Sabaku
"I will show no mercy."
Sabaku's words rang through the round room. Sand swirled up from the floor and started to curl around her body, forming a thin protective shell. At the same time, the giant sand fist rocketed forwards and tried to smash Gaia into the wall. He dodged, and slashed the fist.
The sword strike made a dent in it, and sand started pouring out of the 'wound'. However, the sand quickly flowed back into the small hole and filled it up.
Gaia growled for a moment before jumping back to avoid a powerful index finger flick. If he had been hit by back, his ribs would have been broken. Okay, physical attacks are no use. Let's try something else. He charged a swirling orb of green energy in his left palm and flung it at the giant fist.
The Energy Ball tore through the fist, burning away sand in its path. It hit the wall opposite, creating a dent in it. The fist, now with a deep, thin hole in it, couldn't support itself and fell to the sandy ground. It didn't get up.
Sabaku frowned. It had taken quite some energy to form that. Oh well, she still had her giant shield. Seth and Alice were trying to smash it to pieces, but to no avail. Gaia ran over to them and charged up his blade with water. He slammed it into the shield.
"Waterfall!"
The shield couldn't support the additional weight of the water and it fell to the ground like the giant fist, now a mass of soggy sand. Sabaku was wide open.
Seth lunged it her and tore into her face with a Shadow Claw. She was knocked down onto the ground. The sand armor surrounding her cheek started cracking and peeled off.
"Hmm, you're strong." Sabaku said, "If I hadn't been coated with my sand armor, I would've taken more damage." It was true. The armor had softened the blow. She wasn't even bleeding, "Did you know humans used to use sand armor as part of their magical defences?"
Seth stared at her, confused. He couldn't remember that specific detail from his history lessons. From what he heard, humans had no magical abilities and were completely defenceless.
Sabaku decided that now was the time to attack and let loose a hail of sand globs from her mouth. Gaia jumped in front of his friends and used Mirror Coat, reflecting some of the globs back at the guardian. She quickly smacked them away with her tail. Then she closed her eyes, concentrated and floating rocks burst out from the ground.
"Stealth Rock."
"Wha—"
The three explorers each stepped forward and the rocks instantly slammed into them, knocking them backwards and leaving behind small wounds. For some reason, Alice didn't seem to be damaged as much as the others.
Sabaku darted forward and body-slammed Gaia into a wall, then slashed his chest with a dragon claw. Alice roared and charged forward, partly because she was angry at Sabaku for hurting her boyfriend and partly because another Pokemon in the Dragon egg group was touching her man. Only she was allowed to do that.
The Dragon Claw tore into Sabaku's shoulder, but due to the sand armor, it was nullified. It distracted her for a second. Gaia used this opportunity to slam an Energy Ball at point blank range.
The sphere of energy tore through the sand armor and wounded Sabaku in the chest. She was sent reeling back, her wound smoking.
"Heh. Not bad." As soon as those words escaped from her mouth, a screen of psychic energy covered her and then disappeared. "What?" She turned around to see Seth floating above the ground. "What did you do?"
"Role Play." Seth stated, "I copied your Levitate ability. Now your Ground attacks can't touch me."
The Levitate ability instantly nullified all Ground-type attacks, even if they didn't use the ground (Mud Bomb, anyone?). Needless to say, Sabaku did not look happy.
"How annoying." She spat, "Prepare yourself." She fired strange blue flames from her mouth. Seth countered with his own Will-O-Wisp attack. Gaia used Waterfall again, turning the sand armor on Sabaku's back into a sloppy, brown mess. Alice slammed a Dragon Claw on that spot, creating another wound. Sabaku lost her focus for the briefest of moments and the Will-O-Wisp attack burned her.
"Grrr…" The Flygon guardian gritted her teeth as she felt the pain seep through her spiritual body. Her strength dropped down a notch.
"Let's end this!" Gaia gripped the Spirit Sword with two hands, forcing wind energy into it. He suddenly leapt thirty feet in the air, shocking everyone. Then he slammed a powerful downwards thrust on top of Sabaku's head. The force of the attack was enough to push him back up. He then repeated the process four times before executing his finisher.
Unfortunately, he missed the head and ended up taking Sabaku's eyeball instead.
There was a brilliant flash of light, and when it disappeared, Gaia was standing on the ground, Sabaku floating in front of him.
Her right eye had been completely gouged out. She had one claw over it to stop the bleeding. It didn't take away the fact that it hurt like hell.
"Owww…" she half-moaned, half-growled, "You win. Take your rewards." She closed her remaining eye and concentrated. Two shining white crystals, a deep green crystal and a dark brown slab of stone appeared in a flash of light. After they fell to the ground, Gaia picked them up and shoved them into his bag.
"Get out…"
A whirlwind of sand covered Sabaku, and when it faded, she was gone.
XXX
When Sabaku travelled through the Gates of Origin and entered the afterlife, one of her old colleagues greeted her.
"Greetings, Captain Sabaku," the guy spoke, "Let me be the first to welcome you—" Then he realized that one of her eyes was missing, "Hey, what happened to you?"
"Don't ask," Sabaku growled, pushing past him. Hopefully there were medics somewhere.
XXX
Back in the stone room, the statue of a Flygon split in half and toppled to the ground.
"Finally." Tyrannus grinned maliciously, a bloodthirsty grin growing on his face.
Leafia turned sharply and glared at him, "If you do anything stupid to the kid, everyone in the afterlife will kill you. You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?"
The Tyranitar smirked nastily, "Oh no, the princess is angry. I'm so scared. Is it because that fool reminds you of—"
"SHUT UP!" Leafia finally lost it and sent a wave of venomous plants towards Tyrannus. He teleported away before he got hit.
XXX
After successfully teleporting back to the Royal Palace of Destonia, the three explorers ate dinner and headed up to their rooms for some rest. It was only 5 in the afternoon, but they were tired from walking around in the dungeon and desert all day.
The next morning, Gaia got out of bed and opened the curtains. It was a cloudy day. The sun was nowhere to be seen. According to a nearby clock, it was 6 in the morning.
He took the Earth Plate and the deep green crystal out of his bag. Since he wasn't hungry at the moment, he might as well get some training in. He formed the Spirit Sword in his hands and tapped the Earth Plate with it.
The 'ritual' took place and Gaia soon learned Magnitude.
Hmm, that pretty interesting. Although it does rely on luck…
Next up was the green crystal. If he smashed the thing right now, the screaming he would make might wake everyone in the castle up. And that wouldn't be good.
He wandered around the outsides of the castle and ended up in the very same forest he had been practising yesterday. For some reason no-one had done anything about the trees he had split.
Placing the green crystal on the ground, he stabbed down onto it.
As usual, there was a lot of screaming and energy. Gaia fell to the ground, convulsing for a whole moment before his body calmed itself.
"Wow, Frenzy Plant," he muttered to himself, not knowing that he was doing it, "I didn't expect that."
He heard footsteps approaching him. Now would probably a good time to get his ass off the mossy forest floor.
It turned out to be his girlfriend. "Gaia, what on earth are you doing here?" she asked, "It's nearly breakfast time."
"Training." Gaia simply said, standing up.
"I see. What did you learn this time?" Alice asked as the two of them walked towards the exit of the forest.
"Frenzy Plant and Magnitude."
"Interesting. Seth and I have already smashed our white crystals. Care to train with us after breakfast?"
"Sure." Gaia said. Alice then smirked evilly. "Uh Alice, why are you smiling like a deranged lunatic?"
"I don't know what you are talking about," she replied, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.
XXX
It turned out that the power in the crystals multiplied Seth and Alice's power by one and a half times. And the two of them had imposed a restriction that made Gaia unable to use his sword. Given the fact that he had not practiced hand-to-hand combat for quite some time made him suffer a series of humiliating defeats.
In other words, he got his ass kicked ten times over.
"Man Gaia, you never lose this much. Did you stop trainin' or something?" Seth chuckled as Gaia landed on the other side of the training field, trying not to burst into full-blown laughter.
Gaia glared at his girlfriend and best friend, "Is it really my fault that you two suddenly got a hell a lot stronger and I got weaker in the close combat area? Is it?"
"Maybe," Alice smiled.
"When did you two get so evil?"
"Would an evil person do this?" Alice leaned down and kissed Gaia on the lips, making him blush.
"Damn you Alice. Damn you and your loveliness."
"So, what to guys want to do now?" Seth asked.
Gaia grinned and formed the Spirit Sword in his hand. "I need to test my new move my mine." He started charging earth energy in his blade. It started glowing a deep green color.
"Which one?"
"Frenzy Plant." With that, he slammed his blade into the ground. A wave of ghostly green plants travelled forward and stopped at a nearby rock, which soon exploded in a blast of green light.
"Whoa. Just whoa." Seth managed to say.
Gaia felt pain run through his chest and started to clutch it. "Urgh, stupid recoil…" he muttered. It was true that he was getting stronger, but the recoi was still there, and that was a real pain in the ass.
As soon as he said those three words, he heard screaming in the distance. It seemed to be coming from the front of the castle.
"Oh, son of a bitch." He shoved an Oran Berry down his throat before sprinting towards the source of the noise.
XXX
Tyrannus was enjoying himself. This was the first time he had had fun in one thousand years. His fun involved sending waves of earth towards the guards of the castle and throwing them ten feet into the air.
Yes, he was sadistic (although not as much as Katherine). Plus, the people of Destonia had done something horrible to him when he was alive. This was simply his revenge.
Then a Grovyle rushed into the clearing. Tyrannus stopped.
Those eyes. That expression. That shape.
Tyrannus hated Grovyles. He hated them with every inch of his spiritual body. One had done something awful to him when he was alive. And now he was seeing one.
Was it really surprising that he got extremely pissed off? That Grovyle was the living incarnation of the previous one!
"Who are you?" Gaia demanded, "Why are you attacking these people?"
Tyrannus summoned a large battleaxe in his left hand, "Fight me." He growled.
"What?"
"Fight me. NOW!"
Destonia! Cup! GOLDEN!
The members Official Destonia Historial Association were smart, to say the least. Every one of them had above excellent I.Q. They knew how to carefully summarize evidence, analyse it and piece a coherent and well thought out argument.
Now if only they could agree on the same thing…
One day, Kinesis had been strolling in the nearby forest when he came across a metal box. Inside it were books. Human books. Most of them were filled with pictures. Strange pictures that were only black and white. What the Alakazam had discovered were a otaku's stash of manga.
Unfortunately, the association took these manga to be real events in man's history.
"I believe that humans were ninjas and wore orange clothes!" Kinesis proclaimed, holding up the first volume of Naruto.
"Wrong!" a Gallade shouted, "Humans clearly carried huge-ass swords and wore black robes all the time! They used the swords to send monsters to the afterlife!" He was holding a copy of Bleach.
"False! Completely false! Humans carried notebooks with them! They used those things to kill their own kin! And freaky monsters followed them! IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!" another guy said. He was holding the last volume of Death Note.
"Well, I think that humans spent all their times playing card games. They even made machines to make the experience more interesting! Don't you all agree?" yet another man said.
Everyone stared at him. "No." Kinesis said.
"No." the Gallade said.
"No." one man said.
"No." one woman said.
"No." one genderless Pokemon said (robotically).
"Shut up!"
