The Gravity of Darkness
Disclaimer: See Chapter Seven.
A/N: This chapter coincides with Arcane-Boomeus' A Strange Love Part 2, so if any of you are lost, read up on his stories. Also, I updated the rest of the chapters to coincide with ASL2 and the fact that Arcane-Boomeus gave me the idea to name Rose in his latest chapter (Obviously I named her, but everything will be made clearer [I hope] if you read his story).
Chapter Eleven: Past Friends and Merciless Encounters
"KNOCK, KNOCK!"
That voice - so familiar, echoed throughout the entire bunker. Rose shot up from her sleep and in doing so, she woke up Lucario as well. Scott and Gardevoir, who were also up, went to the bunker's living room.
"Who's there?" Scott shouted back.
'Was that Boomeus?' Gardevoir asked.
'ROSE!'
"Was that Megan?" Scott wondered.
"Scott, you sly bastard, open up!"
"Definitely Boomeus," Scott muttered, and moved to open the door. As he opened it, he shouted out, "Did you HAVE to use Hyper Voice?"
In response, a green-white figure burst through the doorway, knocking him aside.
'Where's Rose?' the Gardevoir asked.
'Megan?' Rose asked, peeking out of the hallway, still blinking sleep from her eyes.
'Rose? Is that you?'
'Megan! It is you!'
With that, the pair rushed to each other and embraced.
"Damn, that girl can run," Scott said, getting up from the floor and dusting himself off.
"Megan, is she in there?"
'Come in and see for yourself!'
At that, they heard footsteps both inside and outside the bunker. In walked Boomeus, not much being changed from the last time they met, and holding weapons as well.
"What's with the gear?" Scott asked them.
"A precautionary measure. Megan was worried sick about not being able to sense Rose, and she dragged me over here."
As he looked around, he noticed a few differences about Scott and Gardevoir.
"Hey Scott?" Boomeus asked.
"What's on your mind?"
"Aren't you dead?"
Scott facepalmed. "Figured out again."
"Wait, why aren't you in the afterlife then?"
'It's quite simple, if you appreciate the circumstances. Both Scott and I have enough residual Psychic powers to form temporary bodies, but Scott here…' Gardevoir trailed off.
Scott sheepishly grinned. "Yeah, I decided on making myself a new body. I kind of hated just being in a void; with no physical body…it felt weird."
Boomeus grinned. "I'd agree with you there, except for the fact that I haven't died yet, and I don't plan on doing so -"
Time froze.
In slow motion, Scott moved behind Boomeus, bringing up his right hand and shoving him down and away from the now slow-moving projectile that was coming within an inch of touching his head. Scott's left hand came up and he flattened his palm against the bullet and let time resume its course.
"- any - WHOA!" Boomeus exclaimed before his face hit the floor.
Everyone was shocked into silence. The only sound came from the still-spinning projectile that was being held in its place by Scott's palm.
"You were saying about you not planning on dying, Boomeus?" Scott said, a slight tinge of rage filling his voice.
"What - how?"
"I think the question you should be asking is who," Scott said, closing his hand on the bullet. A horrible sound came from the metal object: a screeching, penetrating noise that made everyone cringe, until a crunching sound overcame the screeching, signaling the demise of the object.
"Let me take a wild guess…the Black Ops?" It was not a question. Rather, a statement that was too obvious to not point out.
"I think we need to greet our 'guests', Boomeus," Scott said.
With that, they both walked out, shutting the door behind them.
Outside, Shadow was dumbfounded. How had his shot - taken from close to a kilometer away - missed? One second, the person was standing up, the next, on the floor, but there was another person in the way of the shot, holding a hand up as if to stop the bullet. The next thing he knew, he heard a terrible screeching noise coming from the bunker followed by a crunch - as though the bullet itself was compressed until it had finally cracked and shattered.
"How?" Light asked.
'Why would be a more appropriate question,' said a voice within their minds.
As both of their attention was focused again on the seemingly innocent hill, two men had stepped outside and were now walking towards them.
"Shit!" Shadow said, and opened fire on the pair of them with his rifle. Casing after spent casing hit the forest floor, but the rounds didn't even hit the two figures still approaching them. A loud ripping noise sounded beside him, Light having opened fire on them herself with her G36E Valkyrie. Again, the rounds didn't hit them, but as the assault rifle had tracers, it was now obvious to them that they were being deflected rather than being clean misses. Now that the two men were closer, Shadow could see that one of them was none other than Spartan. Almost as if on cue, Spartan flicked both his wrists - as though shrugging off an irksome fly - and began dashing for him. The other man simply stood his ground, as if waiting for them to get closer and unlimbered an AA-12 automatic shotgun.
Light was screaming now, her voice audible even above her weapons fire. She was focusing on the one target that was an immediate threat - Spartan. However, the rounds bounced off and the bars that he had flicked to his hands flashed, and all she caught a glimpse of was a dual-bladed triangular weapon before one came in contact with her body, burning through cloth, skin and bone.
"So this is what the Black Ops sent? Pathetic." The voice held nothing but absolute hatred and rage.
"You think you're all that Spartan," Light gasped, her final moments approaching, "but the Black Ops will defeat you in the end."
"I'll see that I'll get the last laugh," Spartan growled, and withdrew the weapon from her body and turned away. Light fell to her knees, the pain nearly blinding her. With one last glimpse at Spartan, she knew that her empty threats were just that. Empty threats.
With one swift move, Scott wheeled around, bringing one of the hissing weapons around to part Light's head from her body.
"I think I'll let you finish him off, Boomeus," Scott commented.
As he watched her head fall, Shadow was overcome by a mindless rage. Ditching his spent rifle, he took out a modified AR-15 - not unlike the one Spartan owned so long ago - and rushed towards the pair of men. Before he knew it, however, Spartan had disappeared and a blinding pain was shooting through his midsection. Looking down, he saw the glowing blue-white blade sticking out of him, steadily burning through his clothing.
"Do you really think that I would let you attack me? Did you really think that you would be able to pull this off? Because I think whoever sent you had a really poor understanding on how far my powers have progressed," Spartan hissed in his ear, pushing the blade further into his body. Shadow roared, trying to get away, but the blade only slid deeper in, causing him to yell even louder in pain.
"I'm glad that you brought a microphone with you. Just so that Giovanni on the other end can hear your screams of pain and imagine those screams being his. Now, Boomeus, do this person a favor and blast his head off."
He nodded, and leveled the weapon to firing height and pulled the trigger. Shadow's head exploded in a mess of blood, gore and flying bits of skull. With that, Scott swept the hissing blade upwards, removing the weapon while nearly cutting the freshly-decapitated body in two. As the body dropped, Scott deactivated the weapons, and they disappeared.
In a locked room, Giovanni crushed the headset that he was wearing in a hand.
"Damn you Spartan. I will get my revenge for this, I promise you that."
Suddenly, he grasped his head in pain, and a dark shadow loomed behind him.
"Easy now, my pet. You will get your chance for vengeance. Or should I say mine?"
The being chuckled darkly, and vanished. Giovanni stopped grasping his head, and his facial features returned to their normal - albeit evil - state.
Walking back to the bunker, Boomeus asked, "Were you always this violent?"
"Only when I'm forced to," Scott sighed.
'Scott?'
'We're fine Gardevoir,' he projected back.
'You have some explaining to do, dad,' Rose sent.
'Ah, crap.' Scott thought.
As they got up to the door of the bunker, it opened for them, revealing four very pissed off Gardevoir with their arms crossed.
"Grace?" Boomeus said in surprise. She nodded, a death glare beginning to form on her face.
'If this wasn't so serious, this would actually be cute,' Scott projected over to Boomeus.
His only response was a shudder and a gulp, knowing full well what his wife could do to him if everything went south.
"Well?" Grace said.
"Well what? There were a couple of bad-asses from the Black Ops who attempted to kill us - again - and we eliminated them," Scott replied.
Instantly, everything went south. With a bright flash, both Scott and Boomeus were upside-down, hanging from their ankles by combined Psychic power.
'Not even you can break through this, dad,' Rose said, anger showing in her smooth features. 'Now spill.'
"What on earth do you want to know?" Scott said, his face steadily turning redder by the moment.
'What have you hidden from me all this time? Why won't you let me see what you do? Why, dad, WHY?' Rose shouted, tears forming in her eyes. Lucario came up behind her and put his arms around her, trying to get her to calm down.
Scott sighed. "Fine, but you're going to have to let us down - I don't think Boomeus can stay like this much longer." Another flash, and both men were on the floor, rubbing their temples.
"To be honest Rose, I never wanted you to see the violent side of my life. I was even regretting showing you a pistol when you were just a Ralts - even if it was just to teach you a bit about the evils of humanity. Even the den where you and your mother hid whenever that pack of Mightyena attacked us was soundproofed to a degree. I never wanted any of this to happen…" Tears were now forming on Scott's face, but as they dripped, they were absorbed into the surrounding Aura instead of falling to the floor. Nobody noticed this, however, and Scott continued.
"When you were attacked by that one lone Black Ops, I was worried beyond what you thought I was. I was scared. I feared for your life, as I had hoped, hoped beyond all hope that you would be safe from everything. I was wrong. Gardevoir, my beautiful silver angel, you had no idea what I went through to ensure all our protection. I was paranoid to the point of insanity. I was -" Scott broke down, unable to continue. Everyone had tears on their faces now, clearly shining in the dawning sunlight coming through the open door.
'Scott…' Gardevoir started, kneeling in front of her mate.
Rose was now sobbing into Lucario's shoulder, and while he was trying to be strong for her; he knew that Scott didn't have long before he was permanently absorbed back into the surrounding Aura, and she would be left alone, again. 'But this time,' he thought, 'she'll have me.'
'Let's give them some space, babe,' Boomeus thought over to Grace. She nodded, then motioned to Megan to follow them.
As Boomeus, Grace and Megan walked outside; they could hear someone groaning. Rushing over, they found an Umbreon Pokemorph clutching his head, doubled over in pain.
"Hey!" Boomeus shouted.
The Pokemorph looked up, eyes still watering from the pain. "Yeah?"
'What's wrong?' Megan asked.
"I…don't know. This sudden pain keeps hitting me at random times, showing me bits and pieces from a life I can't even remember. I can't understand any of it."
Grace's eyes lit up as she delved into the mind of the Pokemorph. As soon as she did, however, she reeled back, gasping in apparent discomfort.
"Grace?" Boomeus inquired.
"I…saw everything. But I think it would be best if Scott and his family didn't know. They have enough going on at the moment."
"But you'll show me, right?"
"Not a chance. This is too important to let many people know. I suspect that Gardevoir knows as well, but she's just waiting for the right time to ask. She'll let Scott know then."
"Hey," the Pokemorph said. "Can you tell me anything about my past?"
Grace looked at him pityingly. "I'm sorry Ace, but what I've seen should remain locked up for as long as you're with Scott." With that, her eyes glowed again, and Ace was knocked out cold.
"I thought Psychic-type moves couldn't work on Dark-types?" Boomeus said.
"I used Hypnosis on his brain, silly, not the body. His brain is still human, so I can use my moves against him." 'And he's not the only one that I could have put to sleep,' she added telepathically to Boomeus, an evil grin creeping on her face.
'So long as it's not permanent, and you're doing something we both enjoy, I don't mind, babe,' Boomeus projected back, a grin of his own appearing on his face.
"Would you two STOP looking at each other like your about to do it here and now?" Megan shouted at the pair, causing them to simultaneously blush.
"Let's head back in then," Boomeus said.
Back inside, everyone was slightly cheered up by the fact that Megan and Rose were back together.
'I'm so jealous of you Rose,' Megan said.
'Why? Is it because I got myself a mate?' Rose replied, gliding over to Lucario, who grinned sheepishly and placed a paw against the back of his head while placing the other around Rose's waist.
"I may have proclaimed my love to her first, but she was the one who took matters into her own hands in bed," he said.
Rose shot him a look of disbelief, then said, 'As I recall, Lucario, you were my bed that night.'
"Only because you decided to rape me on the floor," Lucario said with a bark of laughter.
Now Rose pushed away from him, her hands on her hips, frowning. 'And the only reason I did that was because you got hard when we kissed!'
Megan giggled. 'Now I know you two were made for each other.'
"Megan? It's time to go now."
'What? Why?'
"Now that we know that Rose is safe - and that you have re-established psychic contact with her - I think it's safe to assume that if she's in trouble, you're just going to drag me along to make sure she's alright."
'Well…you do have a point. Bye then Rose, I'll miss you.'
'Same here Megan,' Rose replied, and the two hugged before Megan walked outside with Boomeus and Grace.
"Ah, good times, good times," Scott said, a smile on his face. "Did you know, Rose, that it was Megan who gave you your name?"
'She did?'
Scott's smile grew wider. "You were probably still too young to remember, but yes, Megan named you, Rose."
A blur of colour, and soon the memory formed in her mind's eye. She was gripping Boomeus' head, then suddenly, a funny picture of him wearing nothing but a pair of Mew-adorned boxers got her giggling like mad, causing her to fall off of him. Rose giggled now, the picture of Boomeus wearing that ludicrous set of boxers sticking in her mind.
"Care to let us in on the joke, Rose?" Scott asked.
She sent over the image of Boomeus and what he was wearing to everyone in the room, causing them all to stare, then burst out laughing.
'Where did you get this idea Rose?' Gardevoir asked, still giggling.
'Grace sent it over to me the day that we were in the park when I was a little Ralts,' Rose replied.
"For a minute there, I thought you were having dirty thoughts about him," Lucario said.
'Did I make you jealous, my love?'
"…Yes."
At that, they all started laughing harder.
Continued in Chapter Twelve…
A/N: Damn sorry about this update. I had one hell of a massive set of Writer's Block, and it was only through the assistance of Arcane-Boomeus that I managed this chapter at all. Major props to him, and to anyone who was waiting for this chapter to come out.
- UBE Chief