Chapter no.16

A couple of hours prior to that...

When they flew closer to the city, they discovered that their concerns about where to land the aircraft quickly became irrelevant, despite the fact that the city had appeared to be fine from a distance. People ran through the streets of the city as waves of purple followed closely on their heels. Those who were unable to run fast enough were carried away by the purple tide and drowned. People smashed windows and leapt out of windows in a desperate attempt to escape the slimy purple hands that were scrabbled at the empty air in the hopes of grabbing a victim. This resulted in the shattering of glass from some of the taller buildings that were next to them.

Jessie and James watched in horror as bodies fell from the buildings and rained down onto the sidewalk, spraying it with a bloody spray and making sickening thuds as they hit the ground. The city was covered in bubbling purple puddles, and towering plumes of steam could be seen rising from each one. Every single mound represented a body that had been dragged inland by the purple waves. Screams quickly filled the air and competed with the drone produced by their ship's rotor blades for the position of dominant sound.

Brock tore his gaze away from the window, only to realise after he had already done so that Dawn had been observing the same thing. He attempted to pull her away from the windows by grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling on her. She put up a fight at first, but eventually all of her strength gave out, and she ended up falling into Brock's hold. The trainer at first had a deathly pale complexion, but after a while, her face took on a very slight greenish tint. Brock watched as her cheeks grew puffy before she clamped a hand over her mouth, ran to the toilet in the back of the plane, and then covered her mouth with the other hand.

After following her, he discovered her hunched over a toilet, her hand clenched around the rim of the bowl as if it were the only thing keeping her balanced. As she violently threw up into the bowl, he pulled her hair back behind her ear and prepared himself for the odour. James was overwhelmed with gratitude when he realised that they had been provided with one of Giovanni's personal escort ships. If it had been constructed for anyone other than those with administrative privileges, a bathroom and an autopilot would not have been included.

Jessie fought back an onslaught of queasy feelings that rose to the top of her throat. She imagined that everyone else had been doing the same thing in response to the sound of Dawn's heaves. Ash did not move from his perch by the window the entire time. He had one hand clenched into a shaking fist, and the other hand was aiming his Pokédex at the scene below.

"Muk is the Pokémon known as Sludge. Even a single drop of fluid from their body can taint the entire swimming pool. The toxins that leak out of their bodies can be fatal to plants and trees in an instant "Dexter recited the passage without emotion.

Ash muttered something under his breath as he moved away from the window and said, "It... It can't be."

Jessie gave James a light shake of the arm and pointed out the window in front of them while saying, "Uh, James." When the bluenette noticed that his partner was staring at something, he turned his head to investigate. On top of the building in front of them was another one of the aforementioned Muk, which had its slimy mouth open to the point where it was comparable in size to the gaping mouth of a Golbat. After emitting a nauseating gargling sound for a few seconds from the back of its throat, it then vomited an enormous blob of sludge in their direction.

It was Jessie's instincts that kicked in first, before those of her partner. She reached out and grabbed the aircraft's controls. As the aircraft swerved out of the way at the last second, the Sludge Bomb narrowly avoided hitting them, missing them by a few inches. Jessie's hand came into contact with James's as he took the controls and shifted them forward. As a result, they were able to narrowly avoid colliding with a nearby building, which they would have done if they had continued moving in the same direction.

"James, we need to leave this place as soon as possible!" Jessie let out a shout.

James retorted in a brusque manner, "No need to tell me twice," as he firmly opened the throttle on the engines to their fullest setting and made his way towards the quickest route out of the city.

In considerably less than a minute, the farthest reaches of the forest gradually reappeared in the field of view, while the city gradually receded into the background beyond them. James pulled back on the accelerator of the ships' engines, hoping that the frantic sprint hadn't used up too much fuel.

"Wait!" The cockpit was filled with the sound of Ash's voice. A determined expression was plastered across the young trainer's face as he stood guard at the entrance. "Where do you plan on going? It is imperative that we return."

The glare that Jessie cast in his direction was so menacing that it could strip the hide off a Steelix.

"Are you blind, twerp!? What, you weren't paying attention to what was going on in the background! You can't seriously expect us to remain there, can you!" Jessie barked. The child's petulant cry caused her to lose any remaining shred of patience she might have had for the youngster.

"They require our assistance." In the face of her intense scrutiny, Ash maintained a defiant stance.

"And how exactly did you intend to assist those individuals? You weren't going to use your Pokémon to battle those Muk, were you? Oh, wait. Your pokémon are out cold! Just like ours. How are we going to stand out from the people who live there!?"

Ash insisted that there must have been some way that the two groups could have been assisted. In spite of his resolute tone, Jessie was able to tell that her logic was chipping away at his determination much like the waves do when they crash against the sand dunes. Soon after, the young instructor was clinging to any semblance of hope. "We might have been able to let them board the ship. We were able to—" Ash continued to ramble on while looking at various locations on the floor as if they held further recommendations.

This ship is not large enough to accommodate that entire city in its entirety. The fierceness in Jessie's voice had subsided, but it had not lost its iciness and acute perception of the world around her. "Even if we were to go below, there is still a chance that we and our ship would be attacked or grounded. Then we would be unable to leave that city like the rest of the people there. We wouldn't be here today, and neither would the people whose lives we risked to save. Nobody is going to be spared in the end."

"That's…" Ash clenched his teeth and clenched his jaw, doing his best to prevent himself from becoming deflated.

"You should listen to her, Ash." Jessie wasn't the only one who tried to talk Ash out of his illogical plan to save everyone; Ash also heard a familiar male voice.

When the trainer with the raven hair turned around, he saw Brock standing directly behind him.

"What the... Brock, she..." The amount of ash decreased.

"Ash, I never in a million years thought I'd be saying this, but Team Rocket is correct. Due to the circumstances, we are unable to assist anyone. We have no choice but to entrust something of this magnitude to the hands of Officer Jenny, the other members of the law enforcement community, or even the military. I understand that you want to be of assistance, but frankly, this is way out of our league. All we can do is make sure the appropriate people are aware of what's going on and where it is so they can handle the situation."

"I'm ready to go back to my house." When Dawn suddenly raised her voice from behind them, everyone was taken aback.

When Ash and Brock turned to face her, they were taken aback by the fact that she managed to look even more worn out than she already did.