I blinked a few times, trying to clear away the haze, but I was still groggy.  The ground beneath me was hard, cold, and there was a weight on my chest that made it hard to breathe.

"Yes, wake up little pet.  You've been out for far too long."

It was a sweet and soft voice, one I only vaguely remembered.  My vision cleared slowly, this mystery woman's elegant white stiletto heel coming into focus as it rested atop my body.  As my eyes traveled up along her rich, bright crimson stockings and took in her immaculate business suit and perfectly styled, long and blazing bright red hair, I remembered Route 7, and a battle, and betrayal...

She could see it in my face.  Her sparkling green eyes shone with satisfaction as she looked down on me, smirking at my predicament.  In the distance, I heard Yveltal's familiar cry.

"DId you really think you could just toss a Quick Ball at him and control such a creature of legend, little girl?"

She gave a nod to the unseen creature somewhere in the distance  and produced that same ball from my bag, which she'd apparently seized.  In a flash of light, Yveltal returned, and the ball snapped shut.  "He knows who his true masters are, dear girl.  We were able to watch and track you through all of your journeys after Geosange, and when the moment was right, all I had to do was come for you."

I continued to watch her fish through my bag, pulling out the balls that contained my loyal Pokemon and the cards that identified me and contained all of my savings, and I remembered everything clearly then.  I was visiting the daycare and carrying an egg with me, so my team was depleted already.  As I rode my bike along the river walk, she stood in the middle of the bridge, those same striking green eyes staring me down as I approached.

I couldn't refuse a battle, and ever since I'd become the champion it seemed those battles came more and more frequently.  It seemed as though every Pokemon she produced was tailored specifically to counter mine, though, and when Yveltal turned on me in the middle of the battle, there was nothing I could do.

"Really, though, do you black out every time you lose a battle?" she continued, inspecting my pokeballs one by one and further inspecting the one that contained the Butterfree I'd caught as a Caterpie at the very beginning of my trip.  "Even you have to realize that's terribly pathetic."

What do you say to that?  I was full of more questions than I could count, but here, in this strange place, pinned to the ground beneath this striking woman, I couldn't summon up a word, even as she let the Pokeball she held lazily slip from her grasp and clatter to the floor.

Finally, her shoe lifted from my chest, and I found out how much I really had been struggling to breathe beneath its weight.  I sighed with relief, but then I realized that her foot was raising into the air to hover over my little Butterfree.  I barely had time to scream out "NO!" before that shoe smashed downwards, breaking through the durable plastic and crushing the ball to splinters beneath the force of her stomp.

I tried to hold back the hot, stinging tears.  I didn't even really know what had happened, but as I watched her bite her lip, grinning with delight as she twisted her foot once, then twice, leaving the remnants of the ball to crunch beneath her shoe, I couldn't help but cry.

"I've always hated bug types," the woman muttered with a shrug.

She was gone.  Just... Weeble, my little Butterfree.  This woman had made her disappear forever with one firm stomp, and all that was left were some shards of plastic and circuitry.

"I'm Chloe," she spoke with a little playful grin, then idly kicked at the smashed ball, scattering the pile across the floor a bit.  "You didn't think Team Flare just laid down and died when Lysander left, did you?"

This Chloe, whoever she was, had been content to let me lay on the ground in shock while she gathered her possessions and mine.  I continued to stare at the shards of plastic that represented all that was left of my longest companion, and while I still wept, despair was starting to give way to a growing, burning indignant rage.