Chapter Twenty Six: Heart Flayed
The foolishly hopeful part of me said that the next time I opened my eyes there wouldn't be any fur coating the lids. I knew better than that. That riddle was only the first step in our body reclamation. Two hearts still had to be put to risk before the //real// portal could be opened. Considering the fact that Adrian didn't get here first and somehow solve the pillar riddle, the only concept I put belief into was the avoidance of Meeko and Joe's death.
I was struck with an immense blow of recognition to the setting, a fickle of deja vu too strong to be dismissed as such yet too dim to inspire a memory. The only light came from Joe's tail flame. It was chilly underfoot, understandable since the thin layers of plant life serving as ground were damp to the touch. I thought it seemed odd that life could grow in places lacking a source of light. Did some sorcery, not unlike that which had preserved the four keys' indentations, keep it from dying?
Meeko had landed into this new scene securely on his feet, but expected so much for a species swap that he'd crumbled to his knees in anticipation. He drummed all ten digits across the plants and let out a breath of relief upon feeling the independent movements of his thumbs. Clothes still fit him fine, although he wished he had something to cover his bare arms with. This place had an unhealthy atmosphere, despite the heavenly pureness to the air. It made him feel vulnerable.
"Everyone okay?" Jill said at once, taking a quick head count. Both of us gave her sullen answers. She turned and blinked into the darkness, wary. "We're almost there, I think. Where are we?"
"Back to the beginning." Joe's voice hinted a joke I didn't understand, and in my politeness chuckled a hollow response.
"Is this... your universe?" Meeko asked, panic stricken. None of us could answer truthfully, let alone answer at all. There was no dirt available to us.
//It better not be.// I warned nobody, experimentally standing up on my hind legs. At least doing this didn't hurt my back anymore.
We started walking once we were positive that nothing of any interest lay at our "bus stop". As to where our heading was or what direction we walked, I couldn't say. Walking here had a treadmill feel to it- each useless step only moved the ground below us in a never ending cycle. This maddening fantasy made my guts shrivel and my spit taste sour.
"So, uh... Where are we going?" I said timidly, discarding the two legged walk method. "I know it isn't just me who feels like we're not getting anywhere."
"It's just you." Both replied dully.
"Well, the only things around here is... plants. And an occasional puddle. How do yo--!"
The rest of my question came out in an animal squeal of surprise. I painfully stumbled down what felt like stone steps until gravity and my own struggles put me to rest seven steps from the bottom. Rubbing at a nasty bump my left cheekbone endured, I called out to them in alarm.
"Jade? What happened?" Jill asked, her voice uncomfortably fainter. The steps I'd fallen down were too steep for me to see any sign of them, even the fire.
"I fell down stairs. This place looks real sketchy, Jill..." It took on an ominous feel just as I said it and my voice rose a few notes out of fear. "And just to let you all know, being alone down here isn't that nice."
"What? What's the matter?" Meeko asked, and was ignored.
They made there way down the stairs at a swift pace, and still it wasn't fast enough for me. I kept my eyes fixed on the step, fearing I would panic if I saw anything fearsome at the foot of the stairs. This wasn't some petty fear of the dark. I could easily light up a decent portion of this cavern if I wanted to... If I wanted to.
Only when they were a couple steps away did I gather the courage to move. Seeing this shift of shadows on the borderline of light and dark, Joe held both arms out to stop the two beside him. I hopped up the steps to reunite with them, the fur along my back irritated at my childish fear. The fright I'd felt stuck firmly to my insides, shaken and watery and not quite convinced I was safe.
"Nice job." Joe said neutrally, in such a way that I had to look up at his face for any sign of sarcasm. He returned my gaze and repeated his questionable praise. "Nice job. This looks like the place we're supposed to be."
I didn't ask him how he knew this, having learned that it was a fool's task to question the only reason currently available. We conquered the rest of the steps and advanced in a straight path from its foot. With the familiar arrival of the scenery came the treadmill syndrome, much to my dismay. When would this all end?
"Ugh!" Joe attempted to exclaim a warning of some sort, but he'd somehow forgotten how to make the words. He stopped in his tracks, taking a couple frantic steps backward. To us he was fighting off an apparation, his claws trying to slaughter air and doing about as much of an effect on his unseen attacker. His skin and eyes gained an azure tint. Furrowing his brow (even this took on the appearance of extreme effort) he shot a flamethrower up to the ceiling. This sent the majority of the clearing into an unsteady light. As a reflex to the unknown danger Meeko drew out Damion, who at this point didn't bother asking of their new surroundings.
Had we not been interrupted, we would have found ourselves facing a dead end. The stairs from which I'd fallen formed a great semi circle around the smooth, plant riddled ground we walked on. It was on these steps that we spotted the culprit, so chillingly close to our party that it could have lashed out at us as we trailed down the stairs. Not that it had the physical strength to do so. Now clearly in our sights, the mutant celebi broke his hold over Joe.
"Shh! It's only me, please, you'll alert them!" Cel begged, hovering towards us. The fire above writhed in its starvation and shriveled out of existence, ultimately destroying the light. In the dark his voice grew clearer with distance. "I'm here to take you home again."
This interested us all for obvious reasons. Joe waited until Cel's eyes were visible, and then dared to ask how he could do it.
"The portals I create to travel great distances should work fine. I think."
"Okay, okay. Can we get this over with before anything bad happens?" I interjected, looking vainly into the dark. "I just have that feeling. Like something unimaginably bad's gonna happen before we... before..."
"Before what?" Jill asked, and, seeing the direction of my gaze, looked up in order to follow it. She paled, sweat breaking out around her eyes. Damion sensed the tension and tugged at Meeko's pant leg to tell him to move.
"Before you die." The dark finished. Before we'd even begun to process this threat, death pounced in a queer form I couldn't specify. It was a colorless torrent of...space. It stood out so clearly from the rest of the unlit cavern merely because it was so much darker than the area around it. We scattered from it at once, even the slow witted Meeko, and spared ourselves the mysterious consequences of making contact with it.
"Emm, spare them, please!" Cel begged our attacker. Judging from the way his voice carried he must have been approaching this 'Emm'. "They've suffered enough, let them go home!"
"Do //not//interfere with my revenge, soothsayer! I won't hesitate to kill you as well."
"No! It was my fault that this all happened! Leave them alone!"
"Quiet!" Emm's burst of anger was shadowed by the sound of a whip cracking. It met something solid, something that cried out at its touch, and something that was hurtled several yards away to land crumpled over the edge of a step. Cel's voice fell curiously silent, and Emm took the responsibility of replacing it with its own.
"If you stand still for me I promise the safe return of that human and his pokémon back to the burned tower." The so far bodiless Emm's tone sounded so smooth that I found myself calming in spite of the situation. "I won't alert the other legendaries of your arrival, to avoid possible torture. Stand still and die, or flee and make death a favorable option!" Emm thrust another one of those strange space bullets and nearly engulfed Damion in it.
Why did it want to take its anger out on us? What the hell did we do as humans before this, other than act like total idiots? I wanted to yell something along the lines of 'this is wrong, it's not right to do this!', but didn't for fear of making myself a liable target. A crazy part of me wanted to be a pichu again, a small body and a quiet mind to help me survive this ordeal. For now all I could do was stay silent in the darkness and hope one of those attacks didn't come my way...
Over on the stairs, Cel's brief blackout dissolved almost instantly. He opened his eyes and blinked senselessly at the step his eyes and right arm dangled over. Sucking back in a line of spit that threatened to drip from his mouth, Cel shakily tried to hoist himself up. A lance of pain flared across his stomach and forced him back down with a suppressed cry. This wound was by no means fatal to him (it would take a much larger flesh wound to kill a being that nearly matched the greatness of a god), but pain was a cruel and bitter stranger to the young semi-deity. It left him immobile, terrified of bringing back what brought forth such a terrific feeling in an injury that should be hurting, yet didn't at the moment. He felt little blood warming beneath him. A good sign.
He heard Emm's attack whistle into the dark, followed by a chorus of frightened screams. There were no shrieks of agony; even a powerful creature like Emm had a hard time aiming into the dark. Meeko would shout orders at Damion to attack, expecting the totodile to possess the ability of night vision. The boy was brave, but also ignorant to what was going on. Cel suspected that Joe and I, the light bearers, were too busy fighting past cowardice to light up the cavern.
Tentatively, Cel drew out his arm, groping for a bundle of plant life. When his fingers found purchase, he concentrated on channeling his energy into the vegetation. He predicted that it would spread out among the rest of the plants until an equilibrium was reached, behaving the same way water would if poured onto a flat surface. The energy converted into light gave off a black light violet. Cel assumed he was too wicked a creature to produce a brighter color.
I flinched away from my spot, scared to remain in one place for so long now that the plants underfoot were glowing a thin purple shade. Emm turned out to be the mew mutant, looking no prettier than the last we'd seen of it twenty three days ago. It smiled and turned to its fallen companion.
"Thank you for the light, soothsayer."
//"Fight back until I can create the portal!"//Cel thought to us thinly, a small hand resting over a bundle of plants beside him.
Excuse me? I gaped at him in bewilderment. That hit had to have rattled his wits loose! We had a hard enough time beating the locals of this universe, so there was no way any of us were idiotic enough to launch ourselves at the bigwigs. Of course by us I meant Jill, Joe and me.
Following an order by Meeko, Damion charged full throttle at the mew. The totodile had a great urge to snarl, and struggled to hold it back so as to keep his offensive move a secret. It turned out to be a vain attempt.
All Emm had to do was hold out its hand, now accustomed to its unproportionally large claws' weight. Damion saw this movement and slowed to a stop about three feet from the mew, struck frozen by the power of intimidation. This was a pokémon he'd grown up hearing stories about by Meeko's captured pokémon. The legendary Emm, known to the humans as the extinct Mew species (as if more than one existed), had once saved the planet from destruction, earning it a reserved spot in the halls of Heaven. Would he dare try attacking such a sacred, powerful creature, no matter how hellish it looked on the outside?
"Bow, totodile."
He did.
"My will comes before that of your trainer's. Return to his side and ignore his commands."
And just like that, Damion complied. No form of psychic attack had taken place. Meeko attempted to issue an order, which was, obviously, overpowered by Damion's strange loyalty to Emm.
"You're just going to-? How could you give in to that!" I sputtered in disbelief, outraged at his submission, even though I myself had been too frightened to try an attack. Jill was in a similar state, barely getting a word out edgewise. The mew only had to look at us both to shut us up. Its eyes strayed on mine and I squirmed, clearly regretting my words.
"I'll kill you first for this lapse of respect. Stand still, girl. Obey a ruler of the universe." Emm hovered closer.
//"I will."// I breathed, the words cold on my tongue. I was mesmerized by that authority, at least the Voice was, and felt myself giving in to its wishes. More than anything I wanted to flee.
"Jade, move! Run, go!" Joe bawled from his own spot in one corner.
//I really want to, Joe. It's gonna kill me.// I started thinking, tears of terror welling up in my eyes. This was a nightmare that I wouldn't awaken from in a cold sweat when I died.
Emm brought both its hands together and maneuvered its claws about in a way that reminded me of how to make a snowball. What formed inside was far more sinister, a black orb of death made tangible. The legendary grew it to about twice my size before engulfing me in its dark depths.
I believe that my instinctive exhale was what saved me from a more painful experience a tad too complex to explain here. It felt as if ever inch of my body was being pulled outward in all directions, which told me that this was a vacuum in need of being filled up. So yes, somehow Emm could create chunks of space at its own will, or maybe it had cut a portion of outer space out and brought it down to torture me. Either way it was extremely uncomfortable, and so terrifying that for the first five seconds my head reeled in confusion.
After gathering my wits I attempted to breathe in, a hopeless move driven only by the sheer want to survive. I might as well have tried to take a healthy breath out of a glass bottle. Then came this unbearable dryness in my mouth and nose, followed by a rapid decrease of temperature inside them. My eyes shut tight with the pain of it, but any moan I may have emitted came out soundless. The muscles in my arms and legs twitched, convulsed visibly, throbbing a pain not quite bad enough to be called agony. They began swelling; I didn't see this actually happening, but felt their new, awkward heaviness as I floated in this chamber of nothing. Feebly, I tried to summon sparks, as if this were a foe that would release me if I harmed it enough. Why I thought this is a mystery to me.
With the lacking of an atmosphere the oxygen in my bloodstream expanded, and I would have shrieked aloud at this new pain had I any breath to do it. My vision flickered, grew darker, and then shut down all together, despite the fact that my eyes were open. I began to lose sense of where I was, a shivering, mindless creature stuck in the jaws of a predator, perhaps. To go along with the twitches in my limbs, the rest of my body started to convulse, and at that point consciousness finally decided to collapse.
What felt like half a second later I caught a scrap of air in my teeth and sucked it in greedily. My nose and mouth were still freezing, and the rest of my oxygen deprived body was numb. I opened my eyes, the tears plastered on before the attack now gone from view. I wished they hadn't left- these were also painfully dry and cold. However, dryness of the eyes were the least of my problems. Even though they were clearly open, the dark shroud a closed eyelid promised remained.
"She's awake! Oh my god, what are those bumps on her face? Jade! Jade! Oh my god... What happened..." Jill sobbed her hysteria, and it pained my heart to hear such a noise.
"Wuh-what bumps?" I asked the darkness weakly. She ceased her crying with a fragile gasp and, after I breathed enough for the ringing in my ears to go away, I continued, "How...ho-how..."
"They saved you, they saved you! Oh my god, how did you //live// through that, you were in there for at least a minute!"
This out of breath handicap couldn't irritate me, as I was too tired to feel irritation. "Can't see." I murmured.
"What?"
"I can't...see! Blind."
"...h-hold on. She'll heal you, you'll get your sight back soon." Jill said quietly, the fear in her voice laid open to me now that I couldn't see. She made a move, and I shifted my bloated arm a few inches towards the noise.
"Don't leave me." I whispered desperately. Emm could come back for me, finish what it started... Please, please no, don't leave me alone with that, Jill. It wouldn't be fair to me, your blind, helpless twin. Instead I simply said, "D-don't..."
"Only for a second-"
And then she fled from me, clearly scared off by the mangled sight of my body. I heard a smoothie of voices and snarls, all overlapping together to form one large, soggy headache. Even though I was sprawled out on my back, I felt a great weight in my head and wanted to press myself even lower to the ground to ease the strain. My sightless eyes scanned the dark wildly, opening, shutting, seemingly mad pieces of flesh gone rogue in this worn down body.
"Jill. Jill!" I called her name continuously, volume growing with the desperation of my dilemma, until I howled it like a toddler. Being blind, it was the worst feeling. Worse than guilt, regret, anxiety- the immense vulnerability reduced me to this crying human in a miss matched rodent skin.
At last came the heavy steps of four feet, followed by the gentle patter of paws. This confused me further. Excluding myself, none of us had paws, and this alien presence made me seize up with fright.
"No Jade, I am only here to heal... Calm yourself, and give me a sample of your breath." That voice was the kind that made me grit my teeth in immediate dislike, and it was this fleeting thought that helped me identify who the stranger was.
"Shimmertail?"
"Yes. Shadowveil is here as well, serving as a distraction. What did it do to her?" This last was directed at Jill, thankfully, because I wasn't sure I could think up a reasonable enough explanations in my current state.
"I don't know. She was in there for a long time though..." At this point Jill's voice wavered.
I felt the warmth of Shimmertail's face hovering inches above mine, and looked up at what I thought were her eyes. Then, I exhaled slowly, and after a moment's pause the espeon whispered mechanically:
"Full body oxygen deprivation, expansion of oxygen in the blood stream, temporary blindness, frostbite in nose, mouth, and around the eyes..." She went on to list other conditions I couldn't hope to pronounce, much less remember. When she finished the list Shimmertail began the healing. Jill was my host in this case, emitting the healing substance in what I assumed to be by the handful. The fact that Emm could interrupt this at any time ruined the calmness anyone else would have felt.
I kept my eyes squinted shut, not wanting to damage them further by looking directly at the fluttering green motes. Before long the lids relaxed however, the small things I'd committed to remembering in that instant anchored away by the healing process. The pain in my body took on this image: it welded to me like bird shit to a statue, until the green spheres came and melted it loose. The pain trickled down, weakened of its strength with the weakening of its hold on me, and gathered in a seething cauldron below. By the time the healing was finished this cauldron of my suffering had been disposed of, forgotten. I opened my eyes to the purplish glow of the cavern, and the worried faces of Jill and Shimmertail. A spell of drowsiness replaced my pain, and made sitting up a feat too hard to be worth it.
"Rise, child!" Shimmertail insisted, and with the assistance of Jill's vines I reluctantly staggered to my feet. The espeon looked me over briefly, and then turned around to examine the battle.
Shadowveil was pinned to the ground by an unending wave of psychic will power, Emm's hand hovering inches above the attack. Although the psychic itself didn't harm him, the force it sandwiching one half of his body against solid stone left him powerless. He snarled up at Emm in defiance, limbs clawing away at the plants. I could tell by the jerking pattern he did this with his right semi-immobile front paw that he was moments from experiencing a fracture, if he hadn't already. Joe hung back, away from them both, unable to act past his fear of this legendary. Damion continued to grovel pathetically, and Meeko hid crouched among the shadows where Cel's light shone the least. As for Cel, he was it the same place Emm had left him, one hand gripping the plants to produce the light. His eyes glowed a sickly jade color, face turned upward as if praying to a divine source for his success at finding our portal home in time.
I hissed at Emm, battle lustful and cocky now that I had recovered from his space bullet ((possibly the most unintentional, dirty phrase in this entire story XD)). A hint of frost in my breath told me that my insane Voice wanted in on this fight. Like unlocking a door, I allowed instinct to take over. Which, to be honest, hardly felt any different than usual. It was more like putting a plane on auto-pilot.
I aimed (if there ever was a thing called 'aim' when projecting electricity) my attack towards Emm and fired. The mew looked up and away from Shadowveil, distracted by the buzzing my high voltage sawed into the sound barrier. It brought both hands up to deflect my attack, breaking its connection from the dazed umbreon. The bolts reflected off a shield it cheaply conjured and charged back at me. I jumped over the first, neutralized the harmfulness of the next by using a smaller shock against it, and took the full blast of the third. It was a glancing blow, a punch in the face that was more annoying than painful. Its force brought me teetering on my back legs, unbalanced.
Emm turned back down to finish off Shadowveil, only to find that its victim was no longer lying defenseless below it. The mew wasted only a couple seconds in doing this, which was plenty of time for both Jill and Shadowveil to issue attacks of their own. Jill hurled her vines at Emm, hoping that with enough speed their collision alone would be enough to send the clumsy legendary to the ground. It caught on to her ways and brought up the same deflecting shield, sneering face turned to her as her vines crashed painfully against its force field. So it was an extreme shock to Emm when it felt a pain equivelant to a bullet wound exploding along its spinal cord. It squalled like a cat and landed ungracefully to the ground, temporarily stunned by Shadowveil's attack. Damion gave a cry of his own at the sight.
"Attack the neck and spine! That is the key; we need to cripple it!" Shadowveil shouted, and pounced on Emm with a frothy snarl. The mew, already recovered and upright, swerved around in an attempt to skewer the leaping umbreon with its claws as he fell. The Voice, not I, saw this and shot a bolt of electricity so that it connected into Emm's wrists. Both its hands flew out of my line of sight and out of Shadowveil's line of impalement. Joe also scrambled over to Emm's fallen form, slashing blindly at any flesh unfortunate to travel in his range. Shadowveil took no notice to the occasional accidental swipe until one narrowly missed gouging his left eye out.
"Watch your attacks, child!" He scolded, and then dove for Emm's neck. As stunned as it was, Emm managed to produce a field of psychic energy over Shadowveil's mouth, a sort of invisible muzzle separating his fangs inches from the throat pinned beneath. To compromise this lack of a useful weapon Shadowveil put all his weight on the muzzle, so that Emm's windpipe was blocked under the unseen force. The mew's scythe of a tail scraped against the floor, useless since Emm had never committed any time into actually lifting its weight. Joe gripped one of Emm's arms, wriggling like a fish, and proceeded to snap the long claws to a length acceptable to a body's anatomy should they find themselves buried in their guts. The other arm's claws were too long to find effective purchase in the umbreon's side.
"Release me!" Emm roared, expanding the psychic energy around Shadowveil's mouth until its size repelled both he and Joe from any attacks. Before it could right itself up and resume its deadly perch in midair, Jill sneaked up from behind and wrapped her vines around its torso, arms, and neck. She tightened them the same way she might tighten her fingers, had she any. There were no cracks brought out by the tightening as far as she could feel, probably because Emm had molded that damned shield around its entire body so she would strangle that and not its bones. There wasn't an end to this!
//Got any bright ideas?// I asked the Voice and was, of course, ignored.
oo00oo
Shimmertail sensed some psychic mischief abroad and scampered as close as she dared to Emm. Then, taking a deep breath of anticipation, the espeon dipped her paws into the immense ocean that was Emm's mind. Similar to a body of water, delving into another's head took some getting used to, at least until she'd enveloped herself in its depths in all but the physical sense. Her physical body at this point was mindless.
At once Shimmertail felt hostility prey at her will, no doubt the guard dogs of a fortress (for this was what she portrayed the vastness of Emm's mind to be) who lurked at the surface of every conscious mind. She pushed the issue aside like a bad habit caught just before the committing of the act. Unlike Shadowveil, she could worm her way through most mental barriers and gain limited access to the brain. In her own twisted sense Shimmertail was a Voice, eager to take over whenever given the possibility. The mental intruder found a way in, and squeezed through to the other side.
//Who are you? Is this Shimmertail?// A maligned voice boomed at once, startling Shimmertail into releasing a bold image of an exclamation point. She felt herself brushing against this evil, disgusting, rotten presence and recoiled from it in revoltion. Her silence was the voice's only reply.
//There is no hiding from me, in my own head. Stay quiet if you'd like, it won't matter in the end.// The voice fell upon her, thick as steam, and surrounded her feeble presence. She couldn't escape Emm's head now unless she felt confident enough to attack its presence, and didn't dare move should that provoke the voice into attacking her. A little too late Shimmertail realized that in her attempt to force the psychic barriers down she'd wadded in roughly twenty stories over her head. Now she was trapped in here, while her body stood senseless out there.
//Help me! Shadowveil, please come!// She thought wildly, though knew that her words didn't travel farther than the thoughts of her host.
Delighted and fueled by her fear, the cage the presence had made closed tighter. //Yes, call out to him little human. My ears ring with your screams, but I relish in the sound all the same.//
Reckless with terror, Shimmertail lunged at the steam mass. It simply drew back, taunting her further.
//Who are you?// She shouted.
//I'm Emm, Shimmertail. Or, rather, it's Instinct. What the pikachu calls a Shadow Voice and what Cel calls an Inner Shadow.//
//Let me go!//
//Why, when the intent of your intrusion leads to my death?// The voice stated indignantly. //By nature I can't allow any harm to come to me. I should kill you.//
//I am only doing this so that Jill, Joe, and Jade might go home. You endanger their lives, and by doing so have endangered yourself.//
Emm closed its ring tighter, forcing Shimmertail to gather tautly in the center. //Whether or not they die is up to their instincts, not you! Think like the animal you are, human. Come, where is that instinct of your own?//
Without warning the presence merged into Shimmertail, combined its own mental essence with hers. She dove about in Emm's mind, maddened by the disgust and violation she felt at the voice's touch. It shuffled about, searching for something, its tactics growing violent as the length of its failure increased. This process wasn't painless.
//What are you doing? Detach yourself!// Shimmertail screamed, and couldn't help but feel like she was being mind-raped.
//You have an instinct in here somewhere, and I intend to draw it out. You were captured in a pokéball. Your soul was weakened. Your conscious mind has no right to live!//
Shimmertail couldn't fully grasp what he was saying, though the idea of her conscious mind's death didn't appeal to her. She tried to concentrate on her surroundings, despite the parasite hacking away within her mental being. She felt the voice come across some sleeping form in her presence, and heard it think 'I've found you!'. Emm's mind controls lay unguarded before her, and she hardly hesitated in wreaking as much havok as possible for as long as possible. The hand that had gripped around what she thought to be her instinct jerked away and screamed.
oo00oo
I didn't know what Shimmertail had done, but whatever it was saved our asses from getting kicked from here to the pits of hell. The position Emm was in could hardly get any worse, save for the fact that at any time a ripple of psychic energy could spike outward, granting the mew with enough strength to overcome the vines and alert the other legendaries that there were intruders in the meeting place. All it had to do was wait for the power to stray by, catch it, harness it, use it to push back the vines and possibly obliterate one of us before the psychic wave passed. So, as Shadowveil whispered to himself when he saw Shimmertail's vacant expression, it was up to her.
"Can't we all attack at once to break the shield?" The voice asked through me, my tone uncharacteristically rotten. All but Meeko, Cel, and the struggling Emm turned to look at me. Jill noted that my eyes were gray and spoke past the effort it took to keep her hold on Emm.
"Jade... Is that- are you her?"
"I can go back to normal at any time. When the battle's over." I answered, part of it merging with the Voice's. This of course had to be tested, but I felt confident I had the strength required to force the instinct back into my head. Not everything had been handed over to her, at least not all at once. I could still talk, move, even hold back an attack if I tried hard and screamed at her loud enough.
"I should kill you!" Emm cried, forgetting to swallow its own spit in its desperate struggle for freedom. I had a distinct feeling that it was talking to Shimmertail. It paused, slowed its wriggling, and suddenly started up again. "Your soul is weakened!"
Emm audibly gasped and sputtered, "How-?" before its shield flickered out and the strangling pressure being brought out against the barrier coiled around its slim, feline body. Jill now felt the cracks of bone traveling through her vines, and bit down on her tongue to block the bile. They were the arms and possibly a few ribs that had snapped. //She'd snapped them.// That's why it was screaming so loudly...
There was another part of the body she constricted whose bone hadn't quite given in yet. She looked up at Emm, gone mad with the pain, and noticed that the loop around its neck hadn't caved in yet.
//I have to break its neck.// Jill thought, closing her eyes. The left's upper lid twitched when she drew up a mental picture of how that would look. Its crack would sound like a gunshot to her, deliciously satisfying. She quailed, and began loosening her grip.
"Keep hold of it, bayleaf! Break the neck!" Shadowveil called.
"I don't have to do that! We can leave it this way, can't we?" Jill asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.
"Until its paralyzed that thing can still hurt us."
"You shut up and stay out of this! What do you care?" She snapped, which stung a bit since it was actually me and not the Voice who'd said that.
"Yeah, put it down! For the legen-gendar-" Damion couldn't bring it upon himself to say the word. It was like me saying 'oh my god' in the same room as Him, the big cheese upstairs, I mean. "-sake."
"//You// stay out of this, totodile. You are ignorant to everything. This creature is not an icon of worship, so leave us to our business without your mindless words as distraction!" Shadowveil snarled thickly. He looked at Jill, the traces of anger he'd showed quickly fading off. "If you do not kill it, it will kill you. Do what your instinct tells you."
She bit her lip, literally awaiting an answer from her chatty Voice. Instead of using words it took brief control over her, tightened the vines to their limit, and cracked Emm's neck. Jill shrieked at the horror of the kill, hearing its gunshot sound effects and feeling the last dying twitches of Emm through her vines. She dropped the not quite alive mew rather heartlessly, as if it was the source of all her self loathing.
Shimmertail returned to her senses the very instant Emm sputtered its last, rattling breath. She tripped over herself at first, surprised by her solidity, but quickly regained balance before any of us took worry. The espeon beamed an uncertain, if not smug, grin.
"And now we wait." She sighed, inspecting Cel's progress. He looked no different from when he first began searching for our universe, save for the additional smears of blood on his chest. It was impossible to tell whether he could finish now or in another month.
Meeko and Damion emerged from their hiding places, the boy having seen too many horror movies to be satisfied at the sight of the monster's corpse. He stood clear of it and the group it seemed to attract so strongly. His confusion of the situation deepened as Damion knelt before the dead mew in a submissive bow.
//I wish I could speak their language.// He thought, and nearly cawed a nervous fit of laughter for thinking such a wish.
Emm's body was just beginning to stiffen up when Cel rose from his stupor. He cast a hasty glance at the dead legendary, leaking out a momentary grimace of sorrow, and then turned away from it. Emm had been a friend to him before the change, as well as all the other legendaries, and seeing it dead rattled him to the core of his head. The blind grip Cel had on our universe couldn't be hindered by grief, so he conjured up the thought that Emm would awaken in heaven in the body it was born as. This supplied a temporary painkiller until his tears could be more convenient.
"I'm sorry I took so long. It is extremely hard sorting through all the parallel universes of your world." Cel said to the ground, face and voice tight. "The portal is ready."
"So we're going home? Finally? No more problems?" I asked, distrusting his words.
Cel started to bite his lip, remembered the painful line of fangs there, and thought better of it. "In truth I do not know how your soul will react to my methods of travel. It's made for those whose souls are held captive by their instincts."
"Meaning?" Jill trailed, also determined to keep her eyes away from Emm's body.
"Guys like Marc, or Emm, or... Hitler or something." I explained in a rush. "We'll just keep our fingers crossed. Now come on! Make with the magic already!"
"Wait one second." Cel replied firmly. Without looking up from the ground he said, "Shimmertail... You have the option of going with them. There is a risk that it might be a parallel universe of the one you came from, but I'm sure you would rather deal with that issue than this one."
"Yes, a new home in an old body surpasses the threat of insanity." Shimmertail confirmed with a nod of her head. She turned to Shadowveil, eyes narrowed in dismay. "Although it will take a great deal of time before the thought of you does not cause me pain."
"Love, like memories, softens over time. That day shall come sooner than you anticipate." He said lowly, his expression mirroring her own. The umbreon cuffed the tip of one of her ears, showing the affectionate side he lacked during our last meeting. "I will have Cel tell me if you all reach the universe safely. Good luck."
Cel timidly stood up straight and took a vicious swing at the air, and from the arc he traced our portal hummed into sight. He leaned forward until only half his body was in this universe while his upper lingered in ours, and then pulled himself out.
"This leads directly to the hospital beds your bodies are in. Be absolutely sure that the body you intend to merge with is yours." He explained, ushering us over. I was the first to overcome the shock, and stumbled towards him on numb paws. My heart pounded crazily, my ears roared, and I sincerely hoped I didn't faint in the short walk over. Finally, finally, we were going home!
oo00oo
Damion dug his claws into the plants around him, finding this a better option than his own skin. They bled their purple glow over his claw tips, and then darkened to their previous, dead behavior. This murder traumatized him to no end; why had they killed Emm? For whatever reason it wanted the three dead, and Damion held no argument to its wishes. They must have deserved it. ...they still deserved it! If only this cold corpse in front of him could give Damion the strength to kill them, he would. His simple mind whirled.
//Scratch, scratch.//
Damion looked up from Emm's body at the noise. He knew he wasn't famous for his sense of hearing, so when he heard something it was going to be quite audible to everyone else. He eyed Jade for any hint that she'd heard it, and found none. She, as well as everyone else, were too caught in the moment of the killing. The reptile scanned his surroundings for the source.
There. Somehow a large, bulky shape had managed to climb down the stairs into this area (during the battle, no doubt). It sauntered its way towards Jill from the shadows, and from his visual Damion saw how it fumbled with its claws while walking on all fours. He narrowed his eyes at the shape, still unable to specify it since it seemed to have the wits enough to avoid the range of Joe's tail flame or the purple glow of the plants. The shape parted its jaws and breathed in the scents, a behavior only a handful of pokémon acquired. Damion's evolution cycle was one of them. In silent amazement Damion inhaled the smells through his mouth as well. This cavern neutralized any that may have been left behind by legendaries such as Emm. Both he and this dark mote were confused by this.
//Should I say something?// The totodile wondered. //It might hurt them.//
Damion chewed on this last note thoughtfully. If this possible predator killed the three, it wouldn't be considered murder. After all, an eye for an eye, right? Kill the trio a hundred times and it still wouldn't match the murder of Emm. Leaning on this logic, Damion said nothing about the creature about to kill Jill.
What happened next fulfilled the grave expectations of Cel, and completely obliterated Damion's. Instead of continuing on towards Jill, the shape rejected her and lurked over to the only one separated from the group: Meeko. No, it was supposed to attack Jill! Stunned, it took Damion several seconds to find his voice and shout out a warning.
"Meeko! Meeko, run!"
His trainer looked over in response to Damion's howling, puzzled. The group locked eyes in Meeko's direction, trying to find what Damion had seen.
The shape snarled in anger, and broke from the shadows on two legs towards Meeko. Joe screamed 'Marc!' and everyone else shouted 'Waterburn!'. Either way, it made no difference to the feraligator- he'd been caught in the act, but intended to leave this place with the flesh of a kill in his jaws.
Meeko screamed, flinched back, and held his arms up by means of fruitless protection. He'd been assaulted by large humans and small pokémon before, neither of them potentially hazardous to his health unless given a weapon. Now, to see this monster barreling at him, reaching a clean two feet taller than his height, he was rooted to the spot, strangled in place by fear.
Waterburn thrust forward his claws, brown with Adrian's dried blood, and buried them beside each other deep into Meeko's chest. The boy threw his head back and gave an animal-like scream of agony, tugging at the claws with his hands in an attempt to tear them away. He pulled the weak human off his feet with his death hold, like a bully may hold an inferior up by the shirt collar, and snarled in Meeko's pale face. Blood gushed thickly down both boy and pokémon.
The claws hadn't lodged themselves deep enough to destroy Meeko's lungs, more of a torture than a blessing since it would take that much longer to kill him. His breast bone was shattered in ten different places if he counted the amount of claws correctly. He breathed in for another scream, and instead choked on the blood bubbling into his throat. Each agonizing cough sent speckles of blood from his mouth. The feraligator's face wavered before his eyes, his legs ran on air, tears came almost as freely as the blood.
Meeko felt the pain worsen as he was lifted up higher, and shouted thinly in pain through the blood. Then, Waterburn ripped his claws free, sealing Meeko's fate, and the boy fell shrieking to the ground. The impact jarred his wounds cruelly since he'd fallen on his stomach, but at this point Meeko couldn't even lift up his head to look death in the face, much less scream about it. He faced the glowing plants, seeing their light even through his tightly closed lids. Without thinking he clamped his teeth over a bundle of them, keeping hold despite their bitter taste.
"M-mom..." He forced out shamelessly, drinking the sharp juices the plant gave off. Its strong taste, along with an image of the parent he would never see again, distracted him from the worst of the pain. "I-I..."
Meeko couldn't finish. He clenched his fists tightly, and begged for death to release him. On the border of his hearing Meeko could hear the sound of someone screaming. It sounded a lot like him.