Chapter 9

The Light Realm's Gauntlet

Jeremiah just arrived at the Ship Bay. He walked over to the Rustbucket and hopped in. Before he has a chance to close the cockpit he hears, "Hello."

He looks behind him and sees Pikachu in the passenger seat. He thinks about this for a moment and then remembers that the entire base has a universal translator built in.

"Ah, hello Pikachu. It looks like we'll be working together from now on," greeted Jeremiah.

"Yes," agreed Pikachu smiling.

"Currently, I got an errand to run and I can't take you with me at the moment, so I'm going to have to ask you to please vacate the ship," stated Jeremiah.

"Oh," pouted Pikachu.

"Don't worry. We're still on for missions. By the way, you want me to pick you up something at the pokemart since I'm heading that direction?" offered Jeremiah.

"Sitrus Berries? I really want some Sitrus Berries."

"Sure, I'll pick you up some Sitrus Berries on the way back," said Jeremiah.

Pikachu cheers, "Yay!" before hopping off the ship and running into the hallway. Jeremiah closes the Rustbucket's cockpit and inputs a series of commands into the ship's console to disable the tracking on it. Afterwards, the roof opens up and the ship lifts off out of the Ship Bay. The Rustbucket takes off from its current location in the Almia region at breakneck speeds towards its destination: Mt. Coronet in the Sinnoh region, ETA: 3 minutes.

Upon arrival, Jeremiah doesn't land. Instead, he keeps flying straight above the center of Mt. Coronet. A white portal opens up in front of him and he flies straight into it. Jeremiah finds himself in a bright yellow realm full of disconnected platforms. He finally lands on one just large enough for his ship. On this same platform was a path leading to a pedestal containing a light ball on it. The cockpit opens up and Jeremiah hops out of the ship.

Before doing anything else once outside, he does some stretches to loosen himself up for the upcoming obstacles. Around 30 seconds to a minute pass while Jeremiah stretches. After finishing them, Jeremiah takes a running position. He runs across the path passing the first axe, jumping over a second one, and zipping past the third. He grabs the light ball off of the pedestal before jumping off the platform to the next one. Upon landing, a bunch of flaming arrows fire at him out of nowhere. He dodges them with quick circular motions before breaking into a run during a split-second interval in between shots.

He grabs another light ball at the end of the platform and jumps off it levitating to another. This one only containing Hercules, a table, and two chairs. Jeremiah sits down and puts his arm on the table. Hercules follows suit and grabs his hand. They begin to arm wrestle, their strength evenly matched. Hercules gains a slight lead but Jeremiah counters giving him the edge. Hercules pushes him back to their starting position. Jeremiah put all his strength into his next attack and dealt the finishing blow knocking Hercules's hand to the table. The victor gets up and celebrates as Hercules pulls a light ball out of his toga pocket and hands it to the winner.

Jeremiah accepts the light ball and pockets that one as well. He jumps to a circular platform underneath housing a mighty kraken. The kraken swings a tentacle at him. Jeremiah jumps over it and his hand ignites right as he lands. The creature attempts to slam a tentacle downward at him. Jeremiah hops to the side avoiding it and then jumps forward and punches it in the face with his fiery fist knocking it back a bit. However, that left an opening in Jeremiah's defenses allowing the kraken to smack him flying. His orientation suddenly shifted due to a change in gravity and he lands face-first on a sideways platform.

Jeremiah got up right before the ground started to shake. He looks behind him and sees a huge boulder coming down towards him. He starts running straight down at sonic speed. He grabs the light ball at the bottom of the platform before jumping off it to a right-side up platform narrowly avoiding the boulder which fell off its platform.

Jeremiah looks ahead of him and notices that the current platform he's on runs straight, twists at the center, and inverts for the second half. After being smacked by a kraken and outrunning a boulder Indiana Jones style, he's naturally a little winded. So, he takes a brief moment to pause and catch his breath. Jeremiah reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cold bottle of flavored water. How it's still cold? Nobody knows. He takes a big drink out of it and places the cap back on it before stuffing it back in his pocket.

His right arm right under his shoulder suddenly glows blue and everything around him turns blue as time slows. He just casually starts walking along the path slowly to conserve energy. As he walks towards the center, arrows slowly fire at him from the sides. Not worried a bit about the arrows, Jeremiah continues his stroll as gravity gradually inverts itself as he is walking across the center twist. Upon reaching the second half, gravity is completely inverted and his footsteps cause cracks to appear on the platform, but they are not much of a problem. The platform starts collapsing behind him slowly as he makes his way to the end. Upon reaching his goal, he grabs the light ball off the pedestal, jumps off, and levitates to an angled upside down platform as the other one collapses.

Suddenly, time returns to normal speed as color returns to the Light Realm, what little there was. Ninjas hop out from above the platform in a flash of blue light or is it below. Hard to tell with that platform's gravity and orientation. One of them pulls out three clock hands and throws them at Jeremiah. He jumps up to avoid them, but one hits him from the side sending him skidding across as he aged down into a seven-year-old. Two time ninjas were in front of him. They proceeded to stomp on him, but thinking quickly, Jeremiah turns himself into blue goo and they step into the goo. He constrains them by the legs as the slime wraps around them. Jeremiah's slimy face appears next to them and he childishly sticks out what qualifies as his tongue at him. The clock hand slips out of him and the childish slime rendition turned into a facsimile of his present day form. Suddenly, time slowed down and one of the ninjas rushes at him with giant twin clock hands. Jeremiah expands his slimy prison and sends his slimy self head first at the rushing ninja. Suddenly, he is hit from the side by blue nunchunks on his "head" which forces him back into his seven-year-old self in his solid form with the clock hand back in his side as if rewound back to it. He rolls into the rushing ninja landing on top of him. Suddenly, he is hit in the side before he had time to react by the nunchunks and he goes down by two years sending him rolling across the arena once more. Time's flow returns back to normal as he gets back up with modest injuries. He tries to activate his power Earthquake, but nothing happens. He realizes he can't feel the Orb's energy anymore.

The ninjas all begin to recover and are getting ready to attack. The one Jeremiah rolled on pulls out a clock and prepares to throw it. Jeremiah decides to cut his losses and jumps off the platform back-first. While falling, he takes the clock hand out of his side and he ages back up to 12. He suddenly levitates in an arc back up or down. As he is ascending the ninja throws the clock at him. He spins in midair to avoid it. Jeremiah holds his hands in the air like he just don't care and a giant sphere appears above him. One ninja throws more clock hands at Jeremiah, but a boot of earth forms around his legs and he kicks them aside. The sphere unleashes a deadly blast that covers the whole platform, Jeremiah's dreaded ST Mega Blast.

All the ninjas are severely wounded, the platform is barely holding together. A blue light rushes to Jeremiah returning him to the proper age. Jeremiah lands on what remains of the platform and upon landing, the ninjas get back up and bow. One of them walks up to Jeremiah and hands him a light ball before disappearing in a flash of blue light. His wounds begin to heal as he speed-levitates away from the platform and lands on another circular platform, this time with normal orientation. He is panting a bit, but the Light Realm provides no time to rest as a hammer comes down at him. With only a split second to react, he backward somersaults to dodge the hammer causing it to crack the ground with its impact.

Its wielder was a big, buff bearded man reminiscent of a Viking. He swung a second hammer in a sideways arc at Jeremiah who swerves a bit to the side stepping back and attacking the Viking with a whip of fire with much greater reach than the Viking's dual hammers all in the same motion. However, the attack failed to even faze the Viking who charges at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah puts his guard up as he swings a hammer at Jeremiah who avoids it by taking one step back. He brings the second one down at Jeremiah's head, but he blocks it with his hand. Jeremiah's leg starts glowing and he kicks the guy in the balls. The man winces in pain clutching his crotch as that kick hit him like a tank. Jeremiah spins around creating a massive tornado of fire and collides with the Viking knocking him down with minimal burns. The tornado dissipates leaving Jeremiah standing in its place. The Viking pulls out a light ball and hands it to Jeremiah who honorably accepts it.

Jeremiah runs off the platform and jumps off levitating to the next one. He runs across it and jumps across several smaller ones reaching another light ball which he grabs before jumping onto a platform with a fountain on it. In the fountain steam was coming out from it and in it was a beautiful woman. Jeremiah grasped that this was a test of temptation and "Noped" his way out of there. He jumps off and is greeted by a tentacle to the head. His greeter is the same kraken that knocked him to the boulder platform. Jeremiah gets back up as the kraken roars. He starts running in circles at lightning-fast speed around the kraken. It can't keep track of his movements. Jeremiah jumps up and grabs a tentacle and continues running in circles tying it up with its own tentacle. He grabs another one and runs the other way as the kraken tries to swat him but fails as Jeremiah quickly avoids all attack by jumping or simply being too fast for it tying it up from both directions. The kraken retreats under the water and a tentacle resurfaces with a light ball that Jeremiah takes and pockets.

He levitates to a platform with a snazzy host and an empty podium. He lands behind it and the host announces, "Let's welcome our newest contestant!"

A nonexistent spotlight shines on Jeremiah and he says, "Hello, I'm Jeremiah Ellison and it's a pleasure to be a part of this trial."

"Here are the rules. Get three questions right, you win a prize. Get a question wrong, and the platform will collapse. First question, what's 2+2?"
"4."

A ding could be heard and the host announces, "Correct. Next question, what's the capital of New Mexico?"

"Umm..."

A beep was heard and the platform's corner collapses.

"I'm sorry! 'Umm' is not the correct answer. Next question. What is 7152 times 7?

"Can I get a piece of paper, a pencil, and five minutes to solve the problem?" asks Jeremiah.

"Sure. But it will cost you your lifeline!"

Jeremiah's pockets suddenly feels heavy as the host hands him the requested objects. He reaches into his pockets, but he is unable to access its contents. He gets to work on the problem since he can't afford to waste more time. It takes him about 3½ minutes to finish the problem and he answers, "50,064!"

Another ding. "Correct."

"Next question. Who is the spy in the Agency?"

"I don't know that!" yells Jeremiah before the other edge of the platform collapses. The podium starts cracking.

"I'm sorry, but we have to count that as wrong. Final question! What is the difference between the Dream World and the Nightmare Realm?"

"Specifically, where the types of dreams are housed. Good dreams are housed in the Dream World segmented off into various hubs with neatly ordered portals into everyone's dreams whereas the Nightmare Realm houses the nightmares we have and the outside is a hellish landscape where active portals are few and far-between."

Three dings. "Correct. You have just won a fabulous prize: one light ball! (He places it in his hand and shakes it) I hope we'll see you next time."

The platform suddenly collapses, but Jeremiah's pockets are back to normal. He levitates back to the Rustbucket and hops in. It lifts up and flies back to its entry point. The white portal reopens placing above Mt. Coronet. He makes a quick stop at the Pokemart in Eterna City and grabs a couple of Sitrus Berries for Pikachu before returning to Superhero HQ 9.

The ground opens and he lands in the underground ship bay. Jeremiah goes to re-enable the tracking on the Rustbucket when he notices, "Huh? The tracking's already enabled?"