Revival Chapter 21: Clash of Steel and Flame
The battle raged on and Blaidd was unable to reach Ash and his friends, despite Arceus's commands. He was currently pinned to the wall, fighting off a small hoard of soldiers, armed with axes and spears. There was no need for modern technology here. The large number of pokemon made it logistically impossible and useless to use here. Blaidd deflected one spear head with an Aura sheathed hand and with the other, grabbed the haft of the weapon. Blaidd then jerked the spear from the dumbfounded soldier and flipped around, using the spear against the man. He speared on in the chest with it, blood spurting everywhere.
Instinctively, Blaidd summoned Aura, sheathing the weapon in flickering blue flames that licked the wood without scorching the wooden haft. Blaidd spun the weapon over his head, the Aura flames trailing off of it. With a snarl, he brought the weapon down onto the hoard of soldiers. Blaidd was everywhere at once, the bestial instincts of a Lucario rising to the surface of his persona. He swung the weapon with the expertise of a master. Within moments, he had cleared the hoard of mercenaries around him. They laid in heaps around him, some dead, others in severe pain. Blaidd dropped the weapon, turning off the flames. The army was pressing in through the shattered remnants of the door, forcing the Palace defenders back. It was a stalemate for now, but if the commanding officer managed to open the gap wider, then they would be through.
"Ash," he whispered, realizing the ramifications of what could be. He fought through the surging mass of the defenders. He wasn't retreating, as he was sure many of them thought, but he was defending the prize, the real reason why the invading army was forcing its way through the gates, slaughtering all that stood in their path. Seeing a gap in the clearing, Blaidd ran towards the castle, more specifically, a certain tower.
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Gary snarled to himself as he struggled to find Rota and Cameran Palace. While the GPS built into the PokeNav was a excellent guide, in the dark it was all but useless; there was no visible landmarks. He steadied Charizard's flight as he scanned the surroundings; however, with only the light of the waning moon and faint starlight, it was difficult, if not nearly impossible, to find what he was looking for. Maybe Charizard would find something, he hoped.
"Anything?" Dawn asked from behind him. Like Gary, she too was looking for signs of civilization, but it was hard for her to keep awake. Exhaustion from the past few days was making their toll on her.
"Nothing." Gary replied, disheartened. "I just wish it was daylight. That would make things so much easier."
"I agree." Dawn went back to her silent vigil, struggling to keep her dark blue eyes open. Only adrenaline kept her awake at this point, and even then, the supply was running low.
It was right then that Charizard detected something. He gave a jubilant roar, feeling accomplished. A dull orange light lit the distance and Gary let out a gasp, one out of fear.
"Rota and Cameran Palace are burning," he finally said.
"Oh no!" Dawn whispered, the last part turning into a sob. "My friends..."
"Mine too. We're too late to warn them."
"Well, we need to do something!" Dawn shouted.
"I know, I know, but we're just one small little rag-tag force, up against an army..." as he said that, though, his hands brushed Charizard's skin, the sandpaper texture coarse under his palms. He could feel the surge of muscles and the heat radiating off the fire dragon and he got an idea. "Charizard, fly towards the glow, but at a higher altitude!" Charizard rumbled in reply and in a burst of energy, he launched himself higher into the sky, until the vague dark shapes that was the landscape below turned into one amorphous shape, with no definition, save for the glow on the nearby horizon. He flew towards the ominous glow, relying only on his strength; charizards, like other large flying types relied on the sun heated thermals for their flight and at night, there was none. He would have to depend on his own strength to get there and with two teenagers riding the dragon, it was much more difficult to do.
Gary leaned close to Charizard. "Come on Charizard, I know you can do this! You're the best, remember? I know you can do this!"
Charizard gave a quizzical grumble at the encouragement, but took it anyway.
"You can do this Charizard I know you can!" Dawn joined in.
With an ear piercing roar, Charizard gave a mighty thrust with his wings, zooming towards his target, encouragement ringing in the dragon's ears, giving him the strength to continue on.
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Stella kept at a distance, mounted on her Flygon. She had managed to burst into the courtyard with a dozen of her loyal bodyguards; Archer had commanded her to take the boy alive, yet as she scanned the courtyard, she found no sign of him. It was as if he had disappeared. She suspected it was the man from the clearing, the one who could use magic. As the memory resurfaced, something stood out at her and she realized why: the man at the clearing was one known as Blaidd, skilled at Aura and confidante to Lady Rin. The significance didn't escape her and she scanned the courtyard. "He has to be around here somewhere," she thought. Because without Blaidd, the young man would be vulnerable, very vulnerable. And where Blaidd went, he would lead Stella to the boy and she would finally get her award, unlike Eldrin, whose corpse was probably floating at the bottom of Naiad River.
She noticed something at last. A figure running from the battlefield, towards the main castle of Cameran Palace. The details were fuzzy from such a distance, but she could see a flash of red and raven black. Blaidd had raven black hair and occasionally wore a red shirt. It had to be him.
She spurred Flygon forward and shouted to her personal bodyguards, pointing at the fleeing figure, "Follow that man!" Her guards, burly men that were heavily armored, duly obeyed and plowed through the trainers, their weapons rising and falling like scythes in a wheat field. Stella's Flygon hovered over them as she rushed forward. Her path was blocked though, by an angry pidgeot. She snarled in frustration and started to pull out her sword, a heavy curved weapon designed to do maximum damage to those who stood in her way.
Thankfully, a stray arrow stuck the large bird pokemon in the breast, and the bird went down, the cream hued feathers of its breast flying about in a macabre flurry. The bird feel to the ground, lost to the seething mass of fighters. Stella looked back around, for both her guard and Blaidd, but the distraction had cost her. He was nowhere to be found. She cursed sharply and caught sight of the black armor that was signature of her personal guard. She caught up to them on her flygon and they marched to the Palace, cutting down those who opposed them.
She and her personal guard charged up the small staircase that led to the main hall but as she tried to open the doors, she found they were locked. She growled deep in the back of her throat.
"You," she pointed to one of her personal guard. "Open the door."
He nodded and pulled out a pokeball, summoning a nidoking.
"Nidoking" the guard commanded. "Open the door."
The violet pokemon rumbled with pleasure and rammed into the door, sundering it into a pile of splinters and brass accoutrements. Stella shielded her face from the near explosion. The castle and all that laid within were within her grasp.
"Head in first." She barked and the near dozen bodyguards shambled in, their black armor like carapaces on insects, but the affects of the battle were know taking their effect on the soldiers. Dents and cracks were in their armor and they all drooped slightly with tiredness; they pressed on however, at the urging of their commanding officer, for that was the way of war.
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"Hurry!" Lady Rin urged them as they ran through the hall. The hall, once a bustling place of revelry and celebration, now was silent as a tomb, save for them. She ran about halfway down the main hall then came to a stop, the others tagging behind her.
"Wait!" Brock shouted. "What's going on? Why do they want Ash so badly?" Ash nodded behind Brock. He looked small and fragile, like a child he had once been.
Lady Rin shook her head in sadness, knowing that she couldn't tell them right away. She had sensed that the prophecy was soon coming to pass, ever since Blaidd's return to Cameran Palace those years ago. When he had told her, it sent a shudder through her spine, and looking into Ash's eyes, the very same shudder went down her spine and she saw her role in things to come. "Because of events long ago and the events that could and will be because of tonight. I wish I could explain, but there are somethings even I don't know."
"Then why are you helping us?" Misty demanded her. "If you don't know."
"Because I trust Blaidd, and you should too."
"I do but-" Misty trailed off.
Lady Rin lifted a hand, palm up, silencing her. She then faced a large statue, one of a knight in armor. The Lady placed a hand on the hand of the statue and she pulled down slightly. With a heavy sounding 'clink', a section of the wall moved away slowly, revealing a staircase, winding upwards. Torches, once lit, sat dusty and full of cobwebs in their sconces. "Follow me."
"Now I am getting that whole 'creepy castle' vibe," Drew joked weakly, trying to break the tension and heaviness in the air. Lady Ilene glared at him and he clamped his mouth shut. Grabbing a candle that sat on a nearby table, Lady Ilene lit one of the torches, the wick and pitch inside of the torch flaring to life.
Lady Ilene headed up the staircase, one hand on the railing. Ash followed behind her, with Pikachu perched on his shoulder, then Misty, Brock, Max, May and Drew."This was once an open staircase, an easily accessible part of the castle," Lady Ilene explained. "But after the death of Sir Aaron and the ascension of Lady Eilsa, the staircase was sealed up, with only the statue to open the way. Lady Eilsa had commanded some of the builders to make it so, as long as they didn't go up to the very top of the tower. No one knew why this was, but before she fled the castle, she passed the secret of the top of the tower down to her brother, Lord Joseph, who then passed in onto his children and so on and so forth, until it came to me, and now, to you."
"What's up there?" Max asked.
"You'll find out soon enough." Lady Ilene pulled out a iron key, old and dense in her hand. She came to a slow stop in front of the old oak door she saw a few months before. She placed the key into the lock and twisted. The door unlocked, but the door was jammed. "The door is jammed. The recent summer rains must have caused it."
"Maybe I can open it," Ash offered. Lady Ilene stepped aside to let Ash give it a try. He tried shoving the door but to no avail. He placed his shoulder against it and tried shoving it again, but again, the door didn't budge. The wood of the door had swelled up with the rains and humidity, making it all but impossible to open.
"Pi-Pikachu." Pikachu suggested. Ash looked at Pikachu curiously, wondering what the small yellow mouse said. Pikachu, made a jerking motion on Ash's shoulder, to further accentuate his point.
"Oooh," Ash nodded and took a couple of steps back. He charged toward the door, slamming his weight into it. The door groaned under the weight and with a wet pop, the door swung open and he crashed inside in an undignified heap, Pikachu landing gracefully away. "Thanks Pikachu," he grimaced, rubbing his left hip.
"Pika!" The others entered behind him. Lady Ilene acknowledged Pikachu.
"Thank you for your advice, small one." She felt the wave of nostalgia and history sweep through her and she turned her face to the small window on the far wall of the round room. The starlight shone through in a small shaft, lighting the center of the room. They gasped at the sight.
"What is that?" Max demanded, pointing.
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Blaidd panted heavily in exhaustion as he slammed the hall's door shut. He bled from many different wounds, all small, but they were tiring him, nonetheless. The blood that trickled down was a near identical color as his eyes, he noted, then went on. He winced as he leg twinged from an injury that he had no idea where it came from, the blood seeping through the pants. He leaned against a table for a minute, catching his breath, which was coming out in ragged gasps. Maybe he had had pierced a lung. He slowly made his way down the building, red eyes scanning for any intruders. As he came upon the secret staircase, he gasped.
Lady Ilene had never closed the entrance back.
He ran over to the statue, striving in vain to seal it back up, but he then realized that it never opened from the inside and he gave in, sagging against the granite statue. His eyes glanced upward, into the staircase. "You're the only hope my boy," he gasped. He heard a resounding boom and he whirled to his left, and he saw the silhouettes spill into the threshold.
"You know what to do, my child," Arceus whispered in his head and Blaidd nodded. He slowly made his way up to the staircase and stopped after a few steps in. He planted his feet on the staircase and waited, the Aura building up in him, a surging river of power against the dam of self control and exhaustion. He would be the shield and the sword. He was Ash's teacher and guardian and Eldrin and his cronies be cursed if they thought they could break through. But he knew that he was one man against what could be an entire army and it he failed-
-Then he would fail his student.
And the world.
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Rota and Cameran Palace soon came into view, lit by the dull orange of fire. Charizard's tongue lolled halfway out of the dragon's mouth as he panted; he was exhausted, as were the two trainers atop his back. Gary squinted his eyes to behold the scene below. An army of men and pokemon were advancing along the long span of bridge. Gary couldn't help but breath a sigh of relief, despite the severity of the situation. It wasn't Rota nor the Palace that was burning, it was the vast quantity of torches that went across the bridge.
"But they will be burning soon, if we don't stop them," Gary thought to himself as he weighed the situation. Ash and his companions were trapped inside the Palace or worse, were dead. The army of this mysterious 'Archer' person were advancing slowly and the castle had been laid under siege. He was only one person, coupled with Charizard. He couldn't make a difference at this point. His head and shoulders slumped in despair and defeat. "We outnumbered hundreds to one," he finally declared out loud, anguish tinging his tone. "It's too late."
Dawn brought him to his senses. "No we aren't," she proclaimed, her voice full of determination. "We may only be just one, but it doesn't mean that we're useless. Look, the army is lined up on the bridge, like sitting farfetch'd. Charizard could easily wipe them out."
"How?" Gary asked.
"He is a fire type you know. Charizard," she told the reptile. "Can you take out that army?"
Charizard, who had been hovering in the air, turned his head around to give Dawn a confused rumble.
"Ash is in danger in that castle. Those people down there are trying to hurt him." Dawn wasn't sure if the dragon totally understood her words, but at the mention of Ash's name, he perked up, and glanced down at the massive army below. He snarled, flashing long sharp canines. He shot eastward and upward as fast as he could. When Charizard reached the palace, he started to bank sharply back around, racing towards the army below. Gary felt the rough dragon skin heat up as the chest expanded like a blacksmith's bellows. Flames licked and danced in Charizard's nostrils and the edges around his mouth. The air smelled of sulfur and heat and Gary clung on tightly, with Dawn's hands clenched around the young man's waist. Charizard was headed into a kamikaze dive.
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One of Archer's soldiers slowly plodded on the bridge, tired and weary, the kind of weariness that settled into the bones and the mind, muddling his train of thought. He was once a Rocket operative, until Giovanni's demise and like so many Rocket members, he had gone to the winning side, this mysterious Archer's side. Now he was wearing a chain link shirt and carrying a long spear and shield. "I feel like some extra on a movie set," he mused to himself, bitter and angry. What could have been an opportunity for riches and power was now gone and like before, he was at the bottom of the command, just a mere foot soldier caught in the webs of war.
Screams burst out in the ranks front of him and he froze as the forward ranks started to flee in the opposite direction. Some had stopped to point, babbling incoherently in fear. Curious, the soldier peeked upwards and saw what they had been panicking about.
If he been believed in a higher power, he would have been praying to them, but he didn't and he watched with rapidly widening eyes as it careened towards him. He didn't feel the pain as the fires consumed his flesh, melting the chain link shirt to his skin, flesh and metal becoming one.
Death had come tonight, bearing dragon wings and spewing fire like the sun.
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If Gary could have screamed, he would have, but his voice was whipped away by the wind as Charizard plunged downward. A primal scream ripped from the dragon's throat as he belched forth white hot flames. It was like Charizard had consumed the sun itself, for the flames were that hot and bright. His tail flame streaked behind him as the end of the comets in the sky above. He had swooped low enough to unleash his flamethrower, if it could be called a mere flamethrower attack. Dawn had been right in her assumptions; the bridge was narrow and long, allowing for Charizard to wipe out a large proportion of the army in one fell swoop. Gary smelt the acrid scent of burning flesh and hair and molten slag of metal. Even the stones were a dull red and cracked. The air shimmered with the heat as Charizard zoomed over them. He fought the urge to vomit.
Soldiers and pokemon screamed as the fires consumed their flesh. Many flung themselves off the bridge in order to escape the judgment day that had fallen upon them, but the leap off the bridge was a death sentence in itself and in the end, it was their pick of poison, fire or water. Very few had time to react, pulling out bows and loosing a few arrows before they were destroyed. Charizard bellowed in agony as one of the arrows sank into his skin, near the wing joint. Two more arrows pierced him, one in the shoulder and the other in his tail; coppery blood trickled away from him in steaming streams. Charizard's flame burned even hotter after that and Dawn half wondered if the heat radiating off the dragon would burn away the arrows.
Gary saw the impeding danger in the arrows. Charizard was near unstoppable in his fury, but if he continued to get hit, then the trio would plunge into the waters below. "Pull away!" he screamed, slapping Charizard's neck. "Pull away!" Charizard pulled away slowly, diving downwards close to the water
"Have him go for a second run!" Dawn suggested.
"If he does, then we could get killed!"
"It's a risk we'll have to take! It's their only chance!"
Gary paused, pursing his lips. "Fine," he reluctantly agreed. "Charizard, go in for a second run." Charizard roared and climbed sharply into the sky, flying high over the bridge, until he was just a small speck in the otherwise pitch black sky. Charizard went in for another dive, roaring and screaming all the way.
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Stella stormed into the castle, her guard flanking her, watching for hidden traps and soldiers lurking in the shadows. Stella had since summoned flygon back to his ball as she had her tulwar drawn, the heavy curved blade dripping with the blood of her enemies, the red liquid staining the marble floor. "Where are you you miserable mutt?" She whispered, her cold brown eyes scanning left and right.
"Milady." One of her guard was kneeling next to droplets of blood on the floors. "He must have been wounded in the skirmish and is bleeding still. He left us a blood trail." A gauntleted hand pointed down the hall, the dribbles of blood leading to an opening in the left side of the hall, partly obscured by a large statue of a knight.
"Good." Stella smiled maliciously. "And by using him, he'll lead us to the boy. You," she gestured to her guards. "Head on ahead, in case of any traps." I'll be behind." Some of the guard exchanged questioning looks, but they had to obey Stella or else. The last guard who had questioned her orders ended up with his head rolling on the ground. They went down the hallway silently, despite their heavy armor and weaponry. They finally made it to the entrance, where they were blocked.
"Hello Stella," Blaidd greeted tonelessly, his arms crossed, red eyes cold and hard. The fires of Aura surrounded him in a shield. "It has been a while."
"Move," Stella snarled, her tulwar ready to slice him down. "Or I'll do it myself."
"No. I will not let you pass." Blaidd took one step back on the curved stairway, one foot in front and the other behind. He clenched his hands.
Stella snapped. "Kill him!" She roared, spittle flying from her mouth, her long curly hair waving around her. Her guard knelt and pulled out composite longbows and barbed arrows. Pulling back on the bowstring, they released the tension and nearly a dozen arrows raced towards Blaidd.