Chapter 12: Guardian of the Atmosphere

At the edge of the city, Mew and Kairi stand around waiting for Riku to catch up with them. Mew folded his arms together and remarked "…I guess your mother must have kept Riku behind to tell him something." Kairi let out a melancholy grumble as she stood beside Mew, leading to him looking at her and saying while rubbing the back of his head nervously "Look Kairi, I know that was pretty stressful to watch…"

"Why didn't you at least try to stop your brother…?" Kairi inquired, and Mew widened his eyes slightly and glanced away from Kairi before answering her with "Well I was worried about your mother. Riku's right, I wouldn't have been able to force him to let go of her without harming Auris. Riku knows everything I can do, he'd see a lot of my moves coming from a mile away. But really…I don't think Riku would actually have killed your mother in the first place."

"…You can't be sure of that." Kairi remarked quietly, and Mew said to her immediately "Sure I can. Riku's my brother after all…A brother I haven't seen in a couple years, but I could tell that his heart is still in the right place. He just seemed pretty stressed out over this whole affair with Alex and Justek. And he doesn't have to worry about a demon taking him over if he gets too angry either."

Kairi turned to look at Mew and told him bluntly "You know, I get what you're trying to say Mew…But it doesn't make me dislike your brother any less after he attacked my mother. It's going to take more than an apology from him to make me forget that." Mew shrugged at that nonchalantly and told her "Well fair enough, but I know Riku's going to do everything he can to apologize for that anyways. So don't give him too much grief when he does, alright?"

Kairi didn't say much of anything in regards to Riku afterwards, just letting out a single distressed sigh before going on to another subject since Mew brought the matter to her attention again. Looking at him, Kairi inquired "…By the way Mew, since I have a chance to ask…Why didn't 'D.' possess you when you fought Alex?" Mew widened his eyes for a split second and then remarked in a somewhat puzzled tone "Well…He said he'd get more enjoyment out of the ordeal if I had full control. That demon's a real bastard sometimes, but at least he DIDN'T possess me."

"You should consider yourself more than a little lucky right now." Kairi remarked with a worried look in her eyes, and Mew said "It's not like I'm not a little worried. I have to keep my emotions in check for a while now or 'D.' will take me over again." And by the time he finished saying that, he looked on ahead and saw Riku running over to catch up with them, at which point Mew raised his right hand up and waved out to make sure he'd notice them at the edge of the city.

Once Riku caught up to them, Mew remarked "So Auris held you back for a bit, huh?" Riku wasn't surprised that his brother figured that out, and to avoid suspicion towards what the two talked about he quickly said "Yeah, I wanted to apologize to her for everything I did." Riku then glanced over at Kairi, who looked away the moment he focused at her, and after Riku lowered his eyelids slightly and felt some guilt for his actions he looked back at his brother and remarked "Brother, are we ready to go now?"

"Yes, but there's something I want to bring up first." Mew then raised a pointer finger beside his face and said as Kairi and Riku looked at him in confusion "Kairi's not as fast as either of us, Riku. We're stuck running on the ground until we reach the tunnel Lunis mentioned, so we need to come up with some idea on how to get to our destination quickly without flying…Got any ideas Riku?"

"You're offering the suggestion and don't have a plan? Well…I guess what we could do is take one of the icebergs down below and convert it into a high-speed boat. We should make it to the tunnel quickly if we just go straight down the Atlantic Ocean." Riku tosses out an idea quickly, with Mew nodding his head to show he liked the plan, but then he said "Of course, we'd need a pretty big iceberg considering that the Vortexians are likely going to come after us. It's not that hard to figure that out though, the arctic circle isn't that big."

Kairi looked at both of them with a bit of annoyance on her face, and as she held her hands together behind her back and tapped her foot she let out a sigh and then remarked "You know Mew, there's a really simple solution to all this really." Mew looked at her and asked as she turned away while appearing to be deep in thought "What is it?" Kairi then paused for a moment, turned back to look at Mew and laid a hand on his right shoulder, patting it a couple of times to try to give him a hint.

When Mew just tilted his head and said nothing, Kairi lowered her eyelids more and patted the other shoulder as well, and then Mew commented "My shoulders are a little stiff, but I don't think this is going to help us out at all." Kairi raised her eyebrows in disbelief and said "Really?" in sheer disbelief before just making her idea bluntly obvious by going behind Mew and quickly leaping onto his back, hugging her legs over the front of his waist while wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

As Kairi's breasts pressed against the back of Mew's neck, Mew turned his head slightly and remarked with a surprised stutter "H-Hey now…" Kairi turned her head to the right and told him quietly as she smiled slyly "You're my boyfriend, so you should have thought of this idea all on your own. Well, now that you're so kind to carry me, you two can run at full speed and make it to the tunnel in no time."

Mew shrugged his shoulders and remarked "She's right you know. Might as well just go with this plan and get moving. How much time do you think we have left to defeat Lunis?" Riku commented "We have likely an hour and forty minutes left until…Whatever happens. Actually, do we even know what will happen when the time passes? Lunis said nothing, right?" Mew nodded his head in response to that.

"Lets talk about that along the way." Mew remarked, and Riku nodded in agreement before the two of them faced the edge of the barrier and leaped right out of it, descending from the sky towards the icy waters below while Kairi held on to Mew's back as best as she could. "Just a fair warning Kairi! I'm going to be going pretty fast here, so hang on! …Just not too much, or you'll choke me by accident." Mew exclaimed against the winds created from his descent towards the water.

"I will be fine! Just worry about focusing on the water!" Kairi exclaimed in turn, and by then the two brothers landed down onto the water, using their powers to keep themselves from falling in, and they ended up creating a small shockwave of water out from their feet. Mew and Riku then look on ahead and sprint forward, kicking up the water heavily behind them as they ran. Thankfully, their control over the elements kept tidal waves from rising up as they ran like a blur across the water, going straight down south towards the other side of the planet.

Along the way Mew stuck close enough to Riku as he could and said "So I think I've figured out Lunis' plan here. I got to say, it's frighteningly unique…" Riku didn't like the sound of that and remarked "What is it then?" Mew explained briefly as he looked up towards the sky "See how that layer of ice encompasses the entire planet? Well I'm guess the ice started from the moon to create the tunnel before spreading out to encage the planet. Considering Lunis' is a High Deity of the Moon, I imagine it'd be easy for him to hold the moon in place. So take that into consideration and think about our situation a little."

Riku widened his eyes without having to think about that much, and then remarked in a disturbed tone "The moon's stuck in place…But the Earth is still moving. And it may not seem like it, but the Earth moves pretty fast…If it crashes into the ice surrounding it, then the entire planet will be crushed against it. You're right, that is frightening to think about." Kairi remarked as she lifted her head up slightly "And that's why we can't just deal with the ice right now. Lunis' control over the moon means if he wanted to, he could make the Earth get crushed faster. We're forced to play by Lunis' rules…"

"More like we have to play by Justek's rules…He's the one telling them what to do." Riku commented, and it wasn't long after that when both he and Mew flinched upon feeling something off in the water behind them. Kairi glanced back for the both of them and saw a swarm of large pointed fins made of black and blue fog sticking out from the surface. "Vortexians right behind us!" Kairi exclaimed as one of the fins got close enough to the trio, at which point it dove into the water slightly before leaping right out at Mew in particular.

The Vortexian was a boney shark with foggy yellow eyes devoid of pupils and fangs with thick running red liquid dripping off of them. This "Vortexian Bone Shark" was about to plunge it's fangs down onto Mew when Riku broke back a little bit and drew his sword, leaping up to swing his blade at the Vortexian to cut it right in half vertically. The halves of the Vortexian drop into the water and crumble apart, and Riku falls to the water and pushes himself back to catch up with Mew quickly while the Bone Sharks keep up their pursuit.

"I'll hold the Vortexians off! Just focus on keeping Kairi from falling off your back!" Riku exclaimed before swinging his sword horizontally to cut down another Bone Shark the moment it leaps out of the water. As Riku held off the Vortexians, Mew grinned and remarked "See? He's making sure you'll be alright." Kairi kept holding on to Mew's neck well enough and said to him "W-Well…I mean it's a nice gesture and all but…"

Kairi widened her eyes as she looked on ahead and saw some bubbling in the water at various points, and she quickly dropped her earlier sentence to exclaim "Heads-up!" Some large spiked tentacles burst out of the water's surface to get in Mew's path, and he has to whip back and forth across the water to prevent him from getting hit as the tentacles lash around. After the tentacles fail to hit Mew, they retract into the water and the main body begins to pull itself from the surface a good distance away from Mew's current location.

It was a towering Vortexian shaped like a Kraken, complete with swelled up red eyes in the center of it's face and a pointed head. The edge of it's foggy body was grey and peach in color, and as it's tentacles rose up around it's body Mew remarked with a confident smirk "You think I'm going to pause to deal with you?" As Kairi widened her eyes and realized what reckless action Mew was going to take she said "This is pretty crazy, but I'll help out here. Just take him out quickly!"

As the Vortexian Devil Kraken let out a crackling cry, Mew kicked himself off the ground with enough force that it was almost like he was flying. The water below where he kicked erupted like a geyser, and he went straight towards the towering Vortexian while swinging his right foot forward. Kairi held on for dear life as her heart raced in excitement, but she held enough concentration to wrap some aura around Mew's foot to increase it's strength. With it, Mew is able to kick right through the tentacles as they try to attack him, and then eventually plunge his foot right through the head of the Devil Kraken itself.

After putting a hole into the Vortexian and emerging out of the other side of the beast, Mew spins himself around a couple times while descending towards the water. Kairi was grinning from cheek to cheek and letting out a merry "WAHOOO!" thanks to the adrenaline rushing through her body. As Mew landed on the water's surface he immediately kicked forward as the Devil Kraken fell backwards and broke down, and Riku ran around the fallen beast to catch up with his brother in a matter of seconds.

As Mew could feel Kairi's heart beating against the back of his neck, he smiled and said "That was pretty fun, wasn't it?" Kairi tried to calm herself down but just had a little giggle and said "S-Shut up…It's not the time to be having fun." "Actually, I think a little relieved stress is a good thing to have, right?" Mew remarked in a quiet and empathetic tone of voice.

Kairi paused for a moment before letting out a happy murmur and then wrapping her arms warmly under Mew's shoulders, letting herself relax as the two brothers made their way across the remainder of the Atlantic Ocean. At the tail end of this vast ocean, they were getting very close to Antarctica, but they did not need to cross that continent in the slightest as the tunnel they were looking for was directly above them. "I think it's safe to say we can fly now…Lets head to the moon!" Mew exclaimed excitedly, and Kairi opened her eyelids as the two brothers kicked off the ground and took flight towards the tunnel.

Kairi pulled herself away from Mew's body and took flight herself, and the trio made their way to the tunnel. It was easy to tell that something was going to get in their way considering no Vortexians were showing up to slow them down, and sure enough at the lip of the tunnel a vortex big enough to cover it's massive circumference slowly forms into existence. The trio stopped a good distance away from the tunnel and watch as the vortex slowly pulled in another obstacle for them to fight.

Dragged into the sky near the edge of the icy barrier was a large green draconic leviathan with piercing but small yellow irises amidst it's hollow black eyes, which protrude a bit to the back of it's draconic face. Across it's long body were yellow lines that occasional formed ovals, and these lines were broken up by three segments that each had four aerodynamic fins with pink-reddish edges. It's slim, pointed tail had two more of these fins, and near it's two short and almost bone-like arms were a couple more of those fins. This draconic leviathan hovers around past the vortex as it vanishes for a few seconds with a look of beastly confusion on it's face.

Mew and Riku draw their swords while Kairi pulls out her staff, with Mew commenting in a surprised "The Legendary Pokemon Rayquaza…To think I'd ever find myself facing one of these." As Rayquaza turns it's head around a little bit it quivered in shock upon looking at the ice around the planet's atmosphere. Immediately it turned itself around and let out an angered roar, opening it's fanged mouth up wide and letting loose a large beam of white light upon the ice, moving it's head to guide the beam across the ice in an attempt to rip through it.

But it is to no avail, as for all the power this mighty leviathan released, it could only slightly scar the ice, leaving smoke in it's wake. Kairi lowered her eyelids as the beast attacked the ice once more with another powerful, and remarked quietly "That poor thing…It doesn't know where it's at. It's confused, and his aura is irregular because of the pain it's in." Riku commented afterwards "The beast will likely be turned on us soon…What do we do here? This isn't like Metal Face, it's a one-of-a-kind creature…"

Mew grit his teeth slightly and remarked "This is a predicament. Rayquaza's been dragged into this fight against it's will…But we can't just keep Rayquaza here until we figure out a way to send it back home. The humans would freak out if they saw it." As Rayquaza turned around to face the trio, Mew in particular tightened the grip on his sword and knew what was coming next. A bright red light shone down from above Rayquaza, and another of the Anti-Genesis Theorem spheres came down towards Rayquaza…Along with a strange looking meteorite.

The Anti-Genesis Theorem and the meteorite merge together, creating a crimson meteorite with a frighteningly wavy aura that manages to hold Rayquaza in place by entrancing it with it's light. Then, after a couple moments, the meteorite forces itself into Rayquaza's mouth, with the beast chomping down onto it without a moment's hesitation. It was at that very moment, the beast's pupils shrink and it starts to get enveloped in a radiant sphere of blue, green and yellow, with broken violet energy lashing out around it's circumference.

But it doesn't take long for the radiance to be banished away, as darker colors like red, black and purple cover the sphere, and the energy shoots out from the sphere in the form of crimson lightning bolts as the sphere cracks apart. Rayquaza bursts forth from the sphere without waiting another second, but this time it's form has changed. It was now at least ten feet longer than before, with it's body having become more divine in appearance. It had a pair of pointed mandibles beside it's jaw that had glowing black and red strands of energy attached to the sides, each strand being a little more than half as long as the creature's body length. Two more strands were attached to the tips of it's smooth, thin horns. It's fins were now all pointed backwards with black edges, and save for a "Delta" mark on it's forehead the lines on it's body were mostly replaced with glowing pale-purple undersides between where the fins were, with at least four red-black ovals on each segment. Finally there was it's tail, which now had tattered streams of black hair waving on both sides of the tip, and Rayquaza's green skin had become entirely crimson.

"Watch out! Rayquaza has Mega Ev-…!" Mew's warning to Kairi is interrupted when Rayquaza bursts forward at an extreme level of speed that Mew couldn't react to in time, leading to the beast slamming it's head against the front of Mew's body and sending him flying a couple miles back across the sky. Rayquaza then roars angrily as it swings it's head from the left to right in front of him, releasing the same type of white light from it's mouth as powerful, but the beam in question is a lot bigger than before and far more destructive.

Mew recovers from the head butt and rubs his stomach with left hand before lifting his head up to notice the beam coming straight at him. Mew quickly flies to the right to get out of the way, widening his eyes as the beam just nearly grazes his left arm and continues to go flying across the planet for a few seconds more before it faded out of view. "You got to be kidding me…" Mew remarked in a shocked tone before looking back at Rayquaza, who swung its serpentine body around to face Riku with it's eyes burning bright red from the Anti-Genesis Theorem buried within it.

Riku swung his sword quickly to send waves of flame at Rayquaza and then flew to the right to avoid it's attempt to lash forward and bite him with a mighty crunch of it's jaw, throwing more waves of flame at the Pokemon's body as quickly as he could, but all the flames just burned out the moment they touched Rayquaza's body. Riku dispelled his sword and swung his arms out to pull ice from the Antarctica continent below and throw it straight up at Rayquaza, but before he could keep his concentration on the ice the Pokemon swung it's right claws out at him and created three scars across the sky as it struck Riku with the middle claw in particular.

Riku's shirt is cut into horizontally from the claw and blood is drawn from his chest and parts of his upper arms. Rayquaza then coiled it's body up loosely and pointed it's head towards the sky, and after electricity sparks in it's mandibles it fires off a couple bolts towards dark clouds above it. The clouds releases one gigantic bolt of red lightning down towards Riku, and he's forced to fly back to avoid it. Rayquaza then tries to head butt Riku, but Kairi quickly creates a couple layers of aura to hold back Rayquaza's head butt.

But Rayquaza quickly raised it's head up again and after a brief glow from the symbol on it's forehead it slams down once more, releasing a shockwave of psychic energy as it strikes Kairi's aura. The energy rips apart the aura and lashes against Riku's body to knock him back, and Kairi feels a jolt of pain in her brain that was similar to if a nail was taken to it. Kairi raised a hand to her head and let out a brief cry, but this just made Rayquaza focus it's attention onto her. Mew widened his eyes upon seeing this and drew his sword in front of him, remarking as he went for the white trigger "There's no barrier this time…Please let this work!"

He pulled the trigger and was immediately enveloped in light, and he quickly transformed into his Light Form. With diamond katana gripped in hand as he swung it to the right, Mew widened his eyes and flew right at Rayquaza so quickly that his body became a bolt of white light. As Rayquaza charged at Kairi, Mew broke out of the light and swung his sword at the side of Rayquaza's body, putting on a fierce teeth gritted expression as he manages to blow the mighty beast back.

A scar of light is left in Rayquaza's skin for a couple moments as it lets out a brief roar of surprise, but as it turns to face Mew the scar fades from sight. Though it was clear the damage was still done due to how the Pokemon reacted. Kairi recovered from the pain in her head and looked ahead of her to see that Mew has changed forms, leading to her remarking in surprise "W-Wait, we can use our other forms now?" Mew couldn't get a chance to answer her since Rayquaza quickly turned on him and opened it's mouth to release a large plume of flames that Mew has to block by raising a sphere of light around himself.

Kairi wastes no time in hitting the Angel Drive stone on her bracelet to activate it, changing into her angelic form and remarking "Hold out a little more! I got this!" Before she took her rapier into the grasp of both of her hands and dived down at Rayquaza, thrusting her rapier out rapidly at the beast's head. The sky is filled with blinding streaks from Kairi's blade as she keeps attacking Rayquaza until the beast closes it's mouth to stop it's flamethrower and opens it up again to try attacking Kairi with a bite from it's electric teeth.

Kairi flies up slightly and thrusts her rapier downward while floating horizontally as the beast bites down on the open air, and the tip of her blade hits the beast's head hard enough to knock it downward slightly and create a dissolving tornado of light wind around the blade. Rayquaza recovers from that and opts to fly downward for a little, moving forward and going around in a large circle a couple times as it flies back up. It lights up the strands of energy extending out from his face and fires off more crimson lightning bolts at Mew and Kairi.

Once bolt hits Kairi across her right shoulder before she can turn and get a full barrier of aura up, singing through her clothes and putting a light burn onto her skin. Kairi grimaces but swings her rapier in a circle in front of her to create a halo of aura, firing it off right at Rayquaza's neck as the beast lines itself up to charge at her again. Kairi makes sure to wrap the halo around the Pokemon's neck and make it explode by pulling back on her rapier, and this explosion of light aura manages to make Rayquaza flinch.

But Rayquaza immediately pauses in place and open it's mouth to fire another beam of white light straight out. As Kairi prepares to create a massive aura barrier to protect herself, Riku suddenly flies in front of her in his similar looking Light Form and swings his own diamond katana out horizontally in front of him, creating a reflective mirror from his light that is able to send the gigantic beam off in another direction. And then Mew gets in the path of the beam and creates his own reflective barrier with a single swing of his sword, directing the beam to strike Rayquaza's back.

The beam hits the Pokemon hard and drags it down towards the ground as it roars a bit in pain. When the energy subsides Rayquaza was rather close to the icy grounds of Antarctica, but it barely flinches in the face of the cold weather despite being normally weak to it. In fact, Rayquaza emits a wavy field around it's body that causes the cold fog to disperse for the moment, and it manages to scare some of the wildlife away as well with it's mighty and frighteningly divine presence.

But Rayquaza immediately lifts it's head up and after coiling itself up slightly it swung it's tiny arms out and let out a roar as plumes of red smoke emerge across the length of it's body along with swirls of brown and black around itself. Then it thrust itself back up faster than before and put itself in-between all three of it's opponents as they ignited their swords in light and swung them out to send large waves of light at the Pokemon, but the beast summoned forth three barely visible screens made of light to deflect the attacks away from it's body and then makes the tip of it's tail glow brightly.

Rayquaza violently spun it's body around with it's tail extended outward, and even with the trio setting up barriers to protect themselves Rayquaza breaks right through their defenses with it's tail and strikes a strong blow to their bodies, cracking whatever armor they are wearing and blowing them away in separate directions. Rayquaza, focused on Mew after it was done swinging itself around, let out a light growl before opening it's mouth up wide and releasing a electrified blast of violet, red and blue draconic energy all at once towards Mew.

Mew spreads his wings out to brake in place, and then he swings his sword out while extending the blade's length twice by igniting it with pure light. Mew grinds the blade against the draconic energy with a great deal of resistance from the latter, but manages to repel it after a couple seconds. He then looked at Rayquaza and while thinking about how much time is being spent dealing with the Pokemon he exclaims "Rayquaza! We're not your enemy! Control yourself, I know you can!"

The attempt to plead to the Pokemon's sentience did not work in the slightest, as Rayquaza was too consumed by the energies of the Anti-Genesis Theorem, which combined with it's desire to protect the atmosphere it's supposed to be the guardian of meant it was entirely focused on taking the trio down. Rayquaza's eyes glowed brightly before it charged itself at Mew again, but this time Mew grasped his sword tightly around all of his fingers and remarked "Then I guess I'll have to knock you out…"

Mew rushed at Rayquaza and swung his sword around rapidly but precisely as he zipped around the length of the Pokemon's body, leaving visible scars across it's form before he flew past it's tail. Rayquaza turned himself around and opened it's mouth, firing off a concentrated blast of pure physical energy in the form of a focused sphere. Mew turned himself around and swung his sword in front of him to slice through the attack, and then he performed a backflip while smirking confidently to get out of Rayquaza's way.

Mew lands on Rayquaza's back and swings his sword downward to cut at him quickly, while in the distance Kairi uses her rapier as an arrow and makes a bow out of aura, and after letting go of her pulled back handle she fires off a series of thin arrows of light aura at Rayquaza. Rayquaza spun itself around to deflect the arrows and also shake Mew off it's back. Mew gladly flies off the mighty Pokemon and looks over at Riku, who was gliding his way over to Rayquaza while raising his katana up high for a single powerful slash.

Before Rayquaza could defend itself, Riku cut straight down and bathed the sky in a gigantic scar of light that cut partway through the center of the Pokemon's body, making Rayquaza widen it's eyes and letting out a very pained roar. Riku flew back a bit to put some distance away from Rayquaza as the beast recovered from the attack and swung it's head around looking at all three of it's foes, but then glared at Mew in particular and widened it's eyes, letting out a single cry before it straightened itself out towards him.

As red aura spreads out from the front of it's head and goes across the length of it's body like a massive cone of pure energy, and the strands of energy lashed towards the extensions on it's tail and attached to them, making Rayquaza's body look a little like the symbol on it's forehead if it was looked at from above. Rayquaza charges straight at Mew with all of it's speed and strength put into this desperate attack, and the aura splits off as a streak of pure red energy behind the Pokemon.

Rayquaza lets out a mighty roar as Mew could feel the overwhelming power within the Pokemon's body. With the power it had thanks in part to the Anti-Genesis Theorem, Rayquaza could split an entire planet in two with it's Dragon Ascent. Mew would have to throw all his concentration he could to keep the Pokemon from ripping him in two. But at the same time, Mew had an idea to finish the battle while holding Rayquaza back. Praying that his brother would know what he wanted to do, Mew quickly threw his katana at Riku while exclaiming "Catch!"

Mew then thrusts his hands forward and coats his palms with as much light as he could pull from his body, wrapping himself in a spherical barrier with at least twenty layers of pure light energy keeping him protected. Mew left nothing to chance, and Rayquaza as slammed right into him full force with his Dragon Ascent the Pokemon released a gigantic burst of red lightning from it's forehead and immediately broke through seven of Mew's barriers. Rayquaza pressed as hard as he could against Mew's barriers to try and break through.

Meanwhile, Riku swung his left hand out to grab Mew's katana out of the air, but then he widened his eyes as he felt an odd pulse flowing into his body. It felt like Mew's own energy, his heart, and his warmth were briefly becoming one with Riku's own body. Riku only noted the connection for a moment before he glared at Rayquaza, whose lashing waves of energy were beginning to strike at him. Riku widened his eyes and exclaimed "Brother, hang on!" He swung both katanas out beside his body, but before he went on the attack Kairi flew up beside Riku and remarked "H-Hang on! I'll power the katanas with some of my aura."

Kairi swung her right hand out and filled both katanas with her light aura, putting in a couple layers on both blades and making them glimmer brightly from the top of the handle to the tip of the blade. Riku crosses his swords together in front of his face, hiding his firm, determined expression behind the glow of the blades as Kairi exclaimed "We're finishing this together!" Riku focused on the length of Rayquaza's body and saw that the Pokemon had taken off seven more of Mew's barriers. Gripping the handles of the katanas tightly, Riku felt Mew's strength assisting him, and everything but Rayquaza was wiped away from Riku's line of sight, enveloped in bright white light.

With one widening of his eyes, Riku thought to himself "Now!" and threw himself right at Rayquaza, going from the tail of the Pokemon to the head while zipping up and down, moving well beyond the speed of light as he took both katanas and cut at Rayquaza's body. Though Riku could see and feel every attack he made, from Kairi's perspective, Riku performed all his moves in a single millisecond before thrusting himself right past Rayquaza's head as a single streak of pure light, emerging out of this form with his body leaning forward and both swords held over his shoulders as his arms were crossed before his chest.

As Riku spread his wings and time flowed again as normal, he remarked "Tri-Light…BANISHMENT!" The scars Riku put into Rayquaza are revealed to be a series of crosses, all of which explode and consume the beast with glowing crosses of flaming light, shattering the energy around it's body from the Dragon Ascent and surprising Rayquaza entirely as the light hits it hard enough to send it crashing down towards the continent below. Mew's last barrier shatters around this time from weakness, just in time for him to watch as Rayquaza lets out a pained roar as it's smoking body slams right against the icy grounds of Antarctica, shaking the continent and leaving large cracks around the spot it impacted.

Mew holds his right hand out beside him and casually grabs his katana back after Riku throws it his way, but he drops out of Light Form much to Riku and Kairi's surprise and quietly descended towards Rayquaza's location. The beast was unconscious in the crevice it made, and after being consumed by a flash of light it went back to it's more basic form, with the Anti-Genesis Theorem infused meteorite rising up and crumbling apart seconds later. Mew kneeled down at the edge of the crevice and extended his hand out, deciding to give Rayquaza a bit of his own energy to help it recover.

Riku and Kairi descended from the sky and dropped out of their forms, with Kairi remarking as she stepped beside Mew "Umm…You sure it's a good idea to do this?" Mew remarked quickly after "Why not? Without the Anti-Genesis Theorem Rayquaza isn't going to attack us. It was just following it's instincts even if it was on another world." Mew finished giving the mighty Pokemon some of it's energy and backed up as Rayquaza opened it's eyes up and quickly pulled the upper part of it's body out of the crevice, turning itself around slowly to look at it's environment before focusing down on the trio.

Riku stayed cautious just in case while Kairi was more in awe of how majestic Rayquaza looked when it just stood there, towering over them even with half of it's body in the crevice. Mew smiled at Rayquaza as it blinked a couple of times and let out a tired but suspecting growl. Raising a hand up, Mew caused Rayquaza to flinch before he said "It's alright Rayquaza, we're not here to threaten you anymore." He spoke quietly and calmly to not set the Pokemon off, and Rayquaza appeared to be listening while swaying it's body back and forth slightly.

"Think he does understand us?" Riku inquired, and Mew nodded his head and said while continuing to respect Rayquaza by looking him right in the eyes "Rayquaza, I'm sorry you got pulled to our world. I wish we didn't have to fight you just now, but it was the only way we were going to save you from being controlled by our current enemies. I don't know how exactly we're going to get you back, however…" Mew hated to say that last part, but it seems Rayquaza was not exactly concerned about it, as after a slight growl it lifted it's head up look towards the sky and saw a vortex opening up near the tunnel.

The trio followed the Pokemon's gaze and were actually shocked to find that vortex there, with Riku remarking "You can't be serious…He's actually going to be allowed to go back home?" Needless to say, this decision made Riku curious about what kind of person Lunis was if they were so willing to let one of their puppets return home safely, assuming that of course the vortex wasn't a trap. Riku looked at Rayquaza and said to him "Just be careful alright? Who knows what lies beyond the portal."

Rayquaza looked straight at Riku and after a momentary pause Riku suddenly heard a very reserved and wise sounding voice tell him "Home…home lies beyond that portal. Thank you though, Elemental Overlord Riku." Riku widened his eyes in surprise that he heard such a voice in his head, moreso considering that it could have only come from Rayquaza. The Pokemon leans it's head forward and nudges Mew and Kairi slightly as thanks for their help in saving it, letting out a subdued growl while it did so.

Meanwhile, Riku held a hand to his chest, feeling a rather odd beat in his heart as he felt reminded of his draconic allies and friends Sodenko and Takashi, and with a brief smile he thought to himself "Hehe, I guess my connection with those two allows me to speak to other dragons mentally. I sure miss you guys…Perhaps I'll go and find you after this blows over." As Riku was done with his thoughts, Rayquaza raised it's head up towards the vortex and pulled itself from the crevice it was stuck in, flying straight up at a breakneck pace to return home.

As the trio saw Rayquaza off, Riku commented with a hand to his chin "Brother…I've been thinking about something. Is it entirely possible that everyone dragged here from other worlds have been brought here specifically because we met them in other timelines?" Mew nodded his head and remarked with a chuckle "Really though, it'd probably be more likely they met you Riku…Unless some of those other timelines had me traveling the universe for a couple years."

Rayquaza flew into the vortex, and it sealed up the moment it's tail went through all the way. Kairi remarked while folding her arms behind her head "Well, whatever the case, unless we didn't have to kill this one." Mew grinned and remarked while taking a couple steps forward "Of course not. Pokemon are hard to kill, especially a Legendary like Rayquaza. Looks like our path forward is open now, so we really shouldn't spend anymore time standing around."

Riku and Kairi both agreed with that, and the three flew up towards the tunnel. As they made their way towards it, Riku closed his eyelids slightly and thought to himself "Lunis Callavira…Why did you let Rayquaza go? Why have you given us plenty of time to stop you from destroying the Earth…? Are you really our enemy, or not? …We'll find out soon enough, I suppose."

Next Time: The Strained Duo, Riku and Kairi?