AN: Not really that much to say this time. Little shorter than expected, and a slightly long albeit important info dump in this chapter. Happy reading!
After crossing an old, rarely used bridge connecting route 24 to route 4, Dust and his crew took a slight detour into the forest to search for Dust's fourth pokemon. After looking for nearly three hours, they couldn't find a single pokemon. It was during the fourth hour of searching when they arrived at an old, run down church. Outside, sitting in the deep shade was a floating gray mass. It slowly turned around, and where its face should have been was a skull. "A Duskull? Out in the middle of the forest? What on Earth is it doing here? Those things only live in slums or graveyards usually!"
It crooked its head as its teeth chartered and cracked, forming a terrifying smile. It quickly started forming a dark pulse and shot it at Dust. Just in time, he rolled out of the way. Immediately, he released Krabby. Krabby landed on the ground, shivered a bit at the requiem pokemon, then looked to Dust for orders. "Krabby. Take this more seriously than any battle you've fought thus far. Use knock off!" Krabby glared at the Duskull and gathered dark energy on his pincer. As he leapt toward the Duskull, it suddenly disappeared. Caught off guard by this, Krabby flinched, giving the Duskull the opportunity to use shadow sneak. Krabby crumpled to the floor stunned, but jumped out of the way just in time to dodge a dark pulse at Dust's shout.
Angered, Krabby began trying to use ancient power, but after a few small rocks rose, they fell back down, as Krabby was nailed in the face with a fistful of dark energy in the way of payback.
Dust ground his teeth. Krabby was not having a good time because of this scarily fast Duskull. "Krabby, try ancient power again, but calm down. Focus."
A few rocks rose again as Duskull disappeared into its own shadow. Dust smirked. He had been hoping that would happen for a while. "Krabby, stop using ancient power and use knock off on the ground!"
Krabby immediately followed the given order as a dark shockwave covered the ground, lifting some rocks and also throwing Duskull from its own shadow, dealing massive damage in the process. Not to be outdone, however, the Duskull shot a red beam right into Krabby's torso. Krabby rapidly lost energy and took slight damage all over his body from Duskull's pain split. But the battle was pretty much over at that point. "Krabby, finish with water gun barrage!" There was no way for the Duskull to dodge, as there was nowhere for it to run and becoming intangible didn't work against aura. Duskull was hit twice, once on the skull, the second the bottom of it's cloak. It spiralled to the ground just in time for Dust to throw a pokeball in it. After two minutes of slightly shaking, the ball ever so slowly came to a stop, then clicked. Dust held his magnetic glove up and the pokeball flew into his hand.
The Duskull had finally fallen unconscious after fighting so hard, so Dust easily released and treated it with potion before returning it to its ball, planning to talk with it after exploring the church.
Walking in through the dilapidated double doors, a plaque and worn painting were visible in the hallway. It was an ancient painting of Celebi with a plaque giving a brief description of a tribe that lived with Celebi, traveling through ancient times with it. He took both and put them in his bag to hand in to a museum. A few musty side rooms surrounded the main sanctuary, so Dust decided to check those. He found in the high priest's chamber a green piece of grass glowing green and platinum, and a bracelet he could use to house the key stone in a random room. Afterward, he walked up to the main sanctuary doors and opened them. He walked into the front where a massive gold box was situated, with ten handprints spread all over it.
Assuming it was some sort of treasure box, he pushed in each of the handprints. As he raised his hand to the last one, a booming ancient voice resounded throughout the whole area. "NO! Human, STOP!" But it was too late. All ten were already pushed in. As the last one fell in, the four walls of the cube absorbed the roof, then fell over themselves. Inside was a bundle of granite with red stripes all over it. Dust felt a presence rushing to him from behind, but was too taken with the odd happenings unfolding all around. First, the chandeliers began suddenly changing between chandeliers and Chandelures, then the ground became squishy, then hard again rapidly, and finally, the entire church turned into nothing. Dust's first thought was, naturally, that this was way above his pay grade.
The granite slowly shifted into a standing form similar to a coffin, and a final piece of the rock with a dragon head on it rose to the top of the coffin. An ominous purple aura appeared, connecting the coffin to four pieces, the one with the dragon head, one with a tail, and two other rocks that finger like apparitions began sprouting from. After each part was connected, a black flash shot out of a hole in the head rock, turning into an eye.
The presence behind Dust finally floated next to him and spoke. "You have know idea what you've done, boy. Millenia ago, a Runerigus was able to evolve somehow. It wiped out hundreds of thousands of pokemon and humans alike. The alpha Celebi worked with the alpha Marshadow, and both used all of their power to seal it in this golden cube made by Arceus himself. Arceus then used all of the dead souls to create me. I am the strongest Spiritomb, the guardian of the Golden Celebi tomb. I was making the rounds outside when I heard the seals about to release. You now have two options, boy. Help me seal this thing back up, or run and let millions die. Choose. Help me fight Drakarune. A little help is worth more than nothing."
Dust released all of his pokemon and briefly summarized what was going on. Everyone was scared, for obvious reasons, but Krabby was the first to step forward. He raised both pincers and started clicking them maniacally. Then came Eevee, who leapt up onto Dust's shoulders, then finally Charmander. The Duskull was still too tired to fight as more expensive potions were used for Krabby, who made a full recovery and was ready to fight due to the use of an emergency full restore. Only a moment after that, the rocks began rising higher and higher, as the granite shimmered, turning into a metal. Now at eleven feet tall, the Drakarune, shimmering an odd blue in the shape of a dragon and covered in strange symbols similar to Unown, began creaking, then roared, able to move. It grinned sadistically as Charmander suddenly found itself with a hole in its shoulder spewing blood. 'That's not good. One second in and already a pokemon bleeding severely and handicapped.'
"Eevee, test it's type using swift!" Eevee had somehow picked up swift the day before when trying to use sunny day, when she instead produced a big star that flew into the sky and turned into a large number of smaller stars that chased Krabby until he was returned.
Now, the large group of stars slammed into Drakarune, and it did indeed take damage, showing it was not a ghost type. It was very small damage, but the absolute hatred levied on Eevee was demonstrative of its anger. Its arms elongated as they turned black, and it began spinning in a darkest lariat. "Eevee, quick attack above it, then double kick on it's head!" Both of Eevee's feet hit it hard enough to make it stop spinning lest risk tipping over, but regardless, it would take around 500 more of those to actually make it even crack, let alone faint. The small spark that lit up during the collision showed that the move was super effective, making Dust assume the thing was a dragon/rock type if it wasn't some unknown type. It was unfortunate, then, that Dust didn't have any pokemon that could use any ice type moves. Krabby could probably BS it's way through one, but it was unlikely.
"Eevee, use swift to cover the dragon's sight! Krabby, move behind that pew and use all your power in one ancient power!" Everything went swimmingly so Dust sprayed a bit of potion on Charmander's wound, as a solid dragonbreath could deal at least some damage. Spritomb had finally gathered enough energy for what it told Dust about at the beginning of the fight. Spritomb used one of the strongest stat boosting moves, Geomancy. Supposedly exclusive to Xerneas, but Spiritomb could use it as well, because to survive living near such an evil creature, even a dark/ghost type meditated in fairy type energy at every opportunity. Krabby was also ready with all its power, and as the stony abomination saw the enormous golden shining boulder formed with a power of 276 from the twelve stat boost converted via sheer force, it realized it actually needed to get serious, so it drew up energy and blew out an enormous dragon pulse. Meanwhile, Spritomb had taken over the ancient power, as Krabby had already passed out from the strain with a brain hemorrhage from the massive strain. Spritomb used its own power that had also been boosted with geomancy to add even more force behind the ancient power that was now actually overpowering the dragon pulse from Drakarune.
Drakarune's eye shone with power as the dragon pulse became a concentrated beam. The ancient power folded in on itself, but wasn't pushed back. Spritomb started flickering even more, using its pressure ability at full power, making the runic creature begin tiring even faster. Dust was honestly more surprised that the collective power of hundreds of thousands of souls with a strong attack improved by Krabby nearly lost to Runerigus's evolution than he was at the fact that the Spiritomb knew both ancient power, albeit not as well as Krabby, and geomancy. Notice the wording is almostlost. Because of Spiritomb's pressure, Drakarune lost power quickly, and the ancient power finally hit. Even the move backed by Krabby's gathering of tons of energy and Spiritomb's enormous special attack dealt only one sixth of Drakarune's health pool despite taking out Krabby and weakening Spiritomb.
Suddenly, it raised both arms and used a massive amount of energy to form a dense black sphere of dark energy, which began sucking up everything around, to block out the sun. Simultaneously, it raised it's crystalline tail and slammed it into the ground, which broke apart and shattered. The ground and tons of trees, all now uprooted by an even more effective version of Krabby's knock off, flew up into the air into the dark sphere. The abomination used black hole eclipse and earthquake at the same time. With everyone raised midair, it then used a massive stone edge to send a sharp diamond spear at Eevee, who was unaware of the imminent fatal strike.
Compelled by the bond that he had developed with Eevee over the past few weeks, which was, albeit still budding, very strong, Dust grabbed Eevee and pushed it out of the way, lodging the diamond spear in his spine through his left lung. The black hole covered in dirt, trees, and nearby pokemon then slammed into the ground and exploded. Dust was covered by the falling earth and completely buried, blood pouring from his wounds. Eevee saw this and for her, the world stopped. Seeing his half buried form and the light leaving his eyes, she ROARED. For the second time in the history of Eevee, since the alpha Eevee, an Eevee roared rather than cried or screamed. She lit up in a white light spiraling with gold and black tints. Growing ten times her prior height to ten feet, a shockwave set off.
Eevee sat, glaring in pure fury at Runerigus. Around her was an energy projection of Arceus himself. With her eyes a white so pure, Jesus could have only wished it were his clothing, the astral form of Arceus opened its mouth and let loose a massive white beam: Eevee used Judgement. The beam bypassed through all twelve stone walls put up by Drakarune and blasted a hole straight through its center. Eevee immediately passed out, leaving only Charmander standing nearby with an expression that demonstrated his thoughts precisely. 'WTF?'
Spiritomb flew over to Dust and quickly began healing him with moonlight, also gained through fairy meditations. Dust soon woke back up and looked to the Spiritomb hovering next to him. "Did… did my Eevee just evolve into Arceus and use judgement to kill Drakarune?" Spiritomb looked down at him for a moment before raising his head, then shaking it.
"I suppose you will be the first human to learn the true history of pokemon. Let's get this over with. Nobody knows how the planet itself began, even the first pokemon. But in the beginning, there were two. Eevee and Espurr. These two would later go on to be known as "Purebloods" as they were not a mix of any other pokemon. Eevee went on to evolve into Arceus, and Espurr into Mew. These two then put stipulations and strict limiters on the other pokemon of their species to make it nearly impossible for another to evolve to the level of the first Mew or Arceus. Nobody knows how either evolved, just like nobody knows how the titans came to be. The titans were the first and strongest of their race, and there were exactly 800 of them. But Arceus nor Mew will tell how they came about, so many began treating Arceus as a benevolent god who created them all, rather than an immensely strong evolution of a somewhat rare pokemon. What? You don't believe me? Why has nobody ever considered why Eevee has such an unstable genetic code? Or why Meowstic evolves differently based on its sex? The first Eevee took years to evolve, but it eventually became Arceus. By making the genetic code of the Eevee species unstable, it means that an Eevee will most certainly evolve into one of the evolutions made by Arceus' tinkering before reaching the level of power necessary to evolve into Arceus. Mew was actually neither male nor female, so it made its species evolve into Meowstic when male or female. There has never been an intersex pokemon before, so Mew has never had another evolve from Espurr. However, Arceus did have that issue before, and an Eevee evolved into another Arceus around 300 years ago, so he put a final failsafe into play. An Eevee can use all of the energy accumulated for evolving to Arceus to use the power of judgement when angered, meaning that any Eevee with talent in evolving to Arceus would likely use up its energy at some point before evolving. However, I've never seen anything like your Eevee's move before. It used its energy to form a shell around its body of Immortal type energy. Only Arceus and Mew have the Immortal type, and Giratina can use some Immortal type moves, but for an unevolved Eevee to use it. Astounding. Regardless, no matter what you do, Arceus will not permit your Eevee to evolve to another Arceus. There is already a strain on the fabric of reality because their natures conflicting despite being near godlike, and he would likely just break your Eevee's capacity to evolve at all. However, Eevee might evolve into something else altogether if it can evolve into an Immortal type. Arceus was close, but was unable to do it. The strain on reality would actually probably lower if your Eevee could evolve into an Immortal and redefine the universe's power ceiling."
Dust was sitting there for ten minutes, thinking and processing the information. Eventually he looked over to the passed out Eevee, then gritted his teeth in anger. "How much pain and strain would Eevee be under to redefine the power ceiling?" When Spiritomb looked away and mumbled, Dust knew he was right. "I absolutely won't let Eevee go through that! You'll have to choose another idiot for that position, thank you very much! We'll become strong without making Eevee act like some sort of sacrifice."
Spiritomb shook his head, but nodded afterward as a sign that he understood. "By the way, something is off about that Krabby. Typically, no Krabby is that good with special moves other than water gun and bubble beam. I believe it also may be a titan's descendant. Now, you'd best be going before some wild pokemon decides you and your tired pokemon would make a good snack." Dust nodded and returned Eevee, standing up, and, opting to spend some quality time with Charmander, left him outside his ball. Then, he walked over to the now fairly destroyed cage and took a piece, before nodding to Spiritomb and walking and talking southwest with Charmander.
Unfortunately for Dust, this journey took a lot longer as reception didn't reach, so he had to follow the map without knowing his own location. It took a total of twelve fights and fourteen days to make it to Celadon. Krabby was in critical condition, Duskull was cool with the team as he had been bored guarding Drakarune's Tomb and bonded over the battles. Charmander was actually being trained and cared for unlike the anime, and therefore was both stronger and more respectful to Dust. Finally, the egg was shaking every so often, making it likely that it would hatch before challenging the gym leader. Poke Wild's pokemon were different from normal ones. Professors theorize it's the constant bloodlust they are drowned in from being an egg, but they are ready to fight from the time they hatch, and are notoriously difficult to control.
Dust was right, as around an hour out of town, the egg began rapidly shaking and glowing purple. First, a sharp white piece shot out one side of the egg, then two more emerged from the front. Big green eyes flashed from inside the egg as it exploded in a spray of eggshells. The first thing a pokemon sees, regardless of whether in the wilds or routes, becomes it's parent. And that's how Dust ended up unamused and with a Skourupi hanging from his nose.
It's moveset was displayed by the pokedex, and as expected of the Wilds pokemon, it was a doozy. Toxic, Venoshock, Whirlwind, Night Slash, and of all things, Tri Attack. It did the last one by putting electricity on one claw, ice on another, and a powerful fire reminiscent of its father on it's tail. Wild charge and flare blitz would be learned fairly quickly. As stated earlier, all things considered, it was as expected of the kid of a Volcarona and presumably a Drapion from the Wilds.
It was not proficient with its moves, and certainly needed some grinding before using it at a gym.
After making it back to the pokecenter, Dust brought out Krabby. Joy was disgusted and about to shout, but Dust put a stop to that before she began. "We can talk about my fight with a legendary pokemon AFTER you heal Krabby! Now, I need to call Oak and we need to get the champion down here. Shit just went down, and we're gonna need to talk about it.
Joy nodded frantically and took Krabby back, probably trusting him a little too easily. In the meantime he went to the phone to call Oak.
After eight rings, Oak finally answered. "Hmm? Dust? Already made it to Surge's gym?" Oak sounded like he just woke up, despite it being 8 pm.
"Not exactly professor. I got into deep trouble again. Have you ever heard about Drakorune?" After telling Oak the history behind Drakorune and only the stuff about Drakorune, Oak fell back into his seat with a hand over his face.
"If you truly set this abomination free, then how are you even alive right now?" So Dust told the professor everything that happened right up until his chest was pierced, then Oak interrupted. "Spiritomb, eh? Did you happen to catch it? Many of today's scientists want to learn more about the soul and Spiritomb is the perfect choice." Dust gave a negative; Oak sighed. "Unfortunate."
Dust picked the story back up. "Next was something very odd. Spiritomb used the Z-move black hole eclipse, earthquake, and stone edge at the same time. While everyone was midair from the first two except Charmander, who was for some reason unaffected, the thing sent a stone edge at Eevee. I grabbed her and turned to block the shot with my own body. I broke my spine, four ribs, and popped a lung. Spiritomb later healed me, so I'm fine, but it was while I was in and out that some...odd things happened. Eevee used the unique move of the pokemon god, Judgement, and proceeded to eviscerate the Drakarune. The second important thing is that its evolution seemed to have something to do with the Unown."
Oak opened his eyes widely as they physically could go. "JUDGEMENT? ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN ABOUT THIS?" Oak boomed into the mic, making Dust's headphones rattle a bit.
"Yes, positive. When it used it, it formed an outline of Arceus around him with his energy. Spiritomb claimed it was a mysterious ability of Eevee. Actually, that leads into the third important thing." Dust then explained about Mew and Arceus.
Oak grinned despite wanting to frown at how much danger Dust had been in. "You just uncovered what researchers have wondered for decades. You must be both the luckiest and unluckiest trainer I've ever seen. I'll do some research on other Eevee and Espurr. Can you send a video featuring Eevee using Judgement?" Dust coughed a bit.
"Well, actually, Eevee can supposedly only do it when she fulfills a certain nearness to evolving into Arceus and becomes incredibly angry. So it isn't something I can have her do on command. I skipped Surge for now, but I'll come for him before I go for Giovanni. Krabby dominated the match with an overpowered ancient power using sheer force in Cerulean. I also caught a Charmander and Duskull, and the egg from the Wilds hatched into a Skorupi with, get this, tri attack. The cute little thing will dominate this gym. It might actually end up being the strongest Drapion to set foot in Kanto. I hope it'll be able to use blast burn like its father, but since the only fire type attack Skorupi can usually use is sunny day, I doubt it. Any news on Ash?"
Oak widened his eyes at each new piece of information given. When he heard Skorupi knew tri attack, he went ballistic, but at the mention of Ash, he smiled fondly. "Well, Ash has been busy. He caught a Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Dratini. The boy has the luck of the gods. Watch out for him. Badges mean the world to him, and since you have two and he has three, he well might try to bully you. I would appreciate it if you knocked some sense into his head if he tries to fight."
"No problem, professor. That's about what I expected. When do you think he'll come here?" To tell the truth, Dust wanted to fight against both Ash and Gary, but Gary was taking a brief vacation in the Orange Islands and Ash got lost a lot. He wasn't however, expecting to hear someone addressing him with a nasally voice from behind.
"Oh? You're talking about little old me?" The one and only Ash was right behind him, somehow. Dust turned lazily to him.
"Why yes, I was. Talk to you later, professor, the conversation was done anyway." Oak nodded and ended the call. Dust leapt up and turned to Ash. "So, Ashy boy, when did you make it to town? Just now, I take it?" Ash nodded, then raised his coat to flex his three badges.
"Yup, I'm here for my fourth badge! You?" Dust shrugged with a hopeless expression on his face.
"Third badge myself. I'm planning to go back for Surge for a later gym badge since his challenge is better on the sixth and seventh badge." Ash smirked at him.
"Real shame you only have two badges. I was hoping you might prove a challenge in a battle." Dust's hopeless expression was sincere this time. 'AJ's gym really didn't teach him a thing.'
"Well, if you want a battle, I can give you one. You can use all your pokemon and I'll use…my Krabby. That should do the trick." Ash growled at Dust and grabbed his shirt.
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Dust just shrugged.
"It means I think my Krabby is strong enough to beat six of your pokemon. I'll put 500 pokedollars on it if I really need to." Slamming his fist into the wall, Ash pointed dramatically at Dust.
"Fine then. Let's get this thing going! You're just losing money thinking your little Krabby can beat my pokemon." Dust knocked his hand against his head like a cute anime girl and stuck out his tongue a bit.
"Well, we have to wait for Krabby to get out of the ICU first. He has a major brain injury and is healing right now. After my gym battle tomorrow?" Ash could barely force out a nod because of his anger and stormed off. Dust sat down at a cafe table just as Brock and Misty walked in. The place was packed, so the gym leaders were about to leave, but Dust released Eevee to fetch them. They followed it in confusion up to Dust's table, where it leapt onto one of the four chairs. Dust reached over and picked her up and began petting her. "Please, sit, gym leaders." Both of them flinched as Misty was not very well known as a gym leader, a less sensational sister if you will, and the Pewter gym was only run by Brock for a few years, so neither was he. "What, did you think I wouldn't recognize two of the people traveling with Ash Ketchum, Oak's grandkid in all but name?"
Both definitely flinched hearing that as VERY few knew that morsel of information. Misty defensively lowered her voice to him. "Who are you, anyway?" Dust looked at them with an unimpressed stare.
"I just started at the same time as Ash but already had two run-ins with six near legendary pokemon, a max level Pinsir, Heracross, Spiritomb, Volcarona, Ho-oh, and an ancient draconic spirit, not to mention I've given the old man tons of new avenues to study. Ash and Gary are Oak's grandkids. I'm Oak's field researcher, if you will, and the Pallet Dark Horse, Dust Stern.
Misty jumped up and pointed, drawing the ire of multiple customers. She sat back down then kept talking in a reasonable tone. "Ash did talk about you. He said you saved him a month ago and now you want to battle him in a 6v1, you having the one. He said you're almost as bad as Gary, whatever that means. Dust nodded.
"Yup, that's me, the one and only." Brock leaned forward and spoke for the first time arriving.
"But why? What are you trying to prove?"
"Oak wanted me to take him down a peg because he's getting too cocky, so I plan to destroy him in a pokemon battle. I might have trouble with Dratini and Bulbasaur, but everything else will be easy as far as I can see." The table guests turned to each other and nodded. Brock replied.
"That actually might be a good idea. His win streak is actually up to the thirties now and he's getting way too overconfident. Thanks for that. But do you really think one Krabby can take down the entirety of Ash's main team?"
From there, the three had a nice conversation and dinner before parting ways to go to sleep.