(Arata's POV)
Darkness.
It pressed heavily against my skull, a crushing, endless black. My lungs burned, my chest screaming for air as salt stung my throat. Somewhere in that drowning silence, I thought I heard wings, thin and desperate, cutting against the storm. A cry, sharp and wild. Livia.
The next thing I knew, bark scraped my cheek. My chest convulsed, spewing seawater in ragged bursts. My whole body shook with the violence of it, ribs aching as if they'd been caved in. I gasped and dragged in air wet, foul, thick with brine and mud. Every breath hurt, but I was breathing. Alive. Somehow.
I blinked. The world swam. My vision flickered with fading spots of black until shapes began to settle. Trees. Broken trunks leaning at sharp angles, their roots bared where the sea filled the earth.
My hands pressed down, shaking. My shirt clung to me in torn, muddy tatters, the once-white fabric streaked brown and red. My tank top underneath had ripped down one side, exposing skin scraped raw by stone and sand.
And then wings. A shadow passed over me.
"skreee!!"
Her cry was hoarse, but sharp enough to cut through the chaos in my head. I looked up, squinting against the drizzle of saltwater still dripping from the canopy. Livia perched just next to me on a half-fallen log, feathers plastered against her body, chest heaving. Her talons were red, not from blood but from the effort of dragging me here.
She had saved me.
I staggered upright, my legs trembling like jelly. "You -" My throat cracked, raw from seawater. I tried again. "You carried me?"
Livia's wings flared weakly, as if in defiance of my disbelief. She gave a short, sharp cry, then hopped down onto my shoulder, her weight pressing in solid and real. She trembled, just as exhausted as I was.
I clenched my fists. "...Good girl." My voice broke. My chest tightened not just with pain, but something heavier. Gratitude. Relief. And fear.
Because she'd saved me but what about Rin?
The memory came back sharp as glass: her hand in mine, torn away by the tide. Her face vanishes beneath the spray. Abra glowed faintly, struggling against the flood.
I looked around the log. The water hadn't gone.
It sloshed high enough to cover a man's chest, cold enough to burn, heavy enough to drag at every step. Branches and splintered trunks jutted from the flood like spears, their bark stripped raw by the wave. Whole trees lay on their sides, roots bare and twisting like drowned serpents. Every breath I took came sharp with salt and wet earth, the stink of brine so thick it coated my tongue.
If not for Livia, I would've still been under. She'd pulled me onto a half-submerged log, wings trembling with exhaustion as the current battered us both. That log, wedged against a broken oak, was the only reason I hadn't been swept further. When the water finally stilled enough for me to stagger upright, it still reached a grown man's chest. For me, it was nearly everything.
And it had pushed us deep into the forest.
This wasn't the beachside trail anymore. This was the interior marked by faded red League signposts meant to reassure travelers. Safe route, they once promised. But nothing about this was safe. The route markers hung half-snapped, some swallowed by mud, others wrapped in seaweed.
We weren't alone.
And then, beyond the wreck, I saw them.
People. Survivors.
A boy huddled against a mossy boulder, maybe thirteen at most. His arms clutched a cracked Pokéball casing, its button flickering with weak red light, pulsing slower and slower like a dying heartbeat. His face was pale, his eyes fixed on the glow as though he could will it back to life.
Beside him, a girl about my age stood behind an older girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen, hair plastered to her face, a gash on her forehead seeping into the saltwater dripping down her cheek. The younger one's eyes were wide, hollow, darting from every sound in the drowned woods. They both looked like they'd been running before the wave hit and had nothing left to run with now.
And further back, half-slumped against a half-buried log, was a man I recognized not by name but by trade. A fisherman. a single Pokéball still clipped to his belt. Beside him, a battered Goldeen swam, its tail fin twitching with every breath.
Four of them. Four survivors besides me.
The fisherman coughed, seawater rattling in his lungs. He muttered something, his words breaking on the edges. "I… I saw the docks… just gone. The sea took 'em all. And it's angry. I've fished forty years and never… never heard it sound like this."
I frowned. "Sound?"
And then I heard it too.
At first it was just the background roar of the tide, distant but never gone. Then came something else cries, hundreds of them, overlapping in chaos. Not human voices. Pokémon. The forest throbbed with unnatural sound.
The boy I'd spotted earlier clung to a splintered branch, eyes wild, one hand tight around the shattered Pokéball that still flickered faintly in protest. The older girl half-carried her sister through the water, both of them pale with shock. Behind, the fisherman staggered, his Goldeen swam right behind him protectivley, as though shielding him from the tide.
The water rippled with every step we took. My boots sucked against mud I couldn't even see. Debris, Rocks, rope, ominous silence. Somewhere above, broken branches creaked, threatening to fall at the slightest shift.
"Stay close," I rasped, my voice raw. "Don't… don't let go of anything solid if it's nearby."
I could hear it now the distant crash, deep and guttural, like the sea dragging its claws back. Another wave was building.
I swallowed. "We need higher ground."
The fisherman coughed, seawater rattling in his lungs. "Higher ground? Through there?" He nodded toward the dark line of drowned forest ahead, where the route wound deeper between trees half-swallowed by the flood. "Boy, that's wild country. You're asking to trade the sea for teeth."
He wasn't wrong. Already, the woods shuddered with unnatural noise.
The snap of claws, Krabbys displaced from their burrows.
The wet slap of Magikarp and other Pokémon trapped in pools too shallow to hold them. From the shadows came a long, low croak, answered by another. Poliwag. Poliwhril. Too many of them, crowding inland where they didn't belong.
But behind us, the water was already stirring again. Higher. Heavier. A new swell, marching toward us.
I tightened my grip on Livia's ball, my knuckles white. "If we stay, we drown. If we move, maybe we live."
The boy's cracked Pokéball flickered once more, then dimmed completely, going dark in his hand. He stared at it, lips trembling. Then, without a word, he nodded at me.
I drew in a ragged breath. "Then we go deeper."
Then,
The water around us rippled. At first, I thought it was just the next surge winding its way inland. Then I saw the shapes slick, sinuous, rising from the murk with glinting eyes like shards of glass.
Tentacool
Half a dozen of them broke the surface at once, gelatinous bodies pulsing, red orbs gleaming in the dark water. Their tentacles writhed, curling over the flood like living whips. From below came the crack and clatter of shells, Krabby, claws snapping as they hauled themselves onto broken logs, their eyes fixed sharp and hungry.
The younger girl screamed.
"Get back!" I snapped, stumbling back against a half-buried trunk, water dragging at my legs. My heart slammed. No full team. Just me and Livia.
"Skre!"
She flared her wings, feathers bristling, her body glowing faintly as she fought to steady herself on the slick log.
The Tentacool struck first. Purple needles erupted from their bodies, Poison Stings slicing through the air like rain. The fisherman swore, throwing himself forward.
"Goldeen Water Pulse!"
His Pokémon spun in a gleaming arc, horn flashing as it slammed the water. Rings of liquid energy burst outward, rippling through the flood and scattering the first wave of stingers. They hissed as they dissolved, but not all.
One struck.
The younger sister cried out, clutching her arm where a sting had grazed her. Her sister pulled her close, eyes wide with panic.
"Cally... no! "
A stranger. A girl barely older than me. But the way her sister held her, trembling, it made my throat tighten anyway.
"Hold on!" I shouted, though I wasn't sure to whom. Them? Myself?
Another volley came.
"Livia Gust!"
Her wings snapped open, the motion sharp despite her exhaustion. Air spiraled from her feathers, catching debris and Water, whipping it into a cutting wind.
The Poison Stings scattered, deflected off course, some embedding harmlessly into trees.
But the Krabby were already moving, claws raised, rushing across the half-submerged debris. One leapt claws snapping for the fisherman's arm.
I didn't think.
"Quick Attack!"
Livia blurred, a streak of brown and silver darting low across the water. She struck the Krabby mid-leap, the crack of impact echoing. It splashed down hard, tumbling beneath the surface.
Another Tentacool reared back, orbs blazing. Energy crackled, then lanced forward in a whip of electric blue.
"Bubble Beam!"
The Goldeen darted ahead, streams of pressurized bubbles crashing into the Tentacool's body. It shrieked, convulsing, then vanished beneath the water's churn.
But they kept coming. More shadows stirred beneath the flood, writhing, circling.
The forest became a battlefield, gusts of wind slamming through everything, water exploding upward in pulses, claws clattering like blades. My body vibrated with every strike, every cry. The air smelled of salt, poison, ozone. My ears rang with shouts and screams, the fisherman cursing, the girls crying, the wild Pokémon screeching in fury.
Through it all, Livia fought. My Pidgey, already big for her species, wings cutting through mist like a spear, her cries echoing across the drowned world.
She wasn't supposed to be able to last this long. Not against this. But she did.
Still, when I saw the younger girl slump against her sister, clutching her arm where the Poison Sting had landed, dread clawed at my chest.
The flood roared all around us, broken trees groaning under the weight of the sea. The Tentacool circled back, their glowing eyes like lanterns under the water's black surface. Krabby clattered over branches and wreckage, claws snapping like war drums.
We couldn't stand here. Not in chest-high water. Not with poison already burning through one of us.
"Higher ground there!"
I spotted it through the spray. A ridge of rock jutted from the forest floor, half-swallowed by roots but still intact, its surface slick but raised above the flood. The wave must've carved around it, leaving it jutting like the spine of some giant beast.
I pointed, voice hoarse. "Up there! Move!"
The fisherman half-carried the younger girl and the boy, her sister supporting them. They stumbled toward the ridge, Goldeen weaving around their legs in the shallows, slamming back Krabby with bursts of water.
But more shadows loomed, rising from the depths. A fresh wave of Tentacool, their tendrils writhing, red orbs glowing like warning lights in the dark.
We wouldn't all make it before they struck.
I unclipped Caesar's ball. A strange calm settled over me, my Starter
"Caesar!"
The ball cracked open in a burst of scarlet. The large Axew hit the ridge hard, claws scraping for purchase. He shook himself once, water rolling off his green scales. His tusks gleamed faintly in the dim light.
The Tentacool surged closer.
"Caesar Dragon Breath!"
His chest swelled. The forest seemed to hold its breath. Then
He roared.
A torrent of searing green-blue firelight burst from his jaws, cutting across the flood like a living lance. The air shook with the force of it, heat rolling off in waves that hissed against the spray. The blast tore through the lead Tentacool, splitting the water in its path. For a heartbeat, the flood parted around the beam, white foam curling at the edges like torn silk.
The Tentacool shrieked, their bodies convulsing as the Dragon Breath seared through them. A Krabby was caught mid-leap, its shell glowing white before it was flung back into the water, smoke hissing off its carapace.
The surviving Pokémon scattered, retreating beneath the surface, shadows writhing deeper into the drowned forest.
Silence crashed down. Just the distant roar of the sea and the ragged gasps of our group.
Caesar's sides heaved, smoke curling from his jaws. He looked back at me, tusked grin proud, defiant, alive.
I let out a shaky breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "…Good work. Bud."
The fisherman's voice cracked. His Goldeen circled at his feet, battered but unbowed. "Move. While we can."
I nodded, waving them upward. "Go. Inland. Follow the ridge as far as it carries. The water's only going to rise again."
We clambered higher, the ridge slick beneath our feet, Caesar and Livia flanking us, blazing with defiance. The forest groaned under the weight of the drowned world, wild cries echoing through the mist.
Every step away from the flood felt like we were stealing time. Borrowed seconds against a sea that wanted everything back.
But for now, we were still alive.