Chapter 9: Sabotaged!

By the time Akuji and Donovan bolted out of Kadessa, it was already dawn. The loud explosion caused by Akuji's massive energy release woke the Beast Riders up earlier than normal. They quickly dressed, ate, and rushed out of the building, meeting each other just inside the main entrance.

"What the hell was that noise!" Ace yelled.

The other three Beast Riders were just as confused. "I wish I knew," Shalin responded. They walked outside to look for evidence of the blast, and found the same darkness that Donovan had seen the night before, only this time, it was much more profound. The young rider of Midori reasoned what had happened. "Could Akuji have broken the seal?" she asked.

"Oh dear god," Josh started, "I don't even want to think about that. Don't say that."

Aravan broke the news to Josh. "I hate to say this, but she's probably right. I'm concerned about what happened. Where are our Pokémon?"

"Behind the building," Ace answered.

"Then we need to quickly ride to the Burned Tower," Aravan said.

"Why?"

"If Akuji is roaming the world, we need to be prepared to fight at any time. As of now, Shalin is the only one who can fight effectively."

"Good point. But I'm worried about that, too," Josh added. "We need to get out of here fast." At that, the four of them hustled to the other side of the building and met Raikou, Entei, Suicune, and Midori.

"Josh, I'm just as concerned as you are," Raikou informed the Beast Riders. "You were right to judge what had happened. We really need to get out of here quickly and to the Burned Tower again."

The Raikou Rider was impressed at the bond he shared with his Beast. "You and I are always thinking on the same page when it comes to critical matters." He then turned to Shalin. "There will be little point in you coming along with us. You can't pass into the depths of the Burned Tower, where we need to go."

Shalin was stubborn. "I'm coming anyway! What if something happens and you get hurt or something? Who's gonna be there to protect you?"

"Shalin, you're more than welcome to come. I'm just saying that there isn't really very much of a point to doing so." Josh mounted Raikou, then resumed talking. "If you want to go, then let's go."

The other three riders followed suit, then took off for the northwest, in the direction of the ruined tower. Raikou and the other Beasts ran slower than usual, for it wasn't a crisis. They never exceeded one hundred miles per hour, giving time for the riders to take in their surroundings. When the Beast Riders finally arrived at the tower, they entered the basement and pushed in on the three tiles on the sides of the room. As was the last time, a large trapdoor opened in the center of the altar. The four Beast Riders descended to the underground chamber leading to the elemental Weapons.

"This is far as you can go," Josh said to Shalin. "The three passages are meant only for the riders of Raikou, Entei, and Suicune. You will have to stay here until we get back."

"All right, Josh," she responded.

Ace's path was exactly the same as before: a winding, lava-filled passage. "You know what to do with this, Entei."

"Yes. I remember this from that time before. It seemed so long ago." Ace had a short flashback about the first time he came here.

"Just trust in me, Ace. I will see to it that you are not hurt." Entei put its complete trust in Ace; now it was Ace's turn to trust Entei. It would be like the two of them were one in spirit. "All right. You would not put me in harm's way carelessly. I trust you. Let's go!" the beast's rider responded as they raced off down the lava-filled tunnel. Aravan was watching them until they disappeared down a corner. Entei showed no signs of pain, and saw Ace become less tense.

"I remember that day so well," he said. "Entei, let's run through here!" The Legend of Fire took off into the lava-stricken passage at a high rate of speed, again unharmed by the lava. Reminiscing about the past the entire way through, Ace was calm and collected, unlike the way he was upon entering the tower.

Josh's path, on the left side, was also exactly the same as the last time: a lightning-stricken passage that only a speeding Raikou using a Spark attack could cross. His mount charged up an electrical sphere, then surrounded itself and Josh with it. The Beast rushed into the lightning-filled chamber at full speed, jumping over many gaps in the floor. This time, however, Josh didn't have to hang on for his life, as was the last time. He could remember exactly what had happened before.

"How are you going to get me across here?" he asked.

Raikou offered a simple solution. "I can deflect the lightning bolts with a simple Spark attack. Just hold on as I rush across the path."

Josh was surprised at the answer Raikou had to the problem. "OK. I was second-guessing myself for a second about the feasibility of the approach, but I trust you won't electrocute me." He then let out a big sigh. Oh well, here goes nothing, I guess. Raikou! Spark attack!" Raikou and its rider became surrounded by a sphere of electricity. When the field first appeared, Josh's hair stood on end. But several seconds later, he realized that the electricity was not harming his body. The Legend of Thunder suddenly accelerated to a high speed, nearly throwing Josh into the electricity. His heartbeat jumped dramatically, pounding from the close encounter with death.

"Raikou, don't do something like that!" Josh said as he tightened his clutch on the beast's back.

"I will not let you fall off, Josh. Just trust in me. Have faith."

The beast had accelerated to nearly one hundred miles per hour by this time. Though everything was going fine for him, Josh could not relax like he did on that open field north of the college campus. There was something in his mind keeping him tensed up. Suddenly, a gap in the floor appeared in front of them. "Raikou, jump it!" Josh yelled. The beast made a low leap into the air, clearing the gap by a large margin.

The tunnel with Suicune and Aravan, however, was a wee bit different. The flow of water against the direction they wanted to go was nearly twice as fast as the last time. "Aravan." Suicune tried to get his rider's attention.

"Yes, Suicune? What's wrong?"

"This current is much swifter than before. There is no way I can swim across here, and it's also much too swift to try to freeze with my Ice Beam. But there is another way."

"And what would that be?"

"It is something you do not know about me yet. I'm sure you remember the day we raced ahead of Entei and Raikou. It was the day before we left each other."

"Yes. I remember that well. What's your point?"

"I don't need to swim to cross water, nor do I need to freeze the water. I can run on water."

"You what!"

"You heard me. I can run on water, but I have to run really fast to do so. You know what else, I could swim up a waterfall if I needed to as well. Neat, huh?"

"That's really cool! Suicune, we need to back up a ways to do this," Aravan said. Suicune walked backwards for a few steps, then darted forward and onto the water. Bolting through the straight, narrow chamber at 180 miles per hour, Suicune stepped onto the flowing water. When it ran at that speed across the water, its legs never broke the surface. "This is really cool, Suicune! I never knew!"

It continued to run on the water all the way to the end of the tunnel. "Yes, people have admired me for this ability." Ace and Josh already made it to the end of their paths, and once again saw the Lightning Sword, Crimson Blade, and Crystal Brand in the back of the room, waiting for them. All three swords were glowing in the color of their respective Beast's element.

When Josh grabbed the Lightning Sword out of the pedestal on the left, a column of lightning struck around him, just as before. The same coat of yellow, lightweight, lightning-resistant armor materialized around him, as did the same wide sword sheath to accompany the lightning-bolt shape of the blade. Columns of fire and ice-cold water surrounded Ace and Aravan, respectively, as they pulled their swords out. They got coats of lightweight, red and blue armor, according to the element of their respective Beasts. They also received matching sword sheaths.

The transformed Beast Riders held up their blades as Josh's crackled with electricity, Ace's ablaze with Entei's flames, and Aravan's giving off an arctic aura capable of freezing anything.

(Cut Music)

The three Beast Riders slashed their weapons in opposite directions, unleashing attacks at the sidewalls as a test to see whether the weapons were working correctly. A few seconds after the test attacks were successful, the blazing flame surrounding Ace's sword faded out, and the color of the blade changed from a bright red to a deep maroon. Aravan's blade changed color from a sky blue to a deep blue-gray. The electricity of Josh's Lightning Sword, however, was not affected.

"Something just happened, and something tells me Akuji is behind it," Josh suggested.

"What's that evil Beast up to now!" Ace exclaimed. "He has to come in here and jinx our weaponry...what a goddamn coward that Beast is!"

"I don't think Akuji plans on playing a fair game. I don't think it knows what the word 'fair' means. We have to get out of here and tell Shalin the bad news. Let's get out of here." The Beast Riders sheathed their weapons, climbed back atop their Pokémon, and raced out of the chamber through three straight, narrow, grey paths. Blazing through the chambers at full speed, it took them under three minutes to make it back to Shalin.

"Guys? Is that you in that armor!"

"Yes, it's us. We don't have time to discuss it now. Something's wrong with the Crimson Blade and the Crystal Brand," Josh informed Shalin. "But we have to make do." We should head back to campus and find out exactly what's going on. Maybe the news channel will tell us something."

Thr four Beast Riders reversed their steps to get out of the Tower, then sped back to campus. On the way back, they encountered a group of three Pokémon not native to the area: Persian, Scyther, and Ditto. All three of the wild Pokémon had blood-red eyes, which was extremely unnatural.

Immediately, Ditto copied Entei's genetic code, transforming itself into a perfect duplicate of the legendary Beast. This would make the battle much more difficult. Scyther made three duplicate images of itself with its Double Team. "Raikou," Josh started, "Hit all of those images with a Thunder attack. That way, we'll be sure to hit it." Massive lightning bolts struck all three of the images in addition to the real Pokémon. The force of the attack gravely injured the flying mantis. It retreated from the scene.

Persian, the sleek, white cat, snuck up behind the attacker without as much as making a sound. It jumped at Raikou and Josh. The Beast was able to save its rider in time by raising its hind legs. Josh suffered only a scratch, but Raikou's hind legs were injured significantly in the attack, and crippled its movement slightly for the time being.

Ditto, in the appearance of Entei, rammed into Suicune's side. The contact pinched Aravan's leg between his Beast's body and the transformed Ditto, causing the rider to utter a loud scream of pain. He counter-attacked with a sword slash and a Hydro Pump from Suicune's mouth. The damage blasted Entei's mockery back a long way as the Pokémon could no longer hold its transformation. It retreated in the same direction as Scyther.

The nimble Persian was the only one left. It rocketed at Aravan and Suicune, claws brandished. Knowing that it would probably attack Aravan's injured leg, Suicune jumped in the direction of the attacking Pokémon. The blue Beast sailed over Persian and stomped it. It was pinned to the ground and had nowhere to go. Suicune fired a powerful Ice Beam at its target from close range, then jumped out of the way before Aravan's body froze from the attack.

"Well, that was easy," Josh remarked. "But I think we will have a tough battle ahead. Did you note the color of the eyes of those Pokémon? They were blood-red, even more so than Raikou's." Suicune drenched Aravan in its Cure Water to help ease the pain caused by the wounds of battle. However, it didn't dull the pain completely. When the four Beast Riders resumed their trip to Ecruteak University, Raikou and Suicune held the group from going at full speed. Though Aravan's Beast had bound the wounds of the Legend of Thunder with a dose of Cure Water, it didn't alleviate the wounds caused by Persian's razor-sharp claws. Though their limp was still a speedy eighty miles per hour, it was much slower than Josh wanted to ride.

After the longer-than-expected trip to Ecruteak University, they saw a shady figure mounted atop a clearly black Beast eight feet in stature. As they neared it, Ace identified the rider. "Donovan!"

"Oh my god!" Josh exclaimed. He knew what was going on. He remembered the words of Ho-oh. Quickly putting his logic together, he identified the Beast as Akuji. Without as much as a word, Josh raced forward on Raikou, ready to have a talk with his nemesis. "What are you doing!" Shalin hollered. "That is dangerous! Come back here, Josh!"

When he got within a hundred feet of the evil Beast and its rider, Josh started shouting. "Donovan! What are you doing on Akuji's back! That thing is evil and it'll make you evil, too! You don't know what you are doing!"

Donovan turned Akuji around, and for the first time, Josh stared into the frightening face of the Beast of Darkness. However, the black fur, sharp horns, and blood-red eyes did not even phase him. "On the contrary, Josh, this is exactly what I want. It's hopeless to resist fate, and fate states that Akuji and I are to grow together, making a bond of friendship. And that bond of friendship will enable me to exact revenge for that other day when you defeated me! I will not let that happen again! The almighty Beast of Darkness will make sure of that!"

"Donovan, you don't understand. That Beast will turn you evil. Eventually, it's going to toss you aside. Instead of you two being friends and serving each other, you will become a slave to Akuji, and it will merely use you as a pawn. It could kill you now if it wanted to. It could throw you off its back and stomp you into the ground. You have to stop this madness and let Akuji go, now!"

"That's exactly the point of teaming up with Akuji! To stop the madness caused by you and your Beast-riding friends!"

"I guess we'll have to settle things the hard way. Go, Manectric!" At that, Josh released the Poké Ball containing the loyal electric-type Pokémon. Akuji let out an ear-splitting roar. A dark, semi-transparent dome materialized around Josh and Donovan, sealing off his friends. "Josh!" Ace yelled. "Entei, Josh needs help!" The massive fire-type slammed its body into the dome, but was blasted back by the evil energy. Entei hit the ground on its side as Ace went flying. "Ace!" Shalin yelled. She took off on Midori's back to help Ace. Entei's short-term energy was nearly drained from the attack.

As Shalin and Midori ran off to help Ace, the battle between Donovan and Josh was about to start. Donovan, drawing the Death Mace, stayed atop Akuji to assist it in battle.