Chapter 14: The Tower of Blight
Diancie and Hoopa faced in front of the giant glowing crystal. Hoopa had decided to awaken The Null even though she was not worthy to do it. Diancie supported her decision since she understood her urgency to wake it up.
Hoopa used Spirit Linkage to find the spirit of the legendary. Immediately, she was repelled by a strong mental power. A low pitched male voice was heard:
"You! What are you doing here? Didn't I forbid you to awaken me?"
"You need to wake up The Null! I have foreseen a terrible future that revealed this continent will disappear soon!" begged Hoopa.
"Hmm…I sensed there is fear in your speech. You could be telling the truth based on your foresight. Very well, I will not judge you for awakening me." He paused his speech before continued, "I also sensed that there is other thing you want to tell me as well. Oh? The End is making mischief and The Bringer of Life is in danger? Why does this happen when I was asleep?"
"That is not important as Eterna can take care of it. What I plea for you is to stop what comes after that."
"Is that so? But due to the severity of the situation, I shall roam this land once more."
"Wait wait wait, not now! If you do so, Eterna will not be able to use her powers?"
"You mean her powers are aura based? You seemed to trust her a lot in her abilities. But with my presence around, I can stop The End from rampaging and return The Bringer of Life's power back to her instantly. And then, I shall tend to whatever happens next."
"But that will defeat the purpose of Eterna's arrival in this world!"
"She was summoned from the other world? She is one special being. Since The Bringer of Life is the only one I know can do this, she must be very capable. Hmm…I should meet her one day." He paused again, and then resuming the conversation, "I can choose whose power or abilities to be disabled. I will do nothing for now until the scene you spoke off occurs. The End will not be able to detect my power in this barrier. Now, I shall rose up. Step aside."
Spirit Hoopa returned back to her body and alerted Diancie to move back. Without warning, the ground shook and fissures appeared out from the crystal. The crystal cracked and a huge hydra appeared. His head was black with four hexagon eyes on each side of his face. There was a white line on the centre of his face. He had no mouth so he could only communicate using his telepathy. He had a black fan on its back and had rhythmic hexagon scales on the top of it illuminating from right to left. His wings were below it. The left wing was black and the right was green. Its lower green frontal and black posterior coloured body was strong enough to keep him upright. His tail was fin-shaped. He slammed his tail on the ground and green light radiated out of his hexagon scales to signal his awakening was complete.
Then, he looked down at Hoopa and Diancie and spoke mentally, "I, Zygarde The Null has revived! Well then, let's watch the heroine's progress in Unearthly Domain shall we?"
They continued their journey in the evening by riding on Aura, except Chestnut and Eterna ridding on her Shadowable. They emerged out of Volcanion's barrier and headed South-East. Once more, they were flying over the dead canopies. At a distance, they could spot black long moving shrouds on the earth minuscule to their view dancing under the starry sky. Those were Unpenetrated Flames. Nothing was known about this fire wall but the team could assume that it would be devastating to even touch the flames. Even with the flames in sight, it took them eight hours to reach there. They were awed to find that the flames were as tall as the mountains. Eterna and Aura tried to soar above the flames, but an invisible barrier bounced them off. Nevertheless, they spotted Unearthly Domain ahead; red swirl markings pulsing from within the huge black tower and the tower was even taller than the clouds. It was so tall that the sky seemed to be sliced into half.
It seemed the only way to go reach there was going through the blackish flames. Eterna's currently active Divert Deviation was not enough to protect them, so she suggested that she could use Purity Swirl to repel the flames ahead of them to reveal a path. She had said to them before that it was a powerful light attack and could exhaust her, but maybe this was the time she could handle it well. Her friends supported her move and so, she and Chestnut leapt on Aura's back and she cancelled her Shadowable. Then, she focused her mind and light flowed out of her like a wave in all directions. Aura immediately flew into the barrier. The light did repel the flames and within minutes, they were out. Eterna stopped using her move and ate a Mago Berry to recover her strength.
With no other obstacles, they headed straight for the looming tower. The ground below was charred in black. There was no way for them to take a break and carried on towards the tower. When dawn broke, the light revealed the tower had a dull black appearance as no light was reflected on it. And in the afternoon, they finally reach the foot of the menacing tower. As there were no visible blocks that made up this tower, Eterna wanted to know what material that made it up. She touched it. It was cold and had rock-like surface. It was unbelievable that the tower was an ultra-tall rock! Each of the red swirls illuminating from within the tower was about six hundred meters in width. They looked like a river to hell.
If they were to climb this tower, it might take them two days to reach the top. The group wanted to do the easier route which was to fly all the way to the top. Aura volunteered to scout whether it was possible to reach the peak by flight and zoomed off. The rest looked up and soon, they could see that it could not fly upwards any further. It returned back to them and explained the barrier that blocked her was made out off probably thousands of years of fortifying so Eterna would not have enough strength to break down a powerful barrier.
They had no choice but to search for the entrance to enter the tower. As if the tower had sensed their desperation, a huge semicircle entrance suddenly appeared in front of them. Eterna felt a negative pressure came out of it was so great that she saw her Divert Deviation wore off quickly. She created five more Divert Deviation, but unfortunately they lost their effect quickly as well. Aura immediately stood in and protected them. It could make use of the negativity to become its energy if it was not too strong for it to take it. Relieved, the team walked into the entrance. Now, they were on top of a black floating platform and surrounded them was a flight of black curved stairs with an endless pit. The red swirling markings within the tower illuminated the way. They climbed the stairs and after possibly twenty minutes later, they found themselves on top of a huge floating platform. There, five Banettes sneering at their arrival and threw Shadow Ball at them. The attacks were absorbed by Aura and it reflected them in two folds. The Ghost Pokémons were too stunned to react and got knocked out instantly. Eterna, Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang cheered for its remarkable countering. Aura simply replied that it needed to let loose some energy it absorbed so its countering was powered up thanked to negativity in the air.
Another flight of curved stairs appeared. They climbed to the next level and fought some Ghost or Dark Types Pokémons. The pattern kept on repeating until they conquered twenty floors. There, a small room with ghostly flames lighting it up, revealing an exit ahead. There appeared to be no threats in this room so the team decided to take a break before they moved on. They used this chance to discuss how to beat The End as well. Hours later, they carried on. When they exited the room, they were astonished to find many floating rocks in ascending order instead of stairs and strong whirlwinds ejected from the sides of the tower. Eterna took the initiative to create Shadowable into a translucent sphere that encompassed them and levitated up. She concentrated hard to avoid them being suck into the whirlwind and Aura destroyed the floating rocks that came near them. It took them a while to finally reach the platform that was safe for them to land. Eterna disengaged her Shadowable and lie down, panting from mentally exhaustion.
"We should rest here then. We don't even know what day is it now but we can all assume it is bedtime." said Loggerhead.
"Yeah…whew! We are so beat right now. Just how many floors left to reach the peak?" asked Ice Kacang.
"No idea. We might have climbed one third of the tower right now. But we cannot go on without a rest. We must be fresh for the battle against The End."
Aura spoke, "I agree. Go ahead and rest. I will take care of the negativity."
They slept soundly. Eterna had a weird possible dream of the future of her world with limited fossil oil. Governments fought over last few remaining oil reserves instead of finding other harvestable energy to power their countries. She shook her head in disbelief. Maybe she did not need to remove the source of evil since it was going to run dry anyway. Instead, it was better to help the poor civilians that were suffering due to government's complacency. She was not sure of what kind of plan would be ideal for humans as she did not want the big corporations making use of her aid to benefit their own, but she did not want to see humans killing each other just for survival. Driving to their own demise will leave a great deal of destruction behind them and that might make Earth unhospitable place for other creatures.
She was the first to wake up from the unusual dream. Aura saw her and requested her to come closer to it. It said:
"Eterna, are you able to absorb the negativity around you?"
Eterna's eyes beamed, "Why will I want to do that? I may not able to handle too much of it."
"I am suggesting that you could take the negative energy around you and use it as to power up your curse attacks. There is no need to store them as reserves."
"Oh. This might be useful in fighting The End. Okay, do you mind I try it on you?"
"Sure."
Eterna placed her hand on Aura's shield. She felt lots of dark power within it. So far, she learned moves by visualising so she imagined its power flowed into her. Slowly but surely, Aura's power was sweeping into her body. Her curse power increased and her light power remained the same but preventing the darkness from engulfing it. She was glad she still remained sane.
She was enthusiastic, "Oh! I still feel okay! Just a little more powerful that's all."
"Glad it works. By the way, since you are awake, do you want to continue to go higher in the tower?"
Eterna nodded, "Why not? As long our friends don't get disturb by the jerking haha."
Eterna conjured a rounded life boat using Shadowable and Aura extended its shape-shifting arms to carry their friends onto it. Then, they took off. After some airtime, they stumbled into a realm of lightning. Aura's barrier protected its friends from the shock and the glaring from the bolts and Eterna could maneuver with ease. She spotted a huge hole in the centre of ceiling and flew into it. The group was 'dropped' into a room of sand dunes, and unexpectedly hot and well-lighted. Three figures approached them with laughter. They looked like onis on clouds, and shiny as well. They woke a black pearl necklace too. One of them introduced themselves:
"Welcome brave heroes. My name is Landorus. And the blueish one is Thundurus and the other is Tornadus. We are here to challenge you for a battle! Wait a minute, is your friends are asleep?"
"Well yeah! And you three came in the wrong time." said Eterna.
"What do you mean by that?"
Then, Tornadus nudged him, "Um brother, I sensed a powerful dark power within her; just like our boss."
Landorus was flabbergasted, "What?"
Eterna did not let him finished his sentence and lashed out three black arms out of her active Shadowables and grabbed them. Then, she tossed them onto the greyish ceiling. They fainted instantly. Eterna could not believe how weak they were and commented:
"Oh damn, they should have just attack us without the greetings."
An exit appeared at the ceiling. The group continued to move upwards and entered another room. This time the room was a huge cave and was dark and cold. Eterna decided it was time to wake her friends up using a Shining Sphere. The light ball woke them abruptly and they squealed in protest.
"Argh! Stop it Eterna!" shouted Chestnut.
Eterna snickered, "Bright and shine dudes! We had suddenly found ourselves in a dark room."
"Huh? How?" asked Ice Kacang.
"Were we warped into here when we were sleeping?" inquired Loggerhead.
Eterna praised herself for lying brilliantly, "Yeah. I woke up and here we are. Aura saw that we were pulled into this realm. Am I right?"
"Yes. A black whirlpool sucked us in." Aura played along.
Ice Kacang folded his arm and commented, "Oh shoot. Does that mean we cannot rest here for long after all?"
Chestnut replied, "Well, we cannot rest for long in this tower anyway because of the urgency in our hands. Anyway, what is this room?"
He got out of Eterna's Shadowable and landed on the ground. All of a sudden, a trap appeared under him and activated. He felt that he had forgotten something. Eterna, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang gasped; it was a PP-Zero Trap Tile! That meant they were in a mystery dungeon! They quickly pulled him on board.
Chestnut was upset, "Oh no. I think one of my moves is sealed. I guess I have to drink a Max Elixir."
Eterna felt for him, "Yeah…but seriously, a mystery dungeon? Here? I don't see a point in that."
"It is a mystery dungeon after all. It can appear in a weirdest of place." said Loggerhead.
Chestnut sulked, "Yeah yeah. We should move on. I don't want to stay in the dark for too long."
They flew into the corridor with two Shining Spheres placed in one in front and one at the back so that they could spot danger around them. The ground, walls and ceiling were blueish black and no other sounds could be heard except for the team. As there were no resident Pokémons, they made their way up ten floors and eventually, they reached a huge dark room where a whitish figure moving around. Then, the white figure zoomed towards them and showed its tongue at them. It was a white Gengar with red eyes peering at them. It mercilessly shot out three Shadow Balls right at their face; only to be blocked by Aura. It giggled and zoomed back into the darkness.
"What is that for?" said Eterna.
Next, a purple dazzling light pierced through Aura's defence. Eterna turned extended her Shadowable to reflect the light, allowing Aura to recover. She also created five more Shining Spheres and sent them away to scour the annoying ghost. Soon she spotted it and the Shining Sphere that was closest to him lit up so bright that Gengar had literally vanished in the room. Then, the room brightened up itself to reveal a Warp Tile at its centre. They went near it and shockingly, they were ambushed by ten Mismagiuses and a Gourgeist! The Mismagiuses promptly used Dazzling Gleam, but Eterna's Shadowable was strong enough to block the light.
One of the lady ghosts spoke, "Mister Gourgeist, her defence is too strong for us!"
He replied, "Maintain your Dazzling Gleam and leave Miss Foxy to me."
The pumpkin Pokémon disappeared, and reappeared right beside her. After that, he repelled her friends with Dark Pulse. The ten Mismagiuses' Dazzling Gleam critically injured Aura but not much to her friends. Eterna wasted no time and went to the wall of a room and looked for Aura and her friends. She took them in and used Shining Sphere of Empathy to heal Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang and gave part of her power to Aura to regenerate its strength.
"Thank you Eterna." said Aura. "It is shameful of me to unable to resist their attacks."
She replied, "Don't be too hard on yourself. Let me pay them back dearly."
"We will fight. Seeing Mister Gourgeist there had proved to us that he was the mastermind in Mystical Hub." angered Loggerhead.
"So no matter what they said, we shall ignore them." aggravated Chestnut.
"Well said! Let's wipe them!" said Ice Kacang eagerly.
She cancelled Shadowable and created Abidale to protect Aura. Once the ten Mismagiuses were worn out from their attacks, the team leapt into the battle field. Ice Kacang mega evolved when he dashed towards the ten Mismagiuses and used Blizzard. Loggerhead followed through with Rock Slide and the rocks broke off from the ceiling and Chestnut used Seed Bombs. The lady ghosts did not bother to move as the attacks just swept through them. What they did not know that they were distractions. Eterna created spears using Malleable and pierced through their bodies. They screamed and faded away. Gourgeist could not believe how strong Eterna had become. He had no choice but to used Trick-or-Treat. Mini ghosts tagged her friends in combat. Her friends did not know what this move means until he slugged them with Shadow Sneaks. His attacks became super effective! With Eterna preoccupied on saving her friends, he grabbed her and attempting to put her to sleep. But Eterna had enough being put to sleep. She radiated her body with Purity Swirl. It petrified him and in an act of vengeance, she let the light gradually purify him to ascent him to god-knows-where.
He begged, "Please…I don't want to die…"
She grinned, "Funny that you plead to me to live as you are already dead. Farewell."
"Noooooooo!"
His scream died out as he had completely disappeared.
Eterna was reprieved that the battle was over, but her friends were gasping hard. Eterna realised that they were not protected against the negativity and created Shadowable shield form to protect them. She also disengaged Abidale to conserve her energy. Aura flew towards Eterna and requested that it was alright now and it should be doing the protecting so that she could recover. She did not object and cancelled Shadowable. She also took out an Enigma Berry to munch on. She had a big appetite because she used a lot of energy for her dark and light attacks.
They walked on the Wrap Tile and they were taken to a floating black platform where the three shiny onis Eterna had met before awaited them.
"Oh Missy, glad you all have made it here." said Thundurus.
"What? Who are you?" bluffed Eterna.
"Don't be silly! You bashed us to the ceiling and we fainted. Good thing the heat from the sand woke us up."
"Hmmm…Did I?"
Chestnut whispered to her, "Should we attack them? They sound like lunatics. We didn't seen them before haven't we?"
"Oh we are here to attack you, we are here to give you something." said Tornadus.
"Huh what? How did you know I was..."
"I am a user of wind. I can direct it to anywhere I want, and that means the sound waves as well. Anyway, please take this."
The three of them passed their black pearl necklace to Chestnut, Loggerhead and Mega Evolved Ice Kacang.
"What are these?" asked Loggerhead.
Landorus explained, "The black pearl will protect you from the negativity in the air and our boss's ability. Don't lose it!"
Eterna voiced her concerned, "Wait a minute…doesn't that mean you guys…"
"Well…we are tired of him imprisoned us. We have roles for this land and that is to vitalise the ground so that Pokémons can enjoy the lush greenery. But we were taken by The End as guards to prevent intruders proceeding in the tower."
Thundurus continued, "We will be fine against this negativity. Just keep going. The End is right above here."
Tornadus painfully created a wind vortex to open the gate on the ceiling and said, "Now go! Defeat him for all of us and the fellow Pokémons that live here! We want the land to be back as it is before."
"Hold on. I can warp you all to a safe place and you all will not need to suffer here!" suggested Eterna.
"You can?"
"Yes. In apologies and appreciation for what you done, this is the best I can do for you all." She created Abyss's Door under them and proceeded with her conversation, "Enter this portal."
They flew into the portal and the group heard "Thank you" from them before the portal closed.
Chestnut, Loggerhead and Ice Kacang wore the necklace. As Aura lowered its barrier, they did not feel any difference at all. The necklace worked and now Aura and Eterna did not need to protect them from the negativity anymore. Aura took them to the hole in the ceiling. They would need to give it their all their upcoming battle.