So I've been away for a bit. There's a few reasons for that. Promotion at my job, managing the Poke Wars roleplaying, and I've been in a bit of a slump with regards to my writing. Admittedly, I wanted to take a break from Ash, and I've had a lot more fun working on the characters from this arc. All things considered, I didn't want to miss Undampening Day of all days. Hope y'all haven't forgotten me and that you can find some entertainment from this chapter.

August 22

Yellow.

It wasn't exactly her favorite color, but by no means was it one she hated. That honor was reserved for purple. Yellow was sunshine, butter, and cute camisoles.

Except for now. Yellow was neither cute nor comforting as it suffused the air around her. From the moment she rappelled down, the Mark III Combat suit reminded her that removing her hermetically-sealed helmet would result in cardiac arrest.

It had been warning her for ten minutes straight.

Stun Spore was never this potent. Then again, a lot of things had changed in the last week. Latoya tilted her head up towards the Gli-Scar and smirked.

True to his word, the antigravity generators Tim had added let the jet float as quietly as a cloud. Yet, for all the money he poured into its stealth technology, for it to be beaten by pollen made her chuckle. And with that thought, regret reared its ugly head. She wouldn't be able to share the irony with Herocross. There were things she wanted to say to him, to thank him for… to slap him for.

She and Nate had not shared his demise with the others. There was enough misery to go around without adding him to the pile. Tim had always been distant, and until they were reminded of his existence, he could stay distant in their minds. Distant and alive.

A strong gust of wind pushed her to stumble as it lovingly added another coat of pollen to her armor. In fact, it coated every blade of grass between her and her destination. Heart-stopping plumes were summoned with every step.

"What could even live out here?" Latoya mumbled. To spite her, the bulbous, yellow head of a bellsprout popped out from the tall grass, took a quick look at her, and scampered into the woods as fast as its little roots could take it.

"I stand corrected," she deadpanned, and pressed on.

Latoya wiped her visor, affording her two precious seconds of clarity before another pollen breeze turned the world yellow again.

"Look at what you're missing, Nate," she huffed. "Aren't you glad I convinced you to stay behind?"

Tim's communications array had picked up a week-old radio signal sent out of Route 32. His digital maps of the region told her a local weather station had been set up in that area. She'd expected a concrete building, like in Gotum, but instead the signal's source looked like a glorified log cabin.

Next to it stood a loose cube of netting. Her scanners illuminated its purpose when another breeze rolled through, lifting an assortment of hoppip, skiploom, and one jumpluff. Yellow streams poured from their flowers and through the netting, the only thing keeping the grass types from flying to the four corners of the globe.

The cabin had seen better days. Wooden boards were haphazardly nailed to the walls. She feared just opening the door would be the straw that broke the numel's back.

"Did you rebuild this after a tornado?" she whispered and tried the doorknob. In a rare stroke of luck, Latoya was spared the need to kick the door open. If she had thought the world outside was yellow, the cabin challenged that notion. The walls, the ceiling, the furniture… no surface had been spared from the spores. She was not the only one in the room.

If the oddish was aware of her presence, it didn't show it. Its somber expression was trained wholly on the mound of pollen on the ground. Latoya had overlooked it at first, but then, the more and more she stared, the more she recognized the humanoid shape beneath.

With a sigh, Nate removed his shiny new Caterpie Man helmet, one of Tim's many unfinished gifts. Much like Latoya's, his now came with an electroglass visor with a variety of functions.

He figured Tim had only started the helmet. The rest of his costume did not include the same technological upgrade.

Nate glanced to the row of canisters holding the other combat suits. Each one had its own security measure. A mix of fingerprints, retinal, and DNA scans as well as codewords to questions only the intended hero of the suit would know. Absoldier, Ladyba, and Dragoknight's suits were practically lost to them forever. Given how much the surviving heroes had lost in the last few days, he doubted they'd want anything to do with the lifestyle anymore.

Nate approached the case that held his armor, closing his eyes when a fan of blue light scanned him from head to toe.

"Seal 1 and 2 are still engaged. Do you wish to unlock contents?" the robotic voice asked him.

"Yes."

"Question one: What was your spark?"

How Tim knew about his life in Hoenn was beyond him. The Onix hadn't left any survivors from his village. It wasn't a subject Nate had ever brought up. Even with Latoya.

"Oliver," he replied. He had to be specific. Saying "My brother" had nearly caused the computer to blow up the suit inside.

"Name accepted. Seal 1 released. Seal 2 still engaged. Do you wish to continue unlocking contents?" it repeated.

"Yes."

"Question two: Who is your patron deity?"

The sound of grinding teeth and silence were all it was going to get. A week among wreckage and corpses gave him his answer years ago. Eventually the program registered it would not get a response today and the blue light winked off.

Nate's focus shifted to the case next to his, the one containing Ricky's armor.

Through the reinforced glass he could see a helmet and an accompanying armor set fashioned to look like a Kakuna. It looked far too big for him, but Nate knew it was designed to interlock and fit over Ricky's Weedle Boy costume. Ricky's case had three seals in total, leaving Nate to wonder what else Tim had left the boy and what secrets a boy of Ricky's age could possibly have.

I could bring him here, show him what Latoya and I found. Even after what he's lost he doesn't hate the hero lifestyle. Latoya will disagree, but the kid has a right to know what Tim left him.

"You really did think of everything, Tim," Latoya whispered as the decontamination chamber went through the final cycles. The last thing she wanted was to paralyze Gliscor. She leaned against the wall, letting the misters do their work. She closed her eyes, but the woman's face was branded to her retinas, eyes still wide in shock as she brushed away the mask of pollen.

"Should I have buried her, Tim?" she asked.

What purpose would that serve? There's a time and place for that. You need to find out what's going on in the rest of the world. The man could be cold and calculating when he needed to be.

It's what a hero would do, her father's voice echoed. Normally going against his wishes would've made her smile, but the look the oddish gave her just before she left the cabin nearly slayed her.

The door before her slid open with a hiss. Gliscor had been waiting patiently for her outside, nervously rocking back and forth from his tail, coiled around a ceiling rail. Latoya stepped out, wisps of steam still curling off her armor as she made for the front of the Gli-Scar. The electroglass windshield displayed the hours left to reach the new destination she'd put in. She could've made the trip in minutes at top speed, but that meant sacrificing the chance to pick up life signs on the way there.

"One vehicle detected," the robotic, but distinctly feminine, voice alerted her. Latoya sighed and killed the engines once more. She had already done this a dozen times before finding the weather station. Still, she didn't give up hope.

She gripped the rappelling handle, holding her breath. With every meter she went down, the more and more of the car she saw. The hood and roof of the vehicle had been cut to ribbons, like tears in aluminum foil. Equally distressing, and just as perplexing, was the complete absence of any bodies.

Half of the cars she found had Gotum City license plates, while the rest hailed from different corners of the region. Regardless, she jotted down the characters of every plate. If the drivers had any family left in Gotum, news of their fate might bring some solace.

Or make them feel worse. Am I gonna be the one who breaks it to them? The bearer of bad news. Nate could do it. Nate would do it, if I asked him. He can sugarcoat it, soften it up like he always does. The people like Caterpie Man. He's wacky and simple and does stupid poses, but he hasn't soured his image with everyone like I have. At least, not yet.

Latoya sighed, a noise that sounded loud in her helmet. She crouched down. The tires had been slashed. Her helmet's scanners found a plant residue but could not pinpoint the source.

It should be me. It's not right to just throw this on him. I found the…well I haven't seen any bodies yet, but I know they never made it to wherever they were going.

Whatever rations the drivers had with them were gone as well, torn to scraps without so much as a crumb left behind. Clothes and tools had been thoroughly searched but remained intact.

The Gli-Scar's scanners pinged her helmet, alerting her to a sudden mass of movement. Something rustled behind her. Latoya twirled around, brandishing several gligarangs between her fingers. At first, she saw nothing. Then the tall grass parted.

A row of yellow bulbs and spindly bodies emerged. Seven pairs of black beady eyes, like globules of ink, stared back at her. The longer she stared back, the colder and emptier they felt. Purple drool oozed past their pink lips, a soft hiss replacing the sudden silence when the droplets hit the grass.

Two of them suddenly broke rank, clearing the three meters between them in less than a second. Latoya jumped, narrowly avoiding the slashing leaves aiming to hamstring her.

So that's what took out the tires…

Latoya tucked in her legs, flipping behind the car and flinging her arms out to launch her gligarangs. They didn't make it far, intercepting the volley of Razor Leaves launched by the back row of bellsprout. Latoya landed behind the car, but the first bellsprout pair were already flanking her.

Twin vines burst from the base of the left one's leaves, wrapping around Latoya's forearm. With practiced ease she grabbed the tendril, winding it around her elbow and bringing it low enough to stomp into the ground. The flower pokémon was yanked towards her, its roots finding no purchase in the grass.

Latoya fished another gligarang from her belt and swung the sharpened edge at the creature's throat. With a single swipe she severed the vines and its head. The second bellsprout, now behind her, gave up the advantage and leapt over her head to unleash a cloud of spores at her visor.

It was supposed to be a routine hunt. Like it had been for the last few nights. If they found a vehicle, they would slash up the tires and wait for the human to step out. A small dose of spores would bring them down, then the body would get divided up amongst the others.

When an armored arm shot through the spore cloud and grabbed the bellsprout by the throat, it was too stunned to immediately retaliate. The momentary lapse proved costly as Latoya hefted her gligarang and drove the edged end between the creature's eyes.

The unearthly screech that came was so loud Latoya's grip loosened and let the grass type drop. Despite the head injury, the flower pokémon shrieked and scampered away, leaving a steaming trail of acid along the grass.

Such a scene should've sent the other bellsprout running. Instead, a barrage of leaves carved through the car chassis like paper and glanced off her armor. The cuts weren't deep; Latoya wasn't interested in seeing what a direct strike to her would be like. Gliscor apparently shared her thoughts as the stealth jet's shadow suddenly loomed over her, the rappelling cord swinging into her midst.

She tossed down a smoke pellet, summoning a thick, choking cloud. Spheres of acid and sharpened leaves shot through the smokescreen, barely missing Latoya as she slipped her boot through the handle and yanked twice. The reeling mechanism triggered and hauled her up as the jet sped away.

Another shower, another deep scrub of her suit, and the remaining hour to the next settlement quickly ended. The Gli-Scar was just entering the city limits of Durden City when a warning notification popped up onto the electro-glass windshield.

Part of Tim's plan to keep the Gli-Scar off the grid had involved minimizing the paper trail as much as possible. A big part of that was refueling. The jet was outfitted with a Zarrel Ion core to meet the bulk of its energy needs. To keep from tapping into the core too often, a risk that could cause it to go critical, solar panels were built alongside the Sinnohvian stealth plates to store energy on standby.

Problem was, keeping the ship in stealth mode at all times meant no sunlight was getting through to the panels. Six days had gone by without a single emergency vehicle or supply drop by land or air. To Latoya that meant the skies did not guarantee her safety. The ship's onboard computer calculated it could make a return trip back to Gotum while keeping the core at stable levels.

Suddenly, the Gli-Scar's . Latoya turned, feeling a wave of pressure flow out of her from the breath she'd been holding: life signs, several in the area. She ran the length of the ship, almost clipping herself on the sliding doors before diving off the landing ramp and gliding through Durden City skies. With a sweeping glance, the city looked like it had fared better in its first week than Gotum had.

Tim's normally well-documented files of towns and cities in Johto held little information about Durden aside from its label as a rough neighborhood. Strolling up to someone in her costume was likely to get her shot in these desperate times.

Or it was, Latoya thought as the scanned the peaceful and barren city streets.

"I'll do some recon and then decide," she whispered to herself. She broke off into a sprint.

Each jump felt like groping in the dark, stumbling for some sense of familiarity. The maps and three-dimensional hologram models in the Gli-Scar could only offer her so much. She needed to feel the stone beneath her steps, the rush of adrenaline when she swung from building to building. Doing this during the daytime added to the sense of discomfort. She felt exposed before the sunlight, regardless of how many layers of armor she was wearing.

A few minutes of awkward parkour brought her across the street from a warehouse where the life signs were detected. The idea of a gathering taking place inside a warehouse struck Latoya as odd until one of the life signs winked out of existence. Latoya whipped out her grappling gun and fired the claw at the warehouse's roof.

Pressing a separate trigger, she was yanked off her rooftop and reeled to the next one. Latoya hoped whatever was in the warehouse didn't possess a keen sense of hearing. Every step closer to the shattered skylight brought the sound of growls and grunts.

She popped her head over the edge, letting her visor take a snapshot of the interior before quickly ducking back. And yet, even as she studied the image, she wasn't sure what to make of it. There were two people in the center of the shot warehouse, the floor beneath their feet slick with blood and… teeth? The snapshot had caught the two grown men in the midst of viscous swings.

To the side she saw a mound of mangled bodies and a hitmonlee dragging a fresh corpse by the leg to add to the pile. A month ago, the image would've sent Latoya over the edge of the building to heave, but after the first night she'd long grown numb to the sight. What startled her was the sheer number of bodies, a hill of tangled limbs piled higher than her.

Standing on opposite sides of the warehouse were a hitmonchan and a machamp, the former waving his fist and shouting while the latter had both sets of arms crossed, his expression smug.

Curiosity overcame caution as Latoya poked her head out again to get another look. Only one human now stood, chest heaving and tears streaming down his face. The other person lay trembling and bleeding on the floor, eliciting louder shouts from the hitmonchan behind him.

She wanted to feel disgusted, livid, but the whole role reversal was troubling. Sure, humans weren't as sturdy or strong as pokémon, but even if they were?

The machamp's chuckle broke her thoughts. He moved over, patting the human with one hand while tussling his hair with another. The man winced with each pat, each one striking him hard enough to nearly knock him down.

With one of his free hands, he unclenched his fist to reveal a browning apple core. He twisted his wrist, letting gravity pull it to the ground at his feet. The man didn't even hesitate to drop down and snatch his prize, fervently nibbling the remains. He paid no mind to the man he had just defeated, how the hitmonchan picked him up by his tattered shirt and held him at eye level.

The losers' left eye had swollen shut, his face a tapestry of nauseating colors and shattered teeth. Latoya reached into her utility belt for one of her collapsible gligarangs when the punching pokémon raised his arm. She raised her own to throw before the fighting type could throw the punch.

But she never saw his fist move. Then the man's head disappeared. The hitmonlee, having disposed of the last body suddenly jumped aside, narrowly avoiding the crimson coating that splashed on the wall behind him. Latoya stumbled back. The gligarang shook in her grip.

She brought up the recording of the punch and watched it again. And again. Latoya squinted and enhanced. She slowed the recording down to a tenth of a second. Nothing. Then a hundredth of a second. Still nothing. It was only once she brought it to a thousandth of a second did a blur of movement appear around his arm.

Latoya's heart was beating hard against her breast. She had fought villains far stronger and faster than her before, but none of them compared to this. This wasn't a matter of skill or technique, but natural, raw power. An angry screech to her left stopped her heartbeat completely.

Latoya sharply turned to the source of the noise. At the end of the building a pair of chiseled hands gripped the edge with enough force to crack it. Shaggy beige fur, snout-like nose, and a pair of eyes that glared at her with such contempt, as if Latoya had killed everything this Primeape had ever loved.

Latoya sprinted for the edge as the ape unleashed a outraged howl to the skies.

I'd love some feedback on this chapter if you guys have the time. Also worth noting, Agent of Chaos has released another Chapter for The Remembrance and The Orrean Survival guide if you want to have a good laugh. Check it out and send it some love.