"Run, hurry, run!"
"It's a monster. That thing is a monster!"
"Everyone calm down! If we don't shut the door, we're all going to…"
Boom.
With a deafening explosion, the chaos by Luke's ears was swallowed by screams of agony, layered with distant, half-broken cries that continued to poison his hearing.
His closed eyes trembled slightly, yet refused to open. Like someone who had overslept after an afternoon nap, Luke was slowly regaining consciousness, but his muddled mind could barely process anything beyond one simple thought.
Too loud.
"Ah, ahhh!"
"My leg, my leg!"
"Captain! It's coming, it's coming over here!"
"I'm not blind! Damn it, shouldn't that monster be running outside? There's nothing in here except…"
Buzz.
Splat.
Crunch.
"…What?"
The darkness was suddenly torn apart by light.
Luke jolted upright, but before he could understand what was happening, a lungful of thick smoke rushed into his nose and throat, forcing him into a violent coughing fit.
"Cough, cough… what the hell?"
Only then did he feel the heat.
Raising his sleeve to cover his mouth and nose, Luke realized that, for reasons he could not yet comprehend, he was sitting in the middle of a fire.
No, not quite.
It was a burning single-story house.
He pushed himself up into a half-crouch, forcing his eyes to scan the sea of flames for an exit. At the same time, his sluggish mind finally began to turn. Fragmented memories stitched themselves together, and the last clear image he recalled was walking home after overtime work at dawn, just before having an intimate encounter with the fist of a speeding truck.
…
Luke glanced around the blazing room again. At least he could confirm one thing. He was not waking up inside a crematorium furnace.
But if he was not dead, then why was everything burning?
Questions aside, his feet never stopped moving.
He edged along the wall where the flames had not yet spread, shielding his face as black smoke rolled through the air, thick enough to sting his eyes just by looking at it.
Luke remembered learning a little about fire safety in high school. Unfortunately, even if he had not returned all that knowledge to his kind firefighter instructor, what he remembered was limited to how to use a fire extinguisher. It did not include how to escape a burning building.
At most, he knew one thing.
Never take the elevator during a fire.
Even with such limited knowledge, Luke understood that smoke could kill him long before the flames ever did.
Whether by luck, or by fate taking pity after an absurd amount of bad fortune, the burning house was not completely sealed. After forcing his way through the smoke for several agonizing seconds, Luke spotted a massive hole torn through one of the walls.
He had no idea how a gap nearly two meters tall had formed, nor what awaited him outside.
But trapped between heat and suffocation, he had no choice.
He ran straight through it.
"Hah, cough, cough… haah, cough!"
Breaking free of the smoke, Luke sucked in air like a drowning man. Even though the air outside was still tainted with smoke, he clung to it greedily, as if it were the purest oxygen he had ever tasted.
After a round of desperate breathing and coughing, he straightened up.
What greeted him was a burning town.
"Lulu! Hurry! Over here!"
Amid a world painted in crimson and ash, a stream of water burst through a wall. Mist scattered through the air, and a Brionne appeared atop the rubble just over ten meters away. It turned back, urgently calling to someone behind it.
A moment later, a faint glow pierced the smoke, and a Kirlia emerged beside Brionne.
Unlike Brionne, who had immediately begun shouting after breaking through the wall, Kirlia noticed Luke the instant it landed.
"A human? Why is there a human here?"
"Huh? Lulu, don't joke around at a time like this. There's no way a human would be here. Wait. That really is a human!"
Following Kirlia's raised hand, Brionne finally saw Luke, whose face mirrored their shock.
Even setting aside the issue of suddenly encountering Pokémon, Luke was certain of one thing.
They had spoken.
And they sounded like girls. Probably.
The human and the two Pokémon stared at each other for several seconds. In the end, Luke, aware that standing around was the worst possible option, spoke first.
"Uh, do you know how to…"
"Hah! Finally caught up to you! Hahaha, take this!"
Before Luke could finish, a black shadow leapt down from a nearby rooftop, its voice brimming with reckless glee. Before the laughter could finish, another figure dropped from above and slammed into it.
Thud.
Roll, roll.
Bang.
The shadow tumbled across the ground before stopping against a wall. A small black paw clutched its aching head as a soot-covered Nickit shook itself and glared furiously at the figure that had sent it flying.
"Purrloin! What are you doing? That hurt!"
Unlike the unfortunate Nickit, the ambusher landed gracefully, hopping to the ground with ease. Purrloin cast it a look that suggested it was staring at an idiot.
"If I didn't stop you, a rare promotion would have slipped right away."
As it spoke, Purrloin turned its gaze toward Luke, who was still coughing intermittently. The already-curved smile on its face widened further.
"I heard you, you know. Human. You spoke just now, didn't you?"
"…"
Luke stayed silent.
He still had no idea what was happening, but the look in Purrloin's eyes sent a chill crawling up his spine.
"Playing mute won't help," Purrloin said with a giggle, covering its mouth. "I'm very confident in my hearing."
Before it could laugh any longer, a purple beam shot in from the distance, forcing Purrloin to cut its amusement short.
Dodging aside as the Psychic energy blasted the ground, Purrloin looked toward Kirlia. Its smile remained, but the warmth behind it vanished.
"Run!"
Kirlia's voice rang in Luke's ears.
He looked at the Pokémon that had unknowingly stepped in front of him, then back at Purrloin. After one final hesitation, he turned and ran.
Noticing his movement, Nickit lunged forward, but a string of bubbles blocked its path.
"Ugh! Seriously!"
The water swirling around Brionne dispersed as it rushed to Kirlia's side, planting itself firmly between Nickit and its target. Frustration laced its voice as it complained to its impulsive friend.
"Lulu, you're always like this. Did you ever think about what we're going to do next?"
"We still have a chance to escape," Kirlia replied calmly, continuing to fire Psychic beams at the ground around Purrloin, using the explosions of debris to force it back. "But if we ignore that human, he won't make it out alive."
"I know, I know! I'm just complaining, not asking for a lecture!"
As the voices echoed in the distance, Nickit swiped repeatedly at the floating bubbles, each strike rebounding uselessly. Forced to slow its attacks, it glanced to the side and saw that Purrloin was also momentarily stalled.
The two exchanged a look, then simultaneously pulled back.
Tap, tap.
Soft paw pads met the ground as Purrloin rose to stand upright, clapping slowly as if applauding a performance.
"Incredible. Truly touching friendship. I'm almost moved to tears."
It nimbly avoided another blast of debris, eyes fixed on Kirlia, which refused to give it any room to speak.
"How impatient," Purrloin continued lightly. "But no matter how urgent things seem, wouldn't it be worth listening to what I have to say? After all, I've got a very, very, very important piece of information for you."
"Wait. Lulu, something's wrong!"
Brionne, having returned to Kirlia's side after Nickit retreated, stared at Purrloin's smiling face as realization struck.
During the chase earlier, the ones trying to surround them were always three.
"May I ask," Purrloin said sweetly, "if this is a three-member team… then where do you think the last one went?"
At the same time, Luke, running without any idea where he was headed but terrified of stopping, saw a flash of white light burst across his vision.