-Chapter XIV: Twins of Darkness-
-Mirage-
"Wow… Sounds like you've got a lot on your plate," the Garchomp said.
"Yeah… Sorry about that… It's my fault for bringing you guys into this..."
"Okay, rule number two! Do not apologize for anything unless the other person asks for an apology!" the Garchomp decreed. "You didn't bring us into this. We saved you, and you just so happened to be one of the pokémon that are being hunted down by a couple of master assassins. Not your fault."
"What was rule number one?" Mirage asked.
*Only male pokémon can join our 'group'.* the Claydol mused. *But he appears to have made an exception to that rule, since you have proven to be more of a help than a hinderance to us.*
"Yeah… That." the Garchomp shrugged and picked up pace. "Let's get a move on. I don't want to be caught in the badlands after dark."
"Agreed." Mirage quickly said. Her parents had always warned her of how dangerous the badlands were at night. It's when all of the criminals and predators in the desert congregated in one central area. If you weren't tougher than most of the pokémon there, you were as good as dead.
She flew behind them in silence for quite a while before the Garchomp stopped. He looked around slowly, then stumbled backwards as two Excadrill and an Aegislash burst from the sand. The excadrill bore a crest on the right side of their chest, and the Aegislash had the same marking on its shield. A marking that Mirage recognized all too well. The Aegislash floated forward and spoke first. "You are entering the Kingdom of the Sands. State your identities, foreigners."
"Andreas of Esterhaven" the Garchomp spoke up first. "And this Hippowdon is domestic. It can't talk." he clarified.
*I am Gabriel of Esterhaven.* the Claydol said.
"...Oh! M-Mirage of the Kingdom of the Sands!" she stammered. His name is Andreas? Well, it does suit him, I guess-
"And what is in your wonder bag?" the Aegislash questioned.
"Artifacts I'm looking to sell." Andreas replied. "That's why we're here."
"...The first village is two miles to the northeast. They can direct you to the palace, if you have any items of high value." the Aegislash bowed and vanished into its own shadow. The two Excadrill burrowed away shortly afterwards.
"Your name's Andreas?" Mirage asked jokingly.
"Yeah… I kinda wish it were something else, though. It isn't really my style."
"I think it's a good name. It suits you." Mirage said with a smile.
"Really-? Uh, thanks…" he quickly caught himself, then glanced at her as they began walking. "So… You're from the kingdom? What brought you all the way out here?"
"I joined an exploration team." she said. "That's all."
"Okay… So what are you going to do once we get to the village?"
"Well... I was hoping that you'd come with me to the palace." she suggested. "After all, you've never seen it before."
"I'd like that." Andreas replied. "I mean, we'd like that." he seemed to grimace slightly, but Mirage ignored it. She kept walking, and eventually felt up to flying. She flew a bit further ahead than the other two, and she gasped as a small building appeared on the horizon. "Guys! The village is close! Come on!"
-Jade-
She opened her eyes when she heard a brief thunk-like sound, followed by feeling the Typhlosions' grip loosen from her arms. She righted herself from the snow and observed that the Houndoom had been knocked to the side and the Typhlosion had been slammed face-first into the nearest tree. A fog began rolling in around them, and laughter echoed around until a voice called out from her left. "Ooooh, you made a big mistake, lady!"
An identical voice came from her right, a somewhat high-pitched male voice. "A big mistake!"
The Houndoom used fire blast, sending thick pillars of fire in ten different directions, somehow avoiding Jade in the crossfire. After a moment of looking around in silence, she snarled softly. "Hmph…"
She turned back to Jade and leapt forward, but a shadowy pokémon grappled her head mid-leap and slammed her head into the snow. "Hee-hee! Levi, you gotta try this!"
The Houndoom got up and looked into the fog, then back at the Typhlosion and Talonflame, "Well?! Do something!"
The Talonflame's wings began glowing, about to use defog, when the same shadowy figure tackled it out of the air, "Ain't nobody messing up our flow, son!"
The same voice came from her right again. "Yeah!"
There was a brief shout alongside a flash of white light, and the Talonflame was slid right into the Houndoom's legs, frozen in a block of ice.
The Houndoom growled and looked to where the pokémon was frozen. "You think I can be taken down so easily?!"
Jade floated forward, about to use frost breath after getting over her initial surprise, but the pitch-black pokémon appeared in front of her and held her back with one hand. "We'll take this crazy lady. You chill."
She heard a light snicker from her right. "Heh. Ice jokes."
The Houndoom bellowed a flamethrower at one of the shadows, but not even a moment later, another pokémon grappled her horns and slammed her face-first into the snow. "Ha-ha-ha! No kidding! This is fun!"
The Houndoom roared defiantly and was enveloped in a purple orb, and when it shattered, her horns became more prominent as she grew another foot taller. Her muscles expanded and the bones lining her chest and back shifted and grew into bony armor. She radiated heat so intense that the snow around her melted instantaneously.
"Oh. Not good." the voice to her right muttered. "Guess she's the alpha."
She whipped her head to the source of the noise, trying to get a good look at the mystery pokémon, but to no avail. They both seemed to merge together between her and the Houndoom and said in unison, "Let's go!" and they dashed forward as one. The Houndoom growled and attempted to use fire fang on one, but they both split just before reaching her and grabbed her legs, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground.
She stood back up as fast as she could, only to be hit with a slash attack from behind, and then another attack from her side. She roared in pain as one of the segments of bone was sliced off of her skin and used heat wave in retaliation. The air around her superheated, evaporating the thick fog and melting the snow around her all the way down to the permafrost. The two pokémon leapt to opposite sides and used a dual-blizzard attack to dissipate the heat.
The Houndoom growled and bit down on an orb on her necklace, then vanished alongside the Talonflame and Typhlosion. Then the two pokémon dropped out of the trees above them, laughing and high-fiving. "Ha! That'll show them! Fire-types ain't got nothin' on us!"
"Who are you?" Jade asked. They were two identical Weavile. They were both moderately tall, about as tall as her, with jet-black skin, aside from their snow-white claws, and a crimson-colored head crest and a bright yellow gem on their forehead. And they were quite attractive. Not that it mattered.
"We're the Weavile Twins!" the one on the left proclaimed.
"Levi and Pierce!" the one on the right finished.
Hazel floated up to them after materializing from shadows. "Th-thank you…"
"Eh, it's no problem!" the one on the right smiled charmingly. "We were in the area and figured we'd help out."
"Why?"
"Why do you want to know?" the one on the left asked. "Can't we just do the right thing?"
"I've never known a random pokémon to help another without asking for anything in return."
"There's a first time for everything!" the Weavile on the left smiled and looked between them both. "So… are you sisters, or…?"
"Arceus, no! She is my daughter!" Hazel quickly replied.
"Oh! Wow! You look really good for… however old you are. I know that Snorunt don't evolve for a long time, so you've gotta be… what, a hundred?"
"I am not comfortable discussing this with you." Hazel sternly replied.
"Alright, it's cool." he said with a smile.
"So which one are you?" Jade asked.
"Me? I'm Levi." he crossed his arms and tilted his head towards the other Weavile. "He's Pierce." Then he pointed at her briefly. "So what's a beauty like you doing in a forest like this? Don't you know it's dangerous?"
She floated upright and glared at him. "I am aware of the dangers of this island. And I do appreciate the compliment, but flattery will not affect my views of you."
Levi nudged his brother and smirked. "She digs me."
Pierce pushed his brother lightly. "Psh! No way!"
"Yes way!" Levi spoke slightly louder.
"If you say so," Pierce said with a sarcastic smile.
"So who are you, exactly? An Exploration Team?" Jade asked.
"Why, do you wanna join? 'Cuz I don't mean to sound rude, but-"
"I just want to get off of this island." she interrupted.
"What? This place is like a haven for ice-types! Snow, pine trees, other ice types… Why would you want to leave?" Levi asked.
"Those pokémon you fought earlier are trying to kill me."
"Well, we kinda figured that, sweetums. But don't worry, we'll protect you guys."
"I don't need a bodyguard, I need a way off of this island. Can you help with that or not?"
"Of course we can!" Pierce replied. "We know about a secret network of mystery dungeons that run under the ocean. They run all the way back to Immanis, and then some. In fact, they might have expanded even more since we last visited!"
"I have never heard of them, and I've lived on this island my entire life." Hazel informed them. "Do you have proof to back up your claim of a so-called 'passage'?"
"Uh… The proof is the passageway…?" Levi seemed confused, then shrugged. "You'll just have to trust us."
"The last time I trusted a Dark-Type, I lost someone very dear to me." Jade sternly replied. "I refuse to trust you based solely on one act."
"Great…You're type-ist. Whatever." Pierce said with a dismissive shrug. "Good luck getting out of here." And he dashed off without another word. Levi stared at Jade briefly, then winked before taking off.
"Jade!" Hazel scolded her. "They just saved our lives!"
"Where were you during all of that? I didn't see you once during that entire battle!"
"I was being held in the shadow dimension by the Houndoom's mega-evolution!"
"...What are you talking about? Being held in the shadow dimension?"
"If a Dark-Type is powerful enough, they can lock ghost-types into whatever dimension they are residing in. You didn't know that?"
"I… Did not." then she pondered her situation a moment ago. "That would explain why I couldn't phase through the Typhlosion…"
"Oookay! We're back!" She blinked heavily as the two Weavile dropped from the trees in front of them. "And we figured out how to get you to trust us!" the one on the left replied.
"Is… that so?" Jade suppressed a light scoff. "In ten seconds?"
"Yeah! We'll save your lives again!" the other one said triumphantly. "The Houndoom is on her way here, this time with a few more pokémon. So… do you want to run? Or fight?"
"How close are they?"
"About… two minutes away." the one on the right estimated.
"If we go now, we can ditch them," the other said with a hint of urgency. "Oh, and thanks for the Ruin Armlet."
"What?" Jade turned to face him, and he held up a small pitch-black bracelet with a red pattern etched into it. Her eyes widened as she saw the little item she picked up in Team Siren's base around the Weavile's wrist. "Hey-!"
"Where'd you even find this?" he chuckled. "These are, like, super rare!"
"How did you-"
"Why'd you keep it? It can't do anything for your species."
"I don't know!" she blurt out. "Don't interrupt me!"
"Forty seconds." Pierce muttered. "Give her the bracelet and let's get out of here."
"Nah. We can take these guys." Levi smiled and extended his claws as the Houndoom emerged from the woods. "Besides, we haven't been out much recently. This'll get us back into practice for the main event."
"Well, since you put it like that…" Pierce extended his claws into razor-sharp indigo shadow claws that seemed to draw in the darkness around them. "I guess it won't hurt anybody except them."
-Roy-
"Let's see…" he drew on the ground using shadows as a form of ink. He had begun writing down ideas that Valerie could look over for him to learn. So far he'd just written down a bunch of Incantations, including transformation, possession, temporal kinesis and levitation. And he'd been practicing his shadow-Gallade. It could talk on a semi-intelligent level, and could think on its own, but since it was made of shadows, it couldn't really fight anything.
He suddenly heard mumbling far off to his right, so he decided to investigate. When he phased into shadows and teleported through the shadow world, he saw Valerie sitting in her rocking chair, seeming to be muttering under her breath.
"...Valerie?" he cautiously said as he rematerialized.
"Roy! Oh, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I got back. I just needed a minute to recuperate." she quickly said.
"Oh. It's alright. I wrote down several things-"
"Awesome! Awesome… Um, listen… I have something important to tell you."
"Okay…?" Roy arched an eyebrow as Valerie stood to face him. "So… I'm just going to say it like it is; You're going to be the last member of Team Firestorm left alive."
"Uh…" Roy was completely and utterly baffled by the suddenness of that statement. "What?"
"Was that a 'what' like you didn't hear me? Or a 'what' like-"
"No, no… I heard you." Roy quickly put in. "I just don't understand why you decided to say it out of the blue like that."
"The Mafia knows where they all are. Or… should I say, where they were all teleported to when you were separated. You, on the other hand… Are invisible, metaphorically speaking. I brought you here instead of the mountain where you died, so you're safe."
"But why don't we go and save them if they're going to…" he didn't finish his sentence. Even though death was something he was accustomed to, he hated the thought of his new family not existing anymore.
"Because it's not what's going to happen. I can see the future, Roy. You are the key to everything. The one that can set this timeline back into its correct state… One with Team Firestorm. Because without you to do that… Well, there's a lot of things that're supposed to happen in a decade or two and it requires them to be alive and well."
"Like, I have to revive them? What do I have to do?"
"I thought you'd never ask!" she exclaimed sarcastically. "I think I've left you hanging long enough; Let's start some real lessons in dark magic! First up: rest! It's a necessity, even for a ghost like yourself! So go learn to rest properly, then we'll start in the morning."
"Fine. You'd better hold up your end of the deal this time," he deadpanned.
"What deal?" She asked innnocently. "I brought you here and am teaching you things necessary for you to hopefully set this timeline back into place. I never made any deals with anyone!"
-Dawn-
She sat there silently meditating, trying her best to calm her rage. She had only been with that team for less than a week, and yet he somehow managed to show up not even two days later. Her blood boiled just thinking about him.
It's definitely him… But how? He doesn't remember me at all… But he remembers what he did. He knows, yet he has no remorse... You know what? They were right. Those pokémon are evil.
She clenched her fists and shook her head clear of those thoughts. "No, not them… Just him." then she took a deep breath as a single tear fell from her eye. They never told me that they were good pokémon...
Then that pokémon's voice echoed in her mind. "You help me get what I want… And I will give you back what you've lost."
"I'm so sorry..." she whimpered quietly and used Roy's Misdrea-cape as a tarp to shield herself from the rain. "I didn't know what I was getting into…"
Chapter 14 is up! Also, I've started my last year of high school, so that's good. My updating speed might vary sometimes because of that though, so don't worry. :P
As always, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! If you did, or even if you didn't, go ahead and leave any questions, comments, concerns or theories in the form of a Review or PM! It's always appreciated! Much Love!
-PL