Brave New World

by Ri2

The end of the world has come and gone, and a new world has been built from the ashes of the old. But just because the final battle's been won doesn't mean new dangers can't come crawling out of the woodwork... Sequel to Latias' Journey

38. Legacy of Evil

And now for the arc you've all been waiting for. There will be action! Swashbuckling! Pirates! Ninjas! Swordfights! Explosions! Crotchety old sea captains! Evil cults! Ancient horrors! Vampires! Undersea adventures! Storming enemy strongholds! And SINGING!

But first we have some exposition. And a cliffhanger or two. Don't look at me like that; it can't always start with a bang, can it? Besides, the real fun will start soon enough. Like, next chapter or so. So just wait a little longer.

It'll be intense, I swear! Until then, you can read this. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me. Thanks to Tazkolmasterofemeralds, ninetalesuk, and Ryu the Weredragon for being my beta readers and for inspiring me and letting me bounce ideas off them. I'd also like to thank HVK for coming up with the name 'Bridget' for one of my characters. You should know the one. I think it really fits, don't you?

…

After a few days of pleasant travel in which they had a chance to bond and have a few misadventures that will not be included in this story, Team Aurabolt and their newest member, Lily, returned to their 'home base' on Sinnorre, the secret library in Sharpedo Cape. This was the first time half their members had been in Professor Oak and Tracey's hideaway or anywhere near Treasure Town, and all reacted to their new surroundings in their own way. Lily was enamored by the coziness of the place and the vast number of fascinating books all around them, a far cry from the cold, often terrifying collection of books of dark magic that her mother kept in her lair. Sasha was rather uncomfortable due to the enclosed space and proximity to Treasure Town, which was causing her disaster sense to wail almost as badly as it had when Giant Volcano had been set to erupt by the Nihilators. Tiny was, as always, completely apathetic and uninterested. After receiving a warm welcome from Oak and Tracey, the weary heroes had dropped off their things and settled down for a cup of tea while Oak filled them in on current events and gave them what they hoped would be the next clue they needed to continue their journey.

Finishing his cup, Professor Oak leaned back in his chair. "So, its Zero Isle you want to hear about, is it?"

"You know it is, Professor," Ash said. "We told you over Leo's computer that that's where the next Star Badge is."

"And that we were hoping you could find out more about it, since the Internet seemed oddly bereft of information on it," Pikachu said.

"All we know so far is that no Pokemon has ever set foot on the island," Sasha said.

Lily nodded. "There are stories of magical barriers…storms that never break…"

"And pirate curses! Which is awesome!" Leo said enthusiastically, the exact opposite reaction most sane people would have to hearing about something like that.

Lily was appalled. "'Awesome?' You think curses are cool?! Leo, I'm wearing a curse right now that means my soul is bound for the clutches of my mother's master one day! Or is that 'awesome' to you too?"

Leo blanched. "What? No! No, that's not what I…I didn't mean…I wasn't thinking!"

"Clearly," Sasha said drily. Tiny sucked his pacifier in agreement.

Leo sweatdropped as an upset Lily huffed and turned away from him. Well, I sure screwed that up…nice going, Leo. Gotta remember not to open my big mouth so much around girls, especially ones I'm trying to help adjust to the big wide world…and maybe seduce. "Sorry, Lily. I didn't mean anything by that. I know there's nothing cool about curses, and we'll do everything we can to break yours."

"…Thank you, Leo," Lily said, slightly mollified.

"If you know there is nothing 'cool' about them, then why did you react that way to the notion of a pirate curse?" Sasha asked.

"I'm a big sucker for pirate stories of adventure and magic on the open seas," Leo said. "I was kinda excited at the prospect of being in one."

"You are aware that pirates are lawless amoral thieving scoundrels who plunder and pillage and rape and kill people for fun, right?" Pikachu asked skeptically. "They're like the barbarians of the ocean. Aside from the actual barbarians of the ocean, that is, since sea barbarians stick to the water while pirates go around in ships."

Leo shrugged. "Yeah, but they also make fun protagonists in lots of video games, movies, and TV shows. Blame the media for corrupting my views on pirates, not me."

"Well Leo, if it's a story of pirates and adventure on the high seas that you want, then this may be just what you're looking for," Tracey said as he returned to the table and handed the Professor a very old book.

Professor Oak eased the book open, careful not to crack its spine or tear any of its pages. "The story of Zero Island begins thousands of years ago, before the great cataclysm…which is why it isn't widely known today, since most of our records from before that time were destroyed in the disaster, save for rare books like the ones in this library. How fortuitous of its former occupant to have left them for future seekers of truth like us, to use them in our quest for knowledge!"

"Thousands of years ago…just how far back does this take place?" Sasha wondered.

"Long before what we historians term the Last Age of Man, referring of course to the days immediately before the cataclysm," Oak said. "Back when humans were still alive, and pirates roamed the seven seas."

Ash felt a chill going down his spine, thinking again to his latest flashback. He hadn't really filled his friends in on the details of that memory yet. It wasn't something he wanted to dwell on…and neither were the full ramifications of what he had done. He also wasn't happy that Leo had been right. Again. It didn't look like his home world still existed. Maybe it was for the best that he didn't remember it completely…

"This was in the days before Pokeballs or electricity were invented," Oak said. "Well, electricity technically existed—there were Electric Pokemon around, after all—but nobody harnessed it for anything except maybe the occasional lighthouse."

"No electricity…mon, that must have been a crappy time to live," Leo commented. "No computer, no Internet, no television, no video games, no nothing!"

"Most of those pirates you seem to look up to didn't have most of those things, either," Pikachu said smugly.

"You'd be surprised, actually…" Leo said.

"There were many infamous buccaneers in those days…but none were worse than the legendary Barbedo, King of the Pirates!" Oak said, turning the book around to show them a full-page picture of an incredibly intimidating human bulging with muscles that barely seemed to be contained in his greatcoat and breeches, with bandoliers holding dozens of flasks of grog and explosives crossing over his strapping shirtless chest, a peg leg, and an incredibly gruesome face covered in scars that his long mustache and thick unkempt beard did little to hide. He had a big fancy pirate hat with a long Altaria plume stuck in it, a long flowing cape, a cutlass in one hand, and the severed head of an Aipom dangling from the other. The picture was so well-done, and the snarling man so vivid, that it looked as if he might step off the page at any moment and lay into them with his blade.

Tiny sucked his pacifier, unimpressed. "That guy kind of looks a lot like every other fictional human pirate I've ever seen," Ash commented. A few faint memories flickered through his head. "And not-so-fictional ones, too."

"I imagine they all have to adhere to a certain dress code," Pikachu said.

"Do you suppose he bit off that Aipom's head with his teeth?" Sasha wondered, examining the monkey head and the rather grotesque mandibles filling the sneering pirate's mouth. "I think I see teeth marks around the neck…"

"I've never seen a Pokemon like that before," Lily said curiously. "What is he?"

"He's not a Pokemon at all, Lily. He's a human," Leo explained.

Lily's mouth made a wide O in surprise. "Oh! So that's what they looked like. Ash, did you have a beard like that, too?"

Ash rubbed his chin self-consciously. "I don't think so, no…"

"I suppose he may not look that unique compared to other pirates, but he more than made up for it with his misdeeds. Just look! The list of his crimes goes on for fifteen pages!" Oak said, gently flipping some pages before them.

"Wow," Ash commented as some of the details of Barbedo's long and colorful history flicked past his eyes. "When did this guy find time to sleep?"

Leo whistled. "That's quite a lengthy resume…"

"He must have sinned every day of his life from sundown to sunset, and a little while before and after too, to get that long a rap sheet!" Pikachu said.

"I'm sure my Mother's done more. She's had time to," Lily said, not sounding especially proud of the fact, merely stating a fact. They grimaced at that thought.

"So did Barbedo, once he and his crew were cursed with immortality," Tracey said.

Leo perked up at this. "Immortality? Ooh, how'd they get it? Pass through a portal to a hell inside a giant stone monkey head?"

"No," said Oak.

"Steal gold medallions from a forbidden stone chest of ancient Azteka treasure on a blasted forgotten island?" Leo pressed.

"No," said Oak.

"Eat fruit from a magical tree that gives you random superpowers?" Leo guessed.

"No," said Oak.

"Seduce a sea goddess, who-" Leo started.

"Leo, that's enough!" Pikachu snapped.

Leo frowned. "What? You know I'm trying to find out how to live forever! I gotta pursue any leads I find, so long as they aren't too amoral."

"You probably wouldn't like the one method of life-extension I know," Lily said.

"Oh? What's that?" Leo asked. She told him. "Yeah, you're right, I wouldn't like that."

"Uh, if we could get back on track?" Tracey asked.

"How did he get cursed?" Sasha asked.

"Barbedo and his crew possessed a magical ship of unknown origins that they used to sail all around the world and pull the most astonishing—and horrific—thefts and raids," Oak said, turning a page to show them a blurry woodcut of a rather magnificent pirate ship that didn't look like any of the Rattataty vessels in the Treasure Town harbor, or like a vessel made of ordinary timber, either. "The accounts of survivors of his attacks said the ship seemed to literally appear from nowhere, coming into existence in an instant, laying waste to everything around it, and vanishing again just as suddenly into thin air."

"Maybe it could teleport…" Leo suggested.

"Or go underwater? Like a submarine?" Ash said.

Oak nodded. "The latter seems to be most likely, especially considering how Barbedo got himself cursed. He and his crew decided to pull off their most audacious robbery yet and break into the Temple of the Sea and steal the fabled Sea Crown that lay within!"

"Ooohhh…" said Leo.

"What's the Temple of the Sea?" Sasha asked.

"The Temple of the Sea, also known as 'Samiya' by the ancient People of the Water, is an underwater temple that floats along the ocean currents, never staying in one place for very long," Oak said. "It is said that one day the King of the Sea shall take the throne in that place, and rule all the world's oceans from that mythical seat of power."

"What was that about a Crown?" Ash asked. Had he and Pikachu spotted the Temple on their voyage to Sinnorre? Or had that been something else? And why did he have the strange feeling he'd been to this 'Samiya' before? And flew around in a magical golden stream of water…or had he just been listening to too many of Leo's stories again?

"The Sea Crown is supposed to be a crown in the temple that not only controls the temple but gives whoever wears it mastery over all the world's waters, so that they are truly King of the Sea," Lily said. "Mother tried for a while to find it, believing that with it in her power she could freeze all the waters of the world and usher in a new Ice Age."

They all grimaced. "Talk about a frosty bitch…" Leo muttered.

"Yikes…well, since that hasn't happened yet, I guess she must not have found it," Pikachu said.

Lily shook her head. "No. She's managed to track the Temple and find it several times, but was never able to penetrate its walls."

"Barbedo was able to do so, thanks to the power of his legendary ship," Oak said. "Thankfully, he was thwarted from stealing the Sea Crown by the Temple guards, but he and his crew managed to escape with a blue gemstone favored by Kyogre. It is said that she cursed them as punishment for this theft, so that from that day forward their souls would never leave the Earth and be trapped in their bodies even after death."

"Harsh," Ash commented. Tiny sucked his pacifier, unimpressed.

"And more than a little frightening. I can't imagine being trapped in a rotting corpse forever…" said a disturbed Pikachu.

"Neither can I. That's why I'm glad I don't have to worry about the whole flesh thing you mortals do. I really don't understand how you living folk deal with it," Lily commented.

"Eh, we manage," Leo said.

"In the end, it turned out not being as bad a curse as you would expect," Oak continued. "Or at least the pirates didn't see it that way. While their souls were trapped in their bodies, their bodies were still usable even after death. They kept on pirating long past their expiration date, rising from the graves as undead horrors and continuing their reign of terror upon the seas."

"Cool," Leo said. The others frowned at him. "What? It is!"

"Sounds like Kyogre's curse backfired pretty badly," Pikachu said. "Doesn't surprise me, she's never really been one for forethought."

"Mother would have made it a much more horrible curse if Barbedo had stolen from her," Lily said. "The least awful thing she would do to them is-"

"Please don't tell us, we really don't want to know," Tracey said anxiously.

Sasha frowned in thought. "A blue gemstone? Could it have been the Star Badge?"

"Hey, yeah! And maybe that means it wasn't Kyogre that cursed them at all, but the Badge!" Ash realized. "This sounds a lot like what happened to Tiama when she used her Star Badge to keep on going even after the warriors of Turtle Town killed her, and how Leo's dad and the other people Tiama ate are still around now as skeletons."

"It does, at that," Pikachu agreed. "Hmm…am I the only one who's noticed that all the Star Badges we've encountered so far seem to have something to do with life energy? Channeling or generating or transforming it in some way?"

"Hey, then does that mean if we get all seven, we could-" Leo started.

"No Leo, you can't use them to make yourself immortal," Ash said.

"Awww," Leo whined.

"If the Guardians are the ones who created the Star Badges, then I suppose it makes sense that the gems would have the power of life…after all, it is from the Celestial Heavens that all life originated," Oak commented. "And it was that same power that, sadly, may have allowed Barbedo and his crew to continue plaguing the seas for hundreds of years after their deaths."

"But they're not around now…so what happened?" Ash asked.

"And what does it have to do with Zero Isle?" Pikachu asked.

"Zero Isle was the home base of Barbedo and his crew, where they returned with all their ill-gotten loot after every successful raid…and since they were now immortal undead, every raid was successful. The governments of the world were at a loss about what to do regarding Barbedo. They were powerless to stop him; Zero Isle was too well-fortified and even when they sent several armadas to destroy the place while Barbedo was on it the pirate king defeated them all using only his magic ship! What's worse, he was inspiring more criminals to become pirates and rebel against authority, hurting innocent people in the process. It seemed like total anarchy would break out if something wasn't done about Barbedo, and soon," Tracey said.

"And that's when the Arcean Order stepped in," Oak said, turning the pages to a picture of several robed priests in boats surrounding a large island, their hands glowing with magical power and causing a wall of some sort to appear. "Tired of their temples being looted and their priests being slain by Barbedo, they waited until he and his crew returned to Zero Isle to drink and sleep off their latest atrocity and then surrounded the island with a dozen of their greatest mages. Rather than try to level the island with spells—for even they were not powerful enough to do that, and doubted Barbedo would be killed for good even by such an assault—they combined their energies to form a barrier around the island, sealing it off from the rest of the world. They gave up their lives in the process, but came back as Ghosts right away, so weren't particularly inconvenienced." Oak closed the book. "And so Barbedo's age of piracy came to an end, with he and his crew trapped on Zero Isle for all eternity. They must still be on that island to this day, since the barrier is still up and it's not like there's anywhere else they could have gone."

Leo applauded. "Bravo! An excellently delivered piece of expositionary backstory!"

"So that's the story of Zero Isle, huh?" Ash muttered. More half-remembered memories flickered through his head. "I don't think any of the pirates I've met before were so bad they needed to be locked up like that."

Lily nodded. "Yes, you usually hear stories about demons and sorcerers and evil kings being sealed away by magic. Pirates, not so much."

"So, let me get this straight," Pikachu said. "To retrieve the next Star Badge, we're going to need to get through a barrier around a forbidden island that's stayed standing for thousands of years and survived a disaster that almost destroyed the entire world, in the process possibly unleashing the evilest pirate who ever lived and his crew of unstoppable immortal undead monsters, who were so dangerous that they could only be sealed away rather than outright defeated?"

"Pretty much, yeah," said Tracey.

Pikachu sighed. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Should be an interesting fight," Ash said.

"Yeah! We'll get to battle undead pirates! How cool is that?" Leo said.

Lily frowned at him. "So…fighting undead pirates is 'cool?'"

"Yeah, and definitely better than curses," Leo said.

"And 'cool' is a good thing?" Lily asked, just to be sure.

"Most definitely!" Leo said.

"Then…I suppose if it is 'cool', I will try to look forward to fighting these pirates as well," Lily said. "Since that is what 'normal' people do, right?"

Leo grinned. "That's the spirit!"

"Depends on your definition of normal…" Oak muttered.

Pikachu sweatdropped. "Great, he's corrupting her…"

"We're going to have to get through that barrier first…" Ash said. "Lily, I don't suppose your magic could take it down or open a path, could it?"

Lily nodded. "I'm sure I could find a way if I got a good look at it. What magic creates, it can also destroy."

"Then why wasn't it destroyed when the world almost ended during the great cataclysm?" Sasha asked.

"Because the cataclysm wasn't magical in nature." Lily frowned. "At least, I don't think that it was…"

"We'll need a ship to get there," said Pikachu. "Professor, any chance we could find one in town?"

Oak nodded. "There are plenty of ships in port, but I don't know how many of their captains would be interested in taking you to a place like Zero Isle. Seamon are superstitious, and rightly so! It's the best way to survive out on the open ocean if you're not a Water Pokemon."

"But they might reconsider if you give them enough of a bribe," Tracey said.

"Money: it's what makes the world go round!" Leo quipped. "Good thing we still have most of our winnings from Mt. Battle to fall back on. I was worried that present I got for my folks would eat up a lot more of our profits!"

"What did they think of it, by the way?" Ash asked.

"My dad loved it! And so did my mom, when she learned about some of the…'extra features,'" Leo said, waggling his eyebrows (or facsimiles thereof) suggestively.

"Like what?" Lily asked innocently.

There was a long pause. While Lily was older than all of them put together, relatively skilled in magic, and experienced in a rather alarming number of tortures, sexual education had been one thing Bellum had neglected to teach her daughter. None of her teammates was exactly looking forward to telling Lily about the Spearow and the Beedrill, especially Leo, whom everyone else had dumped the job on, seeing as he had already nominated himself the Misdreavus's tutor on everyday life. "Um…like…glow-in-the-dark decals," the Squirtle said slowly, putting off the awkward lesson for another day. "And wi-fi. Oh, and it's good at massages."

"Oh! That sounds nice. Can I have one?" Lily asked.

"Um…no. You don't have the right body type for it," Leo said quickly.

"And it's pretty expensive. Plus, we don't really need one, it was just something Leo thought his parents would like," Ash added.

"Oh," Lily said in quiet disappointment, misconstruing Ash's comment to mean that she wasn't worth spending money on. She was too used to not getting things that interested her to put up much of an argument, so silently accepted this refusal. Everyone winced (except for Tiny, of course) when they heard her tone, feeling intensely guilty. Leo consoled himself by remembering that she didn't even know what the present was, and once she did, she'd probably lose interest anyway. He'd have to explain it later.

"Uh, anyway…even if we get a ship, sail out there, and get through the barrier, I'm still a little worried about the whole 'immortal undead pirate' thing," Pikachu said.

"Why? We've taken plenty of those down before," Ash said. "Like the skeletons in Tiama's castle, or the zombies in Dusk Forest. We'll just use Potions on them until they dissolve into nothing."

"And I could possibly use a banishing spell to sever the bond between their souls and their bodies, allowing them to pass into the hereafter," Lily said, perking up a little at the prospect of being useful.

"And if neither of those work, we can always fall back on good old root beer!" Leo said. "An undead pirate's worst enemy!"

Tracey nodded. "Yep. It's a surefire way to beat them. If you have enough root beer, you shouldn't have any problems."

Pikachu sweatdropped. "Wait a second. Potions working against undead—save Ghosts, naturally—I can almost understand, but…root beer? Why on Earth would root beer work against undead pirates?"

Leo shrugged. "Dunno. It just does."

"Really." Skepticism dripped off the samurai's voice. "Then would you mind telling me why the Arcean priests didn't use that instead of sacrificing their lives to imprison Barbedo and his crew?"

"Because they never played Secret of Mankey Island," Tracey said.

"Duh," Leo agreed. Pikachu's eye twitched.

"Um…I hate to interrupt all this planning, but…a thought has occurred to me. Is any of this really necessary?" Sasha asked. "It sounds to me as if the Star Badge is already in a perfectly secure place behind that barrier on Zero Isle. Couldn't we just leave it there? As far as we know, we're the only ones in the world who even know it's there, which means the Nihilators can't get to it either."

They considered this for a moment. "That's actually an interesting idea," Ash said.

"Yeah, too bad we can't do that," Leo said.

Sasha frowned. "Why not?"

"For one thing, even if that Star Badge is safe, there's still a final one out in the world along with the ones the Nihilators have, and we won't be able to find any of them until we expose the map to the light of another Badge," Pikachu said. "And the only one available to us at the moment is the one on Zero Isle. Therefore, we have no choice but to get it, otherwise we might not be able to find out where the Nihilators' headquarters are and stop them once and for all."

"Additionally, even if they don't know it's on Zero Isle, it's only a matter of time before they think of looking there," Lily said. "Since there's no way of pinpointing the Star Badges without the map, the Nihilators have to scour the globe for any trace of them. Sooner or later, someone will suggest they try looking on the forbidden island surrounded by a force field that nobody's set foot on for thousands of years. I know for certain it was on Mother's to-do-list…not high up on the list, granted, but she was planning to do it eventually, so if we want to keep that Badge out of her hands and away from the rest of the Nihilators, we should go and get it before someone else thinks to."

"And that's not all," Oak said. "As the scriptures from the ancient city beneath Treasure Town confirm, the seal on the Door is weakening. The effect it's having on the townsPokemon is making them even worse, if that's possible to believe."

Tracey nodded anxiously. "I've been terrified to go to town for supplies. Everyone looks at me…hungrily. I keep worrying I'll get gang-raped. Or eaten. Or both. Or worse. Not to mention the monsters in the catacombs are getting bolder and venturing closer to the surface…I wonder how much longer it'll be before they lose their fear of light altogether and come out into the open?"

Everyone looked at Tracey in alarm, except for Tiny, who didn't care. "Geez…it's gotten that bad?!" said an astonished Ash.

"And we thought the place was bad before…" Pikachu muttered.

"At this rate, Genocide City's going to lose its title as worst place on Earth," Leo commented. "I doubt the inhabitants will like that."

Lily shuddered. "Mother took us there for a 'vacation' once. It was…horrible, even more than unlife with Mother usually was. The memories of that place give me terrible nightmares to this day. The thought of someplace becoming even worse than that…"

"That gives us another reason to go to Zero Isle, then…" Sasha murmured. "If the seal becomes any weaker, the Door might open on its own, or at the very least cause something terrible to happen. We will need all seven Star Badges to renew the seal and keep that terrible thing from happening, correct?"

Oak nodded. "That's what we've deduced so far, yes."

"I don't suppose you've figured anything else out?" Pikachu asked. "Anything that can tell us just what's behind that Door that's so horrible?"

"And what it did to the nice aliens who used to live here?" Leo asked.

Oak sighed and shook his head. "I'm working on it, but no, I'm afraid we haven't learned anything new yet. The identity of the evil behind the Door is still a mystery."

Lily frowned. "What? It is? I thought I'd told you what it was already."

Everyone gave Lily startled looks. (Except Tiny). "What?! You know what it is?!" Tracey cried.

"Why didn't you say so in the first place?!" Leo demanded.

"Yeah, you never told us. I think I would have remembered something important like that," Pikachu said.

"I thought I had," Lily apologized. "Or at least, that I told Ash."

There was a long pause. Everyone glared at Ash. (Yes, even Tiny this time.) The Lucario laughed Mareepishly. "Oh, yeah…forgot about that what with the Dark Clefairy and fighting Brodie and trying to get my identity back at the time. Oops. But, uh, in my defense, Lily didn't actually say what's behind the Door, just that her mother's master is there…and a lot of other things, too!"

"There's more than one thing behind the Door?!" Pikachu said in alarm.

"That does not bode well…" Sasha murmured.

"And your mom's master is one of them? Wow, no wonder it's causing so many bad things in Treasure Town…it'd need to be major evil to win her respect!" Leo said. "So who is it? What badass mofo has a claim on your soul?"

Ash nodded. "Yeah, I'm going to need to know who to beat up if I'm going to free you from that curse of yours."

Lily took a deep breath. "It is none other than…Giratina the Fallen."

There was an even longer silence, broken only by a stunned Tiny slowly sucking on his pacifier. Oak poured himself a cup of tea, drank it, and then spat it out in Tracey's face. "Giratina the Fallen?!" he screamed. "The original god of death who betrayed Arceus and nearly spelled the doom of the Guardians during the Crisis Wars?!"

Lily nodded. "The very same."

"Did you really need to spit all over me?" Tracey complained, using his tail to wipe his face off.

Pikachu frowned. "But…that can't be right, Giratina was sealed in the Abyss with the other major villains from the Crisis Wars. So…if Giratina's behind the Door, then that must mean the Door goes to…oh, hell."

"Literally," said a shocked Leo.

"So that's what the Nihilators are trying to do…they're going to unleash all the demons and evil beings imprisoned in the Abyss? If it is the destruction of everything that they seek, then that is certainly a good way to go about it," said a horrified Sasha.

"That's not exactly what they're planning," Lily said. "While they want the Door open, releasing Giratina and the other evils there are of secondary interest to them. In fact, they might not even have agreed to free Giratina if it hadn't been the only way to get Mother to help them."

"If it's not Giratina or those other things they want, what is it that they're interested in?" Ash asked, more than a little concerned.

"The supreme ruler of all evil beings…the greatest of demons, the challenger of the heavens, the ravager of worlds and devourer of universes…the first being to truly defy Arceus and try to overthrow His creation, instigating the Crisis Wars in the process, the legendary Ruler of Evil!" Lily declared.

Everyone gasped. Ash blinked. "The who now?" Everyone facefaulted.

"I should probably be used to your utter lack of knowledge about anything by now, yet I cannot help being surprised yet again by just how much you don't know," Oak said as he picked himself back up and sat back in his chair.

"Dude, everyone knows who the Ruler of Evil is! Everyone! Even Sasha, who lives in the middle of nowhere, and Tiny, who was born barely two weeks ago!" Leo said.

Sasha nodded. "That's right, we do." Tiny sucked his pacifier in agreement.

"Ash, did you ever listen to any part of Father Yamiri's sermons at the temple?" Pikachu asked in exasperation.

"…No?" Ash said hesitantly. Pikachu groaned. "So, uh, I take it this Ruler of Evil person is bad news."

"The baddest," Tracey said morosely.

"Since you don't have the slightest idea what we're talking about, I suppose I'll have to start from the very, very beginning," Oak said wearily. He paused. "Well, maybe not the very beginning. You at least know how the Omniverse was created, right?"

"Yes," Ash lied. It was an obvious lie, but Oak decided he didn't really care.

"All right," Oak said. "It all started millions and millions of years ago, before civilization as we know it existed on our world. Or if it did exist, it died out a long time ago, and there's nothing left to tell us that they were ever here. Anyway, the Omniverse was a somewhat different place in that time. The gods walked the worlds freely, and had a more personal, one-on-one relationship with the people under their protection."

"How is that different from now? There's lots of gods roaming about," Ash said. "I've even fought some of them at one point or another. Uh, I'm not gonna get in trouble for that, am I?"

"You'd better hope not," said Tracey.

"The majority of the Pokemon we know as legendaries are fairly low on the Celestial totem pole," Pikachu said. "Plus, I wouldn't exactly call it a one-on-one relationship. They occasionally form attachments to a few people a generation, but for the most part stay aloof and focused on watching over the world in general rather than anyone specifically. That's why all the legendary birds and beasts live on far-off mountains and islands, and some of the rarest and most powerful deities are rarely seen at all."

"Oh," Ash said. "So it was different back then?"

Oak nodded. "More gods, both lesser and greater, and Guardians were all over the place dealing with people on individual levels. You had household and family deities who helped protect members of specific bloodlines, guardian spirits to help run cities and countries, greater beings to watch over entire worlds, and so on and so on in a complex hierarchy going all the way up to the top of the Celestial Heavens. There are many who would call it a golden age, but there are just as many who would argue the opposite. While it's true that there was less war and strife and evil in the world, there was also less of what you might call privacy or freedom. The gods had a rather sizable say in the day-to-day lives of the people they were responsible for, and some individuals took their patron deity's advice so seriously that they might go so far as to quit their jobs or break off a wedding engagement if their god didn't think it was right for them."

"Yeah…that doesn't sound like a very good time," Ash said.

"I doubt I would have liked it," Sasha agreed.

"Yeah, the only gods I listen to are the Internet, and the creators of my favorite video games and anime!" Leo said. "Because they're just that awesome."

"Those aren't exactly gods, Leo," Oak said.

Leo snorted. "Says you."

"It might have been better than you think," Pikachu argued. "After all, it happened a long time ago, and we don't really have any experience with what life back then was like. We might have enjoyed it. I certainly have no problem with a world with less war and evil."

"Doesn't that mean you wouldn't be a kickass samurai, though?" Leo pointed out.

"A life of peace is more desirable than a life of constant violence," Pikachu replied. "Even if that life of violence has a lengthy honor and legacy attached to it."

"I think I would have liked a world like that too," Lily said. "I doubt Mother would have been able to treat me the way she did in a place like that." They fidgeted uncomfortably at that. Whenever Lily brought up her unhappy childhood, they couldn't help feeling uneasy and a little guilty. Well, everyone but Tiny, anyway.

"Well, we'll never know now because those times are over," Oak said. "And it's all because of the Ruler of Evil."

"Isn't that always the story?" Tracey said sadly.

Ash frowned. "What did this guy do?"

"Well, much like most of you, not everyone was entirely satisfied with the way the worlds were," Oak said. "Many mortals chafed, feeling that the gods had too much control over their lives. Some gods agreed, believing that mortals should be allowed to choose their own fate. Still other gods disagreed, thinking they didn't control the mortals enough, and that without divine guidance they would destroy themselves. There were many arguments and debates and unhappy sentiments, but it didn't seem like anything would come of it…until…

"The Ruler of Evil appeared. Even to this day, nobody knows where the Ruler came from, only that it possessed godlike powers and shared the abilities of the Guardians to manipulate superstrings and bend the fabric of reality to its will, which was how nobody had known it even existed before its arrival. It appeared before mortals and gods alike, appealing to their doubts about the current state of affairs and convincing them that things did not need to be the way they were, that mortals could live with the freedom to decide their fates, and that the gods could dwell among their charges without governing every aspect of their lives. The Ruler spoke convincingly of how they could create a new world together where they could live in equality and freedom from their current oppression, appealing to the doubts and misgivings of the people and winning converts and followers in droves, like any good demagogue with a silver tongue," Oak said.

Ash frowned. "That doesn't sound so bad. I sort of see where this guy is coming from. He makes a few good points about the less than ideal way things were. Or at least, what I think was less than ideal."

"It gets worse, trust me," Pikachu said.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, you can never trust these mysterious charismatic speaker types. They're always up to no good. Either that or they're prophets genuinely speaking words of wisdom. It's kind of hard to tell sometimes."

"The higher-ups in the pantheon were not entirely certain what to do about this new being. None of them had any idea where it had come from, which was rather alarming because they were supposed to know everything. Only Arceus and some of His inner circle seemed to have an inkling as to the being's origins, but for whatever reason, They kept silent," Oak continued. "They found themselves at a bit of an impasse. They were very suspicious of this stranger because they found it impossible to fathom its intentions due to its abilities and were a bit worried about how it was winning support from the mortals under their care. However, they knew that they dared not act against the stranger, because in doing so they would only be validating its words and proving that they didn't trust their charges to be able to decide their own future. So, rather reluctantly, they settled down to wait and see what came of it.

"At first, it didn't seem so bad. While the being who would be known as the Ruler of Evil won many supporters and admirers, the rest of the mortals of the Omniverse were either firmly in favor of the rule of the Celestial Heavens or largely indifferent. Rather than force anyone to switch or choose a side, the Ruler allowed them their opinion, pointing out that if it tried to change how they felt it would be no better than the gods. The gods in question weren't happy about this, nor were they happy when the Ruler and his followers settled down in a relatively empty universe and formed a commune of sorts dedicated to freedom and peace and all that. Which sounds well and good on paper, but in reality was anything but. Technically, everyone was free and equal…so long as they didn't do anything that the Ruler disapproved of, and did whatever it asked of them. In a very real sense, they were slaves to the Ruler's will, but did not realize this due to the way their new master so politely and subtly controlled them, and allowed them to do whatever they wished whenever it didn't need them, saying that they needed obey no laws save the ones they felt like obeying. They were no longer being controlled by the gods high in the Celestial Heavens, so could do whatever they wanted with their lives. Anything at all. Without any inhibitions or restrictions whatsoever…I think you can see where I'm going with this, can't you?"

"So basically that universe turned into a lawless anarchical craphole ruled by a manipulative evil bastard," Leo summed up.

Oak nodded. "Pretty much, yes."

Ash frowned. "Wait, that can't be right. You're telling me that people are innately evil inside or something and that left to their own devices they'd kill themselves?"

"That sounds about right," Sasha said.

"I refuse to believe that!" Ash protested.

Oak shook his head. "It's not that people are innately evil so much as…well, look at it this way. If a society has no rules, then it's not a society at all. It's like the wilds of our world. There are plenty of good Pokemon who live out there, far from civilization, but there are also lots of evil Pokemon too. And evil Pokemon have a thing for hurting and oppressing other Pokemon. Think of a whole universe built like that, where there weren't Rescue Teams or heroes or any form of law enforcement to stop people from hurting each other, where you were literally free to do whatever you wanted unless you weren't strong enough to keep other people from doing what they wanted to you."

"What a terrible place…" Pikachu murmured.

"Sounds like some of the role-playing games I've been in," Leo said.

Ash grimaced. "Oh. Yeah, I can see how that might be bad…and they didn't realize what kind of a raw deal they'd gotten?"

"Lots of times when someone makes a bad decision, rather than admitting their mistake and changing their behavior they continue to go along with it and try to justify their actions as having been the right or only thing to do," Oak said. "The Ruler of Evil's followers were no different. They convinced themselves that life had to be better than it was under the gods' control, because now they were free, and if they weren't free, then that would have meant they had been wrong and the Ruler of Evil had lied to them. And people often cling to comforting lies rather than facing a painful truth."

A chill ran down Ash's spine. Why did that strike a chord with him? "Why didn't the gods do anything about this?" Ash asked.

"Again, because doing so would prove the Ruler's point. They decided that they wouldn't act unless they were asked to." Oak sighed. "A noble sentiment, but if they had intervened sooner, the tragedy that happened next might not have occurred."

"And this tragedy was…?" Ash asked.

"The Ruler's followers began to turn into monsters," Pikachu said.

"The first demons," Lily added.

"And not the good kind, either," said Leo.

Ash blinked. "There's a good kind?"

"Well, yeah," Leo said, as if it were obvious.

"'Demon' is sort of a generic term for any spirit or servitor monster that can be summoned by magic," Lily explained. "Just like people, there are good ones as well as evil ones. Many of the good ones are reformed fiends created during the Crisis Wars who work on behalf of the Guardians and occasionally assist heroes or participate in certain benign magical endeavors, while others never changed their wicked ways and remain sealed away, only capable of being released by a powerful sorcerer or ceremony. And usually an evil one at that, because who else would want to conjure such a monster?"

"Someone who wanted to see what would happen?" Leo offered.

Tracey nodded. "I know I would." The others sweatdropped.

"So, uh, they became demons. Why?" Ash asked.

"Nobody's sure, to be honest," Oak confessed. "There are many theories as to why it happened. Some think the Ruler of Evil did it. Others think that Arceus cursed them as punishment for their turning away from Him and becoming servants of a false god. And some say that they did it to themselves, as if on a subconscious level—or a level even below that!—they realized that they were rejecting their Creator, so turned themselves into horrible creatures out of self-loathing, to punish themselves for betraying Arceus."

"Oh, is that why so many demons are into torture and have a sort of S+M vibe going, then?" Leo asked.

"It very well could be," Oak admitted.

Pikachu grimaced. "Very nice imagery, Leo."

"What is 'S+M?'" Lily asked innocently.

There was a long, awkward silence. "Um…well, it's…" Leo hesitated. "The sad thing, Lily, is that you've probably already experienced something like it, but didn't know it at the time, and certainly didn't enjoy it."

"Oh," Lily said. "Well, if it's something I've already experienced, then I doubt it can be very pleasant. Few of the things I have were."

"You'd be surprised, actually…" Leo said.

Pikachu winced. "Thank you for even more nice imagery, Leo."

"I don't suppose the demons turned on the Ruler when they realized what their association with it had done to them, did they?" Ash asked.

Oak shook his head. "Afraid not. They were upset at first, but the Ruler convinced them that their new monstrous shapes were their true forms, representing what they really were inside, once they were freed from all the restrictions of laws and society and the gods. It convinced them that they were beautiful and should revel in the beauty that came from freedom. It twisted their minds and their perceptions until they began to believe that they were happier the way they were now, that they were the way they really should be. They liked themselves so much, in fact, that when the Ruler suggested that maybe they should spread this beauty to everyone else in the Omniverse, so that they could all share in a unifying love and freedom that spanned all of time and space, they saw no reason not to."

"Well, that can't have been good," Ash said.

"Should have seen it coming, huh?" Leo said. "It always comes down to Omniversal domination sooner or later."

"That's pretty much what the Guardians thought too, so when the Ruler of Evil and its new army began their expansion, they thought they were ready…unfortunately, they had underestimated just how clever the Ruler was, or how much control it had over the superstrings that made up reality. The Ruler had subtly woven strands together to not only make it appear that its first strike was in an entirely different location from its real destination, but also to conceal the fact that it had secretly constructed a massive armada of nearly invincible warships capable of jumping from universe to universe in the blink of an eye. They could vanish from one universe and pop up in another without warning, and due to the way superstrings warped around them, it was all but impossible for any but the most skilled Guardians to know where they were going to turn up next. And that's no even the worst part," Oak said. "If it had simply dispatched its ships to conquer worlds with force, it would have been bad enough. But the Ruler did something even worse than that. It ordered each ship to travel to a single universe in a key position somewhere out in the Omniverse. That ship then unleashed the most virulent plague of all…an idea!"

"…An idea?" said a confused Ash. "What's so bad about that?"

"Ideas can be very dangerous," Pikachu said. "The right idea in the right place and the right person can lead to the toppling of empires. To murders and wars and bloody revolutions. Or it can also lead to a discovery that turns the whole world on its head, for good or for ill. Innovations in technology, society, art, culture. That sort of thing."

Leo nodded. "Never underestimate the power of a good meme. Put something mildly interesting or memorable on the Internet, and millions of people will see it before the day is out. One of the fastest and most reliable ways of spreading information there is. Whether the information is good, on the other hand…"

"So what kind of idea did these ships spread?" Ash asked.

"The same one that the Ruler of Evil used to recruit his first converts," Lily said. "That they could all live together in one world, with perfect freedom and equality, not having to kowtow to the heavens. Like all great viruses and ideas, this concept proved very contagious, and while not every world the message was spread to became 'infected', they were still made aware that the option existed, which was almost as bad."

Ash frowned. "But the message was delivered by grotesque demons. Didn't that set off any alarms?"

"Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder," said Tracey. "And species. To some people on other planets, the demons were the epitome of beauty."

"It also helped that they designed their ships to look pretty much like what you would expect a holy vessel to look like rather than the ship of a legion of demons…lots of white and silver and gold, soft glowing lights, wings that had a vaguely angelic feel to them, that sort of thing. The Ruler of Evil specifically designed them to inspire awe and wonder in the hearts of the people that saw them, so that they might be more receptive to the words that its crew told them," Oak explained. "There may have been some degree of magic and superstring manipulation in the delivery, but either way quite a lot of worlds became enticed by the Ruler of Evil's message, and agreed to join with it to bring peace and unity to the rest of the Omniverse…even if force were necessary. From its hundreds of new footholds all over the Omniverse, the Ruler was able to begin its true attack, claiming dozens of new universes to its cause with every passing day. The Guardians managed to rally in time to stop its forces from advancing any further, but the fact that its armies were scattered all over the place and its ships could teleport all over the place forced the Guardians to spread their forces to the breaking point trying to keep the Ruler's forces under control. Additionally, by becoming a god of sorts to its followers, the Ruler of Evil was able to collect the souls of everyone who died in its service and resurrect them in newer, more powerful forms…so even if the Guardians wiped out a whole army of demons, they'd be back on their feet in very short order. Admittedly, so could the Guardians, but this only highlighted how dangerous the Ruler was, if it was nearly, if not exactly, as powerful as they were."

"Whoa. I can see why they'd call it the 'Ruler of Evil' with abilities like that on top of everything else," Ash commented.

Oak closed his eyes sadly. "These were the Crisis Wars…a conflict millions of years long, with the forces of good and evil struggling back and forth over control of the worlds, with entire multiverses swapping hands dozens of times within the space of a single year. The Guardians were eventually able to find a way to stop the Ruler from using its power over the superstrings against them, but it worked both ways, and so they were unable to use their full powers against it either, drawing the conflict out far longer than it should have. As a result, more than a few previously neutral factions joined the Ruler's side because they felt the Guardians had mismanaged the whole thing right from the start, and more than a few factions power-hungry and greedy enough to dare to defy Arceus decided that they wanted to be on the winning side and allied with the Ruler of Evil as well. Things were very grim…and they became even grimmer shortly after that."

Ash groaned. "Oh great, what now?"

"The Ruler of Evil unleashed its ultimate weapon…the device with which it would destroy the Omniverse and unite all worlds into one that it could reshape to its liking…" Lily whispered.

"Gaiavore…the World Eater," Sasha said in hushed tones.

"…I'm guessing this isn't something as innocuous as a Snorlax, then," Ash said uneasily.

"Not even remotely," said Leo. "Imagine a ship that's the size of a planet. Or rather, is a planet, an artificial one capable of warping all over the Omniverse. A planet that eats other planets…and not only that, but incorporates their mass and souls and pretty much everything on them into itself, growing bigger and becoming capable of eating much larger things in the process."

"Yeah, definitely not like a Snorlax," Ash muttered to himself.

"The more it ate, the bigger it got. At first, it could only eat planets, but then it became large enough to eat solar systems, then galaxies, then entire universes," Oak said.

"Sounds a lot like this one popular game series I play, actually," Leo said. "Except in that game you're a tiny Princess rolling things up in a ball, and the more things you roll up, the bigger the ball becomes and the larger the objects you can pick up are. And then when you get enough objects, the ball is launched into space and turned into a star to replace the ones that the omnipotent Queen of all Cosmos destroyed on a drunken binge. Lots of fun, with some pretty catchy music too."

"I thought stars were created when lots of stellar gas was compressed tightly enough to make it ignite and-" Lily started.

"It's a video game, Lily. Things don't have to obey the usual rules there," Leo said. He paused. "Except that there's probably at least one universe out there where the game, or events similar to it, takes place, so…well, I guess that's how stars would be made there…hmm. Probably a really weird place, huh?"

"Pretty much any universe based on the things you play would be a very weird place, Leo," Pikachu said.

"How was this Gaiavore thing able to do that?" Ash asked. "Eat stuff and then make them part of itself and become so much bigger?"

"Its central core was a matter/antimatter reactor created by combining two captured elementals of pure chaos and pure order, MBlock and Missingno," Oak explained. "Missingno can do nothing but create, while MBlock can do nothing but destroy. Together, they balanced each other out and granted the Gaiavore its most terrifying ability. By using MBlock's power, it could consume matter and energy, and then it would use Missingno's power to incorporate that matter and energy into itself, essentially making it a constantly growing monster planet made from pieces of other planets. The souls of the people the Gaiavore devoured were reincarnated within it in forms chosen by the Ruler of Evil, so that they might better serve it. In this manner, the Ruler sought to create its perfect world, one where all were free and at the same time slaves to its will…by devouring the Omniverse, so that its weapon would become the Omniverse."

"Yikes!" Ash said, more than a little alarmed. "How do you stop something like that?"

"With great difficulty," Tracey said.

"The Guardians attempted to destroy it before it got too powerful, but when Giratina, for whatever reason, decided to betray Arceus-" Pikachu started.

"I thought we agreed it was because Giratina was pissed Arceus loved Mew more than her," Leo said.

"No, we agreed that was just one possible theory," Pikachu said sharply.

"No, that's the real reason Giratina did it," Lily corrected. "Mother says it's proof of how pointless and stupid love is."

Pikachu blinked. "Really?" Lily nodded. "Huh. Well, I guess you'd know better than us…" He frowned, looking somewhat disgruntled by this revelation.

"Told you so," Leo said smugly.

"Giratina's defection ruined their plans?" Ash prompted.

Oak nodded. "The entire Celestial Heavens were thrown into disarray by her treachery. Giratina had been one of Arceus's most trusted and powerful lieutenants, and the secrets and information she delivered to the Ruler of Evil almost spelled the end of the Guardians. What's more, when she left the Heavens, Giratina took with her a piece of Celestial technology that could be used to increase the Gaiavore's power considerably, sending it on a feeding frenzy throughout the Omniverse and consuming countless universes. The Ruler rewarded Giratina for this by making her its second-in-command and consort, giving her the love and respect she felt that Arceus had denied her."

"Ew," Leo said.

"Yeah, that is kind of gross," Tracey agreed.

"She believed it was better to rule in hell than serve in heaven," Sasha commented.

"She actually said something a lot like that later, during her trial," Lily said.

"That's right, the bad guys were defeated," Ash realized. "Otherwise we wouldn't be here. So…how'd they do it? Things sounded pretty bad for the Guardians, what with Giratina's betrayal and a giant universe-eater on the loose."

"Things were pretty bad. But they managed to rally admirably despite their adversity and rose to the occasion, completing their own ultimate weapon and bringing it to bear against the Gaiavore," Oak said.

"What was it?" Ash asked.

"The records aren't very clear," Oak admitted. "However, it was apparently powered by love, and used that love as a weapon of sorts."

Ash blinked. "Love?"

"Sure. It's one of the strongest energy sources there is," Tracey said.

"The Ruler claimed that it was doing what it did because it loved everyone and wanted them all to live together in happiness and unity," Oak said. "But the fact that it was using a weapon like the Gaiavore, which greedily consumed everything to make its master's selfish dreams a reality, proved the lie in its ideology. True love, which gives freely and cannot exist without the hearts of others, was naturally anathema to something like that. The Guardians' weapon channeled the pure love of everyone in the Omniverse into the Gaiavore, essentially giving it indigestion and forcing it to 'regurgitate' everything it had consumed, restoring the worlds and weakening the Ruler of Evil in the process. The Guardians took advantage of this to engage the Ruler's stunned forces in one last battle, defeating them in a clash the likes of which the Omniverse has never seen before and hopefully never shall again. The Ruler of Evil and its treacherous consort were defeated personally by the Guardians of Light and Hope and the Dragon God King, and they brought the fiends in chains before Arceus to receive His judgment."

Lily blinked. "Oh! Is that how it happened? Mother was always somewhat vague when she told me how Giratina and her lord were defeated and cast into the Abyss. She said the Guardians had cheated somehow. Is love really that powerful, then?"

Sasha nodded. "Very much so. It can give a Pokemon the strength to do incredible things…scale mountains, trek through blizzards, battle opponents they cannot possibly hope to defeat…and win, nonetheless. Love can give people the strength they need to do just about anything that is necessary to protect the people that are precious to them."

"Wow…" Lily said. "It sounds much stronger than Mother always described it to be. She always said it was just a lie and a trick the weak and foolish used to deceive themselves as to their utter pointlessness in the scheme of things."

"It doesn't surprise me that Bellum would say something like that. I don't think she's even capable of love…" Pikachu said.

Lily sighed. "It seems there is yet another thing I need to learn to be a 'normal' Pokemon…Leo! Can you teach me about love, too?"

There was a long, awkward pause. "Lily," Pikachu said finally. "I'm not sure you really understand what you just-"

"Yes," Leo said.

"Leo!" Pikachu hissed.

"I promised her I'd teach her about all the good things in life she's missed out on due to being stuck with her ice bitch of a mom all these centuries," Leo said stubbornly. "And if that means I'm gonna teach her about love too, so be it."

"Thank you, Leo," Lily said gratefully.

"Heh, no problem," Leo said. Oh good, she's smiling. I like it when she smiles. She should do it more often. Well, I'm gonna do my best to see to it that she does, so she can leave her past with that bitch behind!

"But what do you know of love?" Sasha asked skeptically.

"I've seen my parents have it," Leo said. "Plus, I've watched hundreds of movies and television shows, played countless video games, and engaged in a few…ah…dating simulations. Those have to count for something, right?"

"There is a difference between actual love and what you see in your 'entertainment,'" Sasha pointed out.

"Not always," Leo countered. "Depends on the medium and the way it's presented. I know there's a difference, but if I teach Lily enough about the theory, then when love eventually happens to her she'll recognize it and have at least some idea about what to do about it…unlike some people I know."

Ash blinked, slowly realizing Leo was talking about him. "Hey!"

Pikachu chuckled. "Good point, Leo. Maybe you should teach Ash a bit about love too, so he'll finally realize that's what he feels for Misty and marry her already."

"I was talking about you too," Leo said.

Pikachu blinked. "What? Oh for the love of…Leo, for the last time, I am not interested in that ninja!"

Leo chuckled. "Yeah, sure you're not."

"That's what I keep saying about Misty. Nobody believes me either," Ash complained.

"That's because you are in love and are just denying it. That's why I think Pikachu is too," Leo said.

Pikachu turned red, though whether it was from anger or embarrassment was unclear. "Leo! I'm a samurai and she's a ninja!"

"Exactly! That means you guys already have lots of chemistry!" Leo said.

"Yeah! The bad kind of chemistry! Our kinds have been rivals for generations! We have completely different ways of looking at life and incompatible codes of honor!" Pikachu protested. "There's no way we could be together, even if I were interested in her, which I'm not! She's the wrong sort of womon for me! Plus, what would my parents think?"

"Oh, that just gives you lots of obstacles to overcome in your romance and also gives you the whole 'star-crossed lovers' vibe. Everyone loves those!" Leo said.

"Leo, it was just one kiss! And she was using it to distract me!" Pikachu yelled in exasperation. "There was no romance behind it whatsoever!"

"Maybe not at first…but one kiss can become many…and hey, both of you enjoyed it, didn't you?" Leo asked, winking. "If you know what I mean…"

Pikachu groaned and put his face in his paws. "Why do I even bother?"

Lily blinked. "So…part of love is vehemently claiming you aren't in love?"

"Only if you're in denial," Leo said. "If you have feelings for someone, it's probably best to be upfront and open about it to save yourself and everyone else some grief."

"How do I know if I have 'feelings?'" Lily asked.

"Well-" Leo started.

"That's a lesson that'll have to wait for another day, because we were in the middle of a story," snapped the annoyed Oak.

"Oh, right. Sorry Professor," Leo apologized.

"So the Ruler of Evil, Giratina, and the other demons were put on trial?" Ash prompted.

Oak nodded. "Arceus said they that they had all committed great crimes…but He was willing to forgive them and allow them to work off their debt to the Omniverse rather than rotting in a prison universe if they were truly sorry and promised not to do anything like that again. Naturally, almost all of them apologized, but Arceus could see into their hearts and only pardoned the ones that truly meant it. All the others were banished to the universe where this had all started, and Palkia and Dialga severed all the links connecting it to other universes and timelines save for one, which they sealed behind a mighty door that was cast—along with the keys that could open it--into a dimensional rift the twin dragons created, so that none of the remaining sympathizers for the Ruler of Evil's plight would ever be able to find it and release it. That door tumbled through space and time before eventually falling to Earth. The rest, you already know."

"As for the people of the Omniverse, things went back to normal…with one major change," Pikachu said. "Arceus decided that the Ruler of Evil's view on life, while flawed, had a few good points, so changed policy on how the Omniverse was run. The majority of the gods and Guardians were withdrawn from the worlds, save for certain necessary guardian deities who had to maintain balance and things like that, and instituted a system in which, for the most part, all of us could live as we desired without too much meddling from on high."

"Or at least, without any obvious meddling. They still subtly manipulate us all the time, or so the conspiracy theorists say," Leo said, glancing around suspiciously.

"But since we'd never know if they were controlling us or if we're really doing whatever we want anyway, it at least looks as if free will makes a difference, and most of the time appearances are all that matters," Tracey said. "So it's all right, for the most part."

"The universe the Ruler and its cronies were sealed into became known as the Abyss, since it was something things were thrown into and not expected to come out of. Theoretically, its prisoners are only supposed to be there until they truly repent and ask for forgiveness…but so far that hasn't happened yet, and their hatred and bitterness have twisted that universe into the worst of hells, a place reflecting their true hearts," Lily said.

"No wonder Treasure Town's so fucked up, if it's built over the portal to that place," Leo said, shaking his head.

"And I bet things will get a lot worse if the Nihilators get that door open…but why do they even want the Ruler of Evil to begin with? Are they 'sympathizers' or do they just want to use its power to fulfill their goals? And…" Ash frowned. "What happened to that Gaiavore thing? Did the Guardians destroy it?"

"Unfortunately, no," Oak said. "Due to its nature, it is indestructible. Any damage they did to it would just be repaired by the power of Missingno. Additionally, after the defeat of the Ruler of Evil, it…vanished. Nobody could figure out where it went. Even now, nobody knows where it is."

Ash's eyes widened in horror. "Wait...you mean that thing's still out there, possibly chowing down on worlds, and nobody even knows?!"

"Relax," Tracey said. "At the moment, it's harmless."

Pikachu nodded. "The Ruler of Evil was the only entity that could control the Gaiavore, and the only one that could tell it when to use its power. Without its master, the Gaiavore is dormant, incapable of eating anything. So it's drifting through space, yes…but sleeping very deeply. It will probably never wake up."

"It might if its master returned, though…" Ash pointed out. "Could the Nihilators have found the Gaiavore? Is that why they're trying to free the Ruler of Evil?"

Oak frowned. "The chances of them finding that thing in all the vastness of the Omniverse is rather unlikely…"

"Which means it's practically a given that they have," Leo concluded knowingly.

"I hate to admit it, but you're probably right," Pikachu said unhappily. "You tend to be about things like this."

"If the Nihilators manage to awaken the Gaiavore, then that will be the end for all of us," Lily said. "This world, which I have barely started to truly enjoy, will be doomed…"

"Could they control the Gaiavore, though? Or the Ruler of Evil?" Sasha wondered. "The Ruler is very powerful, hence how it has earned its title. Even the mightiest of deities barely managed to defeat it. Could Oblivion's Shadow find a way to release such a power without it destroying him?"

"If anyone can find a way, he can," Ash said resolutely. He didn't know how he knew this, or why this icy certainty made his stomach turn, but he was positive that it was true.

"It could be possible," Lily agreed, confirming his hypothesis. "While all the demons in the Abyss are prisoners, the majority of them roam about freely in their gaol, save for the strongest, who were individually sealed with complex locks and spells impossible for their minions to undo to keep them from breaking open the gateway from the other side. Both Giratina and the Ruler itself are sealed thusly. If the Nihilators could somehow remove the Ruler from the Abyss without actually releasing it, they might be able to channel its power to control the Gaiavore. Assuming they have the Gaiavore, that is."

"They do. That's the way these things always work," Leo said. "And even if they don't have it physically, they must at least have some idea where it is or how to find it."

"Which means our mission has a heightened level of urgency to it," Pikachu said. "We have to find the remaining Star Badges, defeat the Nihilators and take back their stars, then use them to renew the seal on the Door to keep anyone from freeing the Ruler of Evil and its minions and stop them from possibly freeing themselves. I admit it's high stakes and a lot of pressure for a half-dozen Pokemon like us to deal with…but I believe it's something we're capable of doing."

"And even if we're not, we're probably the only ones who can do anything about it, since the stronger and more experienced Rescue Teams are stuck back in Kanjohenn preparing for the barbarian attack," Ash said. "And our friend Latias, who's currently hosting the spirit of the being who helped stop this Ruler of Evil in the first place, can't do much either since whoever screwed up the ritual that summoned her here has also done something to twist up her power so she can't even leave the continent." They had discovered this latest bit of unwelcome news in one of their most recent e-mail exchanges with their friends in Pokemon Square. Leo had said at the time that it sounded like a ridiculously contrived way of creating a drama-preserving handicap and a way to 'hold back the phlebotinum.' Nobody had any idea what phlebotinum was, but they couldn't help agreeing with him.

"Perhaps we should have tried harder to convince Wes and Zoro and the others to stick around…" Sasha said. "They might have been useful."

"A bit too late now. They've already settled in at Pokemon Square and seem to be enjoying themselves, we can't just ask them to get up and come all the way back here after they so kindly agreed to go help our friends to begin with," Pikachu said. "And at least we aren't completely alone in this. All of our friends know what we're up to and are doing their best to support us in fighting the Nihilators by stopping their proxies, the barbarians, from destroying Pokemon Square." He frowned. "They seemed rather evasive when I asked why the barbarians want to destroy town, though."

"Maybe the town actually hides the entrance to a supercomputer at the Earth's core that controls everything on the planet," Leo suggested.

Pikachu stared at him blankly. "…Okay, you've said some crazy things in the past, but what gave you that idea?"

"Read it on a rumor thread on the Internet. Relax, I don't buy it…something like that's too way out there even for me!" Leo said. "Anyway, aren't those dragon dudes going to help out too?"

"The Draconian Empire? Yeah, Nuken's having his spies and agents worldwide try to find the location of any star-shaped jewels that might be the last Star Badge, as well as any Nihilator bases, in hopes of weakening their influence and possibly finding where they're hiding Misty and Gardevoir, the other Badges…and their leader, Oblivion's Shadow," Pikachu said. "I'm a little impressed he's committing so many resources to finding the Nihilators and protecting Pokemon Square. We haven't exactly gotten along well in the past, but Rayquaza must have insisted he do whatever he could to help out."

"That, or maybe he's just doing us a favor because his kid's on our team," Leo said, winking at Lily. "How's it feel to be the long-lost daughter of one of the most powerful Ghosts in the world? Er, not that you weren't already, what with your mom being a really strong witch, but your dad's got a ton of political clout and effectively runs a globe-spanning empire, which is nothing to sneeze at either."

Lily blinked. "Oh? I'm…still trying to figure out how I feel about that." When e-mail exchanges had revealed that she was actually the daughter of Nuken, Rayquaza's majordomo and leader of the Draconian Empire's armies, she hadn't been certain how she was supposed to feel. The idea of having a father was utterly alien to her. All her unlife she had only known one parent, and it had never occurred to her that Bellum might have needed someone else to create her. The only time she had brought it up, her mother had beaten her so horribly that even B agreed she should never mention it again. And now learning that she had another parent she had never met who had apparently been spending the last few hundred years desperately trying to find her and very much wanted to spend time with her and give her a life better than the one she had known with Bellum was…somewhat terrifying, to be honest. Even more of a foreign concept than leaving Mother for good and joining Pokemon who claimed to be her friends and honestly seemed to care about her.

So when they had received an email from Nuken insisting that he was going to send someone over to pick her up and take her to Sky Tower, she had surprised even herself by saying, "No." She had rarely said that to anyone before. Mother hadn't let her. Nuken hadn't seemed too happy with her refusal either, and had demanded an explanation. The best one she could come up with was that she had just escaped one rather controlling parent and was not keen to become the property of another, that she had no idea who he was and was uncertain she was ready to trust him, and—most importantly—that she was with friends now, who needed her and were doing their best to open the wide world to her and make her feel like she belonged. She wasn't ready to give that up just yet. Nuken had been rather upset and angry by this, but had respected her wishes and said she could continue her journey if that's what she really wanted. (Actually, Missy had written that bit, Nuken had intended to send dragons over anyway to drag Lily to the Sky Pillar because damn it he had been searching for her this long he wasn't going to let her go just because she didn't feel like seeing him at the moment. Rayquaza had managed to talk him out of it, though only barely, pointing out it wouldn't make an especially good first impression and would make Lily think her father was a monster too. Nuken had retorted that he was a monster, just one that happened to be on the opposite side from the other monsters. Rayquaza hadn't really been sure how to reply to that.)

"Anyway, the gist of it is that we're not as alone in this as we might think we are," Pikachu said.

"Except in reality we are as alone as we think we are, because no matter what the ancillary characters do we're still the ones who have to do all the important stuff relating to the main plot, and are the ones who'll save the day in the end," Leo said.

Pikachu's eye twitched. "That's a very pessimistic way of looking at it, Leo."

"Oh don't get me wrong, I'm sure we'll win regardless, it's just annoying that it's all going to be up to us no matter what everyone else does," Leo said.

Sasha rolled her eyes. "That's a rather egocentric view."

"And the right one. We've got the fate of the world on our shoulders. That automatically makes it all about us to a certain extent, doesn't it?" Leo asked. They weren't really sure how to argue with that.

Ash frowned. "There's still a couple things I don't quite understand about this 'Ruler of Evil' business…why do we keep calling the Ruler an 'it?' Doesn't it have a gender? Or a name for that matter?"

"If the Ruler did have a name or a gender, none of us know it," Oak said. "Its true identity was stricken from the history records for some reason."

"Sounds like a cover-up to me…" Leo muttered.

"Why would they want to hide something like that?" Pikachu countered.

"We know they did, which means they must have had a reason…which means there's something they know that we don't," Leo replied. "And now I want to know it, too."

"Maybe we'll find out if and when we actually run into the Ruler…though I hope we do not," Sasha said.

"Which means we probably will," Leo said pessimistically.

"Another thing, why is it called the 'Ruler of Evil?' Is that a name people later gave it, or something it called itself?" Ash asked.

"Both," Oak said. "We call it the Ruler of Evil now because we don't know its true name and because of what it did. Many people started calling it the 'Ruler of Evil' back during the Crisis Wars too, since it was leading the biggest army of demons in the history of the Omniverse and striving to destroy everything Arceus and His kin have built over the eons. The Ruler actually accepted this title and allowed people to call it that, saying that if someone like Arceus was considered 'good,' then it would much rather be labeled 'evil.' As Sasha said before…better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, and all that."

"I can't really see why so many people would think that," Ash confessed. "I mean, its hell. Yeah, you're in charge of it, but…well, its hell, so it kind of sucks. What's wrong with serving in heaven?"

"Maybe some people just have trouble taking orders?" Leo suggested.

"Or don't like the gods. I agree though, it's a sentiment I find difficult to understand, too," Pikachu said. "While I admit I'm not always fond of our local deities—even the ones empowering my sword!—I still respect and believe in them for the most part, since I know they're here to protect us, and they generally do, the occasional feud and natural disaster notwithstanding."

"Perhaps they feel they will be more powerful by choosing another path…and power is something that a great many people desire…like my mother," Lily said sadly. Tiny sucked his pacifier, though it was unclear if he was commiserating with Lily, saying that he wanted power too, or was just hungry.

"That could be it," Ash admitted. "But there's still one last thing I don't get…"

"What's that?" Oak asked.

"Why didn't Arceus do anything?" Ash asked. "From how you described it, it sounded like the Guardians and other gods are the ones who did all the fighting against the Ruler of Evil. If Arceus is really as powerful as everyone says He is, why didn't He just stop the Ruler of Evil at the very beginning, preventing all that destruction and keeping the Crisis Wars from going on for so long?"

"People have been asking that question for ages, actually," Tracey said. "Nobody's completely sure of the answer."

"Mother said it was because Arceus is cruel and uncaring and doesn't give a damn about His creation, and that our suffering amuses Him," Lily said.

"That's one interpretation," Pikachu said in a tone of voice that implied he didn't believe it for a second and if he ever heard it brought up again someone would be getting a taste of his blade. And having electricity conducted down your tongue hurt.

"Theologians have come up with a more palatable explanation over the years," Oak said.

"Ooh, I know this one," Leo said. "It's the analogy about Poke' and grass, right?"

Oak nodded. "That it is."

"Poke' and grass?" asked a confused Ash.

Leo nodded. "Yeah, as a metaphor for why Arceus didn't do much during the Crisis Wars and still lets the Guardians do most of the work these days. Say you're in a grassy meadow and you see a Poke' lying on the ground. Would you pick it up?"

"Assuming my wallet isn't already full, then yeah, I would," Ash said.

"Okay. Could you do it without touching, bending, or crushing a single blade of grass?" Leo asked.

Ash paused. "Huh. No, I don't think…wait, maybe if I…no, that wouldn't work, but perhaps…no, no, but maybe…hmm. What if i-"

"No, you can't," Leo said in annoyance, losing his patience.

"I could if I were Psychic," Ash said.

"Yes, but you're not, and you'd probably bump some of the grass blades with the coin as you levitated it into the air. Now, imagine that you were Arceus, the Poke' was the Ruler of Evil—or just about anything else, for that matter—and the blades of grass are universes. Do you get my drift?" Leo asked.

Ash thought about it for a long moment. "So…you're saying that Arceus didn't do anything because the Ruler of Evil was some spare change He lost and if He picked it up He'd ruin his front lawn?" Everyone facefaulted.

"Well," Oak said loudly, changing the subject. "With any luck the six of you will be able to keep that forbidden Door from opening so the Ruler of Evil and all its little friends can go on ruling their private hell," Oak said.

"And the next step to doing that is going to Zero Isle and getting that Star Badge," said Tracey. "As we said before, you're going to need a ship to get there, so you'll have to proposition one of the sailors down in town. There'll probably be lots of them in the pubs by the harbor after sundown. The only problem, other than Ponytaing up enough cash to convince them to take you to a dangerous and forbidden island, is…"

"That we're going to have to go into Treasure Town again, which is even more volatile than ever before," Pikachu sighed. "Wonderful."

"I suppose Don Wiggly and the Nihilators are still looking for us?" Ash asked.

Oak nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"Then we'll just have to disguise ourselves again," Leo said, rummaging in his shell. "Good thing I've still got my disguise kit!" Ash and Pikachu groaned.

"Oh, if we're going in disguise, you won't need a kit," Lily said. She pulled out her spellbook. "I know a good disguise spell that can clothe us in illusion and make us look as if we were different Pokemon than what we really are."

Ash perked up at this. "Is that so? Well, if it means I don't have to walk around on all fours again, I'm all for it. The town smells a lot worse at street level, let me tell you. And I kept stepping on all these really sharp things…"

"And maybe I don't have to bind my tail up," Pikachu said in relief. "That was one of the most painful parts about pretending to be a Plusle or Minun."

Leo sagged in disappointment. "Awww, I was looking forward to doing Ash up to look like an Arcanine."

"Yeah, and I had some new face paint I wanted to try," Tracey said, equally disappointed.

"Maybe some other time," Oak said. "When you don't have a witch who conveniently knows glamour magic to compete with."

"So after we rest up a little and it gets late, we'll get into disguise and head to Treasure Town," Ash decided. "I don't particularly like the idea of walking around there after dark, but if it's our best chance to find a ship, then that's what we'll have to do."

"If it is all right with you, I would like to stay behind. Not for the next leg of the journey, but just while you go into town," Sasha said. "You know I don't do well with crowds, and what with the smell and the incessant screaming feeling that something terrible is going to happen, I'm not sure my nerves would be able to handle it. You can pick me up after you get your ship by having Lily open a portal, that should be relatively easy to do."

Lily nodded. "I think I can manage that."

Pikachu frowned. "I'd prefer it if you came with us—your disaster sense might come in handy in a place as dangerous as Treasure Town—but if you feel it would put you that much on edge, I suppose you could wait here."

"Thank you," Sasha said gratefully.

"While you're at it, I don't suppose you could take care of Tiny for me?" Tiny glared at Ash. "What? Treasure Town's no place for a kid!"

"Actually, there's lots of kids in Treasure Town," Leo said. "The problem is that they're all terrifying cannibalistic psychos, which…isn't that different from what Tiny is, actually. Huh. He might blend in, come to think of it."

"Hey!" Ash protested.

"I think Leo may have a point, Ash. Tiny's demonstrated he's not exactly a helpless infant," Pikachu said grudgingly. "He may actually be tougher than most of your other kids were at his age."

Leo nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I think those creepy kids in Treasure Town would be too frightened of him to try and do anything to him. Tiny's freaking terrifying at times!" Tiny looked at Leo and sucked on his pacifier ominously. The Squirtle shuddered.

"And in any event, it's a sure bet that he'll dig his way out and come looking for you the instant you leave," Sasha pointed out. "You know he doesn't trust anyone else." Tiny nodded in agreement.

Ash sighed, giving in. "Okay, fine, I guess Tiny can come too…but you're going to stick very close to me at all times, okay? And no eating anything! I know I've told you not to eat stuff off the ground before, but Treasure Town's such a nasty place I wouldn't be surprised if you choked on something and died! Or got poisoned. Or sick. Or turned into a monster like those other kids. Considering that place, we can't take any chances. Do you understand?" Tiny nodded reluctantly.

"So what kind of disguise are you going to put on us?" Pikachu asked Lily.

"I can cast an illusion on each of us so we will resemble another Pokemon from our Egg Group," the witch explained.

"That's it?" Leo asked in disappointment. "Awww, I was hoping I could be a Treecko!"

"Why?" Sasha asked.

"Because Treecko are hardcore!" Leo exulted.

Ash nodded, thinking of Lucas back home. "He's right, they are. Hmm…I wonder what Lucas would look like with sunglasses…"

"Or Leo with a twig in his mouth?" Pikachu offered.

Leo frowned. "Why would I stick a twig in my mouth?"

"To look cooler?" Pikachu suggested.

Leo considered this. "…Huh. You think I would? Hmm, maybe I should then..."

Pikachu sweatdropped. "What have I just done?"

…

A bit later…

A rather unusual group of Pokemon was walking through the evening streets of Treasure Town. The unusual thing about them was that they were walking through the evening streets of Treasure Town. Nobody did that except for idiots, and the things that prowled when the sun went down. The fact that there was a group of Pokemon walking about in spite of this was such a novelty that they remained relatively unmolested. That and the fact that whenever a band of cutthroats and murderers and rapists and cannibal children tried to attack them from the shadows, the group dispatched them with startling ease.

"And I thought this place was bad before," Pikachu commented as he wiped the blood off his sword, the latest pack of scavengers running with their tails between their legs. Those whose tails weren't cut off and lying on the ground somewhere, that is.

"Is this as bad as Genocide City?" Leo asked Lily.

The ghost shook her head, looking pale. "No…but it's getting there…" She shuddered.

"I thought you weren't afraid of the dark," Pikachu commented, sheathing his sword.

"I'm not," Lily replied. "It's what's hiding in it that's more troubling."

"Tiny, stop gnawing on that body! I told you, there's no telling where anything in this town has been, or what germs it might be carrying!" Ash snapped at Tiny, who grunted and reluctantly let go of the leg he had been gnawing on. "Oy…I have no idea how you're going to fit in with your brother and sisters, none of them think it's all right to try and eat other Pokemon. Am I doing something wrong with you? Am I not being a good enough parent? Maybe it's the fact that Sasha's the closest thing you have to a mothering figure at the moment, which doesn't help because you hate her as much as everyone else and she's not an ideal role model due to her taste for Pokemon flesh." Tiny shrugged and sucked his pacifier.

Team Aurabolt were currently wandering the streets in disguise so that none of the Nihilators or Don Wiggly's thugs that might be about would recognize them. (Not that the latter had ever seen them in their true forms, but considering there was a good chance that the Don was collaborating with the Nihilators, they couldn't rule out the possibility that he knew what they really looked like by now.) Thanks to Lily's glamour spells, none of the five heroes looked anything like their true forms, which put them a step above Leo's disguise kit, which, while excellent, had still forced them to take on the appearances of Pokemon with similar body types. That wasn't a problem with Lily's magic. Thanks to her enchantments, Ash was now a fiery Infernape, Pikachu was a Mawile with his sword concealed in his faux steel horns, Leo was a rather chubby Totodile, Tiny was a baby Kangaskhan, and Lily was a Koffing. The witch had been forced to leave her hat in Ash's bag, much to her reluctance, even though it had been pointed out that a Koffing would look rather conspicuous wearing something like that. Lily had almost argued that they looked rather conspicuous walking around in a large group after dark anyway, but she was still too timid and used to not talking back from her years with Bellum to speak her mind on this matter.

"That was the sixth time we've been attacked in the last half-hour…wouldn't these guys get the hint that we're too tough for them by now?" Ash commented.

"If they were smart enough for pattern recognition, would they really be living in a place like Treasure Town?" Pikachu said.

"Good point," Ash said.

"We're almost to the harbor," Leo said. "Once we get there, we should have fewer random encounters to worry about."

"That's good," Lily said.

"No, it's bad! Fewer random encounters means less EXP!" Leo said. "On the other hand, we're almost guaranteed to get into a bar fight, so that should make up for it."

"What makes you think we're going to get into a bar fight? We're just here to find a ship that can take us to Zero Isle, not start a brawl," Pikachu said.

"Dude, whenever a group of heroes walks into a bar, a brawl is inevitable. Brawls happen all the time, anyway. It's what you get when you cram too many drunken grouchy Pokemon in one place at the same time. They only take the slightest trigger to set off, and guys like us are a good excuse to have one," Leo said. Pikachu wanted to argue, but he knew that Leo was right. His father had told him about more than a few bar fights he'd been in, and commented that they seemed to be an inevitable part of adventuring.

"If there's going to be a fight, then let's do our best to stay out of it," Pikachu said. "Like I said, we're here to find a captain, get a ship, and sail out of here. And after that, pray we never have to come back to Treasure Town again for a very long time."

Ash nodded uneasily. "Amen to that."

As had been noted before, Treasure Town was not a nice place, and it felt even nastier now. The omnipresent air of vague menace (and rather unpleasant odors) had congealed into a sense of outright malice that bore down on them like a hammer, pressing down on them mercilessly as if its presence alone was enough to crush its victims under its weight, causing the team to feel somewhat tired and worn-out. Ash reflected that Sasha had been right to stay behind. His Aura-senses weren't quite as well-tuned as Sasha's disaster-detecting skills at predicting danger, but he was still feeling a bit jumpy and on edge, like something was lying in wait around every corner to kill them. (Usually something was, which didn't really do much to help his fraying nerves.) He would be perfectly happy to sail out of town and spend as much time as possible away from it at sea…although he couldn't help wondering what kind of crew they'd have to deal with, considering that any Pokemon who bothered coming to a place like this to begin with might not necessarily be on the friendly or trustworthy side.

After a few more failed muggings and assassination attempts, they reached the port, where they had fewer footpads and murderers to worry about because they were all afraid of the hardened and violent sailors that frequented the harborside taverns and the things that sometimes crawled out of the polluted waters at night. Since the people of Treasure Town didn't bother wasting valuable money or fuel on putting up lamps at night, it was very dark, and in the gloom an object dangling from the signpost over the nearest tavern door looked like the severed head of a Dragonite. "'The Dragonite's Head,'" Pikachu read off the signpost, squinting to make out the almost illegible poorly-written letters in the murk. "And they have a wooden carving of a Dragonite's head to go with the tavern's theme. How…quaint…"

"Pikachu," Leo said, looking sick. "That's not a carving."

Pikachu blanched. "You mean…" Tiny sucked his pacifier.

"I don't think a piece of wood would smell that much," Ash said quietly.

"Or have flesh sloughing off it, or an eyeball dangling from a socket, or worms wriggling around-" Lily started.

"That's more than I really need to hear," Pikachu interrupted quickly. His ears twitched as he heard smashing glass and bloodcurdling screams from within the tavern. One of the windows shattered and a Walrein was flung out, landing in the water several meters away. He screamed as the acidic liquid consumed him, his flesh rapidly dissolving into nothing. The tavern door fell off its hinges (actually, it didn't have hinges because it got knocked down at least once a night, so the owner just propped it back up until it fell over again to save money) as a Hitmonchan, Hitmontop, and Hitmonlee rolled out, feet and fists flying as they beat the crap out of a screaming Tyrogue pinned down in the middle of them. Team Aurabolt slowly stepped back so as not to get caught in the scuffle.

"Okay," Ash said after a moment. "Maybe we should try the one next door."

There was a tremendous roar, and the door of the tavern next door fell off and all the windows broke as burly intoxicated Pokemon tumbled out and viciously tore into each other, continuing a fight there hadn't been enough room for inside the bar. The heroes sweatdropped. "Yeah, I don't think that one's much better," Pikachu said.

"Well, maybe one of the other-" Ash started.

The tavern next to the one with the street brawl burst into flames. The one next to that caved in on itself. The one next to that spontaneously exploded. The one next to that vanished as it sunk into a pit that opened beneath it and closed itself up just as suddenly. The one next to that was frozen in a block of ice. The one next to that launched into the air and burst in a flurry of vulgar and garish fireworks. And the one next to that one? Disappeared into a portal to another dimension. And you don't even want to know what happened to the one next to that. Team Aurabolt gawked. None of the fighting seamon gave any of this any notice. "…What just happened?" asked a very confused and alarmed Ash. Tiny sucked his pacifier in befuddlement.

"I think something's trying to tell us that this bar is the one we should try," Lily said.

"Talk about railroading…" Leo muttered.

"I've mentioned before that I really hate this town, right?" Pikachu groaned.

They cautiously walked around the fighting Fighting Pokemon and stepped over the open doorway into the bar. It looked like pretty much every other harborside dive in the entire Omniverse. It was dim, dank, covered in filth, had a rather unpleasant odor, and was full of very unpleasant-looking hardened sailor Pokemon either drinking more alcohol than was healthy, beating each other up, groping and otherwise molesting the miserable serving womon, or doing all three at once. There was even a drunken Ambipom swinging from the chandelier, shrieking madly as it splashed rum (and other things) all over the room, and a piano in one corner, except that the song being played was rather jarring and discordant due to one homicidal Machoke smashing the piano player's face into the keys repeatedly until they were stained red with blood. Several stuffed Dragonite heads in better state of preserve than the one outside were mounted on the wall. There was a mechanical Tauros in one corner that had been clothed in actual Dragonite skin, and as they watched a rowdy Gastrodon trying to ride it got bucked off and thrown across the room, where his head got stuck in the mouth of one of the mounted Dragonites. His inebriated friends laughed.

A surly Slowbro in an apron with a nasty squint stood behind the bar counter, wiping a grimy mug of broken glass with an equally grimy cloth and not cleaning it so much as spreading the dirt around. There was a broken mirror behind him, along with several racks full of bottles of alcoholic beverages encased in Light Screens. Any thirsty Pokemon that tried to break through the Light Screens and grab a bottle when the Slowbro wasn't looking found themselves telekinetically flung onto the counter where the bartender psychically squeezed their heads until blood gushed from every orifice, which he collected in a mug to add to the liquor later for flavoring. A few heads turned when Team Aurabolt walked into the room, but they quickly deemed them not worth dealing with at that moment and went back to their boozing and whoring and fighting.

"This…looks pretty much exactly like I had expected it to," Leo said wearily. "Maybe even a little worse."

"You know, I'm starting to wonder if Sasha was right, maybe we should just leave that Badge alone," Ash muttered under his breath. Tiny sucked his pacifier in agreement.

Pikachu sighed. "We've come this far, we might as well carry through. And if we can't find anyone to help us, maybe we'll just steal a ship or something."

Ash gave him a surprised look. "You're suggesting we steal a boat? You? Mr. Honorable samurai warrior?"

"This town brings out the worst in everyone. Even me," Pikachu grunted.

"But we don't even know how to sail a ship," Lily said.

"I do," Leo said.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," said Pikachu.

Reluctantly, they started walking through the bar, careful not to step on anything (or anyone) or touch any of the rather unhinged-looking sailors. They didn't want to start a fight, or get caught up in one of the ones already going on. Pikachu grimaced as they passed by one of the mounted Dragonite heads, its expression frozen in a look of perpetual horror and agony. "This is disgusting…"

"Those poor dragons," Lily said sadly. "I didn't know people other than Mother did this to them."

"You think that's bad, you should see what some people do to Wailmer and Waillord," Leo said unhappily. "There's tons of Pokemon who say that humans were bastards and we're much better off without them. They never seem to notice that we can be pretty nasty too, sometimes."

"Do you think we might get back in Nuken's good books—or higher up in his bad books—if we told him about this? I bet he'd love to burn it to the ground," Ash said.

"This whole town could use a healthy dose of fire," Pikachu said cynically.

"Wow, you really are in a bad mood today," Ash noted.

Pikachu sighed. "Sorry. This place is getting to me. I'm beginning to think things I usually wouldn't."

"Well, hopefully once we reseal the Door, things will improve," Leo said.

"Even then, it will take a while before all the scars on these peoples' souls will truly heal," Lily said. "It may never be as good a town as you describe Pokemon Square to be."

"Nowhere is as good as Pokemon Square," Ash said loyally. "But pretty much anything is better than this place is right now."

"Except for Genocide City," Leo reminded him.

"Right. Except for that place," Ash admitted.

"So…I see lots of sailors here. Who should we approach first?" Pikachu asked.

"How about that old guy sitting in a corner by himself?" Leo suggested, pointing at a Metang sitting at a table all by himself, nursing a glass. All the other sailors seemed to be giving him a wide berth for some reason.

"Why him?" Ash asked.

"Because he's an old guy sitting in a corner by himself! Duh! Isn't that the only reason we need to approach him?" Leo asked. Pikachu frowned. Leo sighed. "Oh, fine, if you want more of a justification, how's this? He's drinking slowly and not making a big show of himself, which means he has more moderation and control than these other guys. His age indicates experience, which is always something good to have in a seamon. The fact that he's alone and everyone else is staying away from him indicates that he's somebody they all fear and respect…and someone like that is just the sort of captain we could use."

Pikachu was impressed. "Huh. Those are some pretty good points, Leo."

"Here's another one," Ash said, checking out the Metang's Aura. "His Aura is…something else. For one thing, he's stronger than pretty much everyone else in the bar. A lot stronger. And his Aura…it's like it's made of living metal. A fury like molten metal held in check by an iron will and a steely determination. He's a mon on a mission."

"Much like us, then?" Lily said.

"Then maybe we can help each other out on our respective goals…" Pikachu said. "Let's go introduce ourselves."

They approached the old Metang. More sailors turned to look at them as they passed, suddenly finding them a lot more interesting due to the fact that they were walking towards the one Pokemon in the room not even they would dare start a fight with. The noise died down as everyone stopped what they were doing to watch Team Aurabolt as the five Pokemon pulled up wobbly and splintery chairs and cautiously sat down at the Metang's table. "Hey there," Ash said. "Mind if we buy you a drink, old-timer?"

The Metang looked up from his glass, and they all stiffened as he panned a single cold, calculating red orb over them. The Metang had all the traits of a hardened sailor, scratches and abrasions on his metallic surface and chips missing from his spikes due to years on the open ocean, a worn white captain's hat with a crack in the brim, and an eyepatch over his left eye. He also had a magnificent mustache that looked more like a curved silvery blade than a facial growth sprouting from beneath his spiky nose, with a mass of metallic scraps clinging to the lower front part of his disc-shaped body in approximation of a thick beard. The lower half of his body unhinged briefly to down the last of his drink, after which he treated the heroes to a terrifying metal-fanged grin. "I would appreciate that, friend," he said in a voice as calm as a stretch of still water…with the same implication of terrible things lurking in its depths. "I've finished this one."

There was a sense of disappointment and mingled relief in the air as the crowd realized that they weren't going to see a fight, so reluctantly went back to entertaining themselves. Ash signaled a harried-looking Hariyama waitress, who brought a new (as in, it had a (hopefully) unused drink in it, not that it was actually brand-new or anything, the owner couldn't afford any) glass for the Metang. She looked surprised, then grateful when Ash not only did not feel her up, but also gave her a rather generous tip. "Thank you kindly, Ash. You've saved me a Poke' or two," the Metang said as he started sipping his drink.

"Thanks…wait a minute, what did you just say?!" Ash said, stiffening in alarm.

The Metang put down his glass and offered them that cold, terrifying metal grin again. "I said thanks for the drink, Ash. Pikachu, you don't need to draw your sword, I'm not going to turn you in. Leo, yes, I can read your mind. Lily, I did not see through your spells, they're quite good disguises; they just don't shield your minds from someone like myself. And Tiny, I wouldn't eat that if I were you." Tiny reluctantly put whatever he had been about to stuff in his mouth down.

"…H-how did you know who we are?" Ash stammered.

"Weren't you listening? He said he read our minds!" Pikachu growled, grabbing the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it no matter what the Metang said.

"That's not very polite. I thought most Psychics were supposed to keep out of people's minds when they don't have permission, both to keep other people from distrusting and running them out of town because they learned too many secrets or because they might go mad from seeing what lies in so many heads," Lily said uneasily, worried by what the old sailor might have seen in her own thoughts.

The Metang chuckled softly. "I'm not most Psychics. I stopped observing that social nicety a long time ago out of necessity…and I have seen far too many things in the hearts of Pokemon to allow myself to go mad from looking into too many minds at once. Of course, the fact that I have two brains to help me better process data helps, too."

"You have the advantage of us, sir. You seem to know quite a lot about us…and we know nothing about you," Ash said cautiously as he tried to fortify his mind the way Chuck and Aaron's book had taught him to. He cursed himself for letting his guard down. If this guy were trying to kill him Psychically, he might have been dead by now…and as it were, there was still no guarantee he wouldn't try it anyway. There was something more than a little worrisome about the cold look in the Metang's eye.

The Metang took another sip. "You can call me Briney. Captain Briney. And you can all relax, because I have no intention of fighting you or revealing your identities. I am not your enemy. If I were, you would all be dead by now." Ash frowned. Briney? For some reason, the name caused the memory of a smiling bald old man with a thick beard and a Wingull riding on his shoulder, laughing as he transported Ash and his friends to a distant island, Dew-something-or-other, to flash through his mind. That jolly human bore little resemblance to this brooding, rather intimidating Steel-type, other than the facial hair.

"That's not exactly reassuring," Pikachu said, not loosening his grip on his sword.

"But it is rather hardcore," Leo said admiringly. Everyone gave him disturbed looks.

"If you're not our enemy, then does that make you our friend?" Lily said cautiously.

The Metang grinned. "You could say that. We share a common enemy…and you know what they say; the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"Then…you're fighting them too?" Ash asked in surprise.

"The Nihilators? Yes. Oh, don't look worried, nobody can hear what we're talking about, I set up Light Screens when you weren't looking so nobody can eavesdrop on us. We may talk freely without worrying about being overheard by prying ears," Briney said.

"Um…okay," Ash said, a little disturbed.

"Wow, you prepare in advance. Just like me! Except I probably have a lot more stuff," Leo said. "Speaking of which, I gotta remember to build a psychic blocker for my brain so people can't read my mind. There's stuff in there I don't want anyone to see!"

"Trust me when I say that I didn't want to see most of it either. There's…rather a lot of anime in there. And trivia. And somewhat disturbing fantasies. How has your brain not rotted away by now?" Briney wondered.

"I wonder the same thing all the time," Pikachu commented.

"So you are fighting the Nihilators just like we are?" Lily said. "Um…I used to be affiliated with them…you aren't going to try and kill me too, are you?"

"If we had met a few weeks ago, perhaps. But since your friends seem to trust you, and because what I can see of your mind seems to back that faith up, I have no quarrel with you at the moment," Briney said. Lily sighed in relief, as did Leo.

"If you can read our minds and know we're fighting the Nihilators, then you also must know the reason we came in here," Pikachu said.

Briney nodded. "I knew it from the moment you walked in here. You want me to take you to Zero Isle so you can find one of the Star Badges the Nihilators have been searching for for years. I've known for a while now that the Nihilators were looking for the Badges, but didn't know where any of them were or what exactly they were trying to do with them until I saw it in your minds. I'd be more than happy to help you get this one and the other Badge unaccounted for…since doing so will open the way to the Nihilators' headquarters, which I have sought for almost a decade now."

"You've been fighting them that long? We didn't even know they existed until very recently ourselves," Ash said, impressed.

"What's your beef with them? You must be really committed if you've spent this long fighting them," Leo said. "Is this a mission of vengeance or something?"

Briney nodded, the intensity in his eye wavering for a moment. "It is indeed. Ten years ago, the Nihilators killed my wife…and I have spent every waking moment since then looking for the mon who did it, so I can return the favor."

"…They killed your wife? That's terrible," Lily said, glancing for a moment at Leo.

The Squirtle gave her a subtle nod. He'd coached her to use that response at moments like this. All part of teaching the sheltered witch to understand empathy and feeling for others. "And kinda typical," he muttered. "Why is it the important womon in a guy's life that always get stuffed into fridges?"

"Why did they do that?" Ash asked.

"Payback for something I did to them, though I wasn't even aware of it at the time," Briney said. He sighed, and some of his hardness and sense of overwhelming power seemed to drain away. "I suppose, if we are going to be working together, you should know why I fight. It's only fair, since I know pretty much everything about you now."

"Yeah, we're still not happy about that," Pikachu commented.

"Yes, well, there isn't much you can do about it." Briney took another swig from his glass. "I used to run a shipping business that took supplies and valuables wherever they were needed. My home was in a port town far from here, both in the geographic and moral sense. It could be a bit rough and messy at times, but certainly not as bad as this Arceusawful place…and it was home, so I always felt comfortable there. Especially…with my wife, Peeko." He paused for a moment, as if gathering his strength.

"What kind of Pokemon was she?" Ash asked.

"Wingull. Sweetest, most beautiful bird I ever met," Briney said softly, a faraway look in his eye. "We were friends from childhood, and it seemed inevitable that we would one day get married…so, we did."

Lily blinked. "Wait…she was a Wingull? But you're-"

"A fine, strapping example of a reliable mon," Leo interrupted loudly. "It must have been a bit hard for her, having to contend with the sea for your heart."

Briney gave him a puzzled look. "What're you talking about? She was a Wingull. She came with me on my routes. My crew saw her as good luck, and we survived many a bad storm, sea monster, and pirate attack thanks to her presence."

Leo blushed. "Oh. Right."

"I doubt she would have stayed behind even if I told her to…much like me, she loved the sea, and was a bit of a free spirit. That, and she wanted to make sure I didn't make a lout of myself like most sailors did sooner or later. With her around, my crew and I always kept clean noses. We had to, otherwise she wouldn't make us dinner." He smiled sadly. "But one day, she came down sick, so I had no choice but to leave her home. My superstitions warned me to stay behind, that it wouldn't be safe to go out to sea without her…but my pocketbook said I had to; otherwise we wouldn't be able to eat that month. Running a ship and sailing the seas is a wonderful life, but it doesn't always pay well. So, despite my doubts, I bade her farewell and made ready to set sail. But as we tried to leave port, we found a number of smaller boats in our path…one of the local gangs of ruffians had been getting too big for their britches lately, and thought that by setting up an embargo they could extort ships for money to come in and out of the harbor." He grinned cruelly. "They made the mistake of trying that trick on the hardest, toughest old seaGrowlithe in town. I drove forward, engines going full steam, and rammed through their pathetic excuse of a blockade, using my Psychic powers to send their boats flying…oh, how we laughed as they flopped about in the water like Psyduck! Some of the idiots had never bothered to learn how to swim. What business had they had, going out on the water in a boat?" He sighed. "If only I had known then what I do now, I would have paid their pittance of a fee. Then maybe Peeko would still be alive…"

"…They killed her, then? For your spoiling their fun?" Ash asked quietly.

Rage and grief flashed in his eye. Briney gnashed his metal teeth with a terrible grinding noise and clutched his glass so hard it shattered, spilling liquor and bits of broken glass all over the table. "Killed her?! Oh yes, they killed her…but not after doing things so horrible to her that death was a blessing. You cannot imagine what her corpse looked like when I rushed home, having received a message that she had been murdered and leaving my ship and cargo in the paws of my first mate. I could barely even recognize her…"

"Actually, I probably could imagine what they did," Lily said softly. "I've seen it often enough as well."

"Me too," Leo said, recalling the horrors he had seen in Tarantulas' lab in the Tree of Beginning. "And I have a very active imagination."

"That you do," Briney whispered, trying to get his emotions back under control. "It's amazing your head hasn't split open yet what with all the ideas in it…did you know that she was…expecting when it happened? The egg was lost, naturally. I never knew until the coroner told me. She'd been saving it as a surprise…"

Nobody said anything for a moment, allowing the old mon to recover from his grief and pondering just how dark the depths of evil some Pokemon would go to for the sake of petty retribution. "What did you do to the Pokemon responsible?" Pikachu asked.

"Nothing, at first, on account of most of them having fled town…all but one, whom the authorities had managed to apprehend. He refused to talk about what had happened the night of the murder…that is, until I…persuaded him," Briney said ominously. Nobody asked what that persuasion had entailed. None of them wanted to know.

"And what did he tell you?" Lily asked.

"Everything. How their gang had recently been approached by a representative from a mysterious organization that saw 'potential' in them and had asked them to pull the embargo stunt to see if they were ready for the big time. When I smashed through their blockade, they were afraid they'd miss out on the chance of a lifetime, so did…so did what they did to my precious Peeko…" he gasped, trying not to shake. "To prove they had what it took and were stone-cold killers and ready to be part of the organization."

"And that organization was the Nihilators," Leo said.

Briney nodded. "That's right. Sniveling and whimpering and wallowing in his own filth, the pathetic snitch told me that the Nihilators would save him, that they'd make me pay for getting in their way, that they were everywhere and all-powerful and controlled the world, and that I'd never be able to stop them." He grinned nastily. "He was forced to change his opinion when he was put on the execution platform."

"And since the Nihilators sheltered and encouraged the thugs who murdered your wife, you swore you wouldn't rest until all of them paid for what they'd done?" Ash guessed.

Briney nodded. "That's right. I've spent the last decade searching the world for those murderers. I've torn apart dozens of bases and slaughtered hundreds of Nihilators in my quest for vengeance, but so far, the last one has eluded me."

"…Whoa. You did that all by yourself?" asked an amazed Pikachu.

Briney nodded. "I've made myself into the Nihilators' public enemy number one. I don't want anyone else being hurt due to their association with me…that's how I lost my crew. The Nihilators killed them to try and dissuade me. If anything, it only made me angrier."

Leo looked around anxiously. "Then, uh, should we be sitting here with you? We don't exactly want to become targets either…"

"Aren't we already? I'm a defector and the rest of you are openly opposed to them," Lily pointed out.

"Yes, but they don't know that we're us while we're in these disguises," Leo said. "So if there's an assassination attempt, we could get caught in the crossfire!"

Briney laughed. "They can try to kill me. They've been doing that for the last ten years. It hasn't worked out for them so far." Ash nodded. He didn't need to read the Metang's Aura to see how tough he was.

"How do you know you haven't already killed the last of the thugs who murdered your wife? You said you've already defeated hundreds of them," Pikachu asked.

"Maybe because he read their minds before killing them to make sure they weren't the ones he was looking for?" Leo suggested.

Briney shook his head. "No, the control chips in their heads have circuitry lined with Dark-type energy in them to keep anyone who isn't Psychic and doesn't also have a chip from reading their minds. It's a security measure to keep enemies like myself from learning their secrets, like where their main headquarters is. That's also why they all have cyanide pills, to kill themselves before I can…'interrogate' them properly."

Ash frowned. "Why do they do that, anyway? They keep talking about an afterlife retirement plan. What are they, religious extremists?"

"In a way, they are," Lily said. "Since Giratina is allied with the Nihilators, and is still a god despite her fallen status, she is able to draw the souls of deceased Nihilators through the crack in the Door so that they can have an afterlife of paradise in the Abyss."

"…Paradise? In the Abyss?!" Pikachu asked incredulously. "Isn't that an oxymoron?"

"Not necessarily," Briney interjected. "This town is far from a nice place to live, but the wealthy are still able to afford a more luxurious lifestyle than everyone else."

Lily nodded. "It is the same in the Abyss. The most powerful demons who were not individually imprisoned like Giratina and the Ruler of Evil were live fairly comfortably, mainly by exploiting the weaker demons under them. Giratina still holds a great deal of clout in the hierarchy of the Abyss in spite of her imprisonment, and as such is able to get the deceased Nihilators into the infernal upper class, granting them stronger bodies, new power, and as many weaker creatures to torment as they want…and since everyone in the Abyss is immortal and can never stay 'dead' for longer than a day, that means the torment can last a very long time indeed."

They gave her horrified looks. "Wait, then you're telling me that all the Nihilators we've killed are in their own personal heaven?! They were rewarded for all the evil they've done, rather than punished?!" cried a shocked Pikachu.

"No way…" Ash whispered. "Does that mean we're helping them get what they want?"

"I'm afraid so…" Lily said.

Briney growled, gnashing his teeth again. "Then that means true justice has yet to be delivered to my wife's killers…have these last ten years been for naught?!"

"Well, look on the bright side, at least now they're hurting other people instead of us," Leo said. "Well, unless the Nihilators open the Door, allowing their newly demonic brethren to help them free the Ruler of Evil and destroy the world…crap."

"Lily, why didn't you tell us this before?!" Ash asked.

"You didn't ask…" she whimpered, shrinking back on herself. They groaned.

Leo sighed, seeing how upset they were making her. "Lily, it's no big deal, at least you told us this now instead of later. In the future, though, if you know or suspect something that the rest of us don't, be sure to tell us, no matter how inconsequential it might seem at the time. It could be more important than you think, and spell the difference between life and death. Got it?"

Lily nodded. "Yes, Leo. I'll try not to do that again."

"Okay. Now…Is there anything we can do to stop any more Nihilators from getting their little slice of hell?" Leo asked.

"I don't think so…" Lily said apologetically.

"Then we'll have to do our best not to kill as many Nihilators in the future…or at the very least, have Ash purify them, so they might decide to quit being evil," Pikachu said. "Ash, do you think you're ready to purify them?"

Ash nodded. "I've been studying my book, and I think I can use both purification techniques effectively now. I would have tried them on Tiny, but I don't want to do it without his permission." Tiny sucked his pacifier in agreement.

"It's what's best for him," Pikachu said.

"Who am I to decide that?" Ash asked.

"…His father figure?" Pikachu pointed out.

Ash paused. "Well. Yeah. Still…"

"…It doesn't matter," Briney muttered, getting their attention. "Even if I'm sending that bastard to a reward…I'll still kill him. I owe Peeko that much. And even if he's in paradise, he'll still be in hell. I'll at least have that cold comfort."

"Yeah, in hell…and in the aristocracy," Leo said bitterly. "Woohoo."

"How can they have aristocracy, anyway?" Ash asked. "I thought that they were all about equality or something."

"Oh, they are," Lily said. "But some are more equal than others."

"Ah," Ash said.

Leo sighed. "Isn't that always the way?"

Pikachu frowned. "So this last guy…you were starting to tell us. How exactly do you know he's still alive? How are you going to find him?"

"With this." Briney lifted his eyepatch to reveal…

"Hey, you have two eyes!" Ash realized. "You don't need that thing at all!"

"I think he does, Ash. That second eye doesn't look like his," Pikachu said.

Briney nodded. The eye under the patch was small, black, and beady, nothing like the glowing red orb in his other socket. "That's right, it's not my eye. It's Peeko's last eye, which I removed from her body and implanted into my empty socket so that a part of her would always be with me."

"…Ew. Just…ew," said a disgusted Ash.

"That is…romantic?" Lily asked, glancing at Leo.

"And kinda gross," Leo said.

"I had a practical reason for it, too," Briney said defensively, lowering the patch back into place. "You know that old story about how the last thing a person sees is burned into their optic nerves or something like that? It's true."

"…Oh! I get it. And since the last thing your wife saw was, presumably, her killers, by making her eye your own you'll be able to recognize them on sight, as well as sense if they're nearby thanks to your Psychic abilities," Lily realized.

Pikachu blinked. "Could something like that work?"

The ghost nodded. "Certainly, it's a form of sympathetic magic."

"Still kinda gross," Leo said.

"I didn't ask for your opinion," Briney said. "Whenever this eye starts aching, I know one of the murderers is near. Six thugs killed my wife, and five times this eye has ached, guiding me to one of the Nihilators responsible for her death. There's one left to go. I've searched and destroyed countless Nihilator bases looking for the last one, ending hundreds of their lives and derailing a number of their plans in the process, but I still haven't found him."

"How do you know they didn't kill him in an attempt to get you off their backs?" Pikachu asked. "Or that he didn't kill himself to avoid your killing him?"

"Because death isn't enough to stop the ache," Briney said. "Even after I've killed one of them, the eye still hurts until I completely destroy the body. So either the sixth one's corpse is lying around somewhere I haven't found yet, or he's still alive."

"…Okay, that's really creepy," Ash said.

"And also kind of romantic, since it's like his wife's ghost is goading him from beyond the grave to avenge her death," Leo said.

"So…it is romantic for someone to rip off a part of his lover, graft it onto himself, and use it to track down and violently destroy her killers?" Lily asked.

"Er…yeah. I think," Leo said.

"Hmm…I guess I still have a lot to learn about love," Lily said. "But at least I understand that you must have loved her very much, to continue this search after ten years."

Briney nodded. "That I did, lass. That I did."

"So you want to team up with us because you're hoping that by finding the Star Badges, we'll bump into the last killer," Pikachu said. "What'll happen when that happens, and you've…eliminated him?"

"I'm not sure, to be honest," Briney said. "I've considered killing myself so I can join Peeko. I've also thought of continuing my quest and destroying the rest of the Nihilators, since they goaded those punks into doing what they did in the first place."

"We hope you'll pursue the latter option. I don't like it when my friends die," Ash said.

Briney gave him a long look, and Ash realized with a sick feeling in his gut that the Metang had seen his latest flashback, along with everything else. "No," he said after a moment. "I don't suppose you do. Then again, who does?"

"If you're coming with us, then does that mean the sixth guy isn't here?" Leo asked. "I assume that's why you even stopped in Treasure Town in the first place, what with it being Nihilator Central and all."

Briney nodded. "That's right, I did come here looking for him. From the bits of information I've pieced together over the years, I eventually found out Treasure Town is crucial to their plans, so I thought I'd come here and clean nest. I haven't detected my quarry, though, so theoretically I could leave…but the thought of allowing those bastards to continue their work here rubs me the wrong way. So I have a proposition for you: help me run the Nihilators out of Treasure Town and I'll take you to Zero Isle, and stick with you until you find the Nihilator headquarters or I find my prey, whichever comes first. And after that…well, we'll cross under that drawbridge when we get to it."

Pikachu frowned. "Do you think we can really do that? There's a lot of Nihilators here. They control the whole town, and are pretty deeply entrenched in the catacombs."

Briney nodded. "That's true, there are a lot of them…but that hasn't stopped me so far from wiping out entire bases of the vermin. My reputation among their ranks has become so great that many kill themselves before I even get there out of fear of what I might do to them. I wonder how many corpses we'll find when they realize that this time, I've brought friends to lend a hand?"

"Hmm…that does sound kinda cool…" Leo admitted. "And kind of creepy…"

"And if we get rid of all the Nihilators here, the town may improve slightly, and we'll have an easier time moving about and reaching the Door when the time comes to reseal it," Ash admitted. "But even if we do manage to clear them all out of here, what's to stop them from coming back the minute we leave town?"

"That's what controlled demolitions are for," Briney said smugly. "A few explosions here and there should collapse the tunnels and make it difficult for anyone to get back down to the lowest levels. It'll mean we'll have a bit of a tough time getting back there too, but it should at least slow down the Nihilators for a little while. So, what do you say?"

"Well…What do you think, guys?" Ash asked his friends.

"I think it'll be a grueling battle, but if Briney's really that strong, we should have a slightly easier time of it both now and in future fights," Pikachu said.

"Plus, he'll let us use his boat. Without paying! And he'll become our seventh party member! What a bargain! We can't turn this down!" Leo said.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt to get rid of the Nihilators here," Lily said. "And if we get down to the lowest parts and I get a look at the Door, maybe I can learn more about the magic we need to seal it…and possibly how to break my own curse…"

Ash shrugged. "Well, my friends have spoken. I guess you're in. Welcome to Team Aurabolt, Captain Briney."

"Glad to be onboard," Briney said, shaking Ash's hand. "Now…why don't we retrieve your other teammate and head down to the catacombs to start busting some skulls? If we attack now, we'll have the advantage of surprise, since I only just got here and I doubt they'll have set up all their defenses yet."

"Sounds like a good idea to me. And after that, we ship out?" Ash said.

"As soon as possible. Much like you, I'll be happy to turn my back to this place. It brings out the worst in people…and my worst can be very bad indeed," Briney said. They tried not to dwell on that too much.

"Okay, then let's get out of here and…hey, where's Tiny?" Pikachu asked, glancing around and realizing for the first time that the Larvitar was gone. The little guy was so silent sometimes it was easy to forget that he was there, which made it hard to notice when he wasn't.

"Oh boy. You guys are gonna want to take a look at this," Leo said as he pointed to a nearby table, face red with suppressed mirth.

They looked at the table. Tiny and an enormous Swalot were sitting opposite from each other and quaffing down tremendous tankards of beer, while a large crowd gathered around them shouted "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" Several dozen empty tankards and glasses scattered around the table and floor indicated this drinking contest had been going on for quite some time. With a gasp, both Pokemon slammed their empty vessels down on the table, glared at each other…and then the Swalot's eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted, knocking the table over in his fall and lying slumped on the floor. Tiny belched loudly, and the sailors cheered raucously.

Team Aurabolt and their latest addition stared in disbelief. "What a constitution! Even my liver's not that strong!" said an impressed Briney. "And it's made of metal!"

"Isn't he a bit young to be drinking?" Lily asked.

"That doesn't seem to be stopping him," Leo commented.

Ash had put his face in his hands. "Oh man…Misty's gonna kill me…"

"Why? She's never even met Tiny," Pikachu asked.

"She'll kill me on principle for letting a kid of mine drink underage. She'll say I'm setting a bad example for the others." Ash groaned. "Why does Tiny keep doing stuff like this? Is it me? Am I a bad parent? Junior never acted like this. The worst problem we ever had with him was wetting the bed and knocking over furniture. Is this my fault? What did I do to deserve-" He paused, a horrifying thought crossing his mind.

Pikachu frowned. "Ash? What is it?"

"I…nothing. It's nothing. Let's just get Tiny and go." Ash narrowed his eyes. "And when I get the chance, he and I are going to have a serious talk about moderation."

Briney watched Ash silently. He knew what dread thought had gone through the Lucario's head. He knew what secret the boy was hiding from his friends. He didn't intend to do anything about it, though. That information was Ash's to share…

And he hoped he shared it sooner rather than later, before it destroyed Ash from within.

…

"This is so cool," Leo said as they exited the bar and started walking along the harbor front towards the nearest entrance to the catacombs. "We're going to storm an enemy stronghold alongside a badass captain who's been fighting them for years! And…we'll probably kill a lot of them…yeah…okay, maybe it's not that cool…"

"Don't worry, boy, you get used to killing after a while," Briney said.

Leo grimaced. "That's kind of what I'm afraid of."

Without warning, a laser beam shot down from the sky and struck the Dragonite's Head, causing it to explode in a tremendous ball of fire that knocked the heroes to the ground, collapsed several of the nearby shoddily-constructed buildings, crumbled some of the nearby piers, and made more than a few old and leaky boats capsize. Burning Pokemon ran screaming out of the conflagration and, without thinking, jumped into the bay to try and put themselves out. This turned out to be a bit of a bad idea, because there were more volatile chemicals than H2O in the bay, and they only wound up cremating themselves as the chemicals ignited, killing them and setting a significant portion of the piers, ships, and the water itself on fire.

"Holy shit," Ash said as they picked themselves back up. "That could have been us!"

"If we had been in there even a minute longer…" a horrified Leo whispered.

Lily shuddered, remembering all too well the flames that had marked her unbirth. "All those people…I did not like them, but I did not want something like that to happen to them!" Tiny sucked his pacifier sadly, though whether it was because of the loss of his drinking buddies or all the drinks that had gone up in the blast was hard to say.

"Was that meant for us?" Pikachu wondered. "But who would kill so many people just to try…right, stupid question. It must be the Nihilators!"

Briney frowned, narrowing his eyes as he noticed the smoke rising from the flames parting around what looked like thin air. "Close…but not quite…look up there!"

They looked up. It didn't take them very long to notice the odd aberration in the sky. The light from the fire refracted off it oddly. "What is that?" Lily wondered.

"It's a ship!" Ash cried, seeing through the object's cloaking field with his Aura-sight. The vessel shimmered, dropping its cloak to reveal itself to the heroes. It was a rather large black elongated rectangular airship, with four immense engines and steering struts placed at the ship's four corners and additional thrusters on the rear and top, a large indentation in the front that looked sort of like a mouth with air intake scoops on either side of it and four red eye-like lights placed on top and to the sides, a number of cannons mounted on the top, underside, and fins, and a small box-shaped bridge on top of the vessel, midway between the four engines. It wasn't nearly as the big as the ship that had almost destroyed Battlus, but it was larger than the ships Tarantulas and the other Nihilators had used to evacuate the Tree of Beginning, and looked as if it was powerful enough to level the entire town if it wanted to. Tiny stiffened, and Ash frowned, puzzled by the feelings of dread and shock he was receiving through his bond with the Larvitar. He also wondered why the ship seemed oddly familiar…

"It's the Nihilators!" Leo yelled. "They're after the Captain, and we're caught up in the middle of it, just like I was afraid of!"

"Weren't you listening, boy? I said not quite," Briney growled. "It doesn't bear their mark…but that doesn't mean we're out of trouble. I recognize that vessel…it doesn't belong to the Nihilators, but to someone almost as bad…Hunter J!"

Ash blinked. "Hunter J?"

Abruptly, he found himself in the middle of a flashback. He was human again, and he and Pikachu were running into the control room for an airship much like the one floating above them now. "Riolu!" he cried, spotting a Riolu trapped in a glass case next to the captain's chair. Oddly enough, it looked as if the Riolu was stone from the neck down.

"Pika pika!" Pikachu yelled.

The Riolu turned its head as much as it could, yelping for Ash to help him. The person who had been sitting in the chair, an elegant silver-haired woman in a long black coat belted around the middle with a red bodysuit underneath it, high heels, the left sleeve cut off to allow her to wear what looked like a miniature cannon over her arm, and utterly dead blue eyes stood up, walked over to the case, and turned a dial on its base, causing the Riolu's head to become encased in stone as well. "Let Riolu go!" Ash yelled angrily.

The woman threw a Pokeball. "Drapion, grab him now!"

The Pokeball burst open in a flash of light, releasing the massive Ogre Scorp Pokemon behind Ash and allowing it to instantly snap him up in its mighty claws. Ash gasped in pain as the Drapion slowly crushed his body, and Pikachu shouted, "Pi! Pikapi!"

The woman walked over. "I've been aware of your intrusion the whole time."

"Why didn't you do something before?" Ash grunted, having trouble breathing as the Drapion continued constricting him.

A cold smile formed on the woman's face, and Ash abruptly realized that, unlike many of the other criminals he'd run into over the years, this one had no heart and no problem with killing anyone who got in her way. She was pure evil, and nothing less. "So I could personally punish a young fool like you."

The Drapion lifted Ash into the air and tightened its grip, causing him to scream in pain. Pikachu cried out and leaped onto the scorpion, grabbing onto one of its eyebrows and blocking its sight, causing it to thrash about to try and shake him off. Ash took advantage of this distraction to lash out with a kick, striking the Drapion in the other eye. The scorpion roared in pain and let him go, allowing Ash and Pikachu to drop to the ground.

Unfortunately, this what right where the woman wanted him. Her grin grew, and suddenly the floor opened up beneath Ash and Pikachu's feet, and then they were falling through a dark shaft and out into the light, the treetops of a forest hundreds of feet below them. "Pikachu!" Ash cried, grabbing Pikachu as they hurtled towards the ground. If this was how he was going to die, he wanted his best friend by his side. "This could be it…"

Ash blinked, snapping out of his fugue. Clearly that hadn't been it; otherwise he wouldn't be there now. It had been very close, though. "Hunter J…" he whispered.

"J? That's kind of an unusual name for someone," Pikachu commented.

"At least it is pronounceable. I have seen a number of names written in my Mother's grimoires that have no vowels," Lily said. "And other names that can't be written down but are described as a flash of green light and the smell of roses. Or the sound of a trolley of squawking Combuskens being chased downhill by a bagpipe player on Ponytaback but played backwards at twice the speed."

Leo gasped. "Hunter J?! Oh crap, I've heard about her! She's that seriously ruthless, relentless, cruel, and totally evil poacher who kidnaps rare Pokemon and sells them to high-paying 'collectors', right?"

Briney nodded. "That's right. I've heard that she's accepted a number of contracts from the Nihilators, hired to remove Pokemon who are causing them problems…or capturing legendary Pokemon, which they are trying to turn into Shadow Pokemon."

"She's captured legendaries?!" cried the startled Pikachu. "Then that means the Nihilators have more than just the three beasts and the golems? That isn't good…"

Ash blinked. "A poacher?" The Lucario suddenly realized what the feeling he was getting from Tiny was. It was rage. "Tiny…the Pokemon on that ship…she's the one who took away your mother, isn't she?" Tiny nodded slowly, small form quivering with anger as sparks of Aura flickered around him.

Briney laughed. "Ha…if she's here, that must mean someone's put a bounty on my head, or possibly yours, though since you're incognito at the moment it's more likely that I'm the target rather than you five. I guess the Nihilators are so afraid of me that they're getting their favorite mercenary to try and take me out. Should I be flattered or insulted?"

An antenna rose from the top of the ship and started glowing. An energy field washed out from the antenna, rippling outwards and cascading down to create a dome-shaped force field that enclosed several hundred square meters of Treasure Town, cutting this portion of the docks off from the rest of the town and trapping Team Aurabolt, J's ship, and every other Pokemon unlucky enough to be in the neighborhood inside. "Crap! She's caged us in!" Leo observed.

"And herself, too…which may be the worst mistake she ever made," Briney said with a metallic grin. "Let's see how this legendary hunter matches up against the likes of us…"

Ash frowned. "One thing I don't understand…if she was right over us the whole time, why did she wait to fire on the tavern until after we were outside?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Leo said bitterly. "She was using it for target practice…and to show us that she means business."

Actually, Leo couldn't have been more wrong. "Why did you have us wait to fire until after they were outside?" Hunter J, a monstrous Drapion with a high-tech visor lowered over her eyes and a miniature cannon-like device strapped onto her left arm, asked her employer. They were standing on the bridge of her airship, her henchmon operating the control stations all around them while a high-res zoomed-in image of their quarry was displayed on a large screen. "If we had caught them while they were still in the building, Briney might have been severely weakened."

Oblivion's Shadow turned his mask towards her, reflecting J's face back at her. "Because this is a test run of my latest weapon, not of your technology," the Nihiliator leader told the Drapion with her own voice. "And besides…I doubt his companions would not have survived. I do not want them killed…at least, not all of them."

J frowned. "Not killed? But why…ah, I see. They are the other targets you wanted me to take care of? They do not match the description you gave me. Hmm…" She turned to one of her minions. "Give me an infrared scan!" The Skorupi nodded and made some adjustments. A red filter appeared over the image on the big screen, causing the forms of the five Pokemon standing around Captain Briney to turn hazy and transparent, revealing a Lucario, a Pikachu with a sword, a Squirtle, a Larvitar, and a Misdreavus. "Ah, an illusion…very clever. But not clever enough to fool you, I take it?"

"That is correct," Oblivion's Shadow said.

"That explains why we didn't fire while they were inside…but then why bother shooting at all?" J asked.

"There were too many unnecessary variables in the bar. They might have interfered in the fight, provided too many targets for Pokemon XDra, caused it to become confused. It was much simpler to just remove them entirely," said the Shadow.

J nodded, seeing the logic in that. "All right. But…are you sure you want to use something like that? I thought you wanted them alive."

"I want some of them alive. The Lucario I require for my own purposes. Bellum insisted that the Misdreavus be captured, though she doesn't care what condition Lily is when she is brought home. The Larvitar I hold little interest in, but you might want to take him for yourself. He escaped you in a previous hunt, and possesses the power of Aura. He could be very valuable to someone who works in the circles you do," the Shadow said.

J smirked. "The power of Aura, huh? And the Pikachu, Squirtle, or Metang you don't care about?"

The Shadow shook his head. "No. Pokemon XDra can and should kill them. If it comes too close to killing the others, then I shall intervene and leave the rest to you. In fact…I think that I shall take care of the Lucario personally, while XDra handles the others. He and I have…business."

J shrugged, not really caring. "So long as I get my payment, you can do whatever you want with him, though at this point I'm wondering how necessary my services were, since you seem to think you have everything in hand already."

"There's always the possibility of something unexpected happening. Do not worry, even if you are not needed, you will still get your money," Oblivoin's Shadow promised.

"That's all I care about," J said. She turned to the Skorupi. "Release Pokemon XDra. I think it's time we saw this so-called 'ultimate Shadow Pokemon' in action."

"Speaking of Shadow Pokemon…I do not suppose you have changed your stance on that subject?" Oblivion's Shadow asked as the Skorupi's claws flew over his console.

J shook her head. "I have no interest in Shadow. It may be a powerful substance, but it's still a drug just like any other…and I have no use for drugs. Money is the only thing that drives me, not some stupid addiction like drugs or the thrill of the hunt. Those only get in the way, so I cannot afford to let them interfere with my job."

"Hmmph. I suppose it is refreshing to know that you have limits," Oblivion's Shadow said. "Though it comes more from practicality than any moral code."

"I have no use for those, either," J said. "But what of you, Shadow? What are your limits? Just why are you so interested in this Lucario, anyway?" Oblivion's Shadow did not answer. Then again, J hadn't really expected him to. She didn't really care. The reasons people hired her had never been her concern. Doing the job and getting the payoff were the only things that really mattered. Everything else was only a distraction.

A hatch opened on the bottom of the ship. "Something's coming!" Lily announced.

"Whatever it is, we'll take care of it, then knock that ship out of the sky," Briney growled. "I wasn't particularly fond of that establishment, but it was one of the better ones in town, and now there's one less relatively acceptable thing in this hellhole. J will answer to me for making this awful town just a bit more unpleasant…and killing all those people, I suppose."

"Though there are some who might argue that the world would be a better place without them, I agree," Pikachu said, drawing his sword. "Someone who destroys lives so carelessly, who abducts people and sells them for money…someone like her needs to be taken down. I can't believe we've never heard of her before now, or we might have taken care of her sooner!"

Ash nodded. "Right! Let's take her down!" But why do I get a feeling something terrible is about to happen? I thought that was Sasha's gimmick… "Lily, drop the disguises, I don't think we need them anymore. I want J to know who she's messing with."

Lily nodded. "Right." The illusions over them all shimmered and disappeared, revealing their true forms.

Something emerged from the hatch. It wasn't a gun turret, or a bomb, or any other weapon they could identify. It was a crate that fell to the ground and slammed onto the cobblestones hard enough to crack them, indicating its denseness and weight.

They blinked. Tiny sucked his pacifier. "…Huh. That was unexpected," Leo commented.

"What's in there?" Lily wondered.

Briney frowned. "I can't…read it for some reason…that can't be good…"

Ash closed his eyes and tried his own sensing method. He gasped in horror. "Oh no…"

"What? What is it?!" Pikachu asked.

"It's-" He was interrupted when the crate exploded open in a blast of black flame, jagged pieces flying in every direction. The heroes braced themselves, but Briney raised a hand, generating a Protect barrier that deflected the shrapnel and left them unharmed. A dark figure appeared in the smoke, the clouds blowing away to reveal….

Leo screamed. "HOLY SHIT, IT'S THE SLICER! No, wait, false alarm, it's just our ninja Buneary friend in a suit of very pointy ice armor…with redder eyes than usual and a pitch-black Aura indicating she's a Shadow Pokemon…shit, that's almost as bad."

The ninja glared at them, black Aura swirling violently around her dark ice armor. If she recognized the group, there was no indication of it in her burning red eyes. Pikachu started. "It's…her!" said the surprised mouse. "But what is she doing in that getup? And why is she a Shadow Pokemon?!"

"You know her?" asked the confused Lily.

"She's that ninja Buneary with Sneasel blood who's helped them on a few occasions and was last seen vanishing into a Nihilator ship after her nemesis, Paul Yami," Briney said.

"Oh, right, now I remember," Lily said.

Leo frowned. "Could you stop peeking into our minds? It's kind of annoying."

Briney shrugged. "Sorry, force of habit."

"So she's become one of them now?! I know she's a ninja, but I at least thought she had more decency than that-" an angry Pikachu started.

"She didn't join them," Ash said.

Pikachu blinked. "What?"

"She didn't join them. I can tell by her Aura. I don't know how, but they tortured her until she broke. They forced her to become a monster," Ash said, grinding his teeth.

"…They what?" Pikachu whispered.

"Oh no…" Lily said. She knew all too well what it was like to be broken. But she didn't think that this ninja had the advantage of a voice in her head to help her pick up the pieces and regain some semblance of sanity when her torturer had gotten bored and went off to hurt somebody else.

"They…they what?! Dammit, that's it! This time, they've gone too far!" Leo snapped. "I mean, yeah, they've gone too far before, but this! This is even worse! They just can't stop topping themselves, can they?! Those bastards!"

"…I'll kill them," Pikachu said finally. "I'll kill them all."

"I'll help," Briney said. Tiny sucked his pacifier.

"Assuming she doesn't kill us first…she doesn't look very friendly at the moment," Leo commented, calming down slightly. If the ninja had had a voice, she would have roared as she tensed all her muscles and caused her Shadow Aura to erupt all around her, turning her into a beacon of darkness that shook the harbor, caused waves to ripple across the water and made the flames burning on their surface dance wildly, and cratered the ground around her. "Yep, not friendly at all."

"Ash, do you think you can-" Pikachu started.

"Purify her? I'm certainly going to try," Ash said. He frowned. "But her Aura…it looks worse than any Shadow Pokemon I've ever seen before. This is not going to be easy."

"Then it's good we're here to help you," Lily said. Tiny sucked his pacifier in agreement.

Briney nodded. "I haven't fought alongside anyone else in many years…but I think it's time I started again. If your friend can be saved, I'll do everything in my power to help…and then we'll make the Nihilators pay for this latest outrage."

"And then you can heal her broken heart with the power of love, Pikachu!" Leo said.

"Leo, now is not the time!" Pikachu snapped.

"Of course it's the time! This is an 'I know you're still in there' fight! The power of love will make it easier to snap her out of it and open her heart!" Leo said.

"…LEO. I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH HER!" Pikachu shouted.

Everything went silent all of a sudden. Even the flames seemed to be a bit more hushed in their crackling. The ninja's eyes narrowed, and her Aura roiled around her, warping and distorting the air. She crossed her arms, and a pair of very sharp ice kunai formed in either paw. "Uh, you probably shouldn't have said that out loud," Leo said uneasily.

Pikachu sweatdropped. "Oh, COME ON!"

"It's a hard lesson to learn, boy, but one you must always remember: it's never a good idea to tell a dangerous and very powerful womon that you're not interested her, especially when she's in a bad mood or brainwashed into being a living weapon for a sinister syndicate," Briney said wisely. "It rarely turns out well."

"But I…that wasn't…I didn't mean…you can't really think…" Pikachu stammered.

Ash frowned. "Wait, then why doesn't Misty try to kill me whenever I deny that I'm her boyfriend?"

"That's because both of you are in denial," Leo said knowingly. "Otherwise she'd totally castrate you or something."

"Is that what I should do, then, if someone says they are not in love with me?" Lily asked out of pure curiosity.

"…No. Definitely not," Leo said, face turning pale at the thought of all the things Lily could probably do to a guy who broke her heart. "Unless he's a total jerk about it, like Pikachu was just now." Tiny sucked his pacifier in agreement.

Pikachu facepalmed. "For the love of Arceus…"

The ninja dashed forward without warning, accelerating from a standing position to several miles an hour in seconds, the ground shaking and cratering slightly as her large feet slammed into it. She jumped, powerful leg muscles sending her soaring high above them, kunai drawn back and ready to strike. The heroes quickly braced themselves, knowing this was going to be one of their toughest fights yet.

And from the airship, Hunter J and Oblivion's Shadow looked on, expecting nothing less than a superb bloodbath.

…

Meanwhile, in Kanjohenn…

It was a quiet and peaceful day in Pokemon Square.

"WHEEEEEE!"

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIEEE!"

"GET BACK HERE WITH MY BIKE, YOU LITTLE BRATS!"

I was lying, of course. You should expect that from me by now.

Team GX had stolen Wes's motorcycle and was wildly driving it around town. Their friends from the other junior Rescue Teams, Team Pokepals and Team Go-Getters, were riding in the sidecar while Pichu steered, Junior clung to the side and held down the pedal with his weight, and Matthias clung to the rear, screaming for dear life. "THIS IS AWESOME!" Pichu squealed, his face almost completely blocked out by the oversized goggles and helmet he was wearing, which made him just that much more of a danger to his passengers and everything around him.

"YEAH, OTHER THAN THE BUGS IN MY TEETH! Ew, there's another one," Junior complained, his ears and trunk blown back by the speed at which they were moving.

"Uncle Pichu, do you have any idea how to actually drive this thing? We can't seem to stick to one side of the road, and we keep getting awfully close to hitting mailboxes, garbage cans, and people," said a concerned Collette, sitting behind Pichu.

"Nope! I have no idea what I'm doing!" Pichu said cheerfully.

Collette sighed. "That's what I was afraid of…"

"Wheee! Isn't this fun, Uncle Matthias?" Sapphire, bouncing happily behind her sister, asked the Rattata.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!" he screamed.

Sapphire frowned. "You always say that. You need to lighten up."

"I THINK MY ARMS ARE ABOUT TO FALL OFF! I CAN'T HOLD ON FOR MUCH LONGER!" Matthias wailed.

Sapphire rolled her eyes. "Geez, you're such a pessimist. I can't see why my sister bothers hanging out with you, she usually stays away from naysayers like you."

"I THINK I JUST SWALLOWED A FLY!" Matthias yelled.

"See? There's something positive! You're getting a nice, healthy snack!" Sapphire said cheerfully. Matthias and Collette stared at her in disbelief.

"I'm not saying I'm not enjoying this, but…it's kind of bumpy and a rather tight fit, isn't it?" George the Chimchar of Team Pokepals complained to his teammate, the bow-tie wearing Hubie the Piplup. The two of them and the three members of Team Go-Getters were all crammed in the motorcycle's sidecar.

"Well, it could be worse," Hubie said, spitting out a bug.

"How? Other than us crashing into something. Or our sidecar coming off and careening off a cliff," George said.

"…I hadn't thought of that. Thank you so much for putting that idea into my head," Hubie said deadpan. "No, I meant we could be Gilbert."

Both members of Team Pokepals glanced surreptitiously at the uncomfortable-looking Squirtle sitting at the other end of the sidecar being vigorously nuzzled by an amorous Chikorita. "Isn't this so romantic, Gilbert-kun?" the Leaf Pokemon, named Kira, purred as she rubbed her head against the nervous Squirtle's body. "If only those other three weren't here…then I would have you all to myself…"

"Kira, for the last time, I am not your Gilbert-kun!" the Squirtle snapped. "I don't even know what a kun is, but it doesn't sound very pleasant!"

Kira squealed and kept nuzzling. "You're so cute when you play hard to get, Gilbert-kun…" Gilbert groaned and put his face in his hands, while their other teammate, Torch the Charmander, shook his head wearily. Kira was the daughter of Lucas and Mika, and seemed to have inherited her mother's…behavior towards mons she had a crush on, namely, being extremely clingy, overly affectionate, glomping them constantly, calling them 'kun' for some reason, and stalking them until the targeted male broke down and went on a date with her, after which they'd discover she wasn't so bad after all and continue seeing her. Or get a restraining order.

Hubie and George both sweatdropped. "Yeah…you're right, at least we're not that guy," George agreed.

"Poor sap…that's why I'm staying single," Hubie said.

The motorcycle wasn't the only thing dangerously weaving its way down the network of paths crisscrossing Pokemon Square. An enraged Wes, moving faster than any recorded Espeon had ever imagined, was chasing after the bike, eyes red with rage and a huge trail of dust rising in his wake. "YOU LOUSY KIDS!" he hollered. "WHEN I GET MY PAWS ON YOU, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU! IF YOU GET SO MUCH AS ONE SCRATCH ON MY BIKE, YOU'RE DEAD, HEAR ME? DEAD!!!"

"Why do you even care? It's not like you use that thing anyway," Zoro called as Wes dashed past.

"It's the principle of the thing! Plus, that's a vintage piece, I don't want some snot-nosed brats getting their pawprints all over it!" Wes yelled back.

Zoro shrugged as Wes vanished around a corner and went back to leaning against a building with Rosa. "Oh well, each to his own, I suppose."

Rosa sighed and closed her eyes, drinking in the sunshine. Literally. Since she was a plant and all. "Ahhhh…this place is so beautiful, Zoro. Everyone gets along for the most part, and the ninos are free to play in the streets…not like back home, si?"

Zoro nodded solemnly. "Si…there are times I wonder if our land will ever be the way it once was. People like us have been fighting the Espanish for generations, and still their stranglehold on our country remains."

"We will win some day," Rosa said assuredly. "The alma of La Mancha burns brightly. Freedom will be ours eventually."

"Yes…but will we be there to see it?" Zoro wondered. "Will our children? Were it not for our duty to our homeland, and the very real chance that this place might not be here any longer in a few weeks, I could almost consider settling down here…giving up the life of a freedom fighter and raising a family, like many of the veteran warriors here have. They seem to have done well by it. It would not be a bad life…"

Rosa blinked, staring at Zoro in astonishment. "El Zoro…you are not considering…giving up, are you?!"

Zoro sighed. "No…I'm just a little tired, that's all. Not enough to stop fighting, at least not yet. And in any event…" He took one of her hands and kissed it, making sure to avoid the poisonous parts. "This place has reminded me that someday I must produce little gatitos to become the Zoros of the next generation. I…would be flattered if you were to help me raise them, Rosa."

Rosa turned red, her quick tongue for once at a loss for things to say as she realized just what he was asking of her. "I...I would be…I would be honored to help you in continuing your legacy…and to stay by your side, no matter what the future may throw at us, as…"

Zoro glanced up. "As?"

She swallowed, her throat going dry all of a sudden as they locked eyes. "As…" She leaned towards him. "As…whatever you want me to be…" They kissed.

While Wes chased after his motorcycle and Zoro and Rosa became more acclimated to town, a much more serious event was happening elsewhere. Another important meeting was being held at the Mayor's pond in Pokemon Square. The Mayor, Aaron, Raiki, Latios, Rayquaza, Nuken, Scotty, Sabrina, and the newly returned Master Yamiri listened and watched carefully as Latias showed them the results of her latest scouting mission on a large hologram of the continent she had conjured with her light powers. "I am still unable to leave the boundaries of Kanjohenn. Whenever I try, I feel like there's this irresistible force anchored just below my navel tugging me back. I pull and I pull, but I can't seem to make any headway against it. It's keeping me trapped here, unable to go out into the wider world and do anything like locate and defeat this Oblivion's Shadow on my own, help Team Aurabolt find the remaining Star Badges, renew the seal on the Door under Treasure Town, or even figure out where Giovanni is hiding himself. Until we can find the person or thing that interfered with the summoning spell and bound me here, I can't leave the continent."

"Well, that's bloody inconvenient…" Scotty grumbled.

"And a little contrived, since it sort of keeps you from using those super powers of yours to actually do anything useful," Latios complained. "Some deity…"

Latias frowned. "I can't help that the summoning failed the way it did."

Master Yamiri nodded. "Yes, how were we supposed to know that someone was going to sabotage it?"

"Maybe because we have a seer?" Latios asked, glaring at Sabrina.

The Xatu shrugged. "In these dark times, my view of the future is, sadly, not as clear as it should be."

"And that's inconvenient and contrived too…" Latios muttered.

"I don't suppose you found any sign of the saboteur while you were out?" Nuken asked.

Latias shook her head. "I covered the whole continent, but I haven't been able to find him or her. That either means they're not in Kanjohenn, or that they've protected themselves from my senses, neither of which particularly bodes well and suggests we're dealing with a very powerful sorcerer…"

"Which makes sense…who else could subvert a ritual to call down a living god, not only limiting the god's power but trapping her on this continent and removing the power from another local god we had helping us?" Raiki asked.

"We have fought sorcerers before, but none as subtle as this…usually they brag about their accomplishments after doing something to ruin our plans, but this one hasn't made a peep," Aaron commented. "It's rather worrying…"

"Speaking of sorcery…have you been able to make any further analysis of those barriers that popped up recently?" the Mayor asked.

Latias nodded and pointed at two points on the hologram, enlarging them and revealing Mt. Blaze and the Amber Palace in Sinister Woods, the lairs of the Monkey King and Hive Queen, the two barbarian leaders who threatened the town. (Technically Tyson was a third, but since they now knew he was a double agent, they didn't count him as the same level of threat as the other two, even though the Fearow's motives—and that of Team Rocket—were still suspect.) Both locations were covered in large cone-shaped energy shields of crackling purple light, preventing anyone from approaching the volcano or the giant hive fortress that marked the enemy strongholds. "I believe that the same entity responsible for sabotaging the ritual created these barriers. They have a somewhat similar…'feel' to them. I've observed the shields invisibly for a few hours, and it looks like Pokemon who serve the Monkey King and Hive Queen can pass through freely, but any other Pokemon that touches them is vaporized instantly."

They grimaced. "Ouch…there goes our plans to launch a preemptive strike against them," Rayquaza said.

"Which is precisely why those shields were created, no doubt: to keep us from attacking them with the full might of our combined forces," Nuken reasoned, rather disgruntled that he wouldn't be able to shed any barbarian blood in the near future.

"Is there any way we could get through or disable those barriers?" Aaron asked. "As far as we know, Team A.C.T. is still somewhere in Mt. Blaze, and as long as those things are up, they can't get out."

"Assuming they aren't dead…" Scotty said bitterly. "We havenae heard from them for a while, lad. I ken they're good, but…sometimes even the best just isnae good enough."

"I refuse to believe that. I know that they've been gone a long time now, but I know Allen, Charlie, and T-Bone. They wouldn't let something like being caught behind enemy lines stop them. I'm sure they're still alive in there…we just need to find a way to get to them," Aaron said.

"Teleportation is out, both the Psychic and badge-based kinds," Sabrina said. "Scotty and I have tried both. Neither worked, we just got rather severe headaches."

"And I am unable to phase through them or travel through shadow," Yamiri said. "My prayer slips have no effect either, though that could be because I am still relatively inexperienced with them."

"And unlike most force fields, these seem to extend some distance underground, our digging teams haven't been able to burrow under them," the Mayor said.

"So…what, there's no way through at all?" Latios asked in annoyance.

"Not necessarily," Latias said. "Like I said, I've studied them for a few hours. I haven't noticed any real weaknesses, but I believe that I could destroy at least one of them through sheer brute force. However, it would drain a lot of my power to do that, so I wouldn't be good for anything else for several days afterwards. I might even fall into another coma, though probably not as long as the last one."

"Absolutely not," Latios said firmly. "I don't want you risking yourself like that if you think it's going to wear you out that much. We were worried you'd never wake up from the last coma, I don't want to have to go through that again!"

Rayquaza nodded in agreement. "That's right, if it's that dangerous, we can't let you do that. We'll find another way."

Latias gave them an exasperated look. "I understand that you guys want to protect me, but…look, I'm the Guardian of Light! Doing things like this is my job! It doesn't matter what happens to me if it means that the people of this town can live to see another day!"

"It may not matter to you, but it does to us," Latios said.

"We don't want you to get hurt," Rayquaza said.

Latias frowned. "Then why did you let me go through with the ritual in the first place?"

There was a pause. "That's…a good question, actually," Rayquaza admitted.

"I guess I wasn't really thinking about what your being a god-like being actually entailed…" Latios said reluctantly.

"Well, it's a bit too late for regrets now, because she's one now, and she's going to do whatever being one demands, I guess," Raiki said.

Latias nodded. "That's right, including destroying that barrier…no matter how tired and unfit I'll be afterwards."

The Mayor frowned. "Actually, that might be a bad idea, then…if you're so worn out from just destroying the barrier, what will we do if something happens while you're out of commission? We would be on our own."

"Some could say we already are," Scotty grumbled.

"We have not yet agreed that we will actually go forward with our original plans to attack Mt. Blaze or the Amber Palace," Sabrina pointed out. "If launching a strike against our foes requires this great a sacrifice, perhaps we should first try and resolve the cause of Latias's current weakened state, first. If we can restore her to full power, then she should be able to shatter both barriers easily as well as deal with the barbarian armies inside. And if we take them out early…"

"Then we'll have less to worry about later," Nuken finished.

"But I thought we couldn't restore her power because we still haven't found the guy who messed the ceremony up in the first place," Latios pointed out.

"That's true," Yamiri said. "But we can start preparations to complete the power transfer by restoring Rayquaza to his original form."

"I am in my original form," Rayquaza said.

"My apologies. I meant your divine form," Yamiri amended.

"So…how do we go about doing that, then?" Scotty asked.

"We are still trying to find where the errant Dragon God energy has gone to ground," Nuken said. "Once we have located it, we can find a way to return it to its proper vessel."

"And to make sure the vessel is ready for that power…I think it's time you and I had a talk about why you caused the ceremony to fail," Latias said to Rayquaza, who fidgeted unhappily. "While it's true that the unknown sorcerer is largely to blame for the spell collapsing, it might still have worked were it not for your actions. To keep something like that from happening the next time, we need to fix the problem within you, the problem that caused the accident in the first place."

"But…the problem is that I'm not Rayquaza! I'm not a god, just a mortal who lucked into replacing one! How can you fix something like that?!" Rayquaza asked desperately.

"We could kill you," Latios suggested a little too eagerly.

Everyone stared at him. "What," Nuken growled flatly, having moved from his usual spot protectively hovering behind his master's shoulder to inches away from Latios' face in seconds, a terrifying look in his eyes.

"Um…what I meant is…if he's dead and comes back as a ghost, he'll be immortal, right? And the problem is that he's mortal now or something? So…that would fix it…" Latios said slowly, withering under the Shedinja's stare. "Um…you know, that sounded a lot better inside my head…"

"It might not work, anyway," Yamiri pointed out. "Not everyone who dies comes back as a Ghost. Some just pass on."

"Plus, I DON'T REALLY WANT TO DIE!" Rayquaza shouted. "Well…unless you really think it might help…"

"No, my king," Nuken said, turning away from Latios, who collapsed in relief now that that baleful insectoid gaze was no longer trained on him. "Not even then." And that was that on that subject. Nobody dared argue with the Shedinja when he spoke in that tone of voice, not even his liege lord.

"It also wouldn't have worked because mortality is not the issue here," Latias said. "Like I told you earlier, Rayquaza, it's not your being an impostor god—or believing that you're one, anyway—that's the problem. It's…" She paused, and then glanced at everyone else, who was listening with a little too much interest. "Something I would rather talk to you about in private."

"Oh. Um…I guess we could go somewhere-" Rayquaza started.

"Not without me," Nuken said firmly.

"Or me!" Latios agreed just as firmly.

Latias rolled her eyes. Arceus save her from overprotective siblings and second-in-commands. "Actually, I was just going to talk with you telepathically so nobody can listen in. That includes you, Sabrina, Scotty, Aaron, and especially you, Latios."

"Very well," Sabrina said.

"Well, if you say so…" Scotty grumbled reluctantly.

"All right," said Aaron.

Latios started. "What? But sis-"

"No eavesdropping," she repeated, fixing him with a golden-eyed stare like a billion-kilowatt laser beam. "Do I make myself clear?"

He broke under that stare. She had always been able to control him with those eyes, but now they were more intense than ever before. There was something else behind them. Something powerful and old and unfamiliar. He didn't like it. He didn't like how it was taking his sister away from him, turning her into something else, making her trust more and more in him…

And the worst thing was, there was nothing he could do about it. He wondered if there ever had been. "All right…" he whispered.

Latias's eyes flickered briefly in sympathy. The resentment seething inside her brother was no mystery to her. She promised herself that the two of them were going to have a long talk about this distance between them…but not yet. She had another important talk to deal with first. "All right, Rayquaza," she said, turning to the Bagon. "Are you ready?"

"Um, I guess," Rayquaza said uncertainly.

"And what're we supposed tae be doing while they're having a romantic tete-a-tete in their heads?" Scotty complained. Latios bristled.

"Well, we were having a strategy meeting…I guess we could continue," Aaron said.

"I suppose…" Raiki said. "Though I wouldn't mind knowing what they're talking about in there…"

"As would I…" Nuken muttered. Somewhat reluctantly, the powerful Pokemon renewed their discussion, trying to ignore the deified Latias and mortalized Rayquaza.

Can you hear me clearly? Latias asked Rayquaza telepathically.

"Yes," he said out loud automatically. She frowned at him. "Er…I mean…" He concentrated. Yes?

Good, she said, sounding—and feeling, to Rayquaza's mind—pleased. He found he liked her pleased. Her mental voice sounded much like her regular voice, but more…resonant, and crystal-clear, with more than a little trace of power and maturity and a sense of pure…purity and love and light underneath it that made him feel tingly all over. More tingly than he usually did around Latias already. Oh crap, you just heard all that, didn't you? He suddenly realized.

She giggled, and he decided it didn't really matter. So, she said. You think the problem is with yourself. That because you're a mortal, because you weren't born a god and only took up the mantle of the true Rayquaza, that the spell failed, correct?

I don't think it, I know it, Rayquaza said miserably. I mean, I know that that sorcerer or whatever is responsible too, but you yourself said part of it is my fault.

It is, Latias admitted apologetically. But not for the reasons you think. She paused. Rayquaza. You know that I am the Guardian of Light, and that my husband is the Dragon God-King, of whom the legendary Pokemon Rayquaza is a physical avatar, right?

Right, which is why you needed him as an anchor or focus or something to incarnate in our world, Rayquaza said. And since I'm not Rayquaza, it went wrong.

Latias mentally shook her head. No, that's not what happened. You're getting ahead of me. Listen: every now and then, my husband has to incarnate in one of his physical forms in the mortal realms. I usually join him sooner or later so we can share a life of sorts together. Now, the thing is…a long time ago, he left to incarnate again. And everything seemed okay for a while, we could still talk to him long-distance, and I was making plans to go join him. But about a thousand years ago, we…lost track of him. We couldn't find his soul anywhere.

Rayquaza gave her a surprised look. What? But you're the Guardians! You're supposed to know everything!

There's a big difference between supposition and actuality, Latias said bitterly. Anyway, we later found out that it's because he incarnated in this universe, where the superstrings are all messed up due to Oblivion's Shadow or possibly some other cause. We think it's because of the Shadow's interference and whatever hand he had in Earth's destruction about a millennium ago that we not only lost contact with my husband, but he's been unable to get back in touch with us. A lot of memories were scrambled in the aftermath of the big calamity, and it's possible he might not have even remembered who he truly was, that he was the REAL Dragon God King, and that confusion plus the Shadow's meddling would also have made it difficult for us to pick up his energy signature.

…I see… the Bagon muttered. But…Rayquaza died again three hundred years ago. If he was the reincarnation of your husband, then where is your soul now?

Latias shook her head again. You don't get it. While the Rayquaza you knew was an avatar of the Dragon God King, he did not possess the True King's soul.

Bagon blinked. What? But then who…

It's you, Rayquaza. My husband's soul has been reborn inside of you, Latias said.

His eyes widened in shock. Wh-what?! No, that can't be right. You must be making a mistake. I am a simple Bagon, not…not one of the holiest and most exalted of gods!

You are my husband. My lover, my soulmate, the father of my daughter, Latias said insistently. I would know you in any shape or form, the bond between us is so powerful.

But I- Rayquaza protested.

And it is because you do not acknowledge that bond that I am in my current weakened state, Latias said.

…What? What do you mean? Rayquaza asked in confusion, head spinning. There had to be some mistake. She couldn't be right. There was no way he could be the one true Dragon God King, could he? He had lived in a cave for all his early years, for Arceus's sake, and didn't even have a name until he had been selected to rule over a kingdom he had never known existed before that fateful night near Wyvern Hill!

And what was that about a daughter? Rayquaza hadn't known the Guardian of Light and Dragon God King had a daughter. None of the legends mentioned anything about that. When had that happened? We had her several thousand years ago, Latias said, reading his mind. But she's not old enough to go out on her own yet or do anything worth having legends written about, so she's still an unknown in the mortal realms for the time being.

Oh, said Rayquaza. Wait, she's several thousand years old and she's still too young?!

Immortals age slowly. Very, very, very slowly, Latias said. And like I was saying, your refusal to acknowledge your connection to me and to her is why I'm like this.

I don't understand, Rayquaza said. And I still don't believe this part about me being your husband's reincarnation, just to make things clear!

Latias sighed. That's kind of what's causing the problem. You see- She broke off suddenly, glancing into the distance. Uh oh.

What? What is it? Rayquaza asked in confusion.

Barbarians, she thought. "Barbarians!" she yelled out loud.

Everyone looked at her in alarm. "What? Where?" asked Raiki, looking around.

"I don't detect any," said Aaron.

"How could they have gotten inside the walls?!" asked an incredulous Scotty.

Latias sweatdropped. "Er, I should have been clearer. They're not in town, but approaching it from the northwest. They'll be here in about fifteen minutes."

"You can sense minds out that far?!" asked an astonished Latios. She nodded. "Damn…"

"They're coming already?! But it's too soon! We're not ready!" said the alarmed Mayor.

"I will rally the troops! If they think to catch us off guard, they will be sorely disappointed!" Nuken said, bristling eagerly at the thought of inflicting some violence.

"No, it's not their army," Latias said quickly before anyone could blow this further out of proportion. "It's just a small party. They're not here to fight, but to deliver a message. A message…" She paused, and then looked at Aaron. "That we might not want to hear…"

…

Elsewhere…

Kevin the Kecleon watched as Gardevoir meditated on her bed, legs crossed and arms folded, the horn on her chest as black as it had been for the last half-hour. So far, everything seemed to be going well. She hadn't lost control of her current state, and if any of her past efforts were anything to measure progress by, she should be making contact with their target mind any minute now. Whether or not Gardevoir would be able to convey anything to that mind was still up in the air, but she was getting better each time she tried, so it was only a matter of time before she managed to break through and communicate the information they needed to convey to the Pokemon capable of using it.

You're probably wondering what was going on here. As you might recall, Gardevoir was one of the newest members of a secret soul-linked network connecting dozens of prisoners, slaves, and lower-ranked Nihilators unfit for Shadow Pokemon transformation throughout the villains' fortress. Kevin was a member as well; otherwise he would not be in Gardevoir's room with her, watching her as she strived to reach out across the great distance to the mind they were establishing a foothold in. Gardevoir had formidable Psychic abilities due to being transformed into a spirit for a thousand years, but that power was useless at the moment due to the neural inhibitor the Nihilators had placed on her, which she could not remove without killing the numerous imprisoned children outside her chamber.

At least, it was useless until the network's leader, the alien being known as the Teacher, had come up with a way to channel that power through other means. As it so happened, many Gardevoir possessed an ability known as Trace, which allowed them to copy the special ability of another Pokemon. Gardevoir happened to be one of the members of her kind who possessed that power. Kevin, on the other hand, had a special ability called Color Change, which caused his elemental type to change to match that of whichever attack had just hit him. So, put the two of them in the same room, have Kevin attack Gardevoir with a Dark-type move, and…can you see where I'm going with this?

So, thanks to Kevin's copied ability, Gardevoir was able to take on a Dark secondary type for short periods of time. As the Kecleon continued training her, she was able to retain the Dark power for longer and longer, and meld it with her own innate Psychic skill to create a new kind of ability. She was unable to reach out to the minds of her friends using Psychic moves, however...there was nothing limiting her from doing it by using the power of darkness…

The only downside of this power was that she could only connect to the mind of another Dark-type Pokemon, and due to her inexperience with this strange melding of abilities and the great distance between the Nihilator base and anyone she was familiar with, it was difficult to establish a contact that lasted long enough for her to speak coherently to a Dark Pokemon without them thinking they were going crazy or that she was just a figment of her imagination. Oh, she could do it fairly well with Dark-types inside the base, but all of those were either members of the resistance, Nihilators, or people who the network had deemed not worth recruiting, so that didn't really help. The main problem was that anyone who might be able to assist them was a very, very long way away from their prison, and she was still getting the hang of long-distance communication.

One of the best things going for them was that Team Aurabolt seemed to be traveling with a Dark-type Pokemon who was unusually receptive to being contacted via Dark 'telepathy.' Their original plan had been for Gardevoir to cast her mind out while she was in her current Psychic/Dark state and connect to the mind of a Dark Pokemon near either Ash and Pikachu or her friends in Pokemon Square who would then be able to tell those friends where she was and what the Nihilators were up to, but so far the mind of the Absol Sasha was the only one she'd been able to penetrate effectively from far away. It was almost like she was used to being communicated with like that…and it felt as if there was something else in the Absol's head that was not entirely pleased with her trespass. This unknown element made their operation that much riskier, but the plan was a long shot to begin with, so they didn't really have much of a choice but to follow through with it anyway. All other contacts with the outside world were off-limits to the network's members. Using this unmastered Psychic/Dark combo was the best hope they had for freedom. Not much of a hope, true, but they had so little of it anyway that they had to take a chance and grasp whatever became available to them.

Kevin noted Gardevoir's rate of breathing had increased slightly. From all the times he'd watched her do this so far, he knew that meant she had managed to connect to Sasha's mind. Now they just had to see if she could…

Wait. Something was wrong with Gardevoir's shadow. It seemed…too dark, somehow. Surely it shouldn't be that long, should it? And since when did shadows ripple and eject humanoid Espeons with blue fur, black armor with red trim, a long scarf resembling Zubat wings, a sword of pure darkness, and glowing red goggles pulled halfway down their face to resemble a sort of mask?! Kevin's jaw dropped as the ominous figure literally rose from the shadows and loomed up behind the unsuspecting Gardevoir, unaware of everything going on around her due to her trance. Noting the gawping Kecleon, the Espeon put a finger to his lips in the multiversal sign for silence.

Naturally, Kevin wasn't inclined to obey. "GARDE-"

He was cut off when a paw clamped around his mouth from behind, and another wrapped around his chest, holding him in place. He tried to struggle, but the scent of the being holding him--something strange and alluring, like a dark forest on a moonlit light with a trace of cigarettes—caused him to swoon and feel rather light-headed. "Now, now, sugar, we can't have any of that, now can we?" Bridget the Dark Clefairy whispered into Kevin's earhole as he drifted off into a nightmare-filled slumber. She glanced up at the vampiric Black Jango. "Well? What are you waiting for? Get it over with."

Black Jango nodded, took a few steps towards Gardevoir…and hesitated. He might have been overwhelmed by the power of darkness at the moment, but he wasn't evil, or at least didn't consider himself so, and what he was about to do made him uneasy. Noting his reluctance, Bridget frowned and gave him a Look. "I know you may not exactly be keen on this sort of thing, hun…but if you want your talking flower friend back, I think it best you bite her already before the guards get here. I can hear silent alarms blaring all over the place, and while I know that you can probably take them, and I definitely can, it wouldn't exactly look good for my boss if they found us here, capisce?"

Black Jango sighed and nodded, giving in. He took a deep breath…

And changed, darkness rippling over his form as he transformed from a humanoid Espeon into an overlarge and rather demonic-looking blue and black-furred Mightyena. His head darted forward, biting into Gardevoir's neck from behind. She gasped and shuddered, her eyes flying open and her horn changing back to its usual color as Black Jango drained her blood…and left something else in its place.

When he felt he had finished his task, Black Jango loosened his grip on Gardevoir, and she fell forward off the bed, blood spilling from the twin puncture marks on her neck and staining the carpet. "Good job," Bridget said as the Mightyena returned to his original form. "I know you hated doing it, darling, but trust me when I say it's all for the best. It's not like she was making much progress as she was, anyway. Things'll be a lot easier for her and her little friends now, I daresay. Come on; let's beat it before the guards get here." Black Jango nodded and vanished back into the shadows. Bridget made to follow him, then paused in thought and picked up Kevin. "I'd better take you too, hun, at least so I can drop you back off in your room. Even if your buddies are editing all the security footage from this place so the big bads don't know what you're up to, it would certainly look rather suspicious if you were found where you didn't belong, wouldn't it?"

She disappeared into the shadows as well. It was a good thing Kevin was asleep, because if he had seen the routes the dark ones were traveling with open eyes, he would have gone mad. Only moments later, the door slid open as Nihilator soldiers pounded into the room, followed by paramedics that quickly tended to the very important prisoner. The guards ransacked the place, but found no sign of the mysterious intruder or how it had gotten in and out…

Nor did they notice, or at least not until it was too late to do anything about it, that as the blood stopped flowing from her neck Gardevoir's white skin grew even paler…and the horn on her chest turned pitch-black, as a long and agonizing metamorphosis began.

…

Bet you weren't expecting to see another Gardevoir bit so soon, were you? Or for that to happen? I'm sure it's obvious what happened, but why…well, that's something to figure out for later, isn't it?

And there were other interesting developments this chapter, like the latest member of the team, the revelation of the monster behind the Door, the return of the ninja, the introduction of Hunter J, a partial reveal of what's going on between Latias and Rayquaza, and the buildup to what should be some awesome battles…next chapter! That should be fun, shouldn't it? I told you this arc would be cool!

Oh, and we'll deal with the other subplots next time. Probably. That's something to look forward to, isn't it?