Pokemon - From the Brink

Chapter 53 - Back from the Dead

"Gah! Unnff!" Chloe smacked off of a couple of trees and landed face-down on the grass. She had just enough time to look up and see the radius of the dark explosion fade into the air and knew with a heavy heart that anyone caught in it was dead. The base itself was left physically untouched, but there was no way its inhabitants had survived.

"D-damn... DAMMIT!" She roared, pounding her fist on the ground and sending sparks ricocheting into the forest. "NO! F*CK! GAAAAAAAAAHHH!" She closed her finger around the grass and tore it from the Earth. After a few moments, she took a deep breath and stood up. "Paolo? Can you hear me?" She looked around.

"I hear you." Paolo's voice came into her head. He and Midorima were casting his voice with telepathy like they had during the assault on HQ.

"I... I wasn't fast enough..." Chloe gritted her teeth.

"No...! No... Gh... All right, just-"

"Paolo?" She turned around and held her head. "You there? What's going on?"

"You're gonna want to get back here as fast as you can." Paolo said, before severing his connection.

"What the-?" She shook her head and tensed up. Beyond asking questions, she poured all her might into blasting away at breakneck speed once more, hundreds of times beyond the speed of sound. The leaves of the trees around her were ripped off their branches and the trees themselves shuddered under the force of the take-off, though the girl was already half way across the country by now. Without Zeraora's boost, though, she had to push herself even harder to reach towards those insane speeds she had achieved on her first journey.

*

We waited with baited breath as Paolo tried to speak to Chloe. Midorima had his hand on his shoulder, projecting his voice telepathically to her though she was hundreds of miles away.

"I hear you." He said, looking back at us. A pause, and then his face went pale. "No...! No... Gh..."

I felt my heart stop, and everyone looked at each other in horror.

"...All right, just-" He was cut off by a bright light that caused us all to shield our eyes.

Bedlam watched in silence from above as the light down on the road expanded. A moment later, every single person that we had left behind at the base was suddenly standing behind us, the majority of them confused and disorientated.

At the forefront stood Kai, her arm outstretched and her face trickling sweat. Her Abra was beside her, and Megan beside it.

She had managed to teleport them all out just in time.

I spotted Nelly and she looked back at me, shaken and out of breath from panic – but alive.

"You're gonna want to get back here as fast as you can." Paolo said to Chloe, before stepping away from Midorima.

"Resourceful." Bedlam commented. "Though I should thank you for making this part easier." It lowered its hands and the portal faded away. "Please don't fight this – it is for the greater good – what's best for you." It said, a faint whisper of pain in its words.

"Everybody get back!" Paolo yelled.

Bedlam twitched its fingers and its legion of dark spires came blasting out of the ether, diving towards the dozens of new prey in their sights.

"Sky!" Rebekah called to him.

"Get behind me!" He ran up to her and pulled her in close, kneeling down and bringing his shield up to cover them both.

"Nelly!" I rushed over to her and her family.

"Toby!" She reached out and held my face.

"Azelf – we can protect them, right?!" I called.