Chapter 9: I like rollercoasters.

Kiri slowly opened his eyes, fully expecting to see the ancient room with carvings on it and that dreaded Lopunny. Instead, he saw the great expanse of the sky. Where am I? Kiri thought to himself.

He found that he was sandwiched between Gao and Tetsuya. A strong wind was blowing.

"Kiri! You're awake!" Gao smiled at him.

Kiri nodded. "But…where are we? What happened?"

In front of Gao, a small boy with dark blue hair turned around.

"Akatsuki?" Kiri gasped.

Zanya's little brother nodded. "I saw you guys were knocked out and being attacked, so I had Rayquaza fly down to help!"

"Rayquaza?" asked Kiri.

"Yep! We're riding on him right now. He was scary at first, but it turned out he just wanted to make friends!" Akatsuki replied.

The dragon they were seated on turned its large head around. Kiri realized that this was the same creature that had attacked them back on the turquoise brick road! He shuddered, remembering the misfortune brought upon them by that hideous monster. But now, Rayquaza was helping them, just because of Akatsuki. "Is everyone here?" he asked worriedly.

"Yup, dude." Tetsuya grinned.

Kiri looked back at Akatsuki. "Where are we?"

"42,659 feet above the ground and counting," the boy replied.

Kiri might have fallen off the ascending dragon if he hadn't been squashed so tightly between his friends. "How are we not dead?"

Akatsuki shrugged. "I dunno. Ask Rayquaza, he's the one who's doing it."

Rayquaza made a low grumbling sound. "Easy, boy." Akatsuki attempted to stroke the emerald scales of Rayquaza, but to no avail. The large green monster gave a loud roar and flew even faster.

"Aaah!" Our heroes (including Akatsuki) all screamed as Rayquaza charged at a meteorite, one almost as big as a house.

"Akatsuki!" Zanya shouted above the gusts of wind. "You should never have made acquaintances with that monster!"

"Sorry, Big Z!" Akatsuki wailed.

"Guys, get on my banana!" Tetsuya yelled. But he was too late. Rayquaza crashed through the meteor, exposing a large triangle inside of it.

"What is that?" Kiri wondered. Four pointed tentacles shot out of the triangle, tying up Rayquaza along with our heroes.

Rayquaza gave another deafening roar and zoomed straight in the air, breaking free from the grasp of the mysterious triangle. A greenish blue aura began to appear around Rayquaza as it broke the limits of the clouds.

"We're goin' to space!" Tetsuya observed.

"We could die up here!" Tasuku exclaimed.

Almost as suddenly as Rayquaza had started to ascend, it made a quick U-turn and plummeted downward.

"I like roller coasters," Gao cried out, "but this is too much!"

Just then, Kiri and his friends saw Rayquaza's target. It was an orange and blue creature, with pointed tentacle arms, a glowing purple core, and menacing eyes.

"It must have hidden in that triangle!" Kiri concluded.

"That doesn't matter now!" Zanya yelled.

"Eeek!" Akatsuki screamed.

The weird orange creature pointed its 'arms' straight at Rayquaza. Its core began to glow.

"This can only mean one thing,' Gao worriedly decided. "It's attacking us!"

A huge ball of purple dimension-twisting energy shot out of the creature's core, right into Rayquaza and it's passengers. The seven boys were blasted off in different directions from the impact and the large dragon fell through the sky.