And lo! The prodigal writer has returned with a new chapter! And to think, it only took...10 months to do so!
*sigh* Okay, look. I'm gonna be straight with you all. The fact is, life happened. That's why I couldn't return to the story after so long, and it also explains why it's been taking so long to write. I'll elaborate further, but only at the end of the chapter. (See what I did there? I'm bribing you to read my story for information. Aren't I smart or what?)
Ahem, so let's return to the story! It's time for this cliffhanger to finally meet its end!
...
...
...
...Urgh...
...Am I...dead?
Ow, my head...
"Ronald, where are you?"
Who...Who's that?
"I found him! He's over here!"
Those voices...They sound familiar...
"Ronald, can you hear me? Wake up!"
Urgh...go away. Can't you see I'm sleeping...
"Ronald, open your eyes! RONALD!"
Weakly, the Keldeo's eyes slowly opened. His entire world was blurry, and all his ears heard was a bunch of muffled noise. However, his vision soon cleared, and he looked up to see that he was still in the collapsing ruins, and that there were two smiling faces looking down at him.
"O-Omega? D-Damon?" Ronald asked, wearily.
"Yeah, that's right!" the Scizor answered him. "We're going to get you out of here, now!" Ronald noticed that whatever effects that mind-controlling ray had on him, they were gone now.
Omega laid his paw on his side. "Ronald, can you stand?"
"I-I think so..." Ronald attempted to stand, but as soon as he tried, the bones in both of his left legs audibly crunched and he laid back down, writhing in pain. "Ack, I...I can't walk! I-I think my entire left side is busted!"
Damon and Omega looked at each other and nodded. They both moved to opposite sides of the Keldeo, Damon positioned himself at his hind legs, while Omega went to Ronald's head. They then both slid their arms under him and began lift him up. However, once they did this, Ronald screamed in pain, and they quickly set him back down.
"How are we supposed to get him out of here if all we do is hurt him?" Damon asked, panicking.
"I may be of some assistance." A figure moved slowly up the top of the stairs, and it took Ronald a moment to recognize Elder Alakazam. Ronald noticed that his eyes were glowing, meaning he's performing some type of Psychic move at the moment. "Wha- What are you doing here, Elder?" he asked, shocked.
Alakazam merely chuckled. "I heard from a couple of good friends of mine that you were in need of some help, and it turned out they were right."
Omega turned to Ronald. "If he hadn't come, this cave would've collapsed a long time ago." Ronald looked up at the ceiling and, indeed, the entire surface was covered with a thin layer of psychic energy, with only the occasional piece of rubble falling every now and then.
"But, you're exerting so much energy trying to keep the ceiling up? Can you really handle carrying Ronald at the same time?" Damon asked.
"Ah, you underestimate me, my boy!" Alakazam assured the Scizor, "Sure, it might mean we won't have as much time as we did before, and I'll probably be napping for the next week after this, but I'll be fine."
The three Pokemon nodded at the Elder. "Alright," Ronald said, "Do it!"
Alakazam concentrated on Ronald, and the Keldeo saw himself becoming cloaked in psychic energy before seemingly appearing to magically float in the air. As this happened, the light from the ceiling became dampened, and the rubble falling from the ceiling became more frequent and much larger. "Let's go!" Damon yelled, and the three Pokemon, with Ronald in tow, slowly made their way to the exit of the cave.
As they almost reached their destination, Ronald cried, "Wait! Stop!"
Alakazam grunted, his will beginning to waver. "This isn't a scenic tour, my child. What could possibly make you want to stop now?" he said, grumpily.
Ronald pointed with his horn. "Look, over there!" The other three turned to see where Ronald was pointing, and gasped in awe as they saw a crumpled human form, who's mask was torn off and was thrown off towards the side.
"Is that-" Damon started.
Ronald quickly interrupted him and ordered Omega, "Get her. Alive or dead, we can't leave her here."
Omega looked up to his master in shock, but he quickly recovered and ran over to grab the unconscious Commander G.
Peach was pacing back and forth in front of the now abandoned Team Cosmos base, a tall, domed, fortress-like building with a tall barred fence surrounding the entirety of the place. At first, she was astonished at the size of the building outside, wondering how such a major operation could've been hidden from everyone for so long, and the bright sun had been blinding to her after spending so much time in the darkness. But now, the sunlight was just a nuisance in her eyes, and the nearby surroundings showed little distraction from her current thoughts. "I hope they're okay. They've been down there for a really long time."
Suddenly, a loud explosion rocked the building, and she saw the roof on top of the building had begun to collapse. The worry in her heart burst forth in a loud scream. "Hurry! The building's collapsing!" she screamed into the cavernous entrance of the building.
Suddenly, she saw dark figures running towards her. Could it be... she thought to herself, and screamed once more, "Hurry! Run!"
The figures inside became clearer and she saw five of them. It was Omega, who was carrying a person, Damon, and Elder Alakazam. And floating just behind them was Ronald, battered heavily, but still alive. For a second, she was overcome with joy, and gasped excitedly, before she saw the cracks spreading across the ceiling, the dust floating down as the whole section weakened with the great force being pressed upon it.
"Guys, hurry! The ceiling going to collapse!" Peach screamed at the top of her lungs, and that was all that was needed to force the Pokémon into bursting forth into one final sprint. It was a race against time, and they were seconds from losing. And, just as they felt sunlight on their faces after so long, the ceiling finally fell apart and began to fall on top of them. Peach screamed as the scene became filled with dirt and rubble, causing her to shut her eyes and try to hack the dirt out of her lungs by coughing heavily.
It took a few minutes for the scene to clear enough for Peach to feel safe opening her eyes a little. After coughing a little more, she tried to wave away some of the dirt from her face, and saw everyone lying on the ground, coughing and groaning from exhaustion. Apparently, just a second before the tunnel collapsed, they managed to clear the last foot or so by taking a literal leap of faith.
Peach saw the Lucario, Scizor, Alakazam and human lying in front of her, but where was Ronald? She remembered that he was floating behind the others and trembled at the possibility that her friend got caught in the rubble. Suddenly, she heard a low moan coming from behind her, and she turned to see the Keldeo sprawled out on the ground. She ran up to him and shouted, "Ronald, are you okay? Say something!"
She heard a low groaning sound coming from him before she heard him reply quietly, "I hurt everywhere."
"Ronald..." she said quietly, tears welling up in her eyes. Then, she collapsed and began to sob into Ronald's mane, weakly beating him with her paw. "Why did you scare me so much, you jerk?!" she whimpered in between her sobs. "You could've gotten killed. I'll- I'll never forgive you for this, you hear? Never!"
Ronald weakly chuckled. "I'm sorry, Peach. I'll try to make it up to you, somehow. Just, not now, okay?"
Damon walked over to Ronald. "So, what do we do about her?" he asked, gesturing to unconscious person lying next to Omega.
Peach looked up, wiping away her tears, and wearily walked over to the person, wanting to get a closer look. It was a woman with fiery red hair and a pretty face, though it was smudged from dirt and sweat. She was breathing shallowly, but she didn't look too injured, save the bleeding gash on her head which obviously caused her unconsciousness. Elder Alakazam had apparently gone off to retrieve some moss for her. He bent down by her and applied pressure to the wound to hopefully stop the bleeding. "Who is that?" she asked the others.
Ronald, Damon and Omega turned to each other and nodded, and Ronald answered her, "That is Commander G of Team Cosmos. Or, as I knew her, Commander Mars of Team Galactic."
Peach looked over to him. She noticed that Damon's claws were clenched tight, and Omega, who was sitting next to Peach, had a very solemn look in his eyes. "Who's Commander Mars?" Peach asked. "And what's Team Galactic."
"Team Galactic was an organization that came to power a few years ago." Omega explained, not taking his eyes off of Mars. "Their leader, a man named Cyrus, attempted to use the power of both Palkia and Dialga to create a world where there is no pain and no strife, and everyone, both Pokémon and humans, got along in equally."
"However," Damon continued, "There was a cost. In order to create his new world, he had to destroy this world."
Peach gasped in shock. "Wh-Why?!"
"This plane of reality cannot handle two universes on top of each other, young one." Alakazam spoke up. "If this Cyrus fellow had succeeded in his mission, then the new universe would have destroyed our universe, annihilating everyone and everything in the process."
"That's...horrible!" Peach exclaimed loudly. She turned to Mars with a glare. "And she was one of these bad people?"
"I prefer to say they were misguided," Ronald said, "But, yes, she-"
"How could you defend her, Ronald?!" Peach yelled at him. "You guys just told me that she tried to destroy everything!"
Ronald groaned but, grimacing from pain, he replied, "She didn't try to destroy anything. She just followed Cyrus down a bad road. And even so, it was led with good intentions, I suppose."
Peach gave Ronald a disappointed look, and finally he blurted out. "Alright, so it wasn't all that good. I'm just trying to say that we shouldn't judge her for what she did before."
"And what's she doing here, then? I don't wanna believe that someone who is good would go right back to whatever evil thing they were doing before!"
"Well, I-" Ronald started, but then a loud, groaning scream came from Damon.
"Would you two just knock it off?" the Scizor yelled. "You two are acting like a couple of toddlers!"
Ronald and Peach looked at him, before realizing what they were doing. "Oh. Um, yeah, you're right." Peach told Damon before she turned to Ronald. "I'm sorry, Ronald. I guess... I just had a bad week."
Ronald chuckled weakly. "Yeah, well, I've had a really bad day, so I suppose we can call it even. In fact, if I could get some medical attention soon, that'd really help brighten my day."
"I've already let Blissey know." Alakazam said, after patiently waiting for the conversation to die down. After seeing everyone's confused looks, he explained, "Surprisingly, we're not that far off from our village, and we should be able to arrive by sundown."
"What?" Peach exclaimed. "We can really go home?"
"Hm," Omega sounded off, "Well, I suppose it makes sense. After all, when you go on a long journey, the path typically leads to home. But, with them being so close to where we started... It just doesn't feel right."
Alakazam nodded. "I agree. I believe I need to have a word with the townspeople about adding security measures to prevent both the village and its residents from coming to any harm.
"But, first, we need to get Ronald some help," Alakazam continued. "He's already slipped back into unconsciousness while we were talking." The group turned to the Keldeo, who's eyes had since closed and his chest rose and fell in a steady motion.
Alakazam lifted Ronald into the air using his psychic powers, and the group began to walk away before Damon suddenly asked, "What about Mars?"
Omega turned back to the Damon. "Leave her. She'll be fine, and the rest of her team should be coming back to look for her soon." He then threw down her mask next to her, which he had picked up and had been holding without anyone's notice, and he turned away to follow Alakazam back to the village.
Peach followed immediately after him and, after taking one last long look at the red-haired woman, Damon followed behind shortly afterward.
Mars' world drifted in and out of subconsciousness, until her vision finally began to clear as she heard voices calling out nearby.
She strenuously pushed herself up off of the dirt and, looking around, noticed her mask lying next to her. She quickly pulled it on, just as she saw beams from flashlights emerging from the bushes and Team Cosmos grunts stepping out.
"Commander G, ma'am, you're okay!" One of the grunts, a woman, exclaimed.
Mars roughly shook her head, attempting to clear her thoughts. "Yes, I'm fine. I just...had a little trouble." She looked up and, to her surprise, the sky was now dark, the stars reigning supreme this far away from the city. "How long have you been searching for me?"
"Almost ten hours, ma'am," Another grunt, a man, said. "In fact, Commander R had just called in to give up the search, saying you must have died in the collapse of the ruins."
Mars growled, grinding her teeth together. "Of course she did. Well, I'll have a talk with her as soon as we return. I want a full report on everything that has happened today!"
"Yes ma'am!" The grunts said in unison.
The grunts then covered all sides of Mars and helped her towards the airplane, which was ready to take them back to central HQ. As they walked, Mars began to think about the events in the ruins, and how she watched Lord Constantine disappear in the portal before the explosion which rendered her unconscious. It's happened again, she thought to herself, Why does this have to keep happening? First Cyrus, and now Constantine. She growled lowly. I'll never forgive that twerp for doing this to me! I will find him, and I will make him pay for everything he's done to me! That's a promise!
And it's done! My next chapter of Pokémon Resurrection is finally out! Considering this is my main story, it's kind of sad that this didn't get done sooner, but I have three words that any writer can sympathize with me about to explain this very long hiatus: severe writer's block.
Yes, for over ten months, I have had one of the worst cases of writer's block ever! I mean, I knew exactly what I wanted to write. I just didn't know how to. I didn't know what to put in and what to leave out, and phrasing was difficult as all heck. However, I somehow managed to pull myself together just before the one year anniversary of my last update. (Which is kind of sad, to be honest.)
Other things didn't help at all, such as losing any access to my typical writing tools for over half that time, and when I did get at least my tablet back, I focused too much on my other stories before I got back to this one. (But, you should really see how popular my dual PMD stories and FNAF ToD story are right now.) I needed to get back into the writing groove, and doing my other stories helped me get back on track to at least try to finish this story again, hopefully by the end of this year.
Oh, and one more thing that seriously hampered the writing process is that one of my favorite authors on FanFiction, IcyNirvana, died over a month ago, and I kinds receded from the site during that time, as it broke my heart that one of my heroes on FanFiction (yes, I am going that far) had passed away.
But, enough excuses! It's time for me to get back into the grind, guys! So, hopefully the next chapter will come soon for you, but until then, stay tuned to find out what happens to Ronald and friends during the aftermath of this major event!
P.S., I wanted to give a big shout-out to romulo-the-zoroark, for reminding me how awesome this story was, and how terrible it is to have left it where I did. Sorry, and thanks!
