Chapter 38: Salvation
September 7, Ambrette Town, Kalos, 6 pm…
Emerald watched as Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre shook off the effects of Rayquaza's Draco Meteor. Yveltal let out a loud screech as it flew out of the dust clouds to face its new foe. Rayquaza soon saw the challenge and descended from the dark clouds, roaring in anger.
"So Rayquaza came all the way here from Hoenn, huh?" Emerald began. "… Not really a bad thing though, is it? Rayquaza can force Groudon and Kyogre to calm down."
\ \Not necessarily,\ \ Latios said. \ \Groudon and Kyogre will not calm down while in their Primal Reversion state. Especially when there is an enemy present. And Rayquaza will not be focusing its powers to subdue Groudon and Kyogre if there is an enemy present. And that is the reason why we are here. It may be necessary for us to distract Rayquaza should it refuse to cooperate or is too angry to listen. We cannot have Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza rampaging at once.\ \
"But it sounds like the problem will be resolved if Yveltal backs off," X said. "If Yveltal goes away, then Groudon and Kyogre are left all alone with Rayquaza, and Rayquaza can subdue them."
"Maybe," Emerald said. "Let's hope for the best. If that fails, we'll think of something else. Either way, we should focus on Yveltal first. Get rid of that problem and then see what's up. If Yveltal backs off but Rayquaza is still mad and dropping meteors on everything… we'll cross that bridge when we get there."
Yveltal suddenly shot a large beam of dark red energy at Rayquaza, which retaliated immediately with a Dragon Pulse. The blasts clashed mid air and exploded, temporarily engulfing both Legendary Pokémon in a thick cloud of smoke. Rayquaza quickly burst out of the smoke and charged up another Dragon Pulse. But a huge stream of hellfire coming from the ground forced it to abort its attack and dodge. Similarly, Yveltal prepared another Oblivion Wing, but was forced to abort as Primal Kyogre's Ice Beam narrowly missed it.
Rayquaza roared in anger and began to bombard everything with Draco Meteor so that it could strike all of its foes at once. From the ground, Latias and Latios moved in front of Emerald and X, in case a stray meteor flew towards them.
Yveltal steadily descended and directed its attention towards Primal Kyogre. It slowly glowed as a faint stream of dark red energy flowed towards it from the ground below, as if something was feeding it power.
"Do you see that?" X asked, squinting his eyes. "It looks like something is empowering Yveltal."
"Yeah. But I can't see what exactly," Emerald said. "Latios, think you can sneak over there and show us?"
Latios nodded. It quickly turned invisible and flew towards Yveltal while Latias began to channel its energy. Its eyes turned blue and a mysterious ball enveloped around itself, Emerald, and X.
"… What?" X muttered as he looked around. In an instant, everything around him had changed, and it appeared as if he was flying towards something at high speeds.
"Latias and Latios can see what each other sees," Emerald began. "And right now, Latias is showing us what Latios is seeing." He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "I don't know why Latias is showing us this right now when Latios is still on the move. … It's nauseating."
Latios soon stopped moving, as it didn't want to get too close to Yveltal. Instead, it looked at one of the many "streams" of red energy flowing from below and followed one of them down. This particular stream of energy was coming from the new "shore" of Ambrette town, where the flooding caused by Primal Kyogre stopped.
Latios looked down and a bloated corpse suddenly came into view, causing Emerald and X to jump in surprise. The corpse, presumably a citizen of Ambrette Town that was lost to the flash flood, had sickly greenish blue skin, and appeared to have absorbed a lot of water. And yet, the corpse was standing upright, looking up at Yveltal as dark red energy slowly emanated from its whole body.
X's eyes opened wide in shock and horror as the resurrected corpse began to deteriorate right before his eyes. The sickly greenish blue skin seemingly burned away until only the skull remained. The deterioration spread across the whole body until only bones remained. The skeleton still remained upright and tried to scream but soon turned into dust which swirled towards Yveltal as the Legendary Pokémon absorbed all of its essence.
"Whoa…" Emerald muttered. "What… the hell…"
X clenched his teeth as he had seen this before. … Y was in this state. Dead, but resurrected, and slowly being absorbed by Yveltal. But Y had been deteriorating rather slowly. Perhaps this unfortunate victim had been drained so quickly due to the proximity to Yveltal. … And if Y's state was any indicator, this victim would be fully conscious right now…
There was a distinct splashing sound as something came out of the water. Latios looked over towards the source of the sound and saw more of the drowned corpses climbing onto land, stumbling towards Yveltal. One by one, as Yveltal charged Oblivion Wing, the corpses deteriorated and turned into dust. But there were a lot of corpses that kept crawling out of the water. Most of the population of Ambrette Town had drowned in the wake of Primal Kyogre. And they were now all crawling onto land, stumbling towards Yveltal as it drained them.
Latios looked away from the flood of corpses and flew towards another "stream" of dark red energy. This one was from further into land, where the survivors of Ambrette Town had fled… only to die by Primal Groudon.
There was a pile of burning corpses near the remnants of a large structure, where the surviving residents of Ambrette Town had fled. It was also here where many trainers from nearby came in an attempt to save the survivors, standing up against Primal Groudon in a futile attempt that only cost them their lives.
These burnt corpses were struggling to stand. Only a few were standing upright, and majority of the remainder were trying to crawl towards Yveltal. And some did not have enough of a body left intact to be able to move, and were simply staring at Yveltal.
Perhaps fortunately, not all of Primal Groudon's victims had been resurrected by Yveltal. A lot of its victims were completely incinerated into ash, melted away by a surge of lava, or simply fell into a fissure created by an earthquake that soon closed up, thus completely inaccessible to Yveltal. At least those people were spared from the forced resurrection that only caused them more misery.
Latias soon disconnected its telepathic link to Latios, as it felt that it has seen enough. Emerald and X blinked a few times as their surroundings suddenly changed to normal.
"So all those corpses are feeding Yveltal energy," Emerald said. "Or rather, Yveltal is draining power from those corpses. … And there are a lot of corpses. It looks like Yveltal has enough sustenance to last a long while."
"… And more are coming," X said grimly. "… I remember. When Zygarde mind controlled me, I wandered around near Camphrier Town and… the skeletons from its graveyard were resurrected. I can only assume that Yveltal has resurrected all usable corpses from every graveyard it could reach."
\ \So what should we do?\ \ Latias asked. \ \Attack Yveltal directly?\ \
"I don't really see any options," Emerald said. "It looks like Yveltal won't back off until it runs out of stuff to absorb. And there are like a thousand things to absorb, with possibly thousands more coming. So we can't wait it out. It looks like it's also healing itself with its attack, so… what can we do?"
"We're stuck," X said. "We need to stop Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre and get them to calm down. To do that, we need Rayquaza to help and for Yveltal to back off. Yveltal won't back off until it runs out of corpses, but there are thousands of corpses. And it's not like attacking the corpses will do us any good, since Yveltal will resurrect them again and keep draining them. Unless we can completely vaporize the corpses, nothing will happen."
Emerald crossed his arms and sighed. He lowered his head as he thought of a solution. … But came up with nothing.
\ \Incoming!\ \ Latias said abruptly.
Emerald looked up and saw Rayquaza attacking seemingly nothing. He quickly realized that Rayquaza had detected the invisible Latios and was attacking, most likely due to it sensing that another Dragon type was nearby. And almost immediately, it spotted Latias in the distance, and the two Dex Holders standing next to it.
Rayquaza suddenly charged forward with Extremespeed, flying right past Latios and reaching Latias. Latias quickly tried to react, but Rayquaza smashed it away with its tail before focusing its attention on Emerald.
Emerald reached for his Pokéballs but paused as he felt a strange intense heat coming from his belt. Emerald quickly looked down and saw the little green gem glowing brightly. … Not just any green gem, but the core of the artificial Green Orb that was created to effectively harness Rayquaza.
And in that moment of distraction, Rayquaza lunged forward and snatched the Hoenn Dex Holders with its claws.
"Emerald!" X yelled in surprise.
Emerald tried to move his arms, but realized immediately that Rayquaza was holding him very tight in its claws. He couldn't move an inch. But he wasn't in pain or anything, as Rayquaza wasn't crushing him.
He could now feel two distinct heat signatures on his skin. One was from the core of the Green Orb, and the other was from his Mega Bracelet. Emerald tried to see what was going on, but couldn't see anything. Rayquaza was moving too quickly, presumably flying back high above the ground where it would resume attacking its foes. And the motion and the resulting wind prevented Emerald from focusing on anything.
Through the blur, Emerald could see Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre suddenly coming closer as Rayquaza moved between them. Rayquaza roared seemingly loud enough to cause the clouds to tremble. And in that instant, the core of the Green Orb and the Key Stone within the Mega Bracelet heated up immensely, as if they were now on fire. Emerald winced and clenched his teeth as he tried to ignore the burning pain. He did his best to keep his eyes open, as he felt that he needed to see what was going to happen.
For a moment, the air seemingly stopped moving. Everything fell dead silent. Rayquaza didn't move. Neither did Primal Kyogre or Primal Groudon. The weird silence continued for a few seconds until the sound of heavy rainfall broke it. Emerald looked at Primal Kyogre and noticed that its Primordial Sea had reactivated, but only around its immediate area.
Similarly, the immediate area around Primal Groudon was suddenly brightly illuminated as its Desolate Land reactivated, flooding the area with scorching bright sunlight.
'Air Lock disappeared…' Emerald realized. 'That means…'
Rayquaza suddenly began to glow bright green. Burning symbols raced across its body as its green scales turned black. Wind began to pick up and swirled around the changing form. Emerald craned his neck upwards to try to get a better view of Rayquaza. He noticed that its appearance was changing, and he recognized the form. Mega Rayquaza. But… the last time he checked, Mega Rayquaza did not have this many burning ancient symbols glowing on its body.
The "Mega" Rayquaza roared as it finished changing. Immediately, hurricane-force winds began to sweep the area. It was also exuding some kind of strange yet heavy air pressure, seemingly swirling the hurricane winds around itself like armor. Emerald didn't feel the air buffeting him at all. He figured that he was probably close enough to the "Mega" Rayquaza that he wouldn't be affected by this strange wind.
'… This isn't Delta Stream,' he thought as he watched the effects of the hurricane-force winds far below. 'This is something much… stronger. … Primal Rayquaza?' Emerald looked at Primal Kyogre. The normally blue Kyogre was now black overall in its Primal state. Similarly, the normally red Groudon was black overall in its Primal state. And now, the normally green Rayquaza was black overall and it clearly looked different than it did before. … It must be in its Primal state as well.
Latias recovered from the initial attack and with Latios, quickly flew up towards Rayquaza in an attempt to rescue Emerald. The winds got stronger and stronger as they approached the Primal Rayquaza, to the point where they could not get any closer. Primal Rayquaza watched them trying to get close and shot a Dragon Pulse at them. The beam flew towards them much faster than ever, while surrounded by a huge twister of wind. The twister trapped and dragged the two Eon Pokémon towards the center of the beam. The Dragon Pulse quickly overwhelmed their attempts to defend themselves and knocked them out of the air, slamming them into the ground with enough force to create a crater.
The Primal Rayquaza looked up at the sky and roared again. The dark clouds suddenly parted ways like a fissure and a single large meteor flew in from that fissure, heading straight towards the nearest enemy, which was Primal Groudon. The Primal Groudon jumped out of the way with surprising speed, landing far enough away to dodge the meteor. Lava burst out of the ground near its landing spot as the ground split open from the heavy landing. The meteor hit the ground and exploded, causing a moderate earthquake in the vicinity.
Another meteor flew out of the sky fissure, this one heading towards Yveltal. Yveltal charged up an Oblivion Wing and shot at the meteor, channeling the dark red beam until the meteor exploded, sending fragments raining all around the area.
X ran for cover to the nearest natural outcropping that formed a cliff face near the mountains. While a cliff meant there was a high risk of a rock slide in the event of an earthquake (and with Primal Groudon's presence and Primal Rayquaza's meteor bombardments, an earthquake was very likely), it at least provided a decent cover from meteors or its fragments.
And the cliff face provided invaluable cover from all the rocks and debris that were sent flying in the hurricane-force winds caused by Primal Rayquaza. With lava erupting from the ground that was being hurled around by the winds, a reliable cover was necessary.
'Now what?' X thought as he watched Primal Rayquaza bring forth a barrage of meteors from the sky fissure. 'At this rate, all of southwestern Kalos is going to be demolished without making any progress against Yveltal…'
He looked over to the side and saw Latias and Latios struggling to climb out of the crater, obviously heavily injured from the Dragon Pulse. X dropped to a crouch and began to rummage through his bag, to see if he had anything that could help out. Unfortunately, since he wasn't exactly ready for all this when he was forced to leave his home a long time ago, and he hadn't been able to stock up in the crisis, he didn't have any medicine he could use to help the two Eon Pokémon.
X was about to stand back up when he heard a faint shuffling noise coming from above. Instantly, he thought rock slide and looked up, preparing to jump out of the way. But instead, what he saw was something white dropping onto him from above, and he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder, enough to knock him down to the ground. The thing didn't feel heavy at all, so it wasn't a rock slide.
X looked at the white thing that was on top of him and realized that it was a skeleton. … Like those reanimated skeletons that had attacked him just before he ended up killing Y.
So it seemed that the leading skeletons under Yveltal's powers have reached the battleground. Which meant that it now had even more fodder to keep itself powered up, and drag on the fight with the Primal Legendary Pokémon. Wonderful.
X shoved the skeleton off of him. Since the skeleton was mostly bones, it was pretty light, so X was able to push it back quite far, giving himself enough time to scramble backwards and rise to a half crouch.
Even as he was rising, he could see and hear more skeletons clambering off the cliff, trying to get closer to Yveltal. Some of them paused to stare at his direction, but most just ignored him. But the skeleton right in front of him seemed to be ignoring Yveltal and focusing on him instead. Maybe it was because this one had landed on top of him, while the others were several meters away. The other skeletons might not actually be aware of his presence since they don't have eyes, or he might be out of their attention radius.
The skeleton in front of him rose to its feet. This one didn't have a lower jaw, and its clothes were all tattered to the point where its entire skeletal structure was visible. It had a black hat on its skull that had turned a bit gray, presumably from the dust created by skeletal disintegration. Interestingly, the skeleton's right eye area had fully deteriorated yet, as the eye was still there, albeit closed. So this one must've been a recently deceased person that Yveltal had resurrected.
The skeleton seemingly growled as it lunged at him. X managed to kick the skeleton's leg while it charged, forcing it to topple over and fall on top of him again momentarily before he pushed it off.
As the skeleton thrashed around, X rose to his feet and backed away a bit, putting more space between himself and the resurrected skeleton. But as he did so, he felt some kind of string on his neck and quickly scratched at it. He glanced at the string on his fingers and realized that it wasn't string, but rather… hair; several strands of long, blonde hair.
X's eyes opened wide and he quickly looked at the skeleton in front of him. The skeleton was starting to get back up and he could see that its hat was now tilted a bit. And he could see clumps of long blonde hair caught between the hat and the skull. And the shirt… Even through all the dust, he could tell what it looked like originally. It was a sleeveless white shirt with black stripes… that was dyed crimson in the front. … Which meant…
"… Y…" X muttered in horror. "… Y!"
The skeleton's right eye slowly opened and X could see the familiar hue of Y's eye. And despite having no other flesh whatsoever, he immediately noticed that the eye looked extremely pained. The eye looked at him, but didn't seem to recognize him immediately.
X winced as he realized that Y's state had deteriorated so much, to the point where she couldn't even recognize him. Did she retain any of her memories? … Did she fight to keep any of them, or was she completely helpless as the deterioration erased her thoughts and memories?
Y's eye opened wide as she finally recognized him. And in that instant, the eye clenched shut again and a tear rolled down onto the exposed cheekbone before dripping off of a tooth.
X really wished that he didn't see that. He did not need to know that Y was still conscious of what was happening to some degree.
The skeleton tried to lunge again. X hesitated as he didn't want to physically fight Y in this situation. … When he kicked her a moment ago… did that hurt her? … He really didn't want to know, but the possibility of Y feeling the pain prevented him from trying to defend himself.
Y's skeletal arm was moments away from hitting X in the head when a mystical blue energy field suddenly repelled it. The blue field pushed the whole skeleton back, knocking it down to the ground.
X blinked in surprise and briefly looked around, wondering where this field came from. He soon spotted a shadow of a large figure approaching him and swiveled around, and saw Xerneas rapidly descending towards him.
X momentarily felt dread, as the last time he saw Xerneas wasn't on friendly terms. Though it didn't attack directly at all… But as X watched the Xerneas slowly descending, and the fact that it was maintaining a small blue force field to keep the skeletal remains of Y from attacking him, he soon realized that Xerneas was here as an ally. Or at least a neutral party. He didn't have to focus on it as an enemy.
"Xerxer…" X began. "… Is… is that… really Y?" he asked, staring at the skeleton in front of him, dreading the answer even though he was painfully aware of the answer.
The Xerneas remained silent for a while before reluctantly answering. \ \Yes.\ \
X watched the skeleton slowly moving while still on the ground. … Was it too late now? … Had Y completely turned into a skeleton possessed by Yveltal? All that was remaining was just her right eye…
"Xerxer… please… help her…" X begged as he dropped to his knees.
\ \I cannot,\ \ Xerneas said. \ \My powers are the polar opposite and parallel to those of Yveltal. Our abilities do not intersect and cannot intersect. Yveltal cannot drain the essence of those that I empower, and I cannot restore the life of those Yveltal has possessed.\ \
"What will happen to her if Yveltal drains her essence completely?"
\ \She will be a part of Yveltal, along with all of its other victims.\ \
"Isn't there something you can do?" X asked. "… Please. We can't leave Y like this… I can't let Yveltal drain her completely…"
Xerneas looked over at Yveltal that was draining the essence of all the corpses around itself. As the battle against the Primal Hoenn Legendaries continued, Yveltal had to drain more and more essence to keep up. The nearby corpses that were being resurrected didn't even have time to completely stand before all remaining flesh disintegrated and the skeleton flash-disintegrated almost immediately afterwards.
Even though the Primal Hoenn Legendaries were attacking each other every now and then, their attacks naturally gravitated towards the one whose powers were different in nature to their own. And since Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre rarely moved from their current position, most of the attacks were directed at the two mobile Legendaries, which meant that Yveltal was targeted more often than not.
Xerneas looked away from the battled and focused on X. \ \There is one thing I can do.\ \
X perked up. "What? Can you help her?"
\ \Yes. She is one of the few humans I trusted. For a while, I was on her active team, and in that duration, she has been affected by my powers. As a result, we have a bond that lingers as long as she exists. I still detect hints of her cognitive abilities in her possessed skeletal remains. If I concentrate my powers into her remaining cognitive abilities just as Yveltal is draining her essence, Yveltal will absorb my powers as well. But Yveltal cannot make use of my powers, and its own powers will conflict with the intruding power inside its body. And this conflict will cripple it, forcing it to enter dormancy to regenerate its strength. It will lose all the victims it has possessed.\ \
"And that will free Y?" X asked. "If she's no longer possessed by Yveltal, you can revive her, right?"
\ \No. This process will destroy her completely. There will not be anything left to restore. And to conflict Yveltal's powers effectively, I will need to concentrate a vast majority of my powers into her. I will not have the strength remaining to restore her even if she had a body left.\ \
"This… will kill her?" X asked. He looked over at the skeleton again as it was slowly struggling to stand up. He focused on the only part of Y that remained. Her eye had opened again and she was now looking at him. "… To save her from this… we have to destroy her completely?"
The Primal Groudon shot another huge stream of hellfire, this time at the corpses gathered around Yveltal, completely incinerating them. Yveltal screeched and absorbed all the essence of those incinerated. Having been forced to absorb all the corpses at once, Yveltal flew towards the nearest group of those resurrected so that it could maintain sustenance in this battle. … And the nearest group was very close to X and Xerneas.
Y's eye looked at X intently. And X could feel that she was begging him to end it all right now. X looked away. … He obviously didn't want Y to remain in this state. She was suffering horribly, and he wanted to alleviate her pain. She wanted him to end it too. But… he just couldn't bring himself to destroy her completely to save her. He didn't want this to be the last memory he had of her. He wanted to see her again after all this and reconcile. He wanted to see her alive and well again, smiling and happy. … But if she had to be destroyed right now to be saved from this state, none of that would happen…
Y's skeletal remains began to "smoke" as Yveltal proceeded to slowly drain her essence now. Y's eye opened wide in agony for a while before her eye slowly rolled up into the skull. The left arm disintegrated into dust and swirled towards Yveltal.
\ \There is no time left,\ \ Xerneas said as it began to glow bright blue.
The ground began to shake violently as Primal Rayquaza's Draco Meteor barrage rained upon Yveltal, temporarily knocking it down to the ground. Y's right arm and leg disintegrated as Yveltal healed itself.
"Y…" X began, forcing himself to stay strong. He looked at her skull just as the right eye began to disintegrate. "… I'm so sorry… … I won't let Yveltal trap you inside itself for eternity. … Xerxer, do it!"
Xerneas shot a burst of bright green energy at Y's remains just as Yveltal shot forth another dark red beam at the incoming meteor. The exertion of repeatedly using Oblivion Wing forced it to drain the essence of those around it, including Y.
X watched as Y's skeletal remains glowed bright green and blue just before being swallowed up by a dark red aura for a brief moment. The girl's skeletal remains flash-disintegrated and swirled into Yveltal as it prepared another Oblivion Wing.
X closed his eyes and lowered his head just before Y's remains disintegrated. He did not want to see that happen. He already had enough horrible memories etched into his mind forever. He felt a strong gust of wind and opened his eyes just in time to see Y's hat flying away in the wind, along with a small cloud of dust.
'Y…'
Yveltal absorbed the essence of another wave of corpses around it, including Y's. And in that instant, its dark red aura abruptly disappeared. A bright greenish blue energy began to flow out of its body in various places, as Xerneas's powers began to swell in the inside. Yveltal slowly curled up and mustered its own dark red energy to try to combat the intruding power, leaving itself wide open to attacks.
Primal Rayquaza roared and the skies ripped open to create more fissures. Countless meteors began to rain from the sky fissures and bombarded Yveltal and everything around it. X grabbed onto Xerneas as it moved away from the blast zone as fast as it could manage.
Yveltal crashed into the ground and all of the remaining resurrected corpses immediately collapsed as the power that resurrected them abruptly ceased to exist. Primal Rayquaza still strafed over the fallen waves of corpses and incinerated them with Flamethrower.
The sky fissures soon closed up as the continuous Draco Meteor stopped. Yveltal soon stirred and rose from the ground, now exuding its dark red aura once more. However, it appeared to be very unsteady. With a loud screech, it began to fly away, retreating to its resting place so that it could enter dormancy and recover its lost strength.
X watched as the Yveltal soon flew away far enough that he couldn't see it anymore. But he wasn't thinking about the Yveltal or the effects of its retreat. His thoughts continuously drifted towards Y. … Was she at least relieved in her final moments?
He looked up at Primal Rayquaza, which had now directed all of its focus to Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre. Latias and Latios recovered enough to try to approach Primal Rayquaza once more. The hurricane-force winds have ceased, and the Primal Rayquaza seemed to allow the two Eon Pokémon to approach.
The Primal Rayquaza dropped Emerald from its claws, who was in a daze from constantly being hit by g-forces during the battle. Latias quickly flew forward to catch him.
\ \Rald, are you okay?\ \
Emerald groaned and tried to focus. "Ugh… I feel like throwing up five times at once…" He opened his eyes and blinked a few times to clear his vision. "… Is it over?"
\ \Maybe. Yveltal was defeated and it has retreated. And so far, Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza haven't resumed blindly attacking each other.\ \
Emerald eyed each Primal Legendary. "But they haven't dropped hostility yet."
Latias soon landed next to X, and Emerald hopped off. X didn't turn to look at him, though. Instead, he slowly took a few steps forward and crouched, picking up something from the ground.
"You okay, X?" Emerald asked. But X didn't respond.
X looked at the small clump of long blonde hair in his hands. … Y's hair… this was all he had left of her now. He wished that he had a photograph of her. … But he hadn't taken any pictures with her, ever. She had wanted to, for sure, but he never agreed. … And that was going to haunt him now. His lack of enthusiasm in doing anything with her in the past was going to haunt him forever. He clenched his hands into fists and lowered his head. … In the end, all this suffering… it was all his fault…
Emerald was about to say something again, but Latias stopped him. \ \I think you should let him be.\ \
Emerald glanced back and forth between Latias and X. He obviously wasn't aware of what just happened with X, thus he had no idea why the Kalos Dex Holder was suddenly like this. But he trusted Latias and eventually nodded. "Okay then. I'll leave him alone for now." He directed his attention to Xerneas, which was looking at him calmly. "So… what are you doing here?"
\ \To help against Yveltal and Zygarde,\ \ Xerneas replied.
"Zygarde…" Emerald muttered, as he suddenly remembered the true threat behind all this. He thought for a second before looking up and approaching Xerneas. "We're going to need some information. And we're going to need you to answer our questions."
\ \Speak.\ \
"The first thing that comes to mind is… why?" Emerald asked. "… Zygarde. Why is it doing all this?"
\ \Zygarde is an entity that overlooks the ecosystem,\ \ Xerneas began. \ \It will rise and fight any being that threatens nature and ecosystem. Over countless cycles, it has witnessed humans causing irreparable damage to the ecosystem, and in some cases, even threatening the balance of the whole world, often aiming to utilize powers that far exceed their understanding or grasp.\ \
"Like Team Flare," X said quietly from the side, now paying attention.
"Or Team Aqua and Team Magma," Emerald added. "… And the teams that the other Dex Holders have fought over the years."
\ \Yes. And it does not understand that not all humans are like them,\ \ Xerneas continued. \ \A trainer had stumbled into its secluded territory recently. And that caused Zygarde to react. It realized that there is no place safe from human influence. And so it decided to eliminate the threat to the ecosystem. But it needed more power than it could currently muster. One by one, it slowly began mind controlling people, starting with whoever was close by. It would then read that person's mind for any information that it could use. The trainer that Zygarde controlled at the start happened to be very powerful. With him, Zygarde could discreetly yet directly attack key figures in the human society and mind control them to expand its influence.\ \
"The Mega Hunter," Emerald said. "He must've been the one to stumble into its territory."
"And that explains the sudden disappearances of people like Korrina and Diantha, and the behavior changes of a lot of researchers," X said.
\ \Zygarde decided to utilize the power of the stone which are manufactured into what you refer to as a Mega Ring. Zygarde gathered all the scientific minds to develop a way to use the power of those stones to increase its own power. And once it was successful, it attempted to recruit the entities also heavily affected by human insolence.\ \
"The Legendary Pokémon. … Like you."
\ \Yes. However, it failed to realize that not all entities have negative feelings towards humans. Yveltal does not care for wanton destruction, and used this opportunity to empower itself further. I detest such destruction. Thus I have isolated myself until I gained full control of my enhanced powers. And from afar, I have felt the death of the human who had captured me a few cycles ago. And I have witnessed Yveltal resurrecting her as one of its peons. I have come to put an end to it, and spare her from eternal death.\ \
"What about those three?" Emerald asked, glancing at the three Primal Hoenn Legendaries still locked in a stand-off with one another.
\ \Before fighting you and your companions, Zygarde had gathered information about you: a select group of humans who have interacted with powerful entities in the past. It now sought to control you to gather more information, pertaining to those entities. Its attention was strained, however. Thus it had to wait until it fully empowered itself. Then in between the battles, it had managed to capture those two,\ \ Xerneas said, looking at Ruby and Sapphire lying on the ground. \ \Accessing the memories of one of them gave it all the information it needed. And the one mind controlled was sent to awaken the ancient elementals. Zygarde sought to destroy human civilization using their powers. While the ancient elementals cause tremendous destruction, the destruction is the result of a force of nature. Their awakenings will destroy all human civilization in the area of effect, along with the current ecosystem. But once the destruction stops, a new ecosystem will immediately be formed. However, once again, Zygarde has failed to realize that it could not control the elementals, nor would they agree with it. Instead, the attempt at domination has angered the fire elemental. And it has now come to engage Zygarde for its offense.\ \
"And that caused a series of side effects," Emerald said. "Primal Groudon awakening has caused Kyogre to wake up and rampage. And the effort to calm it down has exposed Sapphire to Kyogre, thus allowing Kyogre to undergo Primal Reversion. And the awakening of Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre has caused Rayquaza to wake up, fly all the way here to Kalos and use the power of a Key Stone and the core of the Green Orb to undergo its own Primal Reversion. And now, all three Primals here are causing plenty of wanton destruction." He glanced at them once more. "And they're still not standing down. They're still hostile for some reason. And it's probably because Primal Groudon is still angry at Zygarde."
"Allowing Primal Groudon to reach Zygarde is dangerous," X said. "Unless Zygarde is right here right now, Primal Groudon will have to follow Zygarde. And its presence alone would destroy half of this region."
\ \Then you must follow Zygarde to its secluded territory and defeat it soon. There is a deep cave in the east near the waterfalls. That is where Zygarde rests. If you go now, you will be able to reach it before it regenerates its strength.\ \
"Then we'll have to hurry," Emerald said. He looked at Ruby and Sapphire still lying unconscious on the ground. "… Latias, Latios… look over them, will you? Make sure nothing really happens to them. We probably shouldn't move them in case Groudon and Kyogre follow them. So watch over them here. If Sapphire wakes up, make sure she doesn't do anything drastic. If Ruby wakes up… He might still be mind controlled by Zygarde, so… feed him fake information, while pretending that we don't know about the mind control. Tell him that the other Dex Holders are going to fully rest up before moving against Zygarde, since we don't know where it is exactly. But to be safe, it's probably better to keep them unconscious."
"Before we go… I have to ask something… privately," X said to Xerneas, glancing at Emerald. He waited until the Hoenn Dex Holder caught the hint and walked away far enough to be out of hearing range. "… Why did Zygarde get me to kill Y?" X asked. "… And why did it transmit her dying thoughts to me?"
\ \... I do not know,\ \ Xerneas said after a while. \ \I assume for disruption. It would have likely done so to cause as much damage and disruption amongst you as possible. If you had lost your will to fight, it would have been successful.\ \
X looked at the blonde hair strands he was still holding in his hand. "… It was successful… for a while. But no longer. … It can't go unpunished for what it did to her…"
\ \Then you must go and fight Zygarde.\ \ Xerneas glanced over at the three Hoenn Primal Legendaries. \ \And you must hurry before the ancient elementals destroy this place. Even if they are not fighting each other at the moment, their passive abilities will destroy this place.\ \
X nodded with a sigh. "I understand."
\ \And fear not. You will get a chance to reconcile with her.\ \
X perked up. "What?"
\ \But for now, you must go quickly.\ \
"Hey, X! Let's get going," Emerald shouted from behind, having already contacted Crystal to report what had happened. "Red wants everyone gathered up right now!"
X glanced back at Xerneas, which was looking at the Primal Hoenn Legendaries. Seeing how it wasn't going to answer his question, X reluctantly sent out his Charizard so that he could fly to Camphrier Town quickly.
…
Camphrier Town…
…
Platinum slowly opened her eyes, feeling very nauseous. Something just felt twisted inside, and she doubted that she'd be even able to take a breath without choking. She blinked a few times to clear her vision and took a small breath, bracing herself for sharp pain from her chest. Fortunately, she felt no such pain.
She opened her eyes that she had clenched shut in anticipation, and her eyes flicked towards the corner of her vision where a small number appeared. The number soon flickered away and Platinum remembered what it was. The borrowed shield system was still functioning. … Speaking of which…
There was an explosion. That was the last thing she remembered. The Mega Steelix charged right up to her and blew up in her face. She recalled that the shield system collapsed, and she felt the hits of the Explosion. But the shields must have absorbed a vast majority of the blast, since she was still in one piece.
Platinum slowly looked around. She seemed to be in a hospital, except… that it wasn't a hospital. The room looked like a hotel room, but she was lying in what seemed like those portable beds that are common in hospitals, with an IV stand next to her along with various monitoring equipment. That told her that she was somewhere modified to be a makeshift hospital. Most likely a Pokémon Center.
She slowly sat up, noting the lack of pain from her body. She looked at the needle sticking into the back of her hand that was connected to the IV stand.
'That explains that,' she thought. She figured that the IV stand was providing her painkillers.
"Oh, Lady, are you awake?" came a very familiar voice from somewhere in the room.
Platinum quickly faced the direction of the voice, and soon saw Diamond. She gasped as she was momentarily taken aback by his condition. The boy was smiling at her, but he was lying on a bed with his right arm in a cast supported by a sling, and left leg in a similar state. At a glance, he appeared to be in serious pain.
Platinum quickly scrambled out of her bed and pushed herself off. She hobbled towards Diamond, while dragging the IV stand behind her.
"Diamond," she began. "Are… are you okay?"
Diamond nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay." He looked down at his limbs and shrugged. "I guess I look really hurt, but… it's not that bad, really."
Platinum reached for the cast on his arm, but hesitated before her hand made contact. Instead, she gently put her hand on his shoulder. "What happened, Diamond?" she asked, still sounding very concerned. "That Explosion…"
"I'm sorry I couldn't get to you in time," Diamond said. "All I could do was catch you. … I was so worried, Lady. You wouldn't wake up for a while, and I thought…" He soon let out a sigh and shook his head. "I'm really happy to see you awake," he said with a smile.
Platinum slightly lowered her head and smiled. "And I am very glad to see you happy too. Thank you for catching me after that Explosion." She frowned a bit as she looked at Diamond's arm and leg. "Is your arm…"
Diamond glanced at his right arm. "Yeah… broken. At the elbow. I've also broken a couple of ribs too. My leg isn't broken, though. It's just kept off the bed so the bandage isn't like crushed or whatever." Diamond lifted his leg off of the sling for a bit. "See? Not broken."
Platinum still felt horrible as Diamond was actually pretty badly hurt, if he broke that many bones. "Diamond… please be more careful. Please do not get hurt." She cast a worried glance at his leg. "So… are you able to walk?"
"Oh, yeah. No problem. It's just a cut, really. I just have to keep that leg up for a bit so I'm not crushing it. Don't worry about it."
"Oh, Miss Lady, you're up," came Pearl's voice from behind.
Platinum spun around and saw Pearl walking into the room. "Oh, Pearl. Yes, I am awake. Are you okay?"
Pearl nodded. "Compared to you and Dia, I'm doing just peachy. But… uh…" He hesitated a bit as he wasn't sure how to proceed. "… Red wants everyone gathered in the main lobby. There have been some… big things happening."
Platinum frowned with worry. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that something absolutely terrible had happened.
Diamond slowly lifted his leg off of the sling and sat up on the bed. "We better get going, then."
Platinum helped him up to his feet and removed the needle out of her hand. She winced as the surprisingly long needle finally came out, and the sensation was very… weird. She wrapped the needle and the connecting tube around the IV stand and with her two friends, headed to the main lobby of the Pokémon Center.
She saw the other Dex Holders gathered around and waiting in the lobby. She didn't see everyone, however, and noticed the grim expressions on those present. … Where were Green, Emerald, White, and X?
"Everyone's here," Red said quietly, standing up from his seat.
Platinum took a seat closest to her, as she had a feeling that she'd need to be sitting down for this.
Red began to explain everything that had happened since the battle in Lumiose. The Mega Hunter escaped, but is unable to heal any of his Pokémon in any Kalos Pokémon Center.
Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre have appeared in Ambrette Town with Ruby and Sapphire, thus Emerald and X were dispatched to see if they could snatch those two. Complicating matters, Yveltal was also spotted.
Xerneas had attacked Zygarde in Lumiose City, helping the Dex Holders who were fighting it at the time.
Black and White ran into Zygarde while trying to escape, and only Black was saved. White was presumably mind controlled and taken with Zygarde, given her current Pokédex location.
… Green had sacrificed himself to save Blue from the Mega Hunter, saving her just before she was killed at the cost of his own life.
Platinum closed her eyes and lowered her head. Another dead Dex Holder… And another mind controlled Dex Holder. And this one was her junior. She had already lost Y. Was she going to lose White too?
"… And there's our current situation," Red finished. "… Anyone have anything to add?"
Crystal rose to her feet. "The Kalos and the visiting Kanto Gym Leaders have reported that the Mega Hunter was spotted going from city to city, trying to heal his Pokémon. He hasn't attacked anyone, and the Gym Leaders are actually repelling him. I think Zygarde is focused on something else. Maybe that attack from Xerneas really did some damage. Or maybe it's focusing on some new information it got from mind controlling White."
"I'm looking at the map and the scanner," Blue said, her voice devoid of strength. "… White's Pokédex is currently in Terminus Cave. It's still moving, but not by that much. I think White is still holding onto it."
"Weird," Gold said. "Zygarde should know by now that we can track Pokédex locations, since Bossy Gal knew before getting snatched. Maybe Zygarde hadn't gotten to that particular information yet."
"Maybe Miss President is fighting it," Black suggested. "… We have to go save her quickly, before we lose track of her."
Red snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed that the other Dex Holders were all looking at him.
"So… what should we do?" Gold asked. "The longer we wait, the more Zygarde recovers and more the Mega Hunter recovers, even if he can't fully heal his Pokémon. And Zygarde may also notice that Bossy Gal still has her Pokédex, and get her to throw it away. And then we won't know where it is. But we need to rest up too. We can't exactly take on Zygarde head on right now."
"But what about the crisis in Ambrette Town?" Pearl asked. "Do we ignore that and go for Zygarde?"
"What should we do, senior?" Platinum asked.
Red blinked as he realized that he had to make a decision for everyone. Usually, Green was the one who did that…
"… Crys, call Emerald. Ask what's going on," he said eventually. "If that situation can't get resolved quickly, we'll have to ignore it and go for Zygarde."
Crystal nodded and left the Pokémon Center lobby so that she could call Emerald without disturbing the meeting.
Red looked at Blue, then Platinum, and then Diamond. "… The fight against Zygarde is going to be rough. We'll be following Platinum's strategy from a while back. We'll hit it from all sides, but retreat whenever it tries to fight back. To do this effectively, we'll need to stay mobile. … Blue, Dia, Platinum… you're all very hurt. … This fight will be very tough for you. … If you don't want to-"
"Senior," Platinum interrupted abruptly, sounding rather upset. "I will not be removed from this battle."
"And I'm not going to sit around and rest while the Lady is in a battle against Zygarde," Diamond said. "I will fight with her."
Red turned to look at Blue, who was glaring at him. "… Blue…"
"Don't you dare," she said angrily. "… After all that happened…"
Red let out a long sigh. "… I'm really sorry. I'm just worried about all of you. But… just like how I can't force you to fight Zygarde… I can't stop you either. All I can say is… be careful. We can't lose any more friends."
Platinum glanced over at Diamond and held his good hand. "Understood, senior. We will be careful."
Red nodded, despite not looking all too convinced. Just then, Crystal came back into the room.
"Emerald just reported," she said quickly. "A lot of things happened over there, but in short, Yveltal was defeated and has retreated. Primal Groudon is still angry at Zygarde, so it will not calm down until Zygarde is defeated. Primal Kyogre and Primal Rayquaza are locked in a standoff with Primal Groudon, but are not actively in combat. Xerneas suggests we go and attack Zygarde in Terminus Cave before it gets a chance to recover."
"There's a Primal Rayquaza?" Red asked. "… Well, if all three aren't actively fighting, I suppose that's a good thing."
"Emerald reports that the passive powers of all three are causing tremendous damage," Crystal said. "He said that we have to hurry and defeat Zygarde before the damage spreads too far into Kalos."
"What about Ruby and Sapphire?" Blue asked.
"They're both still linked to Groudon and Kyogre. Both are still unconscious for the time being, and Emerald suggests we keep them that way for now."
"Then we're on the clock," Red said. "Tell Emerald and X to come back here as soon as they can. Once they get here, we'll all fly over to Couriway Town and spend the night there. The sun is currently starting to set, so by the time Emerald and X get here, it will be a lot darker. We'll use that opportunity. Zygarde's mind controlled scouts won't be able to see us once the sun fully sets. We'll rest up in Couriway Town and hit Zygarde hard in the morning, before it knows we're even there."
"Couriway Town is the closest town to Terminus Cave," Blue said, looking at the map of Kalos. "It probably has the most number of mind controlled victims. So it might be safer for us to rest up at another city."
"Got a suggestion?" Red asked.
"How about Anistar City? It's the closest to Couriway Town, and there is a Gym there, so the Kalos Gym Leaders probably have the city well under control. We should contact the Gym Leader to make arrangements for us, whether that'd be a Pokémon Center or a hotel."
"Good idea," Red said. "Once Emerald and X arrive, we'll head to Anistar City. Until then, Crys, contact the Kalos Gym Leaders and arrange our stay, would you?"
"On it," Crystal said, taking out her Pokégear once more.
"We should arrange a small trap for the Mega Hunter," Platinum suggested. "We do not want him to attack us while we are attacking Zygarde in Terminus Cave. At the very least, we would want him to attack us when we are ready for him. So if we vacate a Pokémon Center in the opposite side of Kalos and discreetly pass the information to someone who is mind controlled, Zygarde will send the Mega Hunter to that Pokémon Center in hopes of healing all his Pokémon. If we time it correctly, the Mega Hunter would be entering that Pokémon Center when we attack Zygarde. And when he tries to retreat, the Kalos Gym Leaders can attack him. This should fluster Zygarde even more and stall the Mega Hunter's retreat until it is too late. By the time he arrives in Terminus Cave, we would have hopefully dealt enough damage to Zygarde."
"Brilliant plan," Red said with a nod. "Crys, tell the Kalos Leaders this plan. They'll know what to do."
"Okay," Crystal replied, making a call on her Pokégear.
Red glanced at the injured Dex Holders again. "… Then until Emerald and X arrive… let's pack up and get ready to leave. We'll get our rest when we reach Anistar City. And we'll need that rest too, since we'll have a hell of a battle in the morning."
Yay, update. Last one of 2017!