#and zinnia fighting steven underneath

[theviolenttomboy]

AND HERE'S THE COVER FOR VOLUME 63!!!

[rhnuzlocke]

Episode 21

Scene 15:

[The next day Ren and Steven arrive at the Mossdeep Space Center on his aerodactyl. A docent brings them past the museum on the first floor and up to the second where Cosmo and Keanu are waiting for them. They are both glad to see Ren again and congratulate her before starting the tour. They take her and Steven through labs and test rooms before stopping at central control. It is a large semicircular room with a clear view of the peninsula where the rockets are launched. A few people are working at the long tables, but most of the stations are empty while the scientists are out to lunch. In the center of the room is the dimensional shifter. The top of a device is a tightly packed thicket of rods and underneath it is a cylindrical base. Ren and company head over to it and the woman working on it pulls up a schematic that shows what it looks like open. The rods form a giant ring large enough for the meteor to pass through. A portal will open in the middle of it, sending the meteor far away.]

Ren: How the hell do you power this thing? Wouldn’t opening a portal that large require a massive amount of energy?

Cosmo: Yes, and all of that energy is contained within the meteorite you’ve kept safe all this time.

Ren: The meteorite? What on Earth is it made out of?

Cosmo: It’s not from Earth and we are not exactly sure what it is, but its composition is similar to that of a mega stone. Do you recall the incident in Kalos a few years back?

Ren: When those genocidal Flare maniacs made a super weapon and almost used it to blow up Europe?

Cosmo: Yes. We have developed a similar technology to extract energy from meteorites like this one, but they are extremely rare and the one in your vapor box is the only one we have found that is large enough to power the dimensional shifter.

Ren: But it’s not even that big. Well, it is pretty large but it’s just kind of hard to believe there’s that much energy inside.

Steven: You did witness a taste of it yourself on Mt. Chimney.

Ren: [remembering as it comes out of her mouth] When Magma tried to make the volcano erupt. [She nods.] Right.

Steven: And the parts you delivered to me when we met were crucial to the power converter for this device. You’ve helped save this project—hmm, let me see… five times now?

Ren: So Magma wanted the parts and the meteor power their eruption device. Everything is making so much more sense now.

Steven: I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark so long.

Ren: [weak laugh] It’s probably better I didn’t know what was at stake, honestly. All of that stuff seemed crazy enough at the time without knowing the fate of the planet hung in the balance. [to Cosmo] At least I get why you risked your life for it now. [suddenly disturbed] Wait, you don’t think Maxie knew about the meteor do you?

Steven: No, it was all very tightly under wraps. Devon has been working on this kind of power for years through some business connections in Kalos I helped establish. I don’t think he had any way of knowing we were using it for this purpose.

Ren: I guess he’s probably not that crazy. [Ren takes a deep breath and exhales. She turns back to Cosmo.] So this isn’t just a tour.

Cosmo: No. We can’t thank you enough for keeping the meteorite safe all these months.

Ren: I’m glad it worked out.

[Ren reaches into her bag for her vapor box when there is a crash outside the room. They all look towards the door and a moment later Courtney and a whole slew of pokemon come bursting through (mightyena, houndoom, camerupt, ninetails, torkoal, pyroar, 2 weezing, and 2 swellows). Ren and Steven go for their belts right away and send out their pokemon. Unfortunately, Steven only has three (sandslash, excadrill, and archeops) small enough to maneuver comfortably inside the room and Ren has her two weakest (Teka and Tarahau) with her for training. Cosmo and the other scientists dive for cover as the pokemon run at each other. The swellows fly straight for Taraki but Kotai knocks both of them away with smackdown and Taraki takes the opportunity to dodge past and slash the mightyena with x-scissor. Tarahau keeps the camerupt busy with illusions and Kata takes on the pyroar, while Ao and the houndoom exchange charge beam and sludge bomb across the distance. Teka dodges around all the engaging pokemon to attack Courtney directly only to be stopped at the last moment by a rock throw from her torkoal. The weezing belch smoke and Alwyn and Komatsu slash them with metal claw, stopping them mid attack. The smoke clears quickly since the weezing did not have time to release much, but Courtney’s ninetails has already slipped past all of the other pokemon and is almost to the dimensional shifter, flames already spilling from her jaws as she charges an attack. Liaoning downs her with a hail of rocks and lands on top of her a second later, pinning her head with a taloned foot. Courtney touches the keystones she has in bracelets on each wrist and they start to glow. Light arcs out of them and connects with the mega stone around the camerupt’s neck. Wind starts blustering around the room, grounding the swellows and throwing Tarahau back from the camerupt as it starts to mega evolve. Courtney’s face is twisted in a snarl and sweat beads on her brow as the rushing air tears locks of hair from the bun at the back of her head. The arcs of light flicker and warp before cracking like whips and becoming even brighter. The camerupt bellows distortedly as it transforms, volcano back expanding first with the rest of its body belatedly catching up. Everyone, pokemon included, stop what they are doing, transfixed by the uneven transformation. The camerupt trembles, blood vessels protruding across its face and Courtney pants raggedly behind it, hair wild and eyes blown wide.]

Courtney: You two are going to hand over your keystones or I’m going to blow this place sky high.

[Ren and Steven immediately move between Courtney and the dimensional shifter and Taraki steps between them and the camerupt.]

Steven: Dr. Kagari, you don’t know what—

Courtney: NOW!

[The camerupt’s volcano starts to glow, charging an attack, when someone grabs Courtney from behind, twisting her arm and pinning it against her back and putting her in a chokehold. Courtney struggles and Zinnia leans out from behind her a little to get further from her free arm.]

Zinnia: Fancy meeting you here, Courtney.

Courtney: Azalea! I knew you’d come for them. But I have keystones of my own! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill—

[Zinnia kicks a foot out from under her and bears her to the ground. Courtney lands on her face and the camerupt staggers and moans.]

Courtney: No—

[Zinnia jabs her in the temple and the camerupt bellows again, eyes drifting as pain blinds it. It begins to glow a bright orange, charging an attack.]

Zinnia: [tapping the pokeballs on her belt] Hellebore, Phlox, get the camerupt.

[A goodra and altaria spring out of their balls and use muddy water and dragon pulse on the camerupt respectively. The camerupt just barely weathers these attacks and is turning to face it’s new opponents when Taraki slices it across the shoulder with leaf blade. It falls and drops to its normal form. The rest of Courtney’s pokemon are already weakened and it takes less than a minute for Ren and Steven’s pokemon to subdue them. Meanwhile, Zinnia’s whismur has appeared and is prying the keystone bracelets from her wrists. Zinnia has Courtney by both hands now and the Magma admin writhes in her grasp. Zinnia responds by calmly digging a knee Courtney’s spine and a few seconds later, Aster has both keystones.]

Zinnia: Thanks, flower.

[Ren slumps with relief only to go ramrod straight again as a foreign presence assails her mind.]

Strange Voice: [telepathy] CHAMPION! Make that woman let my trainer go or I’ll use overheat!

[Ren touches her temple and looks down at the ninetails Steven’s archeops has pinned next to them.]

Steven: Ren?

Ninetails: [telepathy] I’m in range of that thing you’re protecting. I’ll melt it!

Ren: [telepathy] You don’t understand. If you destroy that, we’re all doomed. You’re trainer’s not well. If she asked you to attack it—

Ninetails: She just wants revenge on the lying woman! Let her go! We’ll leave you out of this.

Ren: Will you promise not to destroy the device if we do? It’s necessary for everyone’s survival.

Ninetails: If you don’t let my trainer go right now I’ll burn your other side and melt that metal thing to a puddle.

Ren: [clearing her throat] Zinnia, could you let Courtney up? Her ninetails in threatening to blow us up.

[Zinnia takes about a second to evaluate the situation and decides to let her up. Courtney looks around wildly, eyes full of rage and defiance. For a moment it still looks as though she may fight them, but she withdraws all of her pokemon except the ninetails. Liaoning tightens his grip on the ninetails’s muzzle as Courtney back up to a window. She opens it and sends out Maxie’s crobat, then withdraws her ninetails as she jumps out.]

Ren: [muttering] They always go out through the window.

Zinnia: Quickest route if you can hack it.

Keanu: Zinnia, I can’t tell you how glad we are you’re back. What made you decide to drop in?

Zinnia: [looking around and smiling nervously] Wow, everyone’s here. Hey, Sarah. [One of the scientist waves weakly from her desk.] This is going to be even more awkward than I thought.

[Without warning her altaria unleashes a flamethrower on the dimensional shifter. No one is in position to block and they all shy away as the altaria melts it. Just as the pokemon runs out of steam, the goodra uses an ice beam that tears the device apart from the inside as an ice crystal forms and expands out through the meteorite compartment. Everyone stares blankly at the twisted wreck that was supposed to save the planet from annihilation. Finally Steven gathers enough of his wits to ask the only pertinent question left.]

Steven: Why?

Zinnia: I had to stop you all from making the same mistake I did.

Ren: [total confusion] What are you talking about?

Zinnia: [looking at Cosmo] This plan of yours to warp the meteor away is just sacrificing the next world for this one.

Steven: Now just hold on a moment. We have no way of accurately predicting where the device will send—

Zinnia: [snapping] Don’t give me that! Where has every single portal we’ve ever opened in the entire history of our species led? [There is a beat of silence.] I’ll give you all a hint: I didn’t mean “next world” in the general sense, I meant it as in the one next to ours.

Ren: [trying to keep up] The Distortion World?

Zinnia: Exactly. [turning her eyes on Steven this time] And what exactly do you think will happen to the Distortion World when we launch a giant meteor at it? Do they have a fancy dimensional shifter and a hunk of energy from an alien world? Who will defend them?

Steven: No one wants to destroy the Distortion World. If there were some other way to—

Zinnia: But you’re willing to. That’s what it comes down to. You can live with that decision and that’s fair, but I can’t. The denizens of the other side are the souls of our departed. It is the place we pass through before we are reborn on this side. And even if you can close your heart to that, the fact remains that we are too intimately linked to think that their fate will not affect ours.

Steven: None of what you are saying has been thoroughly substantiated by science. It’s all theory and belief.

Zinnia: [anger breaking through once more] That device would have sent the meteor to the Distortion World and destroyed it! Everyone who’s worked on this project knows that. At least own up to the decisions you make! Don’t hide behind some imaginary veil of ignorance!

[All are cowed into silence. Ren looks around at the others, waiting for someone to refute her. Steven’s jaw works, but he says nothing, clearly unable to deny her. Zinnia takes a deep breath and leans down to take the offered keystones from Aster. Ren notices then that there are three keystones set into the coil of steel above her ankle rather than the one Ren is sure she has seen there before.]

Zinnia: I knew what would happen the day this project was proposed. I almost quit right then and there, but I decided to stay on because my solution failed. And even after I left, I decided to let you all continue because I was afraid of failing again. Somehow dooming another world became an acceptable back-up plan. But I always knew in the back of my mind that it wasn’t right and that conviction made me so desperate to succeed that I was willing to risk everyone’s lives in a different disaster.

[Things are clicking into place for Ren and her eyes unfocus as her brain rapidly recontextualizes the events that brought her here. She barely has time to get through before Zinnia speaks her name and calls her back to the present.]

Zinnia: Ren, I’ll never be able to thank you enough for setting me straight and setting right my mistakes. Because of you, I’m not afraid of failing anymore. Because of you, I can see clearly that there are necessary sacrifices, and there are unnecessary sacrifices. This is an unnecessary sacrifice and I won’t allow it. We will live by our own strength, or die by our own weakness, not survive by the sacrifice of others.

Ren: So, you have some plan to get rid of the meteor?

Zinnia: Yes. I will protect our world and the next by calling Atua Rayquaza down from the skies and ride out with them to meet the meteor before it strikes as the founder of my people did in ages long past.

Steven: And what do you want us to do?

Zinnia: [raising her hands, palms open to the sky] I want you to send your pleas upward and pray that Rayquaza hears them.

[Steven is once again stymied and he lets out only a garbled noise as several different thoughts try to escape at once. He reddens with anger, but Zinnia ignores him as her eyes fall on Ren and she smiles softly.]

Zinnia: I am sorry Ren. Noho ake rā.

[Zinnia picks up her whismur and hops out the open window. They all stare out after her.]

Ren: What was that last thing she said?

[Steven takes a deep breath and sighs.]

Steven: Goodbye.