Chasm Cave was… to be honest, quite easy for Absol. First of all, the Ghost-types in that dungeon were easily felled by Absol's Night Slash and everything else was easily taken care of due to the Ice Beam Technical Machine the Pokemon had picked up over at Sky Tower. However, Absol still had to be wary of staying on the path that the dungeon had. After all, it wasn't called Chasm Cave for nothing; there were no walls in-between the pathways and the rooms, only the seemingly bottomless pit between Temporal Tower and the area that surrounded it, meaning that it only took one wrong step for Absol to fall, possibly forever to his doom. Luckily, Absol had been through Chasm Cave many time to gather what little supplies were left
"Heh, this is getting too easy," Absol remarked as he formed a ball of ice-cold energy in front of his mouth and launched a beam at a wild Onix, knocking out the massive rock snake. It fell with a roar, showing it's pain, but Absol spared its life, he wasn't going to become a mindless killer like the other Pokemon of the future were doing and he still felt sympathy for everyone that was trapped, "now with all the power I have, why can't I do anything to help the paralysed planet! I've killed many of Dialga's spies, now why can't I just save time! I'm strong for all the wrong reasons!" he thought angrily
However, maybe it was a Pokemon thing or maybe it was a thing that they'd adapted to because of the dark future, but Absol felt his senses tingling, like he was being watched every step of the way, his crimson eyes kept scanning the walls like radar vision and the sensing only got worse as time went on. Every step of the way it seemed, Absol saw a shadow fly by here, a glint of red there, the whole experience was very unnerving for him…
Eventually, it got to a point where Absol reached the end of the Cave in a small room where the void was all around him, he was looking around, very cautiously, his black head tilting from side to side, the sense that he was in danger hadn't gone away; it was still there following him as if it were a homing device.
"Who's there!" Absol yelled "stop being cowards and just come on out!"
"He's found us…" one of the voices in the darkness seemed to whisper, "there is no point in hiding anymore!
At once, three Pokemon leaped out of the shadows of the room, ready to attack. Absol identified the one in the center as a Weavile because of its sharp claws, red headdress and dark body. The one on the left flapped around on four wings and was a violet, purple shaded colour, definitely a Crobat, Absol thought, and the final one looked a lot like a praying mantis, with sharp blades on their arms and a lime green colour to boot "Scyther," Absol continued on his train of thought as the three Pokemon stared him down menacingly, "I have a major numbers and type disadvantage against these guys, I'd better be on guard," for now though, he decided to speak to unnerve the Pokemon, "so, I'm assuming you guys work as Dialga's lackeys as well?"
At this point, the three started laughing their heads off.
"Well," Absol grimaced, annoyed, "what do these three want with me?"
Once the laughter had died down, Weavile decided to speak up, "No," he replied, "we don't work for Dialga, he's far too scary for our liking."
"But," continued the Scyther, "we are bounty hunters and I bet Dialga would give us a hefty sum of money for delivering him the one who has been murdering his most trusted and most reliable agents who is also a demon who brings disaster." he said the word demon with vehemence, as if there was bile in his throat, "You see, we aren't on a particular side, we just work for whoever pays us the most."
"So," the Crobat finished, "we're going to knock you out and bring you to Primal Dialga to get our sum of money, you can choose if you want to fight back, but we suggest giving in, after all, you are at a large numbers disadvantage and Scyther here has you beaten when it comes to type matchups." He nodded at the mantis.
Absol glared them down with a look that could make even Arceus cringe in fear, then, he started with his speech. "You have freedom, a chance to forage and do what you want in this messed up world, yet you choose to work for and enforce Dialga's authority! You disgust me!" he yelled angrily, he leapt down like a lion and started pacing around the three to intimidate them, "I have no quarrel with those who are not forced under Dialga's foot, leave now and I will let you go!"
There was a beat of silence, and for a few seconds, Absol thought that the bounty hunters were actually beginning to consider his warning. Then, Weavile attacked.
With a roar, the weasel compressed solid chunks of ice and hurled them at Absol faster than he could blink, catching him off guard and impacting him in the fleece and lowering his body temperature somewhat. Of course, Ice Shard wasn't meant to be a very powerful Ice-type attack. Only a preemptive strike, a warning.
However, Absol roared in response. "These bandits got their warning from me, now they must suffer the consequences." he was remorseless, he had been ever since setting foot in this hell. Quickly, he formed a sword above his head, planning to raise his attack power so they would come in close range and be finished off with a single stroke, but he never predicted the strategy that his opponents would use.
Suddenly, the Scyther began moving rapidly until it moved at a pace where it was virtually fading in and out of reality, but that wasn't all. Suddenly, Weavile and Crobat were doing the same thing, the boosted speed being passed on to them in addition!
"What?" Absol was surprised as he bent his knees and readied a Night Slash, preparing to attack while looking from left to right and trying to detect where his opponents' next moves would come from, "Damn it," he swore under his breath through gritted teeth "that Scyther, it must have used Agility to boost its teams speed!" he was ready to use Detect in preparation for the Pokemon's attack, but he was too late. In a flash, the Crobat flitted in front of him, opened it's mouth and released a multicoloured, dazzling light at him.
At this point, everything around Absol became blurred, the Pokemon could see two Scythers, two Crobats and two Weaviles, all coming in and out of focus for him. He tried to use Night Slash to incapacitate them, but it seemed as though every time he tried this, the afterimages would just fade away and his horn found no solid ground. Thinking clearly was incoherent to him at this point, all he could do was continue attacking relentlessly. In simpler terms, he was completely helpless.
"You should have listened to Crobat, goodbye demon!" Scyther hissed. The last thing Absol ever saw was Scyther's grinning face before a white flash of light cleaved through his vision from right to left and cut through his eyes, completely robbing him of his sight.
If Absol was berserk before, it was nothing compared to the state Scyther's slashing attack left him in, he still felt the liquid dripping down his face from his eyes and he smelt it as well, it was the scent of blood, even though he was in shock because all he could see was darkness and not just the darkness of the frozen future either, he literally felt pitch black darkness slice through every part of his vision. In a vicious frenzy, crying out in pain, he spun around and tossed from side to side, activating his Night Slash in the process. Normally, Crobat would be able to dodge the attack, but Absol had no control over his actions and the speed burst she had gotten from Scyther was starting to wear out so before Crobat could even process what was happening, Absol landed his Night Slash and felt his horn tear through the bat's purple flesh. He heard a scream, felt an explosion of the coppery liquid he had tasted before and felt a dull thud as the body fell to the floor in front of him.
With this, Absol hesitated in his blindness induced rampage as Crobat's fading screeches of pain filled his eardrums and were soon silenced "Did I?" Absol asked himself, "did I just kill a Pokemon that wasn't evil? Who just wanted to survive in this place along with everyone else? But, that goes against my very ideals, the very things that Charlie and Charmy taught me!"
However, this momentary lapse of regret soon faded as he continued his craze filled rampage with Night Slash, only this time, adding Ice Beam to the mix. He fired everywhere because he had about as much control over his actions right now as Primal Dialga had. All that remained was the instinct to finish everything off around him, Weavile and Scyther didn't dare to attack Absol or even come close to him in this state as they realised their mistake of blinding the poor Pokemon and sure enough, one of the Ice Beams hit Scyther on the wing and down he fell with a cry, his wing encrusted in ice therefore making him less mobile.
"Come on," he panted, shaking Scyther and clearly tired of all the dodging he had to do, "we can't even get close to this guy, let alone finish him off, we should flee."
"B-but what about Crobat?" the Scyther asked, pointing his scythe weakly at his dissected partner and showing his clear reluctance to leave his partner just lying there.
"There's nothing we can do for her," the Weavile responded harshly, "she's dead. At least the demon is dying of blood loss now, I'll come back and bring him to Dialga when he calms down and is knocked unconscious."
"You?" Scyther asked weakly, "we're a team Weavile, we do things together!"
"Oh yeah," Weavile rolled his eyes, "there's one more thing I have to do," without further ado, Weavile brought his arm back, activated a Metal Claw and stabbed Scyther through the chest with his claw, completely impaling him and causing Scyther to cough up blood that splashed in the weasel's face."
"What…" Scyther gasped weakly, "Weavile...but...why…"
Weavile didn't say a word, he just retracted his metal claw from Scyther's chest, picked the green bug up and threw his screaming, dying carcass at the still berserk Absol. Needless to say, the dying mantis fell onto Absol, causing the feline to rear up and slash Scyther in half, instantly killing the already wounded mantis. Weavile, showing no remorse for his actions, started to walk back along the road that lead to the innermost clearing of Chasm Cave, dodging the Ice Beams from the Absol, who was now starting to run out of energy to use his attacks.
"Those fools," Weavile thought to himself about his so-called 'companions,' "didn't they realise that to get all the money for bringing the demon to Dialga, I would have had to murder both of them at one point? Those fools end up caring about their teammates far too much, all I was doing this for was the money, not to gain friends who will slow me down. This is a tough world, and for people to survive in this world, you gotta harden your heart and care about nobody but yourself. I only look out for myself…" Weavile then continued to trudge along, silent as if his tongue had been ripped out.
By the time Weavile had left Chasm Cave, Absol had lost all his energy in his berserk rage, almost falling off the cliff that led to the void and nothingness. There was something sad about the way he lay sprawled across the ground, devoid of moving, except for his ragged breath and faint heartbeat, which was slowly getting weaker as time went on. The blood spilling out of his eye sockets and Crobat and Scyther's bisected body painted the ground into the picture that he, Crobat and Scyther were not enemies, but comrades, comrades who had met some some enemy that was too much for them in a dungeon and met an unpleasant end.
Fortunately just when it seemed that the Disaster Pokemon had finally met his fate, a green, lizard-based Pokemon, with yellow eyes, blades made of leaves on his arms and a brown satchel hanging over his arm came dashing into the clearing, his pupils dilated into black slits. When he saw how badly Absol, Scyther and Crobat were injured, he couldn't help but gasp out in shock, his mouth was just… open at the brutality of what could have done this.
"Oh my Arceus!" he gasped worriedly, rushing over to where Absol was sprawled, one of his legs dangling precariously over the void. The other two Pokemon were gone, even the hopeful lizard could see that no one could survive being viciously torn in half like that. However, he realised there was still hope for one who had just gotten his eyes viciously torn out and his hopes were confirmed when he felt Absol's chest and while it was shallow and hard to hear at first, he definitely detected a pulse "I came because I thought something was amiss at Chasm Cave, thank Arceus I came here in time!" He then proceeded to pull a berry out of his satchel. It was round and had a cyan blue colouring to it. "Here," the reptile said, his voice still edged with a hint of worry for his fellow Pokemon, "eat this, it won't heal your eyes, but it will hopefully save you from death."
He had to open the feline's sharp-toothed mouth to be able to get him to chew the berry up and from the looks of things, it worked just the way the lizard had said it would, the lesser wounds that Absol had sustained in the previous battle started to slowly seal up and his heart, breathing rate and temperature started to increase again as he attained a faint, green glow attributed with healing. In contrast, the gaps in his eyes caused by Scyther's Slash remained, Absol was never going to see again.
"Good, I saved him," the lizard breathed a sigh of relief "No matter who it is, I can't just leave a Pokemon to die here, I'd be no better than the berserk Pokemon of the this world that way, no matter their reputation or who they are" he added internally. He then proceeded to sling the feline over his shoulder, and quizzically looked at the two mangled corpses over next to Absol.
"They're dead," the lizard nodded to the feline, "both dead, I've got to have mercy on them. I never knew them, but no one deserves to stay frozen in this miserable future forever." He walked calmly over to Crobat and Scyther's corpses, picked them up, walked over to the edge of the void and dropped both Pokemon in. They both fell a long, long way, being ominously swallowed up by the void that gave way to the descent into the planet's core, never to be heard of again…
The lizard then looked over at the feline slung over his shoulder, "I'll take you to the base of the rebellion, they'll take good care of you." He then began running out of Chasm Cave with Absol in tow and from there until he reached the rebellion's base, Sceptile said nothing more.
Wow, I got you there, didn't I? You probably thought that the 'green lizard' I was referring to was Grovyle and he was going to be the one to save Absol but nope, it's Sceptile. So, what role does Grovyle play in this story? Well, you'll just have to keep reading to find out!