Chapter 27: Nightfall

The two groups clashed as they met. The humans on one side, the pokemon of the other. At the front of the battle a charging Rhydon skewered one of the swordsmen with its large horn after taking a glancing hit from his sword. The man was teleported away after receiving such an injury, but he probably would not make it.

"Keep your guard up!" Eridel commanded. "Not all injuries can be healed!"

The battle continued and formed into the line of humans facing the line of pokemon on the city street. Lucario, Ninetales, Draconis, Charmandra, Wave, Eridel, and I all were in the back of the group, ready to take the place of any soldiers who fell in battle. If we could get a clear shot, we would launch an attack through, but mostly we could just watch the intense fighting.

Nerezzik and his strongest allies stood at the back of his army, also watching the battle unfold. On one side a group of swordsmen defeated an Ampharos, a Camerupt, and a Grumpig after resisting their special attacks. A Scizor quickly flew in to fill the gap, and quickly had scored several slashes on the swordsmen. The swordsmen, each now with several bleeding wounds, were warped away. On another part of the line, the swordsmen were having trouble fighting against some of the quicker pokemon. A Crobat, Skarmory, and Ninjask all avoided the swords with finesse. They then would score occasional hits with attacks such as wing attack. These swordsmen quickly were exhausted, and then defeated.

Nerezzik had quickly caught on to the facts about the phasic armor. After a short time of seeing attacks of energy such as fire, electric, and especially psychic do little harm, Nerezzik had ordered his forces to use physical attacks. After this switch in strategy, the swordsmen against him slowly lost numbers, and managed to defeat even less of his forces than before.

With our numbers quickly dropping, we were forced to help hold the line. Eridel took a spot in the center of the fighting looking confidant and ready. A Hitmonchan stepped up to try to attack him, unleashing a flurry of punches. Eridel was hit by the first few and was pushed back a little, but he sidestepped the last one and brought his glowing photon sword down on the opponent. It dropped to the ground, and Eridel prepared for the next opponent.

I rushed in to help some of the soldiers against a Metagross. My opening mud-shot attack distracted it enough for the swordsmen to get in a few hits and defeat it. The Rhydon from earlier, now with red on the tip of its horn, was still pushing back the line of swordsmen. I hit it from the side with a hydro pump, which defeated the rock and ground pokemon easily. I pushed back the enemies, but as I did a Sceptile appeared to my side and began rushing towards me with its leaf blade attack. The attack was almost to hit when it was tackled by Wave. I finished it with another tackle and Wave came to fight at my side.

"I'll always watch out for you," she stated as she joined the battle.

"And I for you," I replied as I took out another opponent.

Draconis and Charmandra both went to help against some of the bug pokemon that were causing paralysis, sleep, or poison to the soldiers. A Dustox and Butterfree flew in the air spreading their stun spore attacks, but two flamethrowers caused both to fall to the ground. Nearby an Aggron charged forward, throwing one of the soldiers in the building on the side of the road. Draconis rushed forward to attack, but his fire spin didn't seem to be enough to defeat the Aggron by itself.

"If we unite our flames, we will be able to overcome him," Charmandra suggested as she added her own fire spin. Together the two attacks combined, creating a pillar of flame brighter and stronger than before. The Aggron was defeated, and fell to the ground as the attacks subsided.

"Thank you Charmandra," Draconis complimented. "Let's fight as one from now on."

"I'll never leave your side willingly," Charmandra replied as she took up position beside Draconis.

Ninetales helped provided support for some of the soldiers, using his confuse ray and will-o-wisp to weaken the enemies. Several opponents fell as Ninetales and the soldiers worked together, but an Exploud managed to defeat the soldiers, leaving only Ninetales. Ninetales used his fire blast to defeat the Exploud, and then moved forward to fight others.

Lucario went to help against the quick pokemon that would avoid the swordsmen's attacks. Using extreme speed and shadow ball, Lucario defeated the Crobat and Ninjask, leaving only the Skarmory. The Skarmory rushed forward with a steel wing attack, but Lucario jumped right above the attack, twisting into a powerful kick that sent the Skarmory crashing to the ground.

The battle continued, and both sides were slowly reduced in number. Nerezzik's larger force was reduced until it was only himself, Regirock, Regice, Registeel, Deoxys, and two new pokemon that he had found more recently. One of them looked like Latias, but was slightly larger and blue colored. Suddenly, it rushed forward at us with incredible speed. As it got nearer, it was suddenly stopped when a red blur flew forward at it. The two collided, and as they stopped, we could see that Latias had joined the battle now.

"Latios, please stop!" Latias cried. Latios ignored her plea and unleashed a dragon breath attack. The attack hit Latias, who then countered with a dragon breath of her own. Each attack on Latios seemed to pain Latias, but she fought him with all her strength. Nerezzik and the rest of his allies moved towards Latias and Latios, but we moved to intercept them.

Our group was tired after the long battle, but we would try to fight our opponents as best we could. Eridel noticed the other new pokemon that had a long purple tail and was with Nerezzik and called out to him.

"Mewtwo, why have you joined with these pokemon?" Eridel asked.

"You must be one of those who made me," Mewtwo answered. "Those who made me cared nothing for me, and so I have joined Nerezzik, who also was made by humans."

"It isn't like that at all Mewtwo! We did care for you!" said Eridel, trying to persuade Mewtwo.

"I just remember the tests and experiments, so I do not trust you!" Mewtwo replied.

Eridel looked a bit frustrated, and said to himself, "If only my sister was here. She could make him understand, since she spent more time than anyone else caring for him."

After this brief pause of Eridel talking with Mewtwo, we began to fight. Wave and I would take on Regirock first. Draconis and Charmandra would take on Registeel. Ninetales would take out Regice, and Lucario would fight Deoxys. Eridel would take on Mewtwo and Mew, but that left Nerezzik free to attack any of us.

We moved to face Regirock. After the long battle, I felt weak and slow, but I would keep fighting. Wave also looked fatigued, and I knew we would have a tough battle ahead of us. We both started off with our water guns, but after battling all day, the attacks lacked their usual power. Regirock weakened slightly, but retaliated with Ancientpower. Several rocks flew up and hit both Wave and me, and Regirock seemed to shine with more strength after the attack. We tried more of our water and mud attacks, but Regirock just kept on coming. Regirock used lock-on and then the white energy of its hyper beam began to charge up. As it unleashed the attack, I jumped in front of Wave and used protect. Afterwards I lay gasping for air on the ground after using up most of my energy for the protect.

"No, I'll protect you!" Wave shouted, and as she pushed herself to the limits of her endurance, she began to glow white.

Suddenly, Wave became a Marshtomp, and had a new sense of strength. She launched another water gun at Regirock, and this time it seemed to cause some damage to the large rock pokemon. Regirock still had most of its strength and used rock throw on Wave. The rock landed right on her, pinning her to the ground as Regirock used another lock-on.

"Wave, watch out!" I yelled as I pushed myself to get up, my body and lungs burning from the effort. Suddenly, I felt a strange energy inside of me, and found myself taller and stronger. Looking down, it was obvious that I was now a Marshtomp as well, and I used a mud-shot on Regirock. Regirock now was at its limit, and used another rock throw. I tried to avoid the attack, but it hit the ground and rolled over my legs as it knocked me down. Regirock prepared for another attack to finish off both me and Wave, but we still had the recall beacons, so right before getting hit by another hyper beam I activated it, and we both were teleported away.

Draconis and Charmandra faced a similar situation. Exhausted by the battle, they could only try their hardest against Registeel. They used some flamethrower and fire spin attacks, but Registeel kept coming. Draconis and Charmandra kept pushing themselves, and as they were both about to collapse. When they ran out of energy, a new power came from within them. They suddenly became Charmeleons, but the time this change took allowed Registeel to move in range. It swung its large metal arms out, hitting both Draconis and Charmandra. Charmandra was knocked out, and Draconis was left barely conscious. He shot one last flamethower at Registeel before activating the beacon that Eridel had given them. The street that had been the battlefield faded away as they warped back to Exaccus headquarters.

Ninetales faced off against Regice, but it was a difficult battle. His attacks burned and confused the crystalline ice pokemon, but it had incredible stamina. After recovering from the most recent confuse ray, it used lock-on on Ninetales. Ninetales tried to counter with a confuse ray, but as he was preparing the attack, the Regice shot out a zap cannon attack. The electricity ran through Ninetales, making movement impossible. The Regice then followed up with a hyper beam, blastint Ninetales backwards. The earlier battles had drained too much of Ninetales strength, and as he was knocked out, the beacon activated and he was also teleported away from defeat.

Latias and Latios had continued their aerial brawl. Both were scratched and burned from each others claws and from the dragonbreath attacks. Latios charged up and unleashed a luster purge, weakening Latias. She countered with another dragon breath, but Latios was prepared and took the attack with little damage. Latios followed up with a psychic attack, and Latias fell to the ground in exhaustion and defeat.

"Why must we fight?" she mournfully stated as she lay on the ground. "I can tell that your heart is pained by attacking me, but some darkness in your mind keeps pushing you to do things you don't want. I will keep trying until I free you, Latios, but for now I have to go."

With that final statement, Latias used the beacon and warped away from the battlefield and the pained hearts of all those controlled by Nerezzik.

Eridel moved to face Mewtwo and Mew, but it seemed that none of them could do any damage when the battle first began. Eridel's armor gave him immunity to Mewtwo's and Mew's psychic attacks, but Mewtwo or Mew would just float quickly backwards and avoid the attacks of his swords. Eridel tried using a running attack and managed to score a hit on Mewtwo's side. A small stream of blood flowed down onto Mewtwo's leg. Mewtwo, infuriated by his injury, began using his psychic powers to tear pieces out of the road and buildings and throw them at Eridel. Eridel managed to slice a few with his sword and dodge others, but the floating chunks of concrete came at him from all sides. He was knocked down and pinned down under a pile of debris, with only his head uncovered. Mewtwo came up and wrapped the end of his tail around Eridel's neck, and Mew floated beside him, watching Eridel.

"Humans like you are unfit to live. I shall kill you all," Mewtwo replied as he healed the injury from Eridel's sword with his psychic powers. Mewtwo's tail squeezed tighter and began to choke Eridel. Right before he passed out, Eridel's recall beacon activated, saving him from death. Mewtwo was enraged by this, and thought to himself, "I'll have to take care of those teleporters next."

Now only Lucario was left. After the long battle, he could only try his best to battle against Deoxys. The two traded blows, slowly weakening one another as some of their attacks managed to hit. Nerezzik decided to join in the battle, so Lucario was now in even more danger. He jumped, rolled, and sidestepped attack after attack, unable to gain the opening for an attack of his own. Suddenly, a psychic blast hit him from behind, and then both Nerezzik's dark attack and Deoxys' own psychic blast hit Lucario. Lucario was blasted backwards into the black side of a building, which cracked as his head hit it. Blood now streamed down his face and onto the ground. Lucario could see nothing clearly, and it all became an indistinct blur. He could not win against so many powerful opponents, so Lucario knew it was time to retreat. Activating the recall beacon, he felt strange as he was warped to Exaccus headquarters.

On the street, Nerezzik was left with a furious Mewtwo, three nearly defeated Regis, an injured Latios, and Mew. Nerezzik decided to have Mew and Mewtwo go forward and destroy the city and any people in it without him. Meanwhile, he would stay and make sure his army was restored to its fighting power by the next day.

After a few hours, Nerezzik sat sleepily in the street, leaning against the wall of the building. As he was about to doze off, Mewtwo and Mew floated up the street.

"Back already?" Nerezzik asked Mewtwo.

"Yes, the humans used their teleporters to move nearly everyone out of the city, so there wasn't much to do," Mewtwo replied. "I do know where the teleporters are located, so we will go destroy those next."

"An excellent plan, but for now, we'll be getting some rest before we move out. Once we destroy the teleporters, the humans won't be able to escape."