-Chapter XI: No Retreat, No Surrender-
-Roy-
The instant the darkness settled over him, he felt his own fear multiplying by the second. His breathing accelerated as a single red eye hovered in front of him, glowing like a spotlight in the inky darkness.
"Dusknoir…"
"Roy," the heavyset ghost rumbled from the cloud of pitch-black darkness. "Do you wish to proceed?"
"Y-Yes," he murmured.
"And you understand that travelling to the Distortion World and attempting to restore lost souls is a one-way journey?"
"I… I understand."
"So be it. Roy… it is an honor to have served alongside you. I will do my best to prepare elysium for your arrival."
Roy smiled wistfully and glanced back at Valerie, who wiped a single tear from her eye and hugged him forcefully.
"I miss you, Roy…" she murmured. "I don't want you to go… not again…"
"I'll miss you too… But I'll do my best to make it one trip." Roy took a deep breath and turned back to Dusknoir after Valerie released her embrace on him with notable hesitation.
"I'm ready."
"Very well. Let us proceed." the shadows around them condensed further until a single spark of energy ignited directly in front of him, and a purple dimensional hole roared to life, with rings of black and indigo energy pulsing inwards, pulling Roy in like a black hole. He could only fight it for a few seconds before he was pulled in, and the next thing he knew, he was soaring through darkness, his spectral skin tearing apart by the sheer speed at which he was moving as he pierced the barrier between the dimensions.
When his vision cleared, he blinked repeatedly, barely able to comprehend what he was looking at. The sky was pitch-black, yet reflective, almost like oil rippling in gale-force winds. There were islands floating everywhere around him in a seemingly infinite void that glowed with a purple and green light that blended with the oily sky. Rivers flowed in an upwards direction, waterfalls fell horizontally onto another island to his right, and the strangest part was that there were actual buildings on most of the islands, including one a few meters from him that resembled basic wooden cabins. Yet he sensed no life for miles.
He attempted to phase through the wall of the building, only to be body-slammed by another pokémon before he could do so, catching him completely off guard. He turned intangible, but it was still somehow able to grab onto him and slam him into the ground. Roy spewed mystical fire from his mouth, but the attacker blocked it by clamping one oversized hand on his face. His eyes widened before the attacker suddenly stopped.
"...Roy?"
He teared up and finally focused on the attacker's features. He had four well-toned, massive arms. His skin was a neon shade of blue and his entire body was translucent, so it was difficult to focus on him, but Roy already knew who it was. "Atlas!" Roy wrapped his cloak-like arms around the Machamp's shoulders and cried with joy. "Arceus, it's so good to see you…"
"Sorry… I thought you were a patrol pokémon," the fighting-type said.
"Patrol?"
"Yeah… It's a long story," the Machamp stood up and ushered him inside the building. "Come on, the others are in here."
"Seriously?" Roy asked with disbelief. What were the odds that he'd find them all in the first few moments of being here?
Atlas pushed open the door and extended his arms in a welcoming gesture. "Guys, you're not gonna believe who found us!"
"Is that Roy?" Rose's voice filled his mind, and he cried some more as he saw everyone in the room. Vincent, Rose, Magnus, Nocturne, Mirage, Jade, Alice, Caroline, and even Manaphy and Aaron!
"...Where's Vulcan?" Roy asked.
"I dunno," Atlas said. "I thought Dusknoir brought him back?"
"I didn't sense any life returning," he theorized. "But it's possible."
If he's not here, it looks like I might have to make a second trip after all…
"Okay, so… uh… the one that sent me here said that I can absorb you all into the gems on my cloak to bring you back," he said.
Honestly, this seems too easy.
"Hmph. Who, Valerie?" Aaron said with crossed arms.
"Shut the f*** up already!" Magnus growled. "Seriously, where'd you find this asshat, Roy? And you're really telling us he's on our team?"
"You sure talk a lot of smack. You gonna back that up?" Aaron clenched his fists, and Magnus extended his wings with a deep frown, which was just as translucent as the rest of their expressions. "Once we're back in my world, I'll make sure to give you a proper ass-kicking. Right now I just wanna get out of this dump. That's the only reason I haven't beat your-"
Caroline tried to soothe him, but to no avail. "Magnus, please. He was just asking a-"
"He's only been here like ten f***in' minutes and he's already pissing me off!" the Tropius complained. "We've been here for two months! I can complain all I want!"
"I know! But blowing our cover now will get us caught! We have to stay quiet just a little bit longer!" Atlas commanded him.
"Roy! Come in, Roy!" Valerie's voice came into focus, and he found himself smiling. "I made it! And I found all of them except Vulcan!"
"Oh, Vulcan's alive," her voice replied. "I don't know how, but he is. So don't worry about him. But how the heck did you find everyone already? The Distortion World is practically infinite! The chances of that-"
"I know, I know," he said. "But I found them. Now what?"
"That's… that's great! Uh… I didn't expect you to find them this fast. And certainly not all in one place. But what you have to do now is imbue yourself with a healing spell, then absorb them into your gems. That's all there is to it!"
"Huh. Okay… Uh… Parantua Ruumiini!"
His skin absorbed some of the darkness around them, and he looked over his ghostly friends with a small smile. "Well… Who wants to go first?"
"So… what, we just stand here and you absorb us into the gems in your cloak?" Vincent asked. "Then you bring us back to the real world, and we go beat the Mafia and stuff?"
"Actually, the Mafia has already been defeated. Mirage, your father led the desert pokémon to war and essentially massacred the entire base. I think Victor and Mordred are some of the only ones that survived."
"So... we get to kick both their asses?" Magnus asked hopefully. "Please tell me that we get to beat up the two main guys that are the cause of all this!"
"I mean… you lost one on one to a Hydreigon," Roy teased him. "I don't know if you're ready for Victor."
"Oh, f*** off! I wasn't even trying!"
"Why not?"
"I didn't think the Hydreigon was that f***in' good!"
"Sounds like nothing but excuses to me," he said with a sarcastic smirk. Jade and the other Froslass, whom he assumed was her mother, floated forward. "Roy, we wish to go first."
"And me," Nocturne quickly added on. "If she's going… I want to go."
"Very well. Um… Let me just…" he placed his cloak-like appendages on each of their shoulders, and in the blink of an eye, each of them turned into a blue vapor and were drawn into his skin, filling his gems with their spectral energy. He took a deep breath in order to calm himself. He could feel their spirits inside of his body; Easily the strangest feeling he's ever had. His spectral skin crawled as their voices whispered in the back of his head, sending shivers across his entire body.
"Okay… ah… who's next?"
"We'll go," Rose and Magnus both stepped forward, and when Roy touched them, their forms were absorbed into his cloak. With each passing second, his body felt heavier and heavier. He found himself struggling to remain floating before long.
"Roy, are you alright?" Alice asked.
"Yeah... I'm fine," he said. "I can handle it."
Alice, Mirage and Manaphy went next. Each of them dissolved into blue smoke that was drawn into his skin, and his vision began spinning from the strain on his body.
Groh… I don't… What is this? I have to get them all! I will!
He tried to chant another incantation of healing, but his words slurred together in spite of himself, making any incantations useless. Atlas held him still with two of his arms and looked into his eyes. "Roy… You need to take them back, alright?"
"No… I can-"
"No you can't!" Atlas hissed. "You can't even float straight anymore! You have to get back to the real world, then come get the rest of us! We'll be waiting right here!"
Roy nodded slowly and phased through the wall of the hut, barely able to see straight. It felt like the entire world was spinning around him on fast-forward. He nearly flew into the ground before righting himself with a jolt. "Gah… Valerie…! I need to get back!"
"I hear you, Roy! One second!"
He took another deep breath before turning around as a blue and black dimensional hole appeared, and Dusknoir's ghostly hand reached through the portal. "Hold on, Roy!"
He closed his eyes as the supreme Grand Reaper's hand grabbed his torso and he was dragged into the portal.
-3rd Person-
As the Mismagius broke through the dimensional barrier and tumbled into the real world, the spirits of the pokémon he had absorbed were released into the realm of the living. They flew across the continent in the blink of an eye, each seeking out their original host bodies while Roy laid on the ground, catching his breath and healing his body.
On Blizzard Island, Jade and her mother both rose from the shadow dimension as their spirits returned and their bodies healed from the burns and bruises in a matter of moments. Jade looked at her hands, then back at her mother, embracing her with tears in her eyes as the sunlight shone through the deciduous forest. "We're back… He did it..."
"Dang right he did!" the two Weavile Twins dropped out of the trees with a smile. "Alright! Glad to see you're both in one piece! Now we've got an important message! You know that Delphox? Valerie?"
"No…?"
"Oh. Well, she's with the Temporal Guardians. And she wants you to meet her on Immanis!"
"And how do you propose we do that?" she asked. "We're still trapped here, are we not? And why are you taking our revivals so lightly?"
"We've seen a lot of things, honey. It'll take more than a little bit of resurrection to surprise us!" Pierce bragged as Levi opened his wonder bag.
"Okay, so Valerie had a little theory… Since you technically died, the barrier thing probably went away. So follow us back to the beach where we went last time!" Levi said before he crushed an orb in his hand, and they were all whisked back to the black sand beach, with the pillars of ice jutting out of the ocean in the distance. Levi kicked the stone to their right, and Jade smiled as the ocean split once more, opening a path into an underwater Mystery Dungeon. Pierce walked forward and grabbed Jade's hand. At first she withdrew, but he held on tighter and pulled slightly more forcefully. "Come on!"
"I know where I'm going," she deadpanned. She floated down into the canyon of water, and much to her surprise, she continued moving forward. She grinned and turned back to her mother with a laugh of joy. "Mother, we can leave! Let's go!"
The Froslass teared up, but shook her head, backing away from the shoreline. "Iris… I… I can't."
"Mother, what are you talking about?" she asked. "We can go back to Immanis!"
"Jade… I can't go there," she said. "I've never left this island… and I have no intention of doing so."
"What…? Mother, you can't be serious..."
"Hey, we can't keep the entrance open forever!" Levi said as he darted past her.
Hazel wiped her eyes with her forearm and looked at her daughter with longing. "Iris… I love you… But I will not leave."
A single tear rolled down Jade's face as she turned away from her. "If you're just going to disappear after everything we've been through… I never want to see you again."
"Iris-"
"My name is Jade."
"...Farewell, then."
Jade clenched her fists and floated down into the Mystery Dungeon without another word, blinking back tears as the ocean closed behind them.
Within the collapsed ruins of Sharpedo Bluff, Magnus and Nocturne's souls were returned to their bodies, the light blue wisps of smoke travelling between the remaining rocks on the bluff until they reached their hosts. Magnus's eyes opened with a start, and he growled and used Solarbeam to blast a hole straight through to the surface as his entire body healed; His neck straightened out and reformed itself, the fruit on his chin regrew, and his wings were restored to pristine condition. Meanwhile, Nocturne's arm regrew from seemingly nothing until it looked perfectly normal again. Magnus grabbed Nocturne with two vine whips and smiled as he breathed in the fresh sea breeze, gazing out into the open ocean with the sun rising behind them before looking around and realizing where they actually were. "What the hell happened here? Did Vulcan's house get blown up?"
"It sure looks that way, Magnus…" Nocturne ran his hand along the ground and tilted his head at the plant life that was growing on the ruins. "But we've only been gone two months… This plant life is at least ten years old… What happened here?"
"Ah, thank goodness! Team Firestorm!" the green Kecleon brother dashed over to them with a grin. "I haven't seen the likes of your team in what feels like a lifetime!"
"You mean this whole f***in' bluff blew up and nobody's been able to figure out what the hell happened?!" Magnus raged.
"Ah, yes… About that…" the Kecleon placed his hand on his chin. "Your entire team vanished without a trace several weeks ago just after this happened. Nobody seems to know where you went!"
"So… the whole f***in' bluff blew up…" Magnus repeated with an irritated look on his face. "The base of our team… and nobody in all of Treasure Town found out anything?!
"Believe me, sir, I've asked every pokémon in the village, including many wandering pokémon. Many foreigners have heard of your team, but have no clue where they are!"
"Well we were all dead until thirty seconds ago!" Magnus roared. "Maybe that's why they-"
"Magnus!" Nocturne shushed him and smiled warmly at the shop owner. "Sorry, he's still kind of upset about… uh… I have no idea. You know how he is."
Kecleon nodded slowly and looked back at the Village in dread. "Well… There is a small dispute happening between a Gallade and a Venomoth near the crossroads. Might you be able to talk to them and convince them to take their affairs elsewhere?"
"Sure. Let's go, big guy."
"They don't have anyone else who can do it?" Magnus complained.
"We're here. We might as well help out."
"Whatever. When we get there I'm beating the s*** out of both of them."
In the ruins of the Mafia's village, Rose snaked across the uneven terrain after her body healed and she used hyper beam to blast the stone , looking around at the countless corpses around her in dread. She blinked back tears and slithered up the side of the crater as her winged ears glowed white, and she shot across the plains, using extremespeed to disappear into the forest, leaving a trail of dust in her wake.
Meanwhile, in the Morgue of the Palace in the Kingdom of the Northern Desert, Alice, Mirage and Manaphy jolted to life on the tables where the Audino and Blissey were observing them. Manaphy's eyes widened, and Mirage instantly sat up, but groaned in pain as her body still healed from the internal wounds caused by Dawn's psychic attack.
"Oh… Man… Are we back?" Mirage looked over at Alice, who sat up groggily as the stab wound in her abdomen closed before their eyes. She grinned from ear to ear as the pain vanished, then tilted her head as the two Audino stared at them in shock.
"Oh. Uh… Hi. I'm Alice. I think we met in the emergency room with Vulcan and Team Skull."
"Yes… But miss… you were dead," the Audino on the right said.
Mirage rose from her table and placed her hand on the fairy-type's shoulder as Alice and Manaphy regained their bearings. "We're fine, nurse. You've done well. My father will be pleased to hear that you managed to save us."
"My queen… your father was killed in battle."
Mirage's smile vanished as soon as she heard the news. "What? No, that can't be! He wouldn't-!"
"Your highness… Heimdall has taken temporary control of the kingdom until a worthy successor is found. And until you were revived just now… the Garchomp seemed the most likely candidate, as his power and leadership skills were deemed adequate."
"Well, bring me to him!" she demanded. "I have to see him!"
"Right away, my queen…" The Audino hurriedly paced across the room and tapped the wall with her hand, which glowed green for a few moments before a section of the wall peeled away and folded into itself, opening a passageway that led out of the morgue.
"Audino, how long were we down here?" Mirage asked.
"T-Two days, my queen." the Audino replied. Her eyes flitted back and forth constantly, and her hands were quivering. Mirage didn't even acknowledge it, but Alice could feel the fairy-type's confusion and fear as if it were her own. She was terrified. But she had just seen three dead bodies come back to life at once. That would freak anyone out.
"Where is my father?" the Flygon asked.
"The burial ceremony took place last night, madam," the fairy-type said. "He was buried with the palace's prized jewel in the lowermost chamber."
"The Gear of Time?" Mirage asked. "That was to be bestowed to me!"
"Your majesty, with your passing, there were no heirs to the throne that bared the royal crest. It is tradition to bury it with the king if there is no-one to take his place at the time of his passing."
"But I'm here now!" Mirage's voice flared with anger, and Alice extended her hand. "Mirage..."
"Don't touch me!" the dragon-type snapped as tears streamed down her face.
"Mirage Hiekka, listen to me right now!" Alice growled, catching everyone by surprise. "I understand your pain. I'm in sync with your emotions. Right now, your kingdom needs a leader. So you have to step up!"
"But that's not me!" she cried. "I wasn't raised here! I don't know anything about the traditions, or-or..."
"Heimdall is still here," Alice said. "He can keep the culture alive. You just have to be there for your kingdom."
"I didn't ask for this…" Mirage wept. "It was bad enough to lose my mother… but now… Arceus…"
"Mirage, they need a leader. Right now, the kingdom will dissolve into chaos unless somebody steps in. And that somebody has to be you."
Mirage's lip quivered with sorrow, but she nodded slowly and wiped her face with her hand. "Fine. I'll… I'll do it."
"Awesome. Okay, let's find Heimdall."
"Actually, Alice, you're needed elsewhere," Valerie said as she emerged from the shadows in the corner of the room. The Lopunny leapt backwards with a small shout. "How long were you there?!"
"A few seconds," the Delphox said as she strode forward. "But you're not the only ones who are back. Nocturne and Magnus are about to fight that Gallade, and I'm gathering everyone we can spare."
"What about Mirage?" Alice asked before looking over to the Flygon, who just stared at Valerie with a blank expression.
"She's needed here."
"But I can't just-"
"She's safe here," Valerie said. "The Mafia is gone; Her father wiped them out. I need you in Treasure Town."
"...Mirage, what do you think?"
"Go," the Flygon murmured. "Do what you have to. See to it that we didn't die for nothing."
Alice nodded and turned back to Valerie. "Alright. Take me with you."
First off, I apologize for the delayed update. I've been in Wisconsin on a business trip without internet access for this last week. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and if you have any questions, comments, concerns or theories about what might happen, go ahead and leave them in the form of a Review or PM! It's always appreciated! Much Love!
-PL