waves trailed across the sky one after the other, chasing the ribbons of light zipping about at lightning speed, slamming against each other and hissing on impact like fire on water. The sound was deafening. As though the mantle of stars and moonlight above were being hit repeatedly with a hammer in an attempt to shatter it to pieces.

Above, Reiko fell upon M3's trajectory once more, cutting through the night with an arc of flames that barely caught its shoulder before the beast disappeared, reforming behind her. There was a zip of light. It raised its hand to grab her, but a trail of flames whistled between them, saving Reiko momentarily. Surely it was Flint's doing. Reiko swallowed and used her flames to put some distance between them, spinning in mid-air to face M3. Her eyes flew through the dark sky, frantic. There, about forty yards above, it threw its hands to the side and sent out a powerful shockwave behind it, pushing itself toward her like a bullet.

Reiko allowed herself only an instant to breathe as her momentum vanished, and she started to fall. Her heart hammered against her chest, its beat rushing through her head. Her adrenaline was running out, giving way to pain and exhaustion. Moltres' power wouldn't fuel her for long.

We finish it now, she said in her head. One strike!

She called the flames, and they answered, burning hotter than they'd ever done before, flaring up one last time. She was no longer falling. In an instant she was there. Then she was but a shooting star, a fireball of light and motion on a collision course with M3. Faint afterimages trailed behind her; the outline of wings, the arc of her blade, the boom of a cataclysmic burst of power, the very personification of the land's wrath.

"GHAAAAAAA!"

Her blade flashed, moved like thunder. M3 brought its hands down toward it, covered in so much foul psychic energy they distorted the air around it.

Inches from impact, time slowed to a crawl. Their vision and intuition sharpened to their absolute limits, both made almost imperceptible twitches with their hands, shifting their angle ever so slightly, reacting to the other's movement, their trajectory and muscle memory. Like surgeons lining the scalpel before a cut.

Time resumed, and they clashed. A flare almost like a second sun engulfed the sky, popping like a bubble a moment after and showering the sky with red and white and purple sparks, little zips of crackling energy spiraling around like crawling spiderwebs. There was an instant of silence, and then the sound and the shockwave reached the ground below. It pressed against the peak, rolling down an avalanche of dust and dirt down the sides, catching all trainers and Pokemon in its path.

The two figures above zipped past one another, slower, covered in trailing limbs of smoke from the impact.

Reiko blinked, her vision blurry. Her body felt weak, light, and a terrible pain bit at the left side of her body, like needles of ice. For a few moments as she trailed through the sky on momentum alone, she couldn't tell where was up and where was down. Then she saw it. The ground. The smoke trailing behind her, and the streak of red that outlined it, flowing freely from her left leg and arm.

The pain forced her back to herself, and she swiftly turned around, ignoring the slashing wounds and looking down toward the other trailing figure, the other dot below in the horizon.

There it was. Only its legs and part of its stomach was visible sticking out of the smoke. It was falling. There was no sign of movement or consciousness.

Weak, delirious with pain and fatigue, Reiko let out a booming cry and flared Moltres' fire once more, shooting down toward M3 like a comet. The blood staining her blade evaporated into yellow mist behind her. She fell upon it with a fury that could only come from desperation. This was her chance to finish this for good. This time she raised her tachi with both hands over her head, throwing it down with all her strength as she came down upon the beast.

There was another dull sound, another echo of an impact, but it was instantly deafened by the sharp boom of both of them crashing against the mountaintop, a mere stone-throw away from the crater M3 had previously created. The rock gave way under them, cracking and exploding off in chunks around them. It hissed against the heat of her flames, black smoke rising and then being pushed outward by the shockwave of the impact.

And then, silence. And a single breath taken.

Reiko was on her knees, hands wobbly, shaking against the pommel of her tachi, which was stabbed through her foe and straight into the scorched ground below. Her eyes were closed, her strength almost entirely gone. But she couldn't fall unconscious, not yet. First she had to make sure the deed was done.

Steps resounded around her. She opened her eyes, smiling tiredly down at the blackened remains of M3's tors–

Reiko's heart froze, the blood in her veins suddenly feeling very cold.

"W… wh…"

There was no upper body. Only the legs and part of the stomach, cut off diagonally from their previous impact. The rest of M3 was missing. No, not missing, just–

"A-above! Shit!"

And Reiko knew what she'd see before she tilted her head up. There, so high above it was little more than a blurry shape, the rest of M3's body hovered, covered in a weak purple glow. Everything from below the middle of its stomach was missing. Only its torso and arms and head floated up there, the bleeding stopped by its own psychic prowess.

M3 looked down at her, and then raised its hands over its head. An eerie pulse echoed through the air, like the opposite of a heartbeat, a vacuum of air and energy that spiraled and coalesced into a dark, unstable shape above its fingers, a sphere of pure darkness and energy. It was smaller than any other it'd used so far. But just by looking at it, Reiko could tell that was not indicative of its power. It pulsed once, then twice, stealing all the warmth, all the light around it, leaving only fear and shock behind.

This one would kill them all. Of that, Reiko was absolutely certain.

Screams rang out. Orders from the Elite Four to their Pokemon. Fueled by nothing but adrenaline, Reiko shot up to her feet and dislodged her blade from the burnt remains, falling into a crouch, as though intending to jump. But could she? Her muscles burned, ached with a pain unlike anything she'd experienced before. Moltres' flame flickered inside her chest, ready to go out. She could barely hear its voice anymore. Everything felt… cold all of a sudden. How could such a small flame get her up there? How could she protect the people around her when most of her power had burned out?

Exhausted, mind and body delirious with pain, Reiko looked up at the sky and remembered.

As long as they are spoken with sincerity, even the prayers of a Caterpie will reach the heavens.

Yes, that was right. The Flame of Cinnabar burned twice, once to protect all who cherished it, and a second time to incinerate all who would dare snuff it out. But was the flame not, itself, like a phoenix? Eternal, ever-burning. For the Flame of Cinnabar, death meant only a short respite, the second of silence in between heartbeats.

Which meant it was time to go back to its original purpose.

Reiko took a step back, raising her tachi high above her head. Screams rang around her. Flint, Aaron and Bertha giving orders to their Pokemon, telling them to form barriers above them. It would be pointless. M3's attack would tear through them like paper. Unless she did what she was supposed to.

Above, the crackling dot of energy pulsed one last time, expelling a wave of deafening silence down the mountain range, pressing down upon their souls like the call of the grim reaper. It condensed into itself, like a miniature black hole. And with a gesture that seemed too casual for the situation, M3 lowered the hand holding it and threw it down toward them.

It fell with the speed of a bullet. Before most of the Pokemon could even put up a barrier, it was upon them, instants from crashing into the mountainside. Reiko looked up at it, and a small breath left her lips.

…Thank you, Moltres. Goodbye.

And its flame came to life once more. Flaring, bursting out of her every pore, it gathered into her blade just as she drove it into the ground like a stake, like a sliver of the sun itself. Immediately, it began to spread. Breaking through the ground like glowing strands of light, cracking and burrowing, expanding outwards in all directions. But it was not random. Each strand, each sliver of power shot straight for a specific target.

And a moment before the clash, it reached them.

The minuscule sphere of darkness, no bigger than a glass bead, touched the ground, and everything went white. Snow and dirt and stone disintegrated in the wake of its impact. Burnt away like paper set ablaze. It grew and grew, swallowing everything in its path with a roar like heaven itself splitting in two, until nothing remained but that stark white.

Seconds that felt like minutes passed, and finally sound and color seemed to return to the world. The hiss of smoking earth, the crack of stone. The pillar of billowing black rising from the crater upon Mt. Coronet's peak, so incredibly large and deep it made the previous one look like pothole in comparison. It was as though Arceus itself had erased a large portion of the mountain.

M3 looked at the crater, its body shaking with effort, its breathing harsh, almost hyperventilating. The psychic glow keeping it alive flickered on and off. It barely had energy left to stay afloat. But still it looked, hoping to see the scattered remains of its victims, to confirm that they were indeed d–

It saw them, as the smoke began to clear, and its eyes grew wide like saucers. Though the emotion of shock was alien to it, the creature's mouth fell open in disbelief.

There, dotted all over the crater, were small flickering lights like candle flames. All of its enemies, the trainers and Pokemon, were coated in a protective mantle of gentle golden fire, completely unscathed. They looked down at their bodies, seemingly just as confused as M3.

Its eyes went through every one of them, until finally it found the source. There, amidst the others, knelt the girl with the sword, hands resting upon the pommel, most of the blade pierced into the ground. Burnt streaks of ground spread all around her. The flames coating her were stronger than everyone else's, but that did not last long. In a blink, that protective mantle went out in a puff of smoke, and soon the rest followed.

A minuscule smile formed on the girl's lips. Her eyes were hidden by the shadow of her hair, no longer flowing and glowing like a flame.

Before M3 could even think of what to do next, however, a scream rang through the air. It was not a familiar scream. It didn't belong to any of the humans below, but it was a human sound nonetheless, coming from not far behind him.

"Now: Airgetlam!"

M3 looked over its shoulder just as a heavy sheet of metal slammed into the side of its head, breaking the coat of psychic energy and almost knocking it out. It tried to move, to teleport, but the pain and exhaustion wouldn't let it.

Then, it felt its body being held, compressed. As it opened its eyes, M3 found itself face to face with a large blue Pokemon that looked like a bell, its metallic arms holding it in place. And standing above it was the human that had just screamed. A tall, pale man with dark blue hair, cuts and bruises and blood dotted all over his body. He held something in his hand. Some sort of needle.

"…I'm sorry," Saturn said.

Then stabbed the device into M3's head, driving it as deep as it would go.

M3 tried to scream, to get away, but all of a sudden it felt… weak, drained. Something inside it was going out. A cold, oppressive feeling overtook it, and it wanted to call out for help, to d–

The light behind M3's eyes went out, and its life went out with it. Airgetlam let go of its body, and it fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut, thin ribbons of yellow blood trailing behind it. It hit the ground with a weak, pathetic thump, and did not move again.

There was silence. A moment's respite, an instant to breathe in and out. All trainers and Pokemon looked at the unmoving figure in disbelief, then looked back at the kneeling girl among them.

Reiko rested her forehead against her knuckles, and let go of the breath she'd been holding. Tears began to form in her eyes. A broken chuckle left her lips.

"I… I did it," she whispered. "Dad… Ye-jun, I… I protected them this time. D-did you see? Did you…?"

And then all strength was gone from her. She rolled onto her side, body hitting the ground gently, and fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.