Pokemon - From the Brink

Chapter 47 - The Lightning Strikes

"He's alive... Thank God..." Chloe breathed a sigh of relief. Watching the Mexican boy rise in mystical flames and be reborn was incredible. Not only that, but the guilt of being the reason he was shot down in the first place was somewhat abated in that moment.

"The shield...!" Yu beamed when Shu deployed the complex-wide defensive sphere.

"Is it over...?" Chloe peered out through the doorway once more to assess the situation. Gabi and Shu had flown off to the right and left in order to wipe out any remaining creatures, meaning that the front of the main building was the only place where struggles were ongoing. She could just about make out the sight of a couple dozen soldiers bunched together in the open, their weapons fanned out in all directions as the remnants of Bedlam's attack began to close in on them. Not only that, but there were some men who weren't able to make it back to their comrades, and they were frantically trying to avoid the monsters at all costs – though Chloe watched one of them unwittingly back right into one, and winced as he was disintegrated on the spot.

"Gh..." She shuddered, her eyes darting around the scene.

"We can save them." The voice in her head said. "It isn't too late."

"But I... I can't control your power..." Chloe looked down at her palms, where the last crackles of electricity had sparked out.

"That's because you haven't TRIED to. You've been trying to USE it, not CONTROL it."

"Gh... But how...?"

"First, calm down. Let me reach out to you. Don't fight it. Just go with it."

A bright yellow light began to shine from the ground around her feet, and Chloe stood up straight.

"Whoa..." Yu marvelled.

"Ok..." She closed her eyes. "I can do this..."

*

In her moment of calm, Chloe thought about her lost love, Felicia. It had been thanks to her that she lived the life she did. By all accounts, she saved her life – or at least rescued her from the life she had.

*

The two had met when they were 12 years old, but didn't come to terms with their feelings until they were about 15. For them, it was an incredible revelation. They were best friends, but there had always been more to it than that, in a way neither could quite explain. So when Chloe came right out and said how she felt, the more timid and shy Felicia was both incredibly embarrassed and relieved. It made it feel real, to know that the other was in love too. From there, they thought it could only get better – but fate wasn't so kind to the young couple to start with.

The biggest obstacle to them was Chloe's family. For the past few years, her mother and father had noticed that she and Felicia were incredibly close. At first, they had attributed it to their close friendship, but closer towards Chloe's confession, her parents had been acting strangely whenever Felicia was brought up, almost as if they were beginning to dislike her.

It was always 'will anyone else be there?', or, 'don't you have any other friends?', or, 'you two spend too much time together'.

Initially, Chloe thought little of it, but one day, her father saw the two of them when they were walking through town. The girls didn't notice him, but he definitely saw them, and he was none too pleased with the fact that his daughter was holding hands with another girl.

That evening, all Hell broke loose when Chloe got home.

Both her mother and father yelled at her relentlessly, almost comical, but definitely disgraceful, in the way that they brandished the Bible and and spit their gospel in their own daughter's face. Chloe had never really been one to cry much, but since meeting Felicia and bonding with her, the quieter girl had taught her to open up more, and, in that moment, her tear ducts opened and she couldn't stop crying.