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syncope
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{What do you remember?}
It's a difficult question, one that drips into your mind word by word, congealing into meaning. Your senses come to you slowly, and through the darkness you make out a swimmy vision: an enormous bird of prey, feathery in some places and leathery in others, all red with veins of black. Head tilted, she leans down to better look you in the eye, and for a moment you forget you should be afraid. {What do you remember?} Yveltal asks again, patience oozing off her wings.
Um, you say or try to, but no sound comes out. That's not right, is it? You try to swallow or to lick your lips, but there's nothing. You are nothing.
{Don't worry about that now,} she says with a dismissive flutter. {This is a temporary state. Focus on what you remember, the cause of all this.}
Memories trickle through—the sunlight slanting through your bedroom blinds, the pidgey in the trees outside, the purr of the kettle warming, the chime of the Pokemart door—until you finally remember the alley, your eevee blinking down from her perch and refusing to come down. When she'd vaulted onto the wall, springboarding off one of the plywood targets, she'd taken you by surprise; her earlier tackles had been so half-hearted, you hadn't thought she'd had something that like in her.
Echo.
Suddenly, it occurs to you to ask Yveltal, Is Echo okay? Where is she?
{You already know the answer, Shamus.}
Her calmness is like a splinter of wood under your fingernail. If I knew I wouldn't ask, you fume silently. Why won't you just tell me?
Yveltal says nothing more, simply shifts her wings and watches you with sad eyes.
That means it's bad. And you know that, but... You're here. You're okay. So Echo can't have... She didn't really...
Yveltal is right, though. As hard as you try to convince yourself otherwise, blood lingers on the edges of your memory, the color of Yveltal's feathers, but you don't want to remember whose blood or why.
The whole night was bad, and you have to admit that at least some of it was your fault.
If you could, you'd clench your teeth. You wish you didn't know exactly what you said to Echo next, the bite in your voice you couldn't hear then but do now: "If you won't come down, I swear I will put you back in your ball right now and leave you there."
She looked down at you with those liquid brown eyes and deliberately, defiantly sat.
Your hand twitched to your belt, rolling the pokeball in your palm. But instead of making the throw, you clipped the ball back into place and folded your arms. "Damn it, Echo. Why are you being like this?"
Her long ears lay flat and she made a soft sound that could mean almost anything.
With a sigh, you reached to your pocket. Shouldn't keep fattening her up, but... "Would you do it for a piece of Rage Candy Bar?" You snapped off a piece and held it out, a wafer of candy-coated compromise.
She only dropped her head onto her paws.
Finally, there was nothing else to do but sit down, back to the wall, hoping Echo would get over herself soon.
The alley was shadowy and narrow as always, made more claustrophobic by the rank dumpster smell. At one end were the windows of the pawn shop, dark at that hour. At the other, the dented sign, Silver Street: a reminder of how limited your world is, how you've failed even to get beyond your own neighborhood. But you keep coming back night after night because your manager lets you set up your handmade targets and obstacle course back here, and sometimes there's even a rattata or rogue meowth to fight. You do it for Echo. For both of you; if you don't push her, she'll only ever be small and soft, and you'll only ever be a cashier with holes in his sneakers. Not enough firepower to even get the two of you off the ground, let alone to reach the top.
There was no plan for what to do if Echo started to push back—right at the cusp of evolution.
The time on your pokegear read 5:55—nearly sunrise, you registered with a dull ache—when you finally heard paws hit the pavement. "Oh, now you decide to come down, huh?"
In the mouth of the alley, Silver Street side, Echo swished her tail. Staring at you.
You glanced at your pokegear one more time and the offered in one final, hopeful burst, "It's not too late. There's still time for one last round to close out the night."
Echo hissed—actually hissed—then trotted away, around the corner.
Cursing, you jumped to your feet and followed. She sped up. You had to pump your legs hard just to keep her in sight; your stride was longer, but she was still faster. "Where's your loyalty?" you huffed between breaths, ducking a clothesline. "We're supposed to be in this together!"
You nearly tripped over her when she came to a sudden stop midway down another alley and backed into you, bristling.
"What is it now?"
Then you saw the figure in the shadows, the flickering streetlight catching the embroidered patch on his jacket: a red R. You didn't notice the second, smaller silhouette crouched at his feet until it lunged in a blur of purple fur. But Echo saw and ran to meet it before you could even think a command.
The Rocket snarled to his pokemon, "No! We don't have fucking time!"
It was over quickly, though. The two small pokemon smacked together, tumbling; when they fell still, Echo had the rattata pinned beneath her.
"You did it!" you breathed.
She glanced over her shoulder at you. It should've been love in her eyes, but you couldn't quite read her expression.
All around her, the shadows seemed to thicken and darken. They unspooled from the pavement, reaching up to caress her legs and back, then sinking in like they'd always been part of her. Your breath caught in your throat. Finally, finally she was evolving, rising to her fullest potential.
"Fuck all this."
A click made you raise your head in time to see the Rocket shakily raise his arm, metal gleaming in his hand. The scream left your mouth just before your mind formed the word gun, just before your hand made it to your belt—just before the bang.
Echo's pokeball was in your hand then, but there was already so much red on the ground, and she wasn't moving. You hit the button to recall her, but all it did was click.
There was another bang.
And then darkness...
.
...then Yveltal's velvety voice. {Do you remember?}
I can't! you howl voicelessly. I don't want to.
{It shouldn't have happened,} Yveltal says as if reading your mind. And she probably is, but the next thing she says definitely doesn't come from you. {You aren't supposed to die for several more decades, and her for several more.}
What? you demand, because what else do you say to that?
{I can't take you yet.}
Then why am I here? What's the point of this? Only after you've spoken does it occur to you that you probably shouldn't take up that tone with the god of death. You flinch (or try to) when she gives a slow shake of her head, but her tone is still so gentle.
{You have to make it right.}
Me?
You're just a regular guy, a Pokemart cashier. You don't have special powers or even any badges. What are you supposed to do about an act of random violence in a back alley of Goldenrod City?
Yveltal fixes you in place with aquamarine eyes. {Don't you think you owe it to her?}
Echo isn't here to make her case for her right to keep living, you realize. Just you. And already Yveltal has said more for Echo than you have. She didn't deserve to die... and you're not so sure anymore that you deserve her.
Before you manage an answer, Yveltal bends her neck down and plucks a single black feather from her breast. She flicks it to you, and you reach to grab it without thinking. When you look up, Yveltal is gone. There's only a brick wall sprayed with familiar grafitti and shadows moving across the cement.
There's a soft thud like paws hitting the pavement. You turn, and in the mouth of the alley, Silver Street side, an eevee swishes her tail.
"Echo?"
Alive and unimpressed, she stares at you expectantly.
It's not too late.
When you stand, she inches away from you, toward Silver Street. Toward death. "Don't go down that way, Echo," you warn. Fear squeezes your throat, making your voice hard and sharp.
It sets her running.
"Fuck. Come on." You start to give chase—but there was never any point when she's always going to be faster than you.
But you know where she's headed this time. The Rocket. It was his fault, wasn't it? It's him you have to stop. So you leave Echo behind and pivot left at Gold Ave, hoping to reach the waiting Rocket first.
You're almost sure you remember the cross streets, and anyway there's no time to second-guess yourself, so you sprint all-out—until you nearly run right into the Rocket. The patch on his shoulder is the same, but this time you notice how he hunches his shoulders, how he mutters to himself under his breath. Was he like that before? He carries a bulging sack tucked under one arm. At the sound of your footsteps, he turns to see you, eyes wide and white, and you're out of time to wonder.
You don't think, just move, driving your shoulder into him as hard as you can. He's taller than you, but your shoulder hits his chest solidly, and you hear the sharp intake of his breath; you topple to the ground together. The sack flies from the Rocket's hands, scattering rubber banded stacks of bills across the concrete, but you ignore them.
The gun. You can have to grab it. You don't know if you intend to destroy it, turn it against him, or simply fling it away, but you have to get your hands on it. You feel the butt of it sticking out of his waistband, jamming against your hipbone, but you can't get to it; he's flailing at your arms, your face, your belt, and it's all you can do to keep him on the ground.
The rattata catches you unaware again, and this time it manages to bite down on the back of your calf. You can't stop yourself from batting it away any more than you can stop yourself from crying out in pain, and that moment of distraction is all the Rocket needs to twist free of your grip and scramble to his feet.
As your try to roll away, the rattata bares its teeth and leaps toward you again—but then there's Echo. She butts the rattata away and cuts between the two of you, blocking you from further harm. Shadows stream from her fur, and when she looks back at you... There's that look in her eyes again. Is it... resignation?
Through the penumbra of darkness radiating out from Echo's body, you see the Rocket drop a hand to his belt. To the gun.
"Echo, get out of the way!"
She turns her head slowly, so slowly. You count your heartbeats throbbing in the bruise across your cheek, in the bite on your leg, and in your aching, heaving chest. One... two...
Bang.
You can't look. You don't want to see her splayed out, half-changed, shadows and life leaking out of her. Your hand is clapped over the back of your calf, but the rattata bite is still bleeding freely, hot against your hand and unstoppable.
Something digs into your other hand. You uncurl your fist and stare down at the black feather on your palm. When you raise your head, you're staring down the barrel of the Rocket's gun. You squeeze your eyes shut...
But the second bang doesn't come.
.
You sit for years or weeks or a moment in the darkness, tasting the humid night air: garbage and gasoline. Nearby, a window fan strains. Many blocks away, a siren screams into the fading night. When at last you open your eyes again, you're facing the Employees Only door and the Pokemart dumpsters, and then paws hit the pavement beside you.
Between you and Silver Street, Echo stares back at you. She's waiting, you know, for you to say something that will change the course of the night. Maybe she's been waiting for something from you for a long time.
You open your mouth... and shut it again, unable to think of any of the correct words. What does she see when she looks at you? What does she hope you'll do?
It can't be that she hates you: she's jumped into danger to protect you twice tonight. And haven't you proven you'd do the same? But when you reach up to touch the bruise on your cheek, it's gone.
"Echo," you finally say, "you know I love you, right?"
She doesn't spring away from you, but she's still an arrow waiting to be fired, wound tight. Her tail swishes.
I'd do anything for you to stay, you want to tell her. But a voice in your mind that sounds suspiciously like Yveltal counters, Really? Anything?
You've had so many other chances before tonight; this isn't the first time you've argued or the first time she's pulled away. No, you didn't waste every opportunity. There were good times, too: movies and blankets on a rainy day, an ice cream cone shared in the park. You know Echo was happy then, that you were a team. But even you know that target practice in a dark alley isn't much like sharing ice cream.
You let out a long breath and gesture at the targets arranged around you. "This isn't what you want, is it?"
You have no right to ask her to stay—it keeps getting her killed.
Nevertheless, Echo softens a little at the question. Something like curiosity moves through her eyes, but you still can't tell what she's trying to say. Maybe this is as far as the two of you can go tonight.
You sigh. "Do you want to go home?"
She leads the way. It's the long way home and her pace is relaxed, lethargic even, but you don't mind: every foot between you and the Rocket waiting in the shadows is a relief. 6:01 and still neither of you has died. Of course, you wonder about the Rocket, but you're so tired. And maybe it's not your job to deal with him. So little has changed, so much between you still broken... but for now, maybe it's enough to be with Echo and to be alive.
You're not far from the apartment when Echo suddenly stops in the middle of the sidewalk.
"What?" you ask tiredly, but she only stares up at you.
You look around and try to imagine what this block looks like through her eyes: the cars hissing past, making their reluctant way to work, the thin orange glow of sunrise through smog, the discarded cans and wrappers that are so much closer to her face than yours.
And then you spot the convenience store across the street. It's early—or late, for the two of you, but not too late; it's open twenty-four hours, the neon sign glowing steadily. You pass this place every night on your way home, but you rarely go inside, too wrung out from work and training. You haven't stopped since... Oh.
You turn to Echo and say, "Do... you want ice cream?"
So you have a fudgesicle for breakfast, seated on the curb, and Echo nibbles daintily at a pecha berry freeze. The pavement feels dirty and clammy beneath you, but your heart feels light.
"I guess it would be okay if we did more often. If you'd like that."
When she meets your eyes, you see your own smile mirrored in her gaze.
As the sun begins to rise over the roofs, the light condenses around Echo. For a moment, she's brighter than the sun, and you have to look away. When the spots clear from your vision, her evolution is complete. The sunrise gleams off the jewel on her forehead. What's left of her popsicle is melting in sticky pink rivulets, but her gaze is cast upward, as if watching for portents of a brighter future. Whatever she's seeing now, you'll try to follow her there.