Alex was standing still as he looked ahead
The battlefield twisted beneath his feet, stone and metal bending as if the world itself couldn't decide what shape it wanted to be. Heat scorched the air. Somewhere behind him, something massive struck the ground again and again.
"Bastiodon!" Alex shouted.
This time, an answer came.
Bastiodon stood ahead of him and Blaziken, armor scarred and fractured, shields raised despite the tremor in its legs. Every instinct in Alex screamed that it was wrong—that Bastiodon shouldn't be standing there.
"Fall back," Alex ordered, his voice breaking. "You don't have to—"
The world lurched.
The battlefield dissolved, replaced by a narrow, dimly lit room.
Janine stood across from him.
Her expression was exactly as he remembered it: calm, distant, untouched by urgency.
Alex felt the words leave his mouth before he could stop them.
"How do you think that this is really a fair trade?" he said, stunned. "Even if your information is correct and Marco is completely insane. What am I supposed to do with this info?"
Janine didn't hesitate.
"You can give up," she said unemotionally.
The words echoed, folding in on themselves, repeating again and again.
Janine vanished, and a new figure appeared before Alex.
Marco stood there, wearing a smile Alex would never forget. Before Alex could stop himself, his body spoke without his command:
"Marco, I don't know what's going on, but you're talking like a complete madman."
Marco burst into laughter, as if Alex had just told the greatest joke he had ever heard.
"HAHA! Alex, why can't you understand? Soon, you'll be just like me."
The room shattered.
Alex was back on the battlefield.
And now he understood.
Bastiodon turned its head slightly, just enough for Alex to see its eye. There was no confusion in it. No fear. Only acceptance.
"No," Alex whispered. " "That's not fair, how was I supposed to know that something like that could happen?"
"I had a choice but..."
Another attack descended, blinding and unstoppable.
"I could have stopped this," Alex said desperately. "I could have walked away. I could have given up. This position is not worth it"
He took a step forward. Bastiodon stepped in front of him.
Again.
Just like he always did.
Alex lunged, trying to grab him, to pull it back, to choose differently this time—but his hands passed through his solid armor as if it were smoke.
The impact came.
The sound was wrong. Too final.
Bastiodon's armor cracked open in a burst of light, fractures racing across its body. Alex screamed its name as the glow swallowed it whole.
"No—this isn't fair!" Alex shouted into the collapsing world. "You didn't have to die! "
The light faded.
The battlefield was empty.
Alex stood alone, knees buckling as the truth crushed down on him.
The words returned, colder now.
"You can give up."
Alex gasped—
—and jolted upright in bed.
Darkness surrounded him. His heart hammered violently as he dragged in uneven breaths, the echo of Janine's voice still ringing in his ears.
Slowly, his hands clenched into the sheets.
The room was quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet Alex used to enjoy in the mornings, when the sun filtered through the curtains and some of his awake Pokémon stirred one by one, but the Room was still silent. This silence was hollow—empty in a way that pressed against his ears.
Bastiodon's Poké Ball sat on the desk.
Alex hadn't moved it. He hadn't touched it. He wasn't even sure why it was still there, polished and intact, when its owner was gone.
Weeks had passed. Time continued out of obligation, not mercy.
Every morning, Alex wake up his remaining Pokémons for training. The motions were the same—reach for the belt, release the balls, say "good morning"—but something essential was missing. His voice no longer carried warmth. No excitement. No spark.
"Good morning," he said one day, flat and quiet.
Blaziken, who was like a little sister to Bastiodon, and the Pokémon he had saved, hadn't been the same since his death.
Alex feels as if she has lost all her childlike innocence and now can only carrying out wordless commands. He tried to cheer her up, but he hadn't had much success so far.
The other Pokémon weren't doing much better.
Crobat tilted his head, ears twitching. Gardevoir's eyes softened with concern. Even his more energetic Pokémon hesitated, unsure how to respond to a greeting that felt like an echo of something that used to exist. Even the newly caught Pokémons, Shinx and Larvitar, could feel that something was off about their trainer
Before, Alex greeted them with a smile. A laugh. A few words meant only for them.
Now, there was nothing.
Bastiodon had always been the Tank/Wall of this Team.
Stepping forward with that steady, armored presence. A living wall between Alex and the world. When things went wrong—when plans failed or battles turned ugly—Bastiodon had never moved back. Never hesitated.
The memory returned without warning.
The impact. The sound of metal cracking. The way Bastiodon planted itself in front of him, head lowered, body braced, as if the outcome didn't matter as long as Alex and the other Pokemon lived.
Alex remembered shouting its name. After that, everything blurred.
He remembered realizing, too late, that Bastiodon had already passed away.
Some days, Alex went through training on instinct alone. Other days, he dismissed his Pokémon early, retreating to his room with a numbness that sleep couldn't touch. He didn't stop functioning—he stopped feeling.
He stopped laughing at mistakes. Stopped praising clever tactics. Stopped greeting them like family.
At night, he sometimes reached for a Poké Ball that wasn't there anymore.
The guilt came in waves. Heavy, suffocating. Bastiodon had trusted him. Had followed him. Had died for him.
And Alex had survived.
That thought sat in his chest like a stone.
His Pokémon noticed everything.
They trained harder, quieter. They stayed closer to him than before, as if afraid that if they looked away, they might lose him too. Crobat lingered near his door at night. Scizor watched him with eyes that saw too much.
But none of them could replace the guilt he feeled every night.
Weeks passed, and it was still like that. One could even say that it got worse every day after Bastiodon died.
The depression didn't announce itself. It didn't scream or break him outright. It simply drained the color from his days, leaving him moving forward out of habit rather than will.
One morning, Alex finally stopped in front of Bastiodon's Poké Ball.
He picked it up.
His fingers trembled—not violently, but enough to betray him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
The words weren't enough. They never would be.
Alex paused. "but i cannot not fall like this"
Then, he looked—really looked at all his Pokemon, his Family.
"I… I'm glad you're all here," he said quietly.
It wasn't cheerful. It wasn't bright. But it was real. for now they are all he has left in this world.
Hearing Alex's words, Blaziken's eyes filled with tears. It let out a soft sob before pulling Alex into a tight embrace.
One by one, the other Pokémon stepped forward, wrapping them both in a warm, collective hug.
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