Hit Count for "The Path of the Aura: Intertwining Crossroads": 9,623.

Hit Count for "The Path of the Aura II: Brothers in Arms": 2,233.

Total Hit Count: 11,856.

I don't recall if I've said this before or not, but as a Jehovah's Witness, I don't celebrate any particular birthdays or holidays. And between you and me, it doesn't really bother me. Days such as Christmas and the Fourth of July are more or less tranquil for me and my family.

So, to those that celebrate Christmas: Merry Christmas! To those that don't: [Insert holiday greeting here].

Anyway, for this chapter, despite its upload date, the general tone of it throughout its words would make it more suitable for Halloween rather than Christmas. It's not scary outright, but it is grim and dark.

The title for this chapter is appropriate enough then.

Chapter XXXVIII (38): The Plate of Darkness

Location: Hall of Origin

Date: ?

Time: ?

"Sceptile, Sceptile, Sceptile…

"Out of all of the Coadjutors of the Pokémon of Prophecy, no one else displays their scars with greater melancholy encumbrance than you. Of course, Absol rivals you in terms of physical deformities, with its scars centering around its lips, nonexistent left eye, and dehorning, all courtesy of its former feud with the Pokémon of Prophecy. And while its horn is unquestionably a recurring reminder for those who feel it necessary to pester it with what it once had, the black bandana that Absol wears around its face help hide the more obvious scars of its nonexistent lips and exposed teeth.

"But in your case, dear Coadjutor, your scars are much more prominent and impossible to properly conceal. Your lack of a right arm, your smolderingly decorated body, your loss of home alongside your friends through their capture. And most contorting of this list is when Tiny Riolu perished.

"Right there, held in your remaining arm. All because of the infamous human crime syndicate by the name of Team Rocket.

"The buster sword that you acquired later afterward did help strengthen your left arm and help you conceal the grim fact that you're not the Sceptile you once were. But your emotions ran amok and you simply used that sword, alongside your blossoming power, to drive every other living soul away from that forest, all of it misguided from the pain you were forced to harbor for so long, until Wanderer and Xeno Lucario returned and helped mollify your rage.

"You've yet to know that I've successfully managed to resurrect Tiny Riolu. You, alongside most of the Coadjutors—except for Latias and Latios—, haven't been told the uplifting news yet. So, I'll just have to wait until you all reunite with twelve of My sixteen elemental plates safely in your possessions, then I'll grant you all an euphoria you've never known before.

"And at the rate that you and your fellow comrades are recovering My property. You won't have to wait long to be blessed with the good news.

"Of course, it wouldn't be so simple of Me to just work straightforwardly and have you recover My elemental plates without encountering some sort of resistance.

"So, in much the same way that I've done with Charizard, I will add onto you an obstacle to overcome, and a different prize for you to gain. I have made My voice heard to a pair of priceless pawns, one of the opposing color, and the other that wishes to be promoted to knighthood."

46.1: Scarred Alliance

Location: Mt. Coronet (Spear Pillar)

Time: Noon

CLOAKED BLACK BY FOREST

HAUNTED AND DESOLATED

BEWARE THOSE WHO PASS

With the haiku riddle deciphered into readable English, thanks to Wanderer Lucario's understanding of the Language of the Unown, the options for the potential location of this elemental plate—the Dread Plate—were narrowed down from all of Sinnoh, to the forests and only the forests of Sinnoh.

And as luck would have it, Sceptile instantly chimed in to the topic of forests and aided Wanderer with contemplating the answer to this riddle.

Due to its beneficial and natural experience with forests, Sceptile hypothesized the Dread Plate to be located in the Eterna Forest. But as far as where exactly within Eterna Forest, Sceptile didn't entirely know. It knows that the other two lines of the haiku riddle might play a clue in further investigating a more accurate location to this elemental plate, but Sceptile has no clue of this because it has never been in the Eterna Forest area before.

Once again, as luck would have it, Absol chimed in to assisting both Sceptile and Wanderer Lucario with this worded puzzle.

Continuing where Sceptile and Wanderer left off, Absol knew of the Eterna Forest area, thanks in part to its days as a Speaker for the Dead, between those as a vengeful antagonist to Xeno and those as a benevolent ally and comrade in Team Liberator. Absol suspected that the last two lines in the riddle were identifying the Old Chateau area within Eterna Forest.

The Old Chateau, as neither Sceptile nor Wanderer Lucario knew of the building, is an abandoned mansion that is supposedly haunted and most likely inhabited by a handful of Ghost-Type Pokémon. And as rumor would have it, there's one in there that has taken residence within its walls.

And as luck would even further have it, the elemental plate that Absol is tasked with locating—the Draco Plate—resided in Eterna City which was to the east of Eterna Forest.

This meant that, until they reached the Eterna area of Sinnoh, both Absol and Sceptile would travel there together.

Settled with their brief alliance, both the scarred Disaster and Forest Pokémon, after having received their primary targets through Wanderer Lucario's bilingualism and leadership, departed downward from Mt. Coronet. Both of them headed northwestward, keeping each other in their field of sight, and pacing themselves as quickly as they both could manage, straight towards Eterna Forest.

Location: Eterna Forest

Time: Late Evening

From a rugged mountain road to a dense forest path their trek did lead them both into. In the time span of one entire afternoon, both the dehorned Absol and the left-handed Sceptile found themselves entering nostalgic territory, even when the sun was already disappearing behind and below the horizon, bringing with it the telltale signs of dusk alongside the moon and stars of the night.

Of course, the darkness that was growing denser by the minute within Eterna Forest wasn't going to deter this veteran jungle Pokémon from their eyes committed onto their prizes. Their acute sense of night vision was already beginning to adjust to the environmental darkness and their navigation across the shadowing forest became more and more child's play.

Even when both Absol and Sceptile reached the north portion of Eterna Forest and saw the ominous Old Chateau residing just ahead of them, did they feel that reaching here was hardly an exertion of their strength. Of course, the actual challenge in obtaining the Dread Plate—and the Draco Plate for Absol—would prove to be more arduous than the meager walk over to where it resides.

So with a quick (and somewhat awkward) pat on the back by Absol, the Disaster Pokémon tells its beloved friend "Arceusspeed, Sceptile" before dashing its way east, towards Eterna City, as the sun finally set behind its wake.

With the evening beginning to grow into a long night, Sceptile was now left alone in looking ahead at the Old Chateau, at the building that harbors the Dread Plate, somewhere within one of its dozens of dusty and vacant rooms.

Sceptile wanted to step forward and make its way through the grass path, towards the Old Chateau, and enter its worn doors. But despite thinking of doing this action, Sceptile's body remained put. Its feet were glued to the floor where it was not for fear, but for another wave of nostalgia, one that forced Sceptile to recollect on its life history.

For an abnormally extended period of time, Sceptile hollowly looked at the castle of a mansion, thinking to itself of its days before Xeno Lucario ever entered its life, but after the days that it spent traveling with Wanderer Lucario, back when the Forest Pokémon was still a Grovyle.

Those were the days that it remembered Tiny Riolu entering its life, and beginning the course of Sceptile's destiny to this present day.

The exact time and date of this recollection, as far as Sceptile began to remember, was difficult for it to pinpoint, because it happened years ago and it had no concrete understanding of time outside of day and night. Nevertheless, Sceptile recalled enough to know that the location was in Celadon Forest, and it was during the night.

Very late at night.

46.2: A Tiny Recollection

Location: Celadon Forest

Date: ?

Time: ?

As a Grovyle, it remembered finding its way into Celadon Forest not long after parting ways with Wanderer Lucario. The light-furred Aura Pokémon felt like settling down in Snowpoint Mountains because its particular derivation of the Lucario breed felt most comfortable in colder, mountainous areas. And Grovyle favored the warm and humid climate that the more reptilian Pokémon would thrive in, or most Grass-Type Pokémon.

Not long after Grovyle made its way into the lush green forest, the Wood Gecko Pokémon stumbled into a particularly large tree in the area, one of only a few dozen or so that had their trunks stretch out far enough where if one had half a mind to, they could hollow out the trunk, without timbering the tree, and settle inside of it as a comfortable home.

And that was exactly what Grovyle did.

By itself and over the course of a few weeks time, Grovyle hollowed out the tree's trunk with its own two hands and with its own power. And as time passed with Grovyle's gradual procession, the tree house that Grovyle envisioned became reality. It became the tree house that, from here on out until before the day that it was utterly burned down to the ground by the malicious Team Rocket, would comfortably house Grovyle, and then eventually house those select few individual that it loves, and once hated.

One faithful night, Grovyle was fast asleep on a makeshift, yet satisfactory bed that it assembled out of a discarded, yet substantial human mattress, alongside a bed frame that it created with the wood cut out from the tree.

During that night, Grovyle distinctly remembers being forced awake when its finely tuned senses overheard some commotion in the kitchen of its tree house.

Without wasting a moment, Grovyle jumped out of bed and stealthily made its way over towards the source of the commotion, its guard raised on the likely chance that it was a hostile intruder and needed to be persuaded to leave, by force if need be.

And sure enough, when Grovyle crept its way into the kitchen, there was an intruder within its property.

This intruder, upon closer inspection, was a Riolu, one that was snatching Berries out of Grovyle's makeshift pantry. And when this Riolu eventually noticed Grovyle's presence and acknowledged it, Grovyle could plainly note that Riolu appeared far from stable. This Riolu's body was practically painted red with the sight and disgustingly metallic smell of fresh blood, save for its eyes and cheeks, which were drenched with tears.

Grovyle's response to this was calm, defensive, and immediate. It readied its right arm forward, in a stance against Riolu, before the leaves on its right arm shaped themselves into a scimitar shaped LEAF BLADE.

"Choose your last words carefully, before you're rendered unable to speak with a slit throat." Grovyle said calmly, but with bubbling anger in its tone of voice and in its aura.

Riolu's response to this was entirely not what Grovyle had in mind.

While some Pokémon would either react with conservative cowardice and flee the scene to avoid a confrontation, or react with unleashed aggression and fight for what they feel is up for grabs, this Riolu did neither of the two most common options.

Instead, what this reddened, tearful Riolu did was slowly approach Grovyle, with no guard, with no aggression, and with only sadness on its distraught face. Riolu simply looked at Grovyle hollowly, not caring or not if the Wood Gecko Pokémon—that was undoubtedly the residential owner of this tree house—would keep true to its threat or not, and looked on at its LEAF BLADE, with a disturbing sense of relief.

The next thing that Grovyle noticed was that Riolu stopped short of it, and the Emanation Pokémon actually pressed its neck on the edge of Grovyle's attack, as though it were saving Grovyle the trouble of coming in towards Riolu for the kill, if it came down to that.

And then Grovyle felt something when Riolu decided to say its "last words".

"Please do it…and be quick…" Riolu whispered hoarsely in its sulk. "I don't care what happens to me anymore… Please kill me…as swiftly as possible… Just like my comrades…"

"…" All of a sudden, Grovyle felt as though its threat towards Riolu was premature and misplaced, based on the initial imagery of this Emanation Pokémon.

Before Riolu knew it, Grovyle's LEAF BLADE departed and it put its right arm down to its side, not feeling as though any violence was needed at all here. Instead, what Grovyle feels is needed here is to help comfort this troubled Pokémon.

"Something is troubling you." Grovyle suspected. "I can sense it from your persona and from you words."

"(*Sniff*)" Riolu felt some more tears roll down its face. "Is it…that obvious?"

"It must be," Grovyle continued. "You're trying to steal food from me, which means that you're either confused about yourself or desperate. And it isn't because you're hungry because I can't hear your stomach rumbling and you don't appear malnourished. Also, the blood on you clearly isn't your own, because you would be dead by now if you lost that much blood. Lastly, your attempted death wish through me, by my deduction, is the result of some sort of inner guilt tormenting you and causing you to say what isn't of your heart."

Riolu felt itself coming close to breaking down again. "(*Sniff*) It's not…my blood…that's on me…"

"I know," Grovyle said flatly. "You just said it yourself. It's from your comrades."

"…" Riolu was so saddened that it barely remembered saying what it did that made Grovyle assess so much of it in such a short period of time.

Before it knew it, Riolu felt Grovyle gingerly put its clawed hands on its bloodied shoulders. Grovyle did this in a necessary, welcoming, and selfless attempt of mollifying Riolu's emotional trauma.

"Why don't you take a seat and explain to me what it is that's troubling you." Grovyle suggested. "Don't be afraid to hold any details back to me, no matter how traumatizing they appear to be. Because if you don't explain to me what it is that's molesting you, then you won't come to terms with it and you'll only continue to shred your psyche as you warp what it was that you experienced. And then I can't help you if I don't understand the whole picture, or at least your side of this story."

"…" Riolu didn't say any words to Grovyle because it didn't have the mental strength to say anything either against Grovyle or in favor of its wise judgment. All Riolu did was give Grovyle a broken nod.

With that, Grovyle helped Riolu over to one of the wooden chairs beside the dining table of this kitchen. And from there, Grovyle took a seat besides Riolu and listened away.

The Dark Forest (High Quality)/Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box Official Soundtrack/Tomohito Nishiura

(Song Begins)

Much to Grovyle's hopes, Riolu didn't shy away from the details of whatever it is that it witnessed. And as this new information was gradually becoming clear to the Wood Gecko Pokémon, Grovyle was beginning to understand what it is that's troubling the Emanation Pokémon.

Riolu begins by explaining how it was the leader of a group of ten infantile Riolu, and how they relied on it for survival. Riolu went to collect some Berries from a secret location that it knew about within this forest, leaving its comrades to themselves to play as Riolu was briefly away. But when it came back to its group with Berries in hand, it discovered its comrades scattered about the forest floor.

And from here, it gets morbidly graphic, to the point where Riolu pauses a bit in recalling this fresh memory, and having it feel as though someone was aggravating its emotional wounds with salt and strong Sitrus Berry juice.

As Riolu avidly describes it, its ten comrades were mutilated, with their blood and limbs scattered everywhere amongst the forest floor within the area that they were huddled in. It was as though Riolu had stumbled into a vast red sea, and the mutilated bodies of its allies were the deserted islands. And even though it pained Riolu to point out this detail, it recalled doing a head count of its victims, by actually counting their heads. Some of those heads, as Tiny struggled to point out, were decapitated from their own bodies. Some of those heads lacked eyes. Others had their eyes closed, and others had them wide open in frozen horror.

In doing so, Tiny uncomfortably explained that there were only nine heads accounted for, which meant that the tenth of its Riolu comrades wasn't there upon its return.

But as Tiny soon noticed, the tenth was actually at the crimson scene, held by its neck within the jaws of the culprit of this mass murder.

The Pokémon responsible for this carnage was an Absol. And remorselessly, this Absol clamped down on the neck of this surviving Riolu, shortly after this fleeting Emanation Pokémon feebly, desperately called for help.

In a flash of red, Absol's jaws divided this last Riolu into three pieces. The head and twitching body fell down by Absol's feet, and the Disaster Pokémon spat out the portion of flesh that was once this Riolu's neck.

Heartbroken, distraught, and frozen with fear, Riolu only watches on as Absol calmly approaches it and tells it that it'll spare it, only because of its tearful downpour at the sight that is unquestionably a rich source of nightmare fuel for months to come.

And with that, Absol leaves the scene, leaving Riolu to dispose of the bodies as it agonizingly saw fit.

In the end, Riolu piled the bodies up against each other, their blood thickly painting its body as a result of all of the repulsive Pokémon handling. And once they were all accounted for, Riolu cremated them and stared on at the fire of its beloved deceased, vowing to avenge them by felling the one Pokémon responsible for this.

With this explanation finished, the one thing that Grovyle was thankful about this was that it was glad it only had a light dinner today, or else it would've likely blown chunks onto its clean wooden floor after imagining and hearing such graphic violence. Nevertheless, Grovyle was just fortunate that it had a strong stomach and retained enough professionalism to proceed with this bombshell.

(Song Ends)

"Well, that was quite the…colorful story that you explained to me…" Grovyle struggled slightly to speak.

Strangely enough, as far as Grovyle explained, Riolu did in fact begin to feel better after expelling its frustration and its sadness and its vendetta of its new enemy Absol by declaring it all on this one-time stranger. Of course, Riolu didn't feel 100% better. It didn't feel as though it could jump for joy and think to itself that the death of its friends was nothing more than a distant memory that it can recollect on years from now. If anything, this necessary discharge of conflicting emotions at least helped Riolu stop crying and control its breathing.

…So, Riolu felt at least 20% cooler.

And now Grovyle was going to add a few more percentage numbers to that.

"I know that it is beyond my power to turn the clock back and make it so that what that damned Absol did to your departed friends is rendered null and void, but…" Grovyle felt as though what it would say next would best help this Pokémon. "…You're more than welcome to live here, for as long as you need to, so that you can begin to recover from your ordeal."

With eyes that were no longer bloodshot from all of the crying, Riolu widened them at what it just heard Grovyle say.

"…Seriously?" It said, as though Grovyle was pulling its leg.

"Yes, seriously." Grovyle reassured Riolu, feeling no need to bite its tongue or tell a Pokémon in definitive need to "get the hell out of my house".

"…What's the catch?" Riolu said with a tilted head, angled dreadlock-like appendages and a quizzical countenance, which didn't exactly look right on a Pokémon that appeared as though it had just dunked its entire head into the entrails of its prey.

"The catch?" Grovyle thought fast on a couple of rules to say about its house, because it didn't expect this question.

Luckily, Grovyle quickly thought of a couple.

"I only have two rules of my tree house," Grovyle decreed. "Rule #1: Keep yourself clean. And rule #2: Do your share of the chores. I don't want any more blood in here than is needed, and I don't want to have any slackers becoming couch Payapa Berries in my domain."

Riolu accepted these rules as though they were the law, and then looked at itself, at how it has enough blood on its body to attract the lapping tongues of a cave full of Zubat.

"I should go and get myself cleaned up first." Riolu said, getting off of its wooden stool and making for the door. "I'm already violating your first rule."

"You should do that, Riolu." Grovyle strongly suggested. "You're actually quite lucky I have a strong stomach and put up with that strong scent of blood for this long."

When Riolu reached the door, something that Grovyle said made it stop short of opening the handle.

"Do I have the right to make a few rules of my own?" It inquired.

"Of course, though it depends on what those rules are."

"It's nothing special. Just one rule." Riolu added.

"Tell me, then." Grovyle suggested. "I'm all inner ears right now."

Riolu didn't think twice about its word choice. "My one and only rule is this: Don't call me 'Riolu'. There are already a million Riolu."

Grovyle's eyes narrowed slightly after hearing this.

"I go by 'Tiny'. Or 'Tiny Riolu'. But I don't go by 'Riolu' because I enjoy having my individuality."

"Alright then…Tiny." Grovyle addressed the Emanation Pokémon as it wished to be addressed.

"Thank you, Grovyle." Tiny said with a smile, before opening the door. "I'll come right back, but first I need to take a dip in the waterfall. The smell of my comrades' blood is starting to nauseate me."

Walking through the hallway and closing the door behind it, Tiny's presence momentarily disappeared from Grovyle's tree house.

And with that, knowing that Tiny is now a confirmed resident of its wooden home, Grovyle gets up from its chair, wipes away the traces of blood that Tiny accidentally dragged into here with a wet cloth, and then it decides to have a Berry for a late night snack.

But upon taking the first bite of the succulent fruit and masticating away, Grovyle stops and recalls what it was that Tiny just said.

"There's a waterfall here?" It said with its mouth full, and with its mind distracted by this new topic.

46.3: I See Dead People

Location: Old Chateau (Entrance Foyer)

Time: Early Night

Eventually, Sceptile proceeded to the rusted doors of the Old Chateau. And upon creaking the doors open that separated the inside of this abandoned mansion from the Eterna Forest outside, and entering a realm of deeper darkness than what was already present outside, Sceptile could already feel a chill run down its spine. It already began to believe that this place was haunted and ghosts lurk where one would least expect them.

Luckily for Sceptile, upon closing the worn door shut and having the unsettling sounds of a squeaking door hinge and a soft slam echo within the blackened main foyer of this place, the Forest Pokémon wasn't worried about what lurked beyond this distressing darkness.

And the reason for that came to Sceptile like a light bulb over its head. Only this light bulb wasn't from an actual light bulb that ran on electricity, or even a candle with its wick lit. Hell, it didn't even come in the form of a light bulb over its head. But the light did exist upon Sceptile's intentions and helped it see the Old Chateau's web-laced interior.

This light that Sceptile turned on that was all thanks to its FLASH technique, luminescence coursing through the six yellow seed-like nodules on its back and practically turning this place on as though electricity still coursed through the wired veins that hide within the peeling walls.

The only problem with Sceptile's FLASH is that five of the six yellow nodules lit up and shined the darkness away, pushing it back through visible hands of light. The sixth nodule—the one by its right shoulder—was stubborn, flickering on an off like a dying tungsten current.

This nodule was the one that Sceptile plucked from its backside and "toyed" a bit with, by flicking and rattling it until it was fully luminescent.

"(*Sigh*) (Ever since that incident that cost me my right arm, this nodule has always been giving me problems whenever I use it.)" Sceptile mentally muttered to itself, still shaking the nodule as though it were a baby's rattle. "(It doesn't matter if I use it to charge up my SOLAR BEAM attack, use it to mend my friends, chuck a SEED BOMB, or to light up a dark corner. I always have to fuss and put up with this one, because my nerve endings there have been damaged.)"

After enough roughhousing, this nodule finally reached the same levels of radiance that its five other brethren have easily achieved, and it stopped flickering altogether. And with that, Sceptile "screwed" it back in place like a lightbulb and proceeded onward within the Old Chateau, in search of the Dread Plate.

Teresa Waltz/Super Mario Galaxy Platinum Version-(OST)/Mahito Yokota

(Song Begins)

Sceptile could already tell what the foyer contained and where each individual path in this starting point led towards. Behind its seared back was the entrance to the Old Chateau, or exit as it is now from Sceptile's position. Straight ahead is a hallway that leads straight into the dining room. On the floor above it, reachable through a pair of stairways by Sceptile's left and right side, is another hallway that probably leads to more dusty rooms. And right where each stairway ends, there are two more hallways, one to the left and one to the right, leading to another couple of rooms.

Deciding to take the path up the stairs first, Sceptile made its way towards them.

With the light shining from Sceptile's back allowing it to properly see its surroundings, Sceptile was about to take its first step up the right flight of stairs. However, Sceptile immediately took notice of the relatively eerie statue that stood just beside the hallway to Sceptile's left side.

The Forest Pokémon paused upon looking at this statue, and then approached it in order to examine it in greater detail. And immediately, Sceptile could sense an intimidating aura emanating from this statue, only because the eyes on this effigy appeared as if it is glaring right at it.

"(*Shudder*)" Sceptile shook like a leaf in the breeze. "How disturbingly lifelike. It looks just like a Gengar giving me the stink eye."

Paying no heed to this marble imitation anymore, Sceptile carefully steps its way up and over the stairs, and then through the right hallway on the second floor of the Old Chateau.

And upon entering this hallway, the statue of the Gengar that Sceptile looked at not too long ago suddenly had its eyes blink a few times, before looking at the Sceptile that exited the foyer. The wide grin that this statue had quivered somewhat as well, through a chuckle that seeped through its lips.

And the Gengar, as this statue was now confirmed to actually be, continued to smile at this visitor that unwisely entered this phantom domain.

Location: Old Chateau – Floor 2 (Library)

With Sceptile now inside what appeared to be a small room filled with books, journals, and notebooks that had more dust on them than pages inside of them, Sceptile proceeded to examine them, after blowing away the miniature mountain they've accumulated over the decades.

One notebook, when Sceptile discovered it after blowing off its dust, was already opened, but had most of its defiled pages mostly blank.

…Except for one line. One line that only covered a fraction of this page with its handwritten text.

"Som...hing so pecu...r shou... make off ...ith the mot..." Sceptile read aloud exactly what this text said, struggling to make the syllabic sounds to words—or fragments of words to be more precise—that it had never uttered before.

And after reading this, Sceptile finds itself putting the notebook down, back on its original place, free of dust this time. Sceptile also finds itself committing those fragmented words to its memory, feeling as though they might be a clue to the exact whereabouts of the Dread Plate.

…Then again, for a shred of text to lead to one of Arceus' elemental plate. There might be a better chance for Sceptile to reclaim its lost right arm.

Nevertheless, with its search of this room yielding no results, Sceptile left the library and proceeded elsewhere, knowing that it had just scratched the surface of this place and had yet to reach the internal organs of the Old Chateau.

Sceptile didn't even bother looking back when its footsteps no longer echoed inside of this library room. It didn't even bother paying attention to what appeared to be a decoration of a sword nailed onto the wall, only because Sceptile already had a sword and was in no hurry of needing another.

It's a shame then that Sceptile didn't bother inspecting this sword. Because when the sword's eye-like blue gem near the base of its hilt suddenly opened to see Sceptile's fleeting backside, it turned out that this sword wasn't technically a sword.

It was a Pokémon, sword-like in shape, sheathed and possessing a long cloth on its pommel, one that was dark blue in color, and light blue at the end of its "four-fingered digits".

This Pokémon is a Honedge, one that contemplated to itself this about Sceptile.

"(Forest Pokémon… Beware the resident that resides within this mansion.)"

(Song Ends)

Location: Old Chateau (Entrance Foyer)

Haunted House/Super Mario 64 Original Soundtrack/Koji Kondo

(Song Begins)

A similar, yet mirrored trip to the room by the left staircase led to nothing save for a rotting piece of the famous Old Gateau cake—which Sceptile happily left alone. Then, a quick leap down from the second floor and Sceptile was back where it started. The Forest Pokémon was ready to proceed down the hallway that led to the dining room of the Old Chateau.

But before Sceptile could cross over to its next targeted area, the Forest Pokémon paused upon taking note of the statue once again.

…Or lack of it, to be more precise.

What was once a statue was no longer there, and the only thing that resided in its place was the stone stand where the statue once rested over.

Sceptile knew that there was no conflicting contradictions in its recent memory that would lead it to believe that its mind was playing tricks on it. All that it did know was that there might be some merit to the fact that the Old Chateau is deserted for a reason.

"(I suppose this place is as haunted as it appears to be…)"

With that thought now acknowledged as fact, Sceptile's steps packed less weight into them as the Forest Pokémon found itself slowly walking across the path that it was illuminating with its FLASH technique. And alongside this, Sceptile also found itself grasping the hilt of its buster sword with its one and only hand, clearly feeling unsettled to the point where it was ready to cleave anything that could potentially jump-scare the Forest Pokémon.

Location: Old Chateau (Dining Room)

The first think that Sceptile takes note of when it enters the dining room is the palpable fact that this place hasn't been used to serve food in years. The elongated dining table that luxuriously seated about a dozen people—or Pokémon, depending on who the owner of this place preferably served meals to—now rests here as a shadow of its former glory, serving nothing but dust to its nonexistent guests.

Sceptile was paying too much attention to this dining table. Because when it looked elsewhere to resume its search, it found itself instinctively drawing its weapon at what it just saw, without thinking about what it was.

What Sceptile saw was a ghost, a ghost of an elderly human butler that no doubt lived here years ago, but has long since passed away and still haunts these very parts.

Sceptile expected some sort of hostility from this formal poltergeist, and was ready to launch a NIGHT SLASH attack if the specter made any sudden moves.

But despite Sceptile's expectations, the apparition merely bowed down once, then floated back and away, disappearing into nothingness in the process.

"…" Sceptile remained on guard and stationary for a solid minute after seeing this spirit hover away and fade out of existence. Its eyes surveyed the room for wherever this ghost may have hidden itself. But it soon became clear to this Pokémon that the ghost was nowhere to be found and seen.

Sceptile sheathed its blade and found the afterthoughts of that butler perplexing as it continued looking for the Dread Plate within the remainder of this room. With the same alert and covert gait, Sceptile reached the leftmost and right most corners of the entire dining room, overturning everything with its observing eyes, alongside its left hand and acquired use of PSYCHIC, making sure that no square inch of this place was overlooked.

Unfortunately for Sceptile, the entirety of the dining room, ironically enough, harbored no more fruit than the entrance foyer or the library did. And as a result of this, Sceptile returned back to square one once more, and proceeded elsewhere within this massive home.

(Song Ends)

Location: Old Chateau – Floor 2 (Bedrooms)

Haunty Halls Galaxy/Super Mario Galaxy 2 Soundtrack/Mahito Yokota, Koji Kondo & the Mario Galaxy Orchestra

(Song Begins)

Strongly feeling that the only other area left to explore was the northern hallway on the second floor of the Old Chateau, Sceptile proceeded over towards there. And as a result, the Forest Pokémon was beginning to feel a strong sense of reaching the Dread Plate and claiming it as its prize, in the name of the Original One.

Upon crossing the hallway, Sceptile immediately took note of the architectural layout of this floor.

Five doors resided directly in front of the Forest Pokémon. Five doors, each of them lined up neatly and evenly spaced apart from each other. Meaning that, as far as Sceptile could assume before actually bothering to opening each door and inspecting the rooms within, each room was relatively large and all of them were worth exploring.

And since this was the last area to locate the Dread Plate within the Old Chateau, that particular elemental plate must reside within one of these room. All Sceptile had to do was inspect each room thoroughly, one by one, and the Dread Plate would be in its safe possession for its return trip back to Mt. Coronet.

"(Eenie, meenie, miney, mo.)" Sceptile pointed at random doors and settled in going down the rightmost door first.

Like every other door before this one, it opened with a creaking sound that signified it hadn't been used in years. And when Sceptile looked into what Door #5 had inside of its walls, Sceptile only felt downhearted by its contents.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Just dust on the ground and more cobwebs than a Spinarak could produce in its lifetime.

"(One down, four to go.)" Sceptile thought after exiting the room and proceeding over to the next door to its left.

While the rightmost room was entirely barren, the fourth room (second to the right) was an entirely different story. It was as a bedroom should be, complete with a bed, cabinets, a few pieces of furniture, and even a picture nailed onto a wall.

It even had an occupant living here.

"(…Oh shit.)" Sceptile once again found itself drawing its blade at the sight of another specter within the Old Chateau.

But unlike the first specter that Sceptile saw, which was of an elderly human butler, this second specter was on the opposite side of the age spectrum. This spirit was that of a little human girl, playful and innocent, especially when she looked at Sceptile and simply giggled at the sight of the Pokémon, regardless of its forced hostility towards her.

And much like the ghost of the butler past, the ghost of the little girl made her way out and departed from this place altogether. However, the way that she did so wasn't by floating back and disappearing when passing by the walls.

She floated right up to the door and exited, walking right through Sceptile, not even caring that Sceptile swung its sword once in a futile attempt at cleaving a harmless intangible entity.

With the ghost gone, Sceptile felt a particularly cold shiver course all the way through its body, one that kept Sceptile physically frozen for at least five seconds.

"(And I thought taking Aqua's ICE BEAM attacks to the face were cold…)" Sceptile's body felt numb as it thought this juxtaposition over.

With a final shudder, Sceptile mustered enough warmth to sheathe its weapon and continue with its search. But despite looking at every square inch of this room like with every other room before this one, there was nothing residing inside of here that originally and rightfully belonged to Arceus.

With that, Sceptile turned its back on this room and exited. And as Sceptile closed the door behind its tail, it failed to see that the picture inside of this place was looking at it with luminescent red eyes.

…Not like it mattered much to Sceptile, when it was more preoccupied with the possibility that all of its considered options were beginning to wear thin. But nevertheless, Sceptile pressed on, and proceeded through the middle door, still very much confident of locating the elemental plate.

Inside of the centermost room, there resided another bedroom, albeit much larger than the one to its right. This room, the master bedroom as it apparently is, packed at least twice as much more furniture than the previous room, even possessing two beds distinctly separated from each other.

…But there was still no Dread Plate, as Sceptile eventually came to the conclusion of, after another thorough search of this stuffy room.

"(Three doors down…two to go.)" Sceptile thought upon exiting, beginning to feel slight angst from its dwindling options.

Upon entering the door second to the left, yet another bedroom was what Sceptile saw. But the only difference with this particular bedroom was that there was a TV here.

Normally, Sceptile would just search the place as thoroughly and as similarly as it had done with all of the other rooms that it had entered and exited. However, when Sceptile's attention turned over to the TV, Sceptile realized something about it that made it appear highly suspect when compared to not just this room, but the entirety of this Old Chateau.

The TV…was entirely free of dust and appeared brand new, while everything else within the room appeared to possess more dust than their original furniture. That fact alone was more than worth speculating.

Sceptile stepped closer to the TV, taking one step every few seconds, on guard in case anything decided to jump up and scare the Forest Pokémon.

And sure enough, something did in fact jump up and scare Sceptile, but it wasn't anything physical or ethereal.

It actually came from the TV, in the form of it spontaneously turning on and crackling with static at full volume.

(Song Ends)

To Sceptile's sensitive sense of hearing, the aural assault almost felt as though someone took two spinning drills, stuck them into Sceptile's inner ears, and forced their tips to meet in the middle of Sceptile's mutilated skull. And unfortunately for Sceptile, it could only cover one of its ears, because of the harsh reminder that it has no right hand anymore.

Quickly, Sceptile moved to the TV and attempted to lower the volume or turn off the TV altogether. But as Sceptile moved closer to the static screen and therefore forced to hear the thunderous static with much more displeasure, no button mashing and knob turning in Sceptile's part did anything to mollify or silence the TV altogether.

And when Sceptile turned around to attempt to unplug the TV, Sceptile immediately noticed two startling things about this TV. One: it wasn't plugged into a wall socket. And two: There was no plug and wire on this TV to begin with.

With Sceptile's patience worn down to the bone by this abrasive sound, Sceptile options on how to ultimately silence this TV narrowed down to one satisfyingly malicious choice.

Sceptile arm reached for its buster sword, and with one mighty swing downward, the TV was cleaved into two perfect halves. Sparks flew from the single gaping wound of this television set, and the menacing static sound of it died down in an instant. The screen could no longer stay lit either when the circuitry was severed, destroyed, and divided into two halves. And that was all thanks to a massive bladed weapon that the Forest Pokémon narrowly sank down into the ground.

"(My ears are still ringing…)" Sceptile found it a bit difficult to listen to its own mental voice in between its pounding heartbeat and ringing of its ears.

Dislodging its buster sword from the wooden floor and sheathing it away, Sceptile proceeded over to the front of the TV display once again, satisfied in knowing that it was silenced after being split in two like a log of wood to a lumberjack's axe.

…Or so Sceptile thought, when the screen flickered back on, and the spearing static sound returned. However, because of Sceptile's sword, the screen now flickered and dimmed, while randomly shooting sparks from its severed wires. And while the static was still emanating from the powerful speakers, they weren't even at a quarter of their original volume.

But Sceptile mind was running at 100%, and right now, a thought coursed through Sceptile's head. An image, to be more specific, of a topic that Sceptile analyzed before and kept a bookmark over in case it would ever prove itself needed. And that image was of the notebook with that faded text that only now appears to fit…

"Som...hing so pecu...r shou... make off ...ith the mot..."

…Because Sceptile's subconscious pieced together the missing words…

"Something so peculiar should make off with the motor"

…And the identity of the cause of this TV coming back from the electronic dead centered down to only one Pokémon.

Promptly, the face of this Pokémon appeared on the screen of the divided TV set, and appeared disturbing as the features of its faces blended in ominously with the erratic static of the dimming screen. And to add to this haunting imagery, a high-pitched laughter emanated across the warped speakers, blending in with the sounds that Sceptile's sensitive and still ringing ears found disturbing.

Sceptile took note of how this Pokémon's face appeared on the halved TV screen. This Pokémon's face appeared rounded, with unique and oddly ovoid eyes, as well as a short, narrow horn on the top of its head, and a smaller rounded base that formed this Pokémon's neck. However, this Pokémon didn't necessarily have a neck, because it didn't possess a body. It was just a head in the shape of a lightning rod, and a disturbing one at that.

Suspecting the identity of this Pokémon now by its face and by its nature, Sceptile once again readied its weapon, angled it horizontally, crouched down, and formed a stance. With its focus and training through the ways of the aura through both of its Aura Pokémon comrades and the deceased Emanation Pokémon, Sceptile's buster sword began to illuminate with a dense black aura. And with NIGHT SLASH ready, a swift horizontal swipe made the already halved TV cleanly cut into four perfect quarters now.

And this time, the TV was too damaged to function properly, even by this particular Pokémon.

Not bothering with it anymore, the Pokémon possessing this TV made itself intangible as it ominously rose from the mausoleum of this electronic appliance. And as it did so, it continued to cackle with a sly smile stretched across its tiny face.

Once it became tangible, Sceptile took note of this Pokémon's existing features through the TV screen, but now added in three distinctions that the static on the monitor didn't account for.

One: this Pokémon's body is orange. Two: this Pokémon's eye color is a solid blue, with a white border around them. And three: this Pokémon's emanated a field of light blue electricity that distinctly gave it two "arms" of electricity.

There was no questioning who this Pokémon was now, through Sceptile's battle hardened eyes.

"…Rotom." Sceptile muttered in the middle of its adversary's electronic cackling.

(National Pokédex entry #479: Rotom, the Plasma Pokémon. It is an Electric-Type and Ghost-Type Pokémon that measures in at exactly 1' 00" and weighs in at a paperweight 0.7 lbs. Its body is composed of plasma. It is known to infiltrate electronic devices and wreak havoc. Its electric-like body can enter some kinds of machines and take control in order to make mischief. Research continues on this Pokémon, which could be the power source of a unique motor. Let's just hope for the sake of mankind that a Rotom doesn't overshadow a war machine…)

Theme (Luigi's Mansion)/Mario Bros./Super Smash Bros. Brawl OST

(Song Begins)

The fact that Sceptile knew Rotom's name didn't even bother the psychotic Plasma Pokémon. It merely continued laughing through a voice that emulated an electronic synthesizer or static through a radio station, thinking of Sceptile as a natural comedian, as though the Forest Pokémon's very actions and very disposition were comedy gold.

Sceptile didn't need its extrasensory abilities to determine the aura of this individual, and therefore ascertain this Pokémon's nature. It's already plainly written all over its face that this Pokémon is unstable beyond measure. All the left-handed swordsman did was ready its weapon and what it was certain would lead up to a battle.

But Rotom didn't wish to fight Sceptile, at least not just yet.

"Sceptile, Sceptile, Sceptile…" Rotom suddenly decided to speak in a voice half electronic and half high-pitched. "It must weigh heavily on your body and soul the burden of the loss of your beloved Tiny Riolu."

"…!" It was as though Rotom had watched Sceptile's events like a TV show, and the Forest Pokémon had absolutely no proper counterargument against this.

"Because, of all of the Coadjutors of the Pokémon of Prophecy, you've lost the most and faced the hardest emotional reactions against such hardships."

Sceptile didn't know what was more unbelievable, that Rotom knew of itself and perhaps even its friends, that Rotom called it a "Coadjutor of the Pokémon of Prophecy", or that Rotom decided this was the proper time to talk when Sceptile was readied to combat against it.

The actual answer to that is none of the above. What Sceptile found the most unbelievable about this Pokémon, or perhaps the most insulting thing about Rotom, was the way everything it said had that obnoxious laugh, as though this Pokémon just heard the most hilarious joke and can't take its mind off of it, or it just can't take anything seriously, such as Sceptile's responsive hostility.

"I actually find it quite humorous how you've bounced back so fast and only show for it with your scars and your…crude excuse for a prosthetic arm."

A vein now protruded from the side of Sceptile forehead, and the Forest Pokémon immediately pointed the tip of his seemingly heavy blade right between Rotom's eyes. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't cut off that smart-ass mouth of yours with my 'crude excuse for a prosthetic arm'."

Even when staring danger in the face, Rotom's smile never turned upside down, and Rotom's behavior never scratched.

But Rotom's tone of voice did change, into one that became an innocent sing-song. "Because I know something that you don't."

Sceptile's grip on its oversized weapon almost slipped when it heard Rotom say that. And considering the concrete fact that Rotom already said so much that was true regarding Sceptile and the rest of the "Coadjutors of the Pokémon of Prophecy", there was absolutely no doubt in Sceptile mind as to what Rotom would say next.

So Sceptile said it for Rotom, and said it antagonistically against the laughing poltergeist antagonist. "Tell me where the Dread Plate is!"

With another shrill laugh through its electronic voice, Rotom laughed off Sceptile's verbal and physical threats as though they were nothing.

"You'll have to catch me first!" Rotom quickly said in between its laughs, before it dropped down to the ground, phased through it, and disappeared from sight.

For a very brief moment, Sceptile was left frozen in place, its buster sword pointing at nothing but air, and its mind still comprehending the fact that Rotom is now just toying with it.

And then with a frustrated growl, Sceptile activated its Aura Vision ability, and then ran out of this room, in hot pursuit of the prankster Plasma Pokémon, towards the room that Rotom most likely descended down into.

(Song Ends)

46.4: Ghostbuster

Location: Old Chateau (Dining Room)

Type A (Tetris)/NES Classics/Super Smash Bros. Brawl OST

(Song Begins)

Sceptile returned to the Dining Room of the Old Chateau with much more fire emanating within its heart, fueled by the sparked spite directed towards the little pest of a Ghost-Type Pokémon that is basically taking the Void of the Dark One as a cruel, sick joke.

With sword ready and seed-like nodules still illuminating the dark setting via FLASH, Sceptile's Aura Vision eyes rolled about in their sockets and scanned for the telltale traces of Rotom's distinct aura signature.

But as Sceptile prowled the Dining Room, all Sceptile was seeing were the faint aura signatures of its surroundings, and nothing that would give away Rotom's present location.

That being said, it soon became clear that Rotom was here, and was ready to fight Sceptile with just as much fire in its little heart as the Forest Pokémon.

When Sceptile entered the kitchen portion of the dining room once more, the portable oven within this room spontaneously came alive before Sceptile beaming eyes. And before it knew it, Rotom itself overshadowed this oven and took on this appliance's appearance.

In short, Rotom's electric aura and eyes became red, its arms resembled oven mitts, and its body now appeared as though it was the oven itself.

(Heat Rotom, one of five alternate forms of Rotom. It is an Electric-Type and Fire-Type Pokémon, with OVERHEAT as its distinct move.)

Sceptile only had enough time to put its sword down like a wall, crouch down and hide behind it before Heat Rotom opened the oven door on its center and ejected one massive fireball in the form of a powerful OVERHEAT attack.

The attack illuminated the room much brighter than Sceptile's FLASH did, for the brief period of time that it existed, and it roared right into Sceptile's buster sword, detonating upon impact and enveloping the area in a cloud of smoke, as well as lighting a few wooden pieces of furniture on fire.

Sceptile would've been sent flying if it took the attack head on, but thanks to its defensive stance, all Sceptile endured was a cloud of smoke making it difficult to breathe for a moment.

"(Little bastards like him shouldn't be playing with fire to begin with…)" Sceptile cursed at Rotom's unexpected attack before standing back up.

With its current and special eyes, the smoke surrounding Sceptile was no more opaque as air. And Sceptile was able to inspect Heat Rotom's aura as the Plasma Pokémon stood idly by, still chuckling to itself after firing that OVERHEAT attack.

"(What in the…?)"

Much to Sceptile's surprise, Heat Rotom's aura was nonexistent, and only the aura of the appliance it was overshadowing was displayed for Sceptile to see.

But before Sceptile could make sense of this and/or lash out at the banshee arsonist, a second Rotom made itself appear and overshadowed another kitchen appliance, a refrigerator. And much like Heat Rotom, this Rotom's body adopted the schematics of the refrigerator, its aura and eye color turned purple, and its arms became lightning bolts in their shape.

(Frost Rotom, one of five alternate forms of Rotom. It is an Electric-Type and Ice-Type Pokémon, with BLIZZARD as its distinct move.)

This Frost Rotom's stood beside Heat Rotom and its distinct attack came in as immediately as its surprise appearance, and it opened its refrigerator doors to fire away a chilling blizzard attack, instantly extinguishing the Heat Rotom's crossfire, blowing away the smoke from Heat Rotom's post-attack, and forcing Sceptile to brave the BLIZZARD that roared past its blade and by its body.

Only this time, there was no evading this BLIZZARD because the freezing temperatures of the wind chill alone collected all over Sceptile's vulnerable body and made it unable to flee. And ultimately, as luck would have it for Frost Rotom, Sceptile was inevitably rendered frozen solid, blade and all.

From here, neither Frost Rotom nor Heat Rotom came in to attack the Forest Pokémon popsicle, or even approach it and lick it for that matter.

The honor of attacking Sceptile now came in the form of a third Rotom entering the scene. And this one felt like overshadowing a ceiling fan and assimilating it into its repertoire.

In becoming Fan Rotom, this Rotom's aura and eyes turned yellow, its arm became air-like and coiled, with the fan it possessing now over its head.

(Fan Rotom, one of five alternate forms of Rotom. It is an Electric-Type and Flying-Type Pokémon, with AIR SLASH as its distinct move.)

Happily, Fan Rotom did the honors of blowing the frozen Forest Pokémon away from the kitchen and back into the dining room, by turning up the fan on its head and firing away countless blades of condense air, right at the sitting target.

Through its frigid prison, Sceptile's flickering concentration on its Aura Vision gave it a distorted view of the incoming air blades. It could hear a hollowed distortion of air cutting away at its frozen status, before Fan Rotom's AIR SLASH successfully lifted Sceptile off of its feet and sent sliding on the dining room table.

Sceptile's frozen status crumbled away and fragments of its icy shell scattered all about the dining room table, and the elongated floor where this same table stood on. Sceptile's back and buster sword slid backwards on this table, and the Forest Pokémon continued so until there was no table left at all. The wall then caught Sceptile by the head, stopping its momentum backwards and leaving it with a piercing headache as it staggered back to its feet, feeling slightly hypothermic after being frozen alive.

But there was no time to collect the fragments of its composure when Sceptile noticed these three Rotom—the Fan Rotom, Frost Rotom, and Heat Rotom—slowly approached the Forest Pokémon, childishly, as though Sceptile were nothing more than a play toy rather than a formidable opponent.

Or perhaps Sceptile was a formidable opponent, but the Rotom trio didn't necessarily care.

Sceptile readied its weapon again and inspected these three Rotom with its Aura Vision ability. And exactly like before in the case with Heat Rotom, the only aura that Sceptile sensed was the faint traces of it emanating from the eclipsed appliances, and not the aura from the Rotom themselves.

Was it possible that this Rotom is using DOUBLE TEAM and simply using hollow clones to possess these appliances to attack Sceptile with? Or was it possible that Rotom, when it overshadows an electrical appliance, masks its aura behind the machine?

Either way, Sceptile didn't suspect it was going to get the answers to those two questions by simply asking the laughing Plasma Pokémon. It would only obtain these answers by fighting them.

"Look at you, Sceptile!" Heat Rotom started.

"You're all dirty from the dust!" Fan Rotom added.

"We should take care of that for you!" Frost Rotom ended.

Sceptile felt itself grow more irritated by their tones of voices and rushed them with blade in hand, to silence them and free their bane from its existence.

Unfortunately for Sceptile, a geyser of water suddenly erupted from below Sceptile's position, bursting clean through the worn wood floor, and forced it all the way up to the ceiling of this room. The rising force of the water, for the brief period of time that it lasted, managed to pin it directly onto the ceiling, narrowly causing it to lose its grasp on its own sword. And when the waterworks subsided, Sceptile felt as though it took a cannonball to the stomach, and fell to the ground, just short of the hole that now existed on the floor.

And from that hole, as Sceptile struggled to get up, emerged a fourth Rotom, one that possessed a washing machine. Its electric aura and its interesting eyes were an oceanic blue, its "arms" were in the shape of clothespins with one of them holding onto a waterline, and on its center was the sealed door that opened up to the inner workings of the machine itself.

(Wash Rotom, one of five alternate forms of Rotom. It is an Electric-Type and Water-Type Pokémon, with HYDRO PUMP as its distinct move.)

"And now there's another one…" Sceptile grumbled while getting back up.

"No, not really…" Wash Rotom said with stifled laughter. "There's a fifth Rotom unaccounted for."

"What are you—?"

Sceptile was cut short by a barrage of leaves that burst through the wall separating the Old Chateau from the outside world. The leaves struck Sceptile with enough force that, whether or not Sceptile innately resisted them because of its Grass-Type Attribute, still knocked it onto its tailed ass.

And then the source of this surprise attack emerged from the wall it made, by leaping right through it like a circus Luxray through a flaming hoop.

As the Wash Rotom said, a fifth Rotom was once unaccounted for, but is now here and as cheerful as its four other brethren. This Rotom in particular took over a lawnmower, taking its shape, with a green aura and equally green eyes. And of all five of these alternate forms of Rotom, Mow Rotom had the widest of grins, with what appeared to be a ripped piece of grass by its mouth.

(Mow Rotom, one of five alternate forms of Rotom. It is an Electric-Type and Grass-Type Pokémon, with LEAF STORM as its distinct move.)

Upon getting up, Sceptile was greeted by a surprisingly intimidating site of a total of five Rotom, all of them glaring down and laughing at the Forest Pokémon, and still doing so when Sceptile stood back up.

And then from the dusted floor, a sixth Rotom rose up and emerged, between the alternate Rotom and Sceptile. This Rotom, unlike any of the five directly behind it, didn't assimilate an appliance and take on its properties. It merely remained normal and stared down the Forest Pokémon.

(Song Ends)

…This is the Rotom that, when Sceptile analyzed the Plasma Pokémon's aura signature with its Aura Vision, emanated its aura as brilliantly as its own electricity. And because of that, Sceptile confirmed one key fact about Rotom, which was its battle strategy.

"You're a little shit, do you know that?" Sceptile began, hoisting its sword against the six Rotom, five false and one true. "Resorting to your use of DOUBLE TEAM to outnumber me, and resorting to cheap tactics to gain an edge over me."

All six of the Rotom, upon hearing this, continued to laugh pseudo-artificially amongst themselves, still treating Sceptile's words as though they belonged to a joker, no matter how serious it sounded.

But then the laughing ceased altogether for the original Rotom and it said its mind to Sceptile, with an attitude that was almost entirely the polar opposite of its earlier disposition.

"This coming from the hypocrite that drove out the Pokémon natives of Celadon Forest!" Rotom shouted, its electronic voice crackling malevolently now, for no apparent reason. "All because one worthless Pokémon fell victim to the blight that is mankind!"

What Sceptile was hearing was practically taboo to its heart and soul, and aggravated Sceptile deeper than any other means could ever do.

"Compared to the thousands of Pokémon that meet their ends every single second, what makes Tiny Riolu so special?!"

Sceptile didn't even growl when it lunged forward towards Rotom. Its teeth were too clenched into each other for that. All Sceptile did was give zero warning when it made the motion of tearing Rotom apart into two silenced halves with one single swing of its sword.

But Rotom didn't even take notice of this. It didn't even flinch. Rotom simply stood firm as though nothing happened, especially when the DOUBLE TEAM clones behind it fired off all of their signature attacks simultaneously at Sceptile.

AIR SLASH, BLIZZARD, HYDRO PUMP, LEAF STORM, and OVERHEAT. Sceptile's straightforward attack was killed over with ice, fire, water, grass, and wind respectively, and the Forest Pokémon's back and held blade met wood once more.

Still, Sceptile was resilient and trained to endure such powerful hits through the course of its experiences with its powerful friends. It sprang back upright and came after the sextet Rotom once again.

However, Sceptile misjudged the rapidity of their second wave of these same five attacks, and found itself immediately putting the broadside of its buster sword before itself to defend itself from the amalgamation of stalwart elemental Pokémon attacks.

And unlike before, where the five Rotom fired these attacks in one quick burst, they were all now maintaining the power of this attack and holding it for as long as Sceptile's grasp on its sword could hold.

But the problem here was that Sceptile's grip wasn't the weak link in this forced defense. It was actually Sceptile's buster blade itself.

With flames rolling by through the winds, with leaves blowing by through the whiteouts, and with water spraying it as though it was shot out of a fire hose, Sceptile's was astonished to see that its very weapon, one that it has had in its possession for years, was beginning to show signs of cracking under the pressure. With these five attacks striking near the base of the blade, it was as though the decades of natural wear through fire, ice, nature, wind, and water was sped up to mere seconds, and then kept on going, until it became hopelessly irreversible.

CRACK!

Not even a minute passed until Sceptile heard the distinct sound of metal breaking in two, before sustaining a direct hit to the torso from the conjoined attacks of the five alternate Rotom. Sceptile was knocked back down once again, and its grip on its sword alongside the blade itself, was lost.

Sceptile feebly stood up and could feel, on its chest, how it sustained some lacerations that were mixed in along with some more burns, both from the fire and from the frostbite.

But Sceptile's buster sword was a different story altogether.

One quick glimpse at the fact that its blade was crudely broken off of the base told Sceptile more than enough about its weapon. It was dead now, and trying to repair it would prove pointless.

And when Sceptile looked back at its six smiling opponents, with their twelve round eyes glaring down at the Forest Pokémon, a shuddering thought entered Sceptile mind, one that it didn't expect until it realized just how significant the loss of its weapon was.

Despair/Naruto Shippuden Original Soundtrack/Toshiro Masuda

(Song Begins)

Losing the buster sword was as equally significant to Sceptile as losing its right arm, because Sceptile has long since regarded that weapon as a means of making up for its handicap. But deeper down, it was more substantial that than.

The blade lying there, broken in two, reminded Sceptile of the loss of Tiny Riolu, and how emotionally scarring the overall lucid memory was to recall to this day. To the Forest Pokémon's subconscious, it regarded the buster sword like its fallen friend. And seeing the broken blade reminded Sceptile of the pain it endured when the mutilated and charred Emanation Pokémon feebly uttered its last words before dying in the grasp of his intact left arm.

The overpowering thoughts were so dominating to the feeble Forest Pokémon's mind that Sceptile lost all attention, focus, and interest in this battle. Sceptile's Aura Vision ceased entirely and it simply collapsed onto its knees, reached for both pieces of its former weapon, and tried to fix them by hopelessly clicking both halves in place. And all throughout this, tears began to roll down the scales of Sceptile's cheeks, its breathing became hollow and raspy, and all it could picture within its mind was how this was like Tiny Riolu's death, all over again.

Right down to the smallest detail of the setting it began to hallucinate.

All six Rotom saw this and didn't know what to make of this odd behavior. They all stopped chuckling malevolently amongst each other and heard the heartbroken Forest Pokémon begin to quietly mutter to itself as it awkwardly fidgeted with both sword halves with its left arm only.

"It's okay…Tiny… You're…still alright…" Sceptile said, its face gnarled and wet to the point where its crying was getting onto its trembling hand. "You're…you're not…dead. You're just…fast…asleep."

In reality, Sceptile was hopelessly putting both halves of its weapon together as though they were two puzzle pieces that could never be united. But within its pockmarked mind, Sceptile re-imagined a dark moment of its memory, one that it has never told anyone about, and has struggled at first to keep it suppressed, but now has it resurfaced in all of its ugly glamour.

In short, it was between Tiny's death and Tiny's inevitable cremation. Sceptile's denial shortly following the Emanation Pokémon's death led the Forest Pokémon, in a confused and traumatizing moment of its mental state, to go and find the lost right arm, right leg, and tip of Tiny's tail. But because they were basically obliterated in the explosion alongside Sceptile's right arm, Sceptile's warped judgment made it resort to using short sticks to try and replace Tiny's amputations with.

So through the broken blade, Sceptile was seeing and reliving the moment where it was failingly connecting Tiny's "limbs" back onto its cadaver with items readily available on the forest floor.

"Here…Tiny…" Sceptile continued sobbing over its faint words. "I found…your arm…your leg…and your tail… They broke…off of you…in the…explosion… I'll put them…back onto you…as they were…"

"…" Even Rotom couldn't help but feel uncomfortable by this depressing moment.

"Just…" Sceptile eventually stopped fussing with the sword, with the Emanation Pokémon it saw through its mind's eye. "Just…wake up…soon…once…I…make you…feel…b-b-b…"

There was no point in finishing what couldn't be accomplished in its words.

When Sceptile stopped speaking through its weeping, it remained motionless. It just remained on its knees, its head tilted to the ground, its left arm dead still, and its dimming back arched melancholically. The drive to fight Rotom and obtain the Dread Plate was now completely out of its mind.

…And then Sceptile heard the sounds of gathering energy right in front of its face.

(Song Ends)

Just barely bothering to look up, Sceptile's tender eyes took note of the fact that the original Rotom began to charge a SHADOW BALL attack, while its DOUBLE TEAM duplicates behind it all began to generate electricity, readying themselves to fire THUNDERBOLT simultaneously.

The drive to fight left Sceptile, but it still very much remained in Rotom.

"One pointblank shot to your skull should end your lingering troubles, Coadjutor." Rotom said, with a serious tone to its electronic voice this time.

"…" Sceptile simply stared at the spectral energy collecting itself within this sphere before Rotom's face, not even bothering to glance over at the electricity coursing through its replications. And inside Sceptile's mind, it just couldn't care less.

"And then you'll be reunited with the Pokémon that you and you alone believe to be so bloody important."

"…" With no drive to try to stop this, Sceptile found itself smiling slightly at the simple thought of seeing Tiny once again, after so many years.

Rotom said nothing more and all six of them fired their attacks, one SHADOW BALL in front of five THUNDERBOLT attacks meeting together into one point before rolling over across the air towards the hopeless Forest Pokémon.

CRASH!

But something coming down from the second floor of the Old Chateau had a strong say otherwise about this.

Through the hole that this Pokémon made, the identity of this Pokémon was momentarily shrouded over when this Pokémon conjured PROTECT a split second before it hovered directly between Sceptile, the six Rotom, and their six incoming attacks.

Rotom's SHADOW BALL came in first, colliding and exploding onto impact with the PROTECT bulwark, unleashing a cloud of camouflaging smoke and a few more clouds of uplifted dust as a result of the detonation. None of which offered any resistance when the thunderbolts came rushing in a fraction of a second later. They all struck the defensive bubble of psychic energy, but merely rolled all around it a few times before dissipating altogether.

"(What in the world?)" Rotom thought to itself, unable to see what existed beyond the smoke that flooded the room.

In a few moments, light from Sceptile's fading, yet satisfactory use of FLASH began to penetrate through the dark cloud, and Rotom was beginning to see what it was that came in and blocked those six attacks in one fell swoop.

Whatever it was, Rotom could begin to note signs of the Pokémon being sword-like in shape.

But that was as far as Rotom could go in analyzing this Pokémon before this Pokémon switched to offense in one literal swoop.

This Pokémon swung itself once and sliced through Rotom's small body with one accurately launched NIGHT SLASH attack.

Rotom hardly saw the attack coming and felt as though it were cut in two. But because of its ethereal Ghost-Type properties—that it should count itself fortunate it didn't abandon by coming into possession of any one of those five appliances and adopting their distinct attributes—, its body didn't divide upon taking a horizontal swipe across its face.

Instead, Rotom sustained a surplus of pain and fell far back, taking in a dose of its own medicine and crashing into a wall. The Rotom clones behind it would've caught Rotom mid-flight, if it weren't for the fact that Rotom's use of DOUBLE TEAM faded away when the original is struck down. So because of that, Rotom left a dent in the wall with its head before sliding down to the ground in a weakened slump, and the five appliances that Rotom no longer possessed reverted back to their basic states and fell with a loud thud onto the grimy wooden floor.

The debris cloud finally faded away, and Sceptile found itself hollowly staring on at a Pokémon that saved its life.

It was a Honedge, blade unsheathed, facing Rotom, and holding onto its elaborate scabbard with its cloth-like hand.

(National Pokédex entry #679: Honedge, the Sword Pokémon. It is a Ghost-Type and Steel-Type Pokémon that measures in at 2' 07" and weighs in at a lightweight 4.4 lbs. Apparently, this Pokémon is born when a departed spirit inhabits a sword. It attaches itself to people and drinks their life force. If anyone dares to grab its hilt, it wraps a blue cloth around that person's arm and drains that person's life energy completely. So, if you ever see this sword lodged in a stone, stay the hell away from it! Even if you're Prince Arthur or the Hero of Hyrule!)

"Despicable little Pokémon…" Honedge spoke with an experienced tone of telepathic voice.

Seeing how Rotom was knocked unconscious for the time being, Honedge turned its attention over towards the Forest Pokémon that it protected and perhaps even saved its life.

"Are you alright, noble Coadjutor?" Honedge addressed Sceptile, with the same word that Rotom used.

"…" Sceptile continued staring on into what took Rotom's place with the same hollow and pathetic look that it had moments before Rotom threatened to blow off its head.

"…" Honedge didn't want to do this, but Sceptile's mental absence in the world of reality forced its choice of options.

SMACK!

With its held scabbard, Honedge essentially slapped Sceptile's face one time with it.

This brought Sceptile immediately back to its senses, out of its emotional funk, and back into seeing what it was that was occurring before its eyes.

Immediately, Sceptile took note of how Rotom was knocked unconscious, the appliances its DOUBLE TEAM duplicates once overshadowed were crudely toppled over on the floor, and how this Honedge was now before Sceptile, looking at it with its one blue gem of an eye.

Honedge could sense Sceptile's full attention now. "It's a sincere honor to finally meet you, Coadjutor of the Pokémon of Prophecy."

Sceptile quizzically looked at this Pokémon and found it unusual how the Sword Pokémon referred to it by that title again, but even more so by the apparent fanaticism of this hovering blade.

"Do I…do you know me or something?" Sceptile almost said the opposite of that out of reflex.

"Not personally, actually," Honedge admitted. "But I'm a fan of your work alongside your fellow comrades in your self-named Team Liberator group."

"(This Pokémon…)" Sceptile began to ponder. "(This Pokémon knows me somehow… Does it know of my accomplishments with Xeno and my friends? If that's the case, then why does it use the word 'Coadjutor', just as Rotom did?)"

Sceptile had no time to ask its surprise ally/fan anything about it, because Rotom suddenly came out of its state and proceeded to immediately use DOUBLE TEAM to make itself total six once again.

Both Pokémon watched as Rotom was proceeding to return to its earlier state, before Honedge burst through the ceiling and slashed Rotom with NIGHT SLASH. And from here, Honedge knew that time was of the essence against this obnoxiously persistent opponent.

So Honedge kept its words as concise as possible.

"We've just met, Coadjutor, and I'm asking a lot from you without your opinion or trust." Honedge began. "But I wish to fight by your side against Rotom. And then I will let you know what you wish to know about me."

A second of glimpsing over at the Rotom duplicates overshadowing their respective appliances and become Fan Rotom, Frost Rotom, Heat Rotom, Mow Rotom, and Wash Rotom was all the time that Sceptile needed to make its judgment. Sceptile looked back at Honedge, smiled at it, and go up onto its feet before positioning itself so that its right, limbless shoulder was facing the Sword Pokémon.

"I don't see myself as having a choice on the matter." Sceptile said, making it sound as though it favored this option, even though the word choice would normally say otherwise.

Honedge didn't have to bother sensing Sceptile's disposition to know that it was in full agreement with fighting alongside itself as an ally. And on any other moment in time, Honedge would be absolutely ecstatic with fighting alongside Xeno Lucario's Coadjutor. But for now, Honedge will express its joy to Sceptile about fighting alongside it after it expresses the ectoplasm out of Rotom.

Acting quickly, Honedge sheathed itself inside of its own scabbard and moved towards the Forest Pokémon. Sceptile, in its immediate part to this, unlatched its former buster sword's holster off of its body, moments before Honedge replaced it with its own scabbard. And from there, Sceptile drew Honedge from its scabbard, but not with its own arm. Honedge did so with the cloth-like fabric of its arm, after it firmly gripped the fleshy stub that Sceptile had on its right shoulder that was once the Forest Pokémon's right arm.

Seeing Honedge unsheathed and silver blade shining brilliantly through the reflected light of its refueled luminescence, Sceptile felt as though a part of its body that was long ago missing was now right by its side again, in the form of Honedge as its right arm. But even though Sceptile couldn't feel its right arm because Honedge wasn't truly its right arm, the substitution didn't feel as such. It felt proper. It felt needed.

It felt right.

…But it also felt like something was leeching the life force out of Sceptile, like a bloodthirsty Zubat, only without teeth.

"…Sorry about that." Honedge mentioned. "It's in my nature to feed off of whatever my arm is in contact with."

"You don't have to apologize," Sceptile reassured its right hand Pokémon. "I possess far more power than the Pokémon norm, and you're only taking a handful of leaves from my forest of vitality."

Honedge almost found Sceptile's statement to be so unbelievable that it neglected to speak in response to that. "I suppose this is what it feels like to gain power from one of Xeno's Coadjutors."

Sceptile did its best to ignore the prodding question of Honedge's knowledge of Sceptile's friends and the title the Sword Pokémon was referring it by. "Use my strength wisely."

"Of course," Honedge simply said, eyeing down their enemies.

With all six Rotom forms now present and accounted for, they all returned to their haunting electronic laughter and eyed their two opponents. They said nothing in the matter, but they knew that they had numbers on their side, outnumbering their adversaries three-to-one.

Of course, Honedge and Sceptile said nothing in the matter either, because they both knew that they outmatched Rotom and its five DOUBLE TEAM doppelgangers, especially if the original Rotom is struck down again.

Rotom knew that, which is why it and its allies launched another barrage of their signature attacks, while Rotom itself shot out a THUNDERBOLT.

Five Finger Fillet/Nero (CD 1 – Official)/Two Steps From Hell

(Song Begins)

Sceptile's eyes immediately gleamed gold, it brought up its arms in the shape of an X and both Honedge and it conjured a PROTECT bulwark to shrug off all of the attacks as though they were nothing. The attacks simply rolled off of the rotund bubble and lost their power before they could damage the Old Chateau more than what was already done beforehand.

Feeling a sense of worry begin to surface on its happy face, Rotom issued an immediate verbal command to have its clones scatter and attack both allied Pokémon on their own terms.

With their defensive wall receded, Honedge and Sceptile went into the offensive. The leaves on Sceptile's left arm glowed green before morphing into a crescent-shaped LEAF BLADE, and Honedge's body (blade) elongated with energy from itself and from that of Sceptile's "borrowed" aura, forming the exceptionally powerful SACRED SWORD technique.

Now dual-wielding bladed techniques, Honedge and Sceptile showed absolutely no mercy to the misbehaving Plasma Pokémon or its shallow clones, for a surplus of reasons that Sceptile would simply rather keep to itself, instead of hemorrhaging them out onto the wooden floor again.

Incoming first came Heat Rotom, firing off one OVERHEAT attack and launching it right at Sceptile's face.

Neither Honedge nor Sceptile backed down at seeing this incoming fireball. Sceptile simply leapt right at it, imbued its tail with the power of metal, and swiftly swung its tail to bat the great ball of fire right back at its origin, hardly injuring itself with how brief the time frame was for a four-digit heat ball touching Sceptile's hardened tail.

Heat Rotom could only watch at OVERHEAT was sent back to its sender via Sceptile's IRON TAIL before becoming entirely consumed by it, appliance and all.

With five to go, Honedge and Sceptile rushed over to the next closest Rotom clone. To their three totaled eyes Frost Rotom and Mow Rotom came charging in. And each of them launched their strongest attacks, BLIZZARD and LEAF STORM.

LEAF STORM came in towards Honedge and Sceptile first. And because of their Type Attributes, neither of them backed down. They simply rain right through the leaves, both Pokémon moving their blades so fast and so accurately that virtually every fired leaf coming their way was mowed down by blindingly fast contacting swings.

And then when Frost Rotom's BLIZZARD rolled by, Sceptile merely acrobatically leapt right over it, and temporarily defied gravity as it latched onto the ceiling with its claws and with Honedge's help, before rebounding off of it and coming down onto both Pokémon, at the same time, one blade per Rotom.

Before the vision of both Rotom became halved when their heads and bodies were split down the middle, before their bodies were dissipated, and before their possessed appliances were cleaved cleanly in two, Sceptile and Honedge drove their blades down on them, LEAF BLADE for Frost Rotom and SACRED SWORD for Mow Rotom.

"Three down…" Sceptile began.

"Three to go…" Honedge finished.

Both Pokémon turned to face the remaining Fan Rotom, Wash Rotom, and the original Rotom. And it was clear on their faces and their noticeable absence of obnoxious laughter that if Honedge and Sceptile could take out half of them without so much as taking a scratch, then the remaining half wouldn't stand a chance against this bladed duo.

Knowing that, Honedge changed attack tactics, from using SACRED SWORD to using NIGHT SLASH, knowing who remains and what Type Attributes they possess. Sceptile emulated Honedge's tactics, and used NIGHT SLASH as well, the blade on its arm transforming from a green crescent to a black straightedge.

"This is your last chance," Honedge addressed the three Rotom, even though only one of them had a sense of hearing worth referring to.

"Tell me where the Dread Plate is and I'll cut you all in two." Sceptile ordered darkly.

"D-don't you mean 'or'?" Rotom said, the slightest twinge of fear apparent in its electronic tone of voice.

Sceptile couldn't help but smile as malevolently as Rotom at this point. "…I know what I said."

Feeling quite vindictive right now, Sceptile leapt high into the air and homed in towards Fan Rotom first, targeting the most advantageous typing against it first.

Fan Rotom made sure to give everything it had in its AIR SLASH attack, and made wave after wave of sharpened blades of air fly out of the rotating fan on its head.

Sceptile would've met these blades head on, but Honedge raised itself right between the incoming attacks, throwing away its NIGHT SLASH cloak, and casting PROTECT around itself (and around Sceptile), without so much as either of them discussing anything else on the matter.

Already, a bond was beginning to form between these two Pokémon, and a supportive, synergistic strength began to emerge amongst them.

Sceptile simply nodded to Honedge while it was still able to look at the Forest Pokémon while casting PROTECT, and Honedge blinked once to show Sceptile its gratitude.

Instead of disengaging PROTECT when Honedge and Sceptile met Fan Rotom directly, Honedge retained the defensive wall, and used it as a battering Gogoat of sorts of crash right into Fan Rotom. Of course, Fan Rotom avoided this, but it wasn't used to facing two opponents in tandem, and Sceptile simply sliced it once with a sideways chop of NIGHT SLASH, cutting Fan Rotom and its harbored appliance in two.

All that remained was Wash Rotom and Rotom, and Wash Rotom was driven to avenge its four DOUBLE TEAM clones to the best of its abilities. It fired off one HYDRO PUMP attack right at the dynamic duo and gave it all of the water it could give.

This time, it was Sceptile's turn to defend, though it did so not with PROTECT, but with DETECT instead. In doing so with DETECT, Sceptile's flexible body literally bent around HYDRO PUMP, its acquired Aura Vision ability allowing it to see the attack come and react effectively against it.

And with Honedge re-readying NIGHT SLASH, there was no hope for Wash Rotom as it took one clean puncture hit through the center door on its body, and Wash Rotom was no more. All that remained of it was another destroyed appliance, sentenced to the scrap heap with its broken door.

(Song Ends)

After Honedge pulled itself out of the washing machine, the only Pokémon that remained for the two of them to tackle was Rotom itself. And because Rotom knew of the location of the Dread Plate, Sceptile's tactics had to change against it, for the time being.

Menacingly approaching the frightened and retreating Plasma Pokémon, Sceptile disengaged its Aura Vision and use of NIGHT SLASH, not needing them at the moment and not sensing any intent to fight back from this hollow little Pokémon. Honedge sensed Sceptile's choice of actions and logic behind them, through the energy it could feel flowing from the Forest Pokémon into itself, and withdrew itself back into the sheath behind Sceptile's back. It then relinquished its leeching grip on Sceptile's right shoulder and let its cloth-like arm float and wave freely, almost as though it were Sceptile's right arm.

As Sceptile slowly stepped closer, Rotom continued to float back, until it could no longer do so when its back met a wall.

Sceptile could see Rotom's face clearer than ever now, even if the light shining from its back were to die out now. Rotom's face was full of fright, but it still twitched with the occasional smile and the faint laugh that squeezed shortly out of Rotom's throat, wherever such a structure is on its little body.

Sceptile stopped when Rotom did and never let its eyes leave the Plasma Pokémon. It was about to begin to interrogate Rotom, when Rotom's words beat Sceptile to the punch.

…And quickly defeated the purpose.

"The Dread Plate is in the first room to the far left on the second floor, just where we first met actually." Rotom spoke too fast that it was almost incoherent jargon.

Sceptile's serious countenance almost broke like glass upon hearing where the item was located this whole time, and how close Sceptile was to it, as it immediately realized.

With one last chuckle, Rotom's body began to turn transparent and fade away altogether.

"It was fun playing with you, Coadjutor. And you too, Coadjutor-to-be. Hopefully, we'll meet again in the future." Rotom addressed both of them with surprising honesty as it departed elsewhere. "I'm actually looking forward to that."

With those last words, Rotom exited the scene as any Ghost-Type Pokémon would, leaving both Honedge and Sceptile to look at the scene and question the mischievous Pokémon.

Sceptile, for good measure, reinitiated its Aura Vision ability and scanned the area, but found nothing of Rotom. Nothing at all. It's gleaming golden eyes then turned off and Sceptile only had one thought about Rotom, after all it did and after all that the Forest Pokémon sustained as a result.

"…Why is it always the small ones that cause the most trouble?" Sceptile said, ultimately having no lingering like or dislike to the Plasma Pokémon.

With the battle over in what most would consider being a draw, Sceptile went over to inspect what it had lost in this match.

…Its broken buster sword.

As Sceptile looked down at it melancholically, deep down, it knew that the weapon wouldn't last the Forest Pokémon forever. And quite honestly, when Sceptile recalls how long it has had the absurdly large blade for, it can't believe it has lasted this long, only needing to be sharpened and/or cleaned of blood and debris from time to time.

The blade has lasted Sceptile for years. It has been used in numerous fights, against both enemies and friends alike, such as just now against Rotom or so long ago when Xeno Lucario returned to Celadon Forest under the relinquished name of Team Rocket. It has been used to cleave down trees in two and strike at rock and even steel, both inorganic and organic, without so much as denting as a result. It has helped Sceptile's left arm gain the strength of four, and helped Sceptile escape the thought of its right arm no longer existing.

And this is precisely why Sceptile picked up both halves of the buster blade and its discarded scabbard, when others would just toss away and regard this weapon as disposable upon breaking. This is why Sceptile reequipped the weapon's sheath back onto its back, right next to where Honedge was sheathed, and stored both the broken blade and hilt of the weapon into its rightful home.

Sceptile had simply grown too attached to this inanimate object. And even if it never gets the chance to use the weapon again from here on out, Sceptile doesn't care. As long as Sceptile is close by to it, that's all that matters.

And as for Honedge…

"You're particularly fond of that weapon, Coadjutor." The Sword Pokémon said, unsheathing itself somewhat to inspect this weapon closely. "Though from my perspective, it just appears like a slab of tempered steel with a gratuitously luxurious hilt. I don't see what's so special about it actually."

Sceptile's response to this was unusual. "I didn't see its true value to me until just now."

"What do you mean by that?" Honedge wondered, after sheathing itself.

"That blade…" Sceptile looked up and stared into empty space as it thought this over. "It's only after that battle with Rotom where that blade reminds me of a friend that…passed away, years ago to Team Rocket."

"Is that a fact?" Honedge said, intrigued by this.

"It is now…in more ways than one." Sceptile said somberly.

"…I understand." Honedge responded.

"You most likely do." Sceptile said, before turning its head nearly 180° around to face Honedge. "After all, you were sent by the Original One to assist me."

If Honedge's eye was detachable, it would've fallen off right now with how wide it opened. "But I don't recall telling you that."

"You were thinking of telling me soon enough," Sceptile keenly deduced. "And you just confirmed my assumptions right now with your statement."

"…" Honedge felt itself grow dull a bit.

"When my eyes gleam gold, it's not just aura that I can sense all around me." Sceptile told the Sword Pokémon. "I have Wanderer and Xeno Lucario to thank for teaching me this invaluable skill."

"…Do you know everything about me then?" Honedge wondered.

"Not just yet, but I suspect that you'll happily tell me anyway, as I go and claim our prize." Sceptile believed.

"Hmm…you assume correctly, Sceptile."

46.5: "Team Liberator's #1 Blade"

Strangely enough, true to Rotom's questionable palaver, the Dread Plate was indeed located in the room just to the left of the one where Sceptile first met the "Playful" Plasma Pokémon. And it wasn't hidden away as discreetly as Sceptile would've suspected anyway. It was just there, out in the open, ripe for the taking. It was placed away like a fine porcelain plate on a display case, there for anyone to see and pick up if need be.

And as Sceptile now carried this priceless relic and calmly made its way out of the Old Chateau altogether, Honedge explained itself to Sceptile and why it came to the Forest Pokémon as it did.

As Sceptile had already confirmed through its "lucky guess", Honedge was sent by Arceus to both assist and join the Coadjutor of the Pokémon of Prophecy. And the overall title "Coadjutor of the Pokémon of Prophecy" was one that Arceus itself felt was most appropriate to refer to Xeno's friends by. Honedge was explained of all of this through its dreams, when Arceus used Its wide-reaching powers to dive into the Sword Pokémon's mind.

And as for Rotom…

As Honedge was told by the Almighty Alpha Pokémon, Rotom was just as informed about all of this as the Sword Pokémon was. Arceus told Rotom, as It told Honedge soon after, that the Plasma Pokémon was going to act as both a guide and an obstacle for Sceptile—in its own colorful way—to negotiate with and overcome in battle. And only when both Honedge and Sceptile had proven their worth to Rotom by overcoming the Plasma Pokémon—or having it surrender as was the case—, were they worthy of claiming the Dread Plate and returning to Mt. Coronet with it.

And as to why Honedge, out of any other Pokémon, was selected for this by the Pokémon God Itself…

Simply put, as far back as Honedge can remember, ever since it first heard about Team Liberator, about Xeno Lucario, and most importantly about the one-armed Coadjutor Sceptile, Honedge has essentially been self-proclaiming itself as "Team Liberator's #1 Blade", which essentially means that Honedge was their biggest fan.

Honedge knew of their accomplishments, their members, their recent actions, and their selfless valiance through whatever scraps of information it could acquire from both local and distant sources, both informative and from experience. But Honedge could never meet them in person, because of one damning characteristic about itself.

It was just a sword, and a sword can't exactly travel fast. And every single time that Honedge tried to hitchhike from one place to another by whatever means it could, most commonly by latching on to some swift Pokémon, it wouldn't get very far before they would discard Honedge for its untamable nature to leech away at their life force through its cloth-like arm.

Arceus knew of Honedge's time-consuming methods of travel when it contacted this fanatical blade and simply batted a gleaming green eye to have Palkia warp Honedge over to the Old Chateau, where Sceptile would inevitably come for the Dread Plate and Rotom would wait to engage with it, with Honedge as a result once they both allied against the enemy. And ultimately, Rotom would test both of their merit, Honedge and Sceptile would defeat the Plasma Pokémon, and gain their prize and another Coadjutor to support the small party against the impending Void of the Dark One.

And that's about it in terms of information that helps fill in the blanks of what exactly was going on.

Sceptile simply digests this information—alongside one of the seed-like nodules he felt like plucking off and devouring—as it and Honedge were back at the entrance foyer of the Old Chateau. And Sceptile's one and only comment to this plethora of information that Honedge had the pleasure of sharing with it was this.

"It's unsurprising to me that Arceus works in mysterious ways." Sceptile told Honedge, after swallowing an edible piece of itself. "That's what happened to my friend Xeno when the Original One had Its three children take it into that parallel Earth."

"…What?" Honedge chimed, confused and now curious as to where that last statement came from.

"Oh, don't worry about that." Sceptile realized. "I'll explain to you what you don't know about Team Liberator. I can't imagine it taking more than a minute, since you know just about everything about us."

Location: Eterna Forest (North)

Time: Midnight

The time it took Sceptile to explain the few holes that Honedge doesn't know about Team Liberator took about one minute. And in that one minute, Honedge was now informed of the most recent information regarding the Pokémon behind that departed name, albeit everlasting title. Honedge was told of how Sceptile's comrades were all off in hunting for the other elemental plates, as Arceus assigned them all to, through the words of Dialga, Giratina, and Palkia, after they "guided" Xeno to his next destination.

And during that one minute, Sceptile left the Old Chateau altogether and now proceeded its way down the grass walkway used to arrive here in the first place, to arrive back at Eterna Forest.

As Sceptile walked with the Dread Plate tucked under its arm, it turned around and walked backwards as it saw the Old Chateau dimming back into darkness as the light of its FLASH no longer reached it.

Though for a brief moment, Sceptile did stop dead in its tracks when it saw the ghosts of the elderly butler and the little girl appear right at the doorstep. They both noticed Honedge and Sceptile leaving the Old Chateau, and said goodbye to it by merely bowing down and blowing farewell kisses.

Despite their friendly farewells, Sceptile couldn't help but still shudder at these two phantasms.

"(It's astonishing how some expired life can somehow remain here in this world…)" Sceptile thought before proceeding back to Eterna Forest.

Coincidentally enough, when Sceptile was right back in the main road within Eterna Forest, a certain Pokémon was there, waiting for Sceptile's return.

"Hey Absol!" Sceptile greeted its former enemy turned good friend. "How long have you been there?"

"Not that long actually," Absol informed the Forest Pokémon. "I've only been here for a couple of minutes. Not long enough to grow impatient to the point where I felt it best to come in there to help you."

Absol then retrieved something off of the ground with its concealed mouth, and Sceptile didn't think twice as to what that item was, since it could see it clearly through its own back lights.

"Good job, Absol. You retrieved the Draco Plate."

Absol nodded before proceeding over towards Sceptile and handing over the Draco Plate to it, so that Sceptile could hold onto both elemental plates with a secure grip and so that Absol could speak without having its mouth full.

"It wasn't that hard actually. The only resistance I met was when I was digging into the dirt below Eterna City's 'Dialkia' statue." Absol began to recall. "And the Draco Plate was right there, ripe for the claiming."

"I see…" Sceptile said, thinking to itself what Dialga and Palkia would look like if they were polymerized into one Pokémon.

"And what about you, Sceptile?" Absol wondered. "Did you encounter any resistance when locating the Dread Plate?"

Sceptile simply sighed upon hearing this, and upon having a surplus to say but little means of properly beginning.

Thankfully for Sceptile, Honedge had its back, both figuratively and literally.

"To make a long story short: if it wasn't for me helping Sceptile out against Rotom, then Sceptile might not be standing here, unless it was as transparent as a ghost."

Absol didn't expect this and displayed it by reeling back, its right paw in the air, with widened eyes on its perplexed countenance, of which was still noticeable through the Disaster Pokémon's black bandana.

Sceptile knew that some introductions were in order.

"Absol, this is Honedge." Sceptile said, and then looked at the Sword Pokémon strapped onto its back. "Honedge, this is Absol. But you probably know that already, Team Liberator's #1 Blade."

Honedge wasted no time in unsheathing itself and using Sceptile's right shoulder as a springboard to leap off of, in order to land right next to Absol.

Or as Honedge knew Absol, by the name of—

"How could I not know about you, Speaker for the Dead." Honedge said, seeping with stifled excitement and jittering.

"Am I…that famous?" Absol asked the Sword Pokémon, almost uncomfortably taken aback by such a distinct Pokémon.

"If not as a Speaker for the Dead, then as a heartless, genocidal, merciless, unforgiving, vengeful, rotten, despicable—"

"I get the picture!" Absol shouted, almost lurching forward after hearing all of the unintended insults to describe the Disaster Pokémon's…complicated past.

"As do I, reformed Coadjutor." Honedge addressed one of the many sources of its fandom as though it were devout royalty. "And to most of the Pokémon that I talked to that had something to say about you, they are pleased to hear that you've had a change of heart so long ago, and happily regard you as a stalwart symbol of Pokémon heroism, through the shared name Team Liberator."

Absol didn't exactly know what to think about this. It could've gone with the brief image that flashed in its mind, involving when it first met the red Eon Pokémon that, under Arceus and its own choice, saved Absol's life and knew that a second chance was in order, or else have its bloody vengeance be the highlight of its life that is streaked across the minds of Pokémon asked.

But instead, Absol went with this topic instead.

"…Coadjutor?" Absol said, looking up at Sceptile for the answer to this.

Sceptile proceeded forward and signaled Honedge to return back to the sheath on its back. Honedge obeyed without question and returned to Sceptile's back, and was then handed over both elemental plates, for security purposes and to free up Sceptile's only hand.

"I'll explain everything on the way back to Mt. Coronet, to meet back up with our allies."

Neither Pokémon noticed this, but Honedge almost squeaked in excitement upon hearing such a pleasing choice of action.

And with that, Absol and Sceptile, with Honedge eagerly coming along for the ride, began their long march through the night, back towards Mt. Coronet, with two elemental plates safely in their possession.

Along the way, Honedge and Sceptile told Absol what it was that they did, what they confronted, and what they experienced. Neither of them spared any details, particularly about Rotom and about Sceptile's broken buster sword.

If anything, Sceptile felt relatively high in spirits, even though it can't use a weapon that it has grown attached to over the years. And the reason for that was because Sceptile found a new friend that not only helps fill in the void of the loss of function of Sceptile's buster sword, but helps fill in the void of the loss of Tiny Riolu, and of its right arm.

"Maybe if we're lucky," Sceptile began. "You'll come across a Jynx, and said Jynx will become your lips."

Absol felt its fur stand on end when it whole body quivered at the disturbing thought of having the pink, bulbous lips of a Jynx.

"If we weren't friends, I would kill you for making that sick joke." Absol said a hollow threat.

Sceptile simply laughed at Absol's dark humor before the Disaster Pokémon felt like proceeding a bit farther forward than the Forest Pokémon.

When Absol did so, Sceptile eyes wandered about its setting until its eyes locked on to something distinctive on Absol's person, on its rear end to be specific. At first, Sceptile looked away from the patch of fur directly below Absol's tail base, for obvious reasons, but it soon became clear to the Forest Pokémon that this simply can't be ignored.

Sceptile noticed that Absol had a Joltik clinging onto Absol's hindquarters. And from the looks of things, this tiny parasite was happily leeching away at the static electricity that Absol made with its every step, regardless of the source.

Sceptile was about to say a word on the matter to Absol, when the Joltik immediately took notice of this and glared antagonistically at Sceptile.

"…Shh…" Joltik raised one of its claws to its mouth and told Sceptile to keep its mouth shut, before returning to its odd placement choice to have a meal.

Sceptile, as strange at the event was, complies to Joltik's minuscule wishes and keeps its mouth shut. But its mind is a different story.

"(I wonder how long it'll take Absol to notice that I'm not the only one carrying a new Coadjutor on me.)"

Draco Plate – Absol / Joltik

Meadow Plate – Aggron / Snivy

Splash Plate – "Aqua" Lapras / Oshawott

Spooky Plate – Blaziken

Flame Plate — Charizard

Fist Plate – Dusknoir / Zorua

Zap Plate – Luxray

Toxic Plate – Metagross

Dread Plate – Honedge / Sceptile

"Once the roots go down, the plant can't come up again without great pain and tearing." —Orson Scott Card ("Speaker for the Dead") (163)

One thing that I've discovered long before writing this chapter is that when you play a song at a different rate of speed than usual, such as 0.5x or 2x, it almost always sounds like a different song altogether.

If you like nightmare fuel, play the Luigi's Mansion theme at 0.5x. I did, and the word "scary" doesn't even BEGIN to describe the terror of it all. Of course, playing it at 2x has the exact opposite effect. It sounds almost...happy.

Also, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

So, if you understood that seemingly scrambled paragraph, then you probably were able to read through the blanks from that faded phrase in this chapter.

That's about the best Christmas present I can provide on this website.

Knowledge.

And that's half of the battle.