Something was coursing. Roiling and bubbling like the tide.

  Something was wrong. Mana and I should have been on the ground, insensate and unconscious from injuries and syn exhaustion.

  Something was different. I’d never felt togetherness in the way I was feeling it at this moment. The certainty that I wasn’t alone.

  It didn’t take a genius to deduce the source of our strange second wind. The cracked crystal, one piece held in my palm, the other still clutched between Mana’s jaws. Now sans the repulsive orange glow, I recognized it immediately, though I’d never seen one shattered like this.

  A synergy stone. Or rather, the broken shards of one.

  Stones like this weren’t exactly rare. In the wild, they tended to form around gaia spots, areas where the earth's power naturally erupted in glowing spurts. Sometimes, strong Pokémon sought out these stones and held onto them, bringing them away from their origin points. You could also dig them out of the ground, and I’d heard that there’d been successful trials in creating them artificially.

  At the same time though, they weren’t exactly common either. There wasn’t a gaia spot within Cesnine Forest, to my knowledge, nor a place to mine synergy stones. The only confirmed one in the entire area was under the head Honchkrow’s control, and as strong as this Butterfree was, I didn’t imagine it could have stolen the shattered crystal from the powerful Flying-type.

  No, I had different suspicions about where our assailant had gotten their stone from.

  Confirming those suspicions was going to have to wait, however.

  Just as the shards of crystal Mana and I still held had allowed us to recover, the ones embedded in the Butterfree’s carapace were restoring it as well.

  Slowly, as if borne upon a puppeteer’s strings, the Bug-type rose into the air, the pustulant stones pierced through it pulsating with that same sickly orange glow.

  It was no great leap to further deduce that something was deeply wrong with the pieces of crystal littering the Bug-type’s body.

  A powered synergy stone projected a field of positive energy, improving restoration, empowering moves and protections, and promoting connections between human and Pokémon. The size of the field directly correlated with the size of the stone and the amount of energy it housed. The great synergy stones used to power battlefields could affect an entire stadium, for example.

  Smaller stones were used to render this ambient power into a usable form, supplying energy to Battle AR devices, which would then interface with great synergy stones to allow Battle Trainers and their partners to fight as one.

  It also wasn’t uncommon to have tiny stones embedded in jewelry. Earrings, necklaces, and especially wedding rings often featured stones of very small size and relatively high quality.

  The accepted wisdom was that these smaller synergy stones ran out of energy too quickly to be of any use outside of the influence of a great synergy stone or gaia spot. Except, the BattlefieldGo handily challenged this wisdom, apparently able to generate enough energy to create a battlefield and allow for synergizing, all through the power of a stone no larger than an adult’s fist. I wasn’t up-to-date on what exactly made these synergy stones so different from what was used in normal Battle AR devices, but I was resolved to learn as much as I could about it after I got out of this Golems-cursed forest.

  After all, I was almost entirely certain that one of those stones was currently in pieces, many of which had somehow found their way into this Butterfree’s carapace.

  And something about those pieces was wrong. It’d been obvious even before I’d held a chunk of the material itself, and that subsequent experience had made the stone’s abhorrent nature even more certain.

  It was almost like it was alive. The way it pulsed and writhed. The way it called to me, demanded that I shove it into my body. Just seconds ago, I’d been moments away from putting my eye out with the hunk of crystal in my hand.

  And now it was drained, inanimate in my hand, except for a strange sense of warmth and peace that radiated from the dull shard up through my palm and into my arm.

  Whatever was wrong with these synergy stones, it was possible to fix it. I don’t know how Mana and I did it, but something accomplished once could be done again.

  And we were going to have to repeat our feat if we were going to save this Butterfree.

  Maybe it was hubris to think that we could help our cruel assailant. I was making a lot of assumptions about the Pokémon, about the shards of rock embedded in its carapace, and about the relationship between the two.

  But if that Butterfree was experiencing in full what I’d only gotten a small taste of, we had to do something. And maybe it was the power of the stone we’d just drained influencing our thinking, but I knew that right now, Mana and I weren’t afraid of making the attempt.

  With a chittering scream, the first vocalization the Butterfree had made since they began assaulting us, the Pokémon’s Bug Buzz started again, a piercing, droning whine that shook the leaves free from any of the surrounding trees not already stripped bare by the earlier explosion.

  The sound was as loud as ever, like a swarm of Cutiefly wrapped around my head. The buzzing was piercing, penetrating, distracting in a way that made thinking a chore and hearing an impossibility.

  But it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before, and if you’re exposed to anything for long enough, you’ll eventually get used to it.

  Part of my mind spooled off, focusing on the sound, compartmentalizing it so the rest of me could focus.

  And I wasn’t the only one defending myself. Water poured from Mana, surging free from her open jaws and spilling around the inert shard of synergy stone still clasped there. The azure liquid warped around her, encasing her form in a shifting pool of energy. Bits and pieces of her shield rippled and pulsed under the sonic assault, and occasionally, patterns emerged from the water, open jaws and azure eyes and writhing bodies appearing and disappearing in bits and spurts.

  Something was happening to my piscine partner, something I couldn’t understand, but I didn’t feel any fear from her. And I was feeling things from her. Rage, joy, sorrow, and determination, all warring within her tiny piscine body and flowing into the bond we shared.

  It was faint, nothing like the psychic connection Montressue had once facilitated for us, nor analogous to the connection the shard of synergy stone had established in the moments before it had broken in two.

  But it was there. I could feel it, as sure and as real as chains looped between us.

  And feelings weren’t the only thing that bond carried.

  Power surged, flowing between my partner and I in eddies and waves. I could empower her, and she could strengthen me in turn.

  It… wasn’t quite synergizing. I’d never experienced the phenomenon, but I’d read up enough on it to know that what Mana and I were sharing wasn’t analogous. Two were not one, the energy connecting us was a tiny flow, not a roaring tide, her senses were her own, as were mine.

  Two were still two.

  Except, that wasn’t quite right either. Because right now, we were so much more.

  Waves of cutting air tore from the Butterfree, lacerating winds propelled by ashen wings. The distortions in the atmosphere flew towards us, and Mana surged forwards, small projections leaping free from her azure armor and intercepting the attacks, exploding in bursts of water and wind.

  The not-so-little fish bellowed, and for a moment, a leviathan’s call drowned out the buzzing of wings. Blasts of concentrated sound exploded away from my piscine partner, the crashing of waves and the roiling of the depths washing over the forest clearing.

  The Butterfree cringed under the sonic assault, before redoubling its own attack, beating its wings in jerky, stilted motions in beat with the pulsing orange energy suffusing the crystals embedded in its carapace.

  Mana was strong, so much stronger than I could have ever imagined, but we couldn’t outmuscle the abhorrent energy of the corrupted synergy stones. Small as they were, broken as they were, they still provided our opponent an insurmountable advantage in a straight-up duel.

  But this was no duel. This was a fight for our lives.

  And there were two (or more) of us, and only one Butterfree.

  “Fall.”

  I sprinted forwards, while adding my shout to Mana’s. Our energy battered the Butterfree, cutting through its sonic shroud like a saw. My throat burned, but cooling energy flowed from my partner, stifling the ache, if only for a moment, and my shout turned to a howled demand that saw the Bug-type sink a few more centimeters in the air, weighed down by our combined vocal assault.

  Poisonous, choking scales leaked off the Bug-type, but I was already hacking and coughing with inhaled toxins. They didn’t stop me, nor did the Air Slashes blocked by Mana’s projections.

  No, what finally halted me was the whipping winds blasted off the hovering Pokémon, seemingly without cause or source. Waves of energy projected from the stones suffusing its body, a desperate bid to keep me away.

  My feet dug trenches in the torn dirt and snow, as I held up my arms against the assault. Blasts of water slammed into the Butterfree, but the unbreaking energy kept me away, forced me back.

  I almost lost my footing, but just before I was launched away, my eyes caught movement on the edge of the clearing, two small balls of yellow armor, one hoisting the other. A tremendous throw sent Lance, glowing with energy, hurtling through the air, Tristan collapsing in a heap on the edge of the treeline.

  The ballistic Falinks plowed into the Butterfree from behind, horn-first. He let out a furious chirrup as he bore the hovering Pokémon to the ground, the pair crashing in a heap. Lance was instantly out-cold, the last of his energy exhausted by his desperate assault, and the Butterfree was barely stunned, already stirring in an attempt to struggle back upwards.

  But the winds had stopped. I was free to advance.

  I leapt.

  My dive took me through the air, arms outstretched as if I was trying to catch a ball. I landed atop the flailing Pokémon, stifling its incessant buzz, and my free hand reached out, closing around the largest of the crystal protrusions pulsing that pustulant orange.

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  And suddenly, I could feel it again. That unstoppable urge, that incessant need, to consume, to grow, and empower, to become more. Part of me, a large part of me, wanted to tear the stone free from the insolent bug beneath me and put it where it rightfully belonged.

  That part of me was wrong. Infected, and corrupt. Sick and festering. My thoughts raced and partitions closed, whole sections of my mind shut down temporarily, that desperate need pushed back for now. Alone, I might not have been able to do it, but the bond I felt with Mana, the surety of her presence, made it feel trivial.

  My fist clenched, and I made to tear the stone free from the Butterfree’s carapace. And with a wet squelch, the embedded stone… didn’t move. The Bug-type’s entire body lifted up, but the shard of crystal was stuck fast, as if I was tugging at a part of the Pokémon’s actual biology, and not a malignant invader.

  The Butterfree bucked and roiled, and cutting winds slammed into me, opening new wounds on my back and shoulders, and I almost released my hold on the struggling Pokémon.

  And then the ocean crashed into us both.

  To me, the light stinging of salt in my cuts and cold on my skin was… strangely refreshing. The deluge surrounded me, encompassed me, and it did hurt, but it was a familiar pain, nothing like the sickening ache of the corrupted synergy stone’s influence.

  To the Butterfree, the assault was untenable. Energy roiled and tore off the Bug-type, trying to resist the inexorable tide, but I was holding onto some of that power, siphoning it away.

  And the rest was helpless against the crushing depths Mana brought to bear. My eyes flicked up, caught by motion, and I found myself momentarily transfixed, as a veritable aquarium swum around me. The fading winter sun glinted off a thousand scales on hundreds of bodies, surrounding us in a roiling mass of azure fish.

  It was… Mana, my little partner, somehow spread across hundreds of… herself. Herself, and more. Half-remembered grins and familiar, leaking eyes. Bodies remade, formed of azure, ocean blue.

  And red. Little pinpricks of red amongst the water, crimson dots that were actually watching eyes. A dozen hundred gazes pointed at my partner and I, watching us, observing our bond. Hungry, demanding, wanting, judging.

  I felt droplets lift off my back, and realized that the crimson pinpricks were formed from blood, mine and Mana’s, mixed in with the water. My partner and I, observing ourselves.

  And yet also watching, and being watched, by something more.

  It was too much, more than I could unpack in this moment, and I tore my gaze away from the impossible tableau. Right now, we had something else we needed to deal with.

  More crimson eyes stared at me, these from below, multi-faceted, compound spheres seeing without perceiving. Ocular organs subverted, suborned by the twisted, malformed thing infesting this poor Pokémon’s body.

  My hand clenched around the shard of stone I was gripping, and my mind acknowledged again the abhorrent, delirious need it inspired. The false promise it offered, so wonderful and seductive.

  We had to face it directly. Acknowledge it. Recognize it. So that we could, in turn, reject it.

  To that horrible, choking thing, I offered love. The bond shared between Mana and I. The familiar connection that neither she nor I could ever abandon from here forwards. It recoiled back, hissing and screaming, writhing beneath the strength of our connection.

  And deeper still, underneath the layers of need and hate and desire, something stirred. A consciousness, roused awake by the struggle occurring above it.

  Who are you?

  I could feel the question through the stone. Corrupted and ruined as it was, it still did as it was wont to do. It still connected us.

  Someone who wants to help, I thought back. To save you.

  It’s so dark, the voice told me. He’s gone. Gone forever.

  Flashing impressions suffused the connection, a million fractal images of a smiling, bearded man, viewed through compound eyes. It wasn’t a face that I’d ever seen, but the connection suffusing us meant I knew the person who possessed it.

  Gregory Mire.

  Once, a young boy, ordering a Caterpie into battle in a run-down dojo.

  Then, a battle trainer, struggling through the junior league, making it all the way to the tournament before washing out.

  A struggling musician, fighting to make his sound heard all throughout the region. Trying to prove that the buzzing wings of a bug could inspire more than just dread and malaise.

  A caring son, trying to help his ill mother make ends meet, to repay her for a lifetime of struggles, raising him on her own after being abandoned by a father he’d never met.

  An innovator, teaching his partner how to use Bug Buzz in ways completely novel, to stifle communication, or enhance it. To create something beautiful, or to destroy so utterly that nothing was left behind.

  A desperate man, resorting to tearing families apart to preserve his own. Committing heinous acts in the hopes that one day, perhaps, he’d make it big. His mother would be cured, and his music would take off, and he’d make right everything he’d ever done wrong. Reunite the families he’d separated, restore the homes he’d destroyed.

  Finally, dead. Killed by a raging mother for an unforgivable crime. Body reduced to powdered bones and pasted flesh, crushed under the inevitable weight of his own sins.

  The faltering presence balked under that last fact. The intrinsic knowledge that the one they were bonded to was lost forever. That from now on, they could only be alone.

  The grief was like a physical thing, a channel, through which flowed awful, corrupting orange. An opening torn in the Butterfree’s very being that the malfeasance in the cruel shards of stone was only too happy to take advantage of.

  I’m sorry for your loss, I tried, though I knew the statement was wholly insufficient. I’m sorry that he’s gone. I can’t understand your pain, but I promise you, life can go on, even in his absence.

  How can you know that? Asked a voice, drenched in pain and loss. How can you be so sure when you can barely remember the one you’ve lost. There’s no chance life is worth living without him.

  An image flashed in my mind, a gaunt woman, glaringly ill, even in repose, struggling to breath in a hospital bed. My own memories, dredged from the sump of my mind by the other sharing this connection, looking for loss that mirrored its own.

  The corruption leapt on that, scrabbling for purchase, seeking weakness. Wouldn’t I love to never have to feel that way again?

  But it wasn’t the same. That was no way into my being. As that faltering mind had said, I could barely remember my mother. Just a single scene in a hospital room, without context, or understanding. My grief was a known thing, an academic certainty, not the raw, oppressive ache that Butterfree was experiencing.

  The corrupting flow of orange surged anyway, trying to smother the connection between us. Something wore away at me, and distantly, I was aware of poison wracking my body, of my wounds bleeding, weeping crimson into the dirt as my energy drained away, desperately struggling to keep this small link open.

  The truth was, I couldn’t comprehend that pain. I’d been too young when I lost my mother, too uncertain what death truly meant. But I knew someone who did understand. Someone for whom that suffering was an intimate, familiar companion.

  No. You’re wrong.

  The thought wasn’t mine. In the real world, in the silent forest clearing, a single azure body that both was and wasn’t Mana touched a fin to the pulsating stone.

  You don’t have to be alone. Tragedy strikes us all. It takes our loved ones away and makes us bleed. A hundred faces came to mind, a volume of personal tragedy that swamped both mine, and the faltering mind we reached out to. The sadness was a deluge, a hole that seemed perfect for the corrupting orange to pour into. Hundreds of azure bodies wept crimson red.

  Except, the force trying to keep us apart found no purchase in Mana. She rebuffed it, washed it away like the tide. Even still, even after those we love are gone, we’re always better for having had them. We always have the chance to start again, as long as we keep going. As long as we don’t give up. That impossible grief, as vast as the deepest ocean abyss, was buoyed, dragged to the surface by the connection we had here and now. Shown to the light and scoured away. Pushed back by the tangible proof that what was once lost, can be found again.

  The connection strengthened, flowing through all three of us, waves of azure pushing against the stagnant corruption trying to split our bond. You can go on. I promise you. I’ve done it. You can too. Mana spoke with a thousand voices, a choral multitude that spoke with all the weight of the ocean’s depths.

  It’s not the same. The faltering mind told us, flashes of orange flickering through it. My grief is mine, and I never want to feel it again. If I embrace this, I’ll never have to suffer like that. The crushing helplessness. The terrible ache of solitude. The oppressive guilt of survival. These were the weapons that the corruption in the stone battered us with.

  Mana blasted through them all, familiar with these facets, but undaunted by them. You’ll lose the joy with the suffering. The potential for something better. To give up now means to consign everything you are to your worst moment. To abandon the memory of the one you loved.

  That last statement caused the faltering mind to rise, to strain against the orange sump absorbing it. But there won’t be any more moments. No new memories made. Only the pain of absence. It objected, in a voice of two layers. One, a burdened soul, the other, a malignant growth, conniving, absorbing, parasitizing.

  But the memories you made don’t just disappear. Not unless you’re no longer around to keep them alive, I protested. Your grief doesn’t have to define you. The proof is right here, I mentally indicated Mana, my brave, brave companion.

  The faltering soul fell silent for a few moments, and I sensed… observation. Something foreign, fighting through the thick, orange malaise to see, to perceive, to comprehend the bond Mana and I shared.

  And all the while the pustulant miasma roiled, pushing and shoving against all of us, prodding, draining, trying to force its way in. Azure bodies pulled us up, suspended us, tore us free from the earth’s embrace, away from the source of that abhorrent power. A great leviathan, taking form in the sky, Butterfree and I bound within its depths.

  But even Mana’s seemingly limitless energy was flagging, projections flaking away, vaporizing in the open air, the edges of her titanic form vanishing into the sky.

  You two are… strong, the voice finally said, wonderingly, so much stronger than we were. And then, sadness, piercing and deep, different from the grief of before, but no less striking. But… not… strong… enough.

  That’s why we have each other, I replied frantically. We’re strong because we’re together, and you could be too.

  Mana agreed, emphasizing her acceptance through the link, metaphorical arms wide open, ready, always ready to accept someone new.

  But corrupting energy wracked through us both, exacerbated our wounds, and picked at our weaknesses.

  I’m envious. I wish we’d had your strength. Maybe that jealousy was our weakness. We did so much wrong. Tore so many families apart. Abused our bond to abuse others. The voice was gaining strength, but something was wrong. And… I won’t let our last legacy be one of destruction.

  The buzzing was starting again. A bone-shaking vibration borne on pale wings. But it wasn’t directed at us. The sound was still there, still made my blood boil, my skin writhe, and Mana’s projections shatter, but we weren’t its true targets.

  No, the attack was directed inwards, pointed at that orange sump, at the crystalline lattice even now digging its way deeper into the Bug-type’s body.

  No! “No!” My shout was both mental and vocal, a demand and a cry and a plea.

  I’m… sorry. The faltering voice told me, static creeping around the edges of the link between us. Please, remember us as we were, and don’t ever let your love become a weakness.

  I felt the crystal vibrating in my hand, resonating. Something was screaming, howling at the edges of my perception, raging against the end.

  And then, the corrupted stone came to pieces, inert shards collapsing into dust.

  “No.” It was a whisper, the only thing I could force past my lips, through a throat that felt like it’d been lit aflame.

  Goodbye. The last thing I heard, before the connection shattered, along with the crystals that had been keeping it together.

  Butterfree’s inert body fell from Mana’s abyssal embrace, crashing to the forest floor, and I came tumbling down a moment later, the energy sustaining the transformation fading away. A single piscine form was clutched in my arms, but I couldn’t work up the energy to move my legs to brace us for impact.

  But before I could slam to the forest floor, a pair of strong arms caught me out of the air. Tears, blood, and poison dripped from my body, soaking into crimson sleeves, mingling with the stains already set there.

  Frantically concerned eyes stared down at me, and the last thing I heard before unconsciousness took me was Janine’s smoke-addled tones, “Fe?”