(Authors note-this story is a little-different then the other chapters. Hehehehe...)

Oak woke up, dazed and in pain, to see that he was riding on the back of a Lapras. "What...I was falling...why am I riding down this river?"

The professor heard a commotion to the side of him, and a mumbling voice along with it. At the edge of Lapras, clinging with almighty strength, was Cypress.

Oak jumped up, and almost fell over the side of the Pokémon. "Cypress! What are you doing here? I would think I should throw you off this Pokémon! Well?!"

The older man was about to do what he promised, but something about Cypress stopped him.

The Eclipse Lord was in pitiful condition, bloodied, leg broken, cut and scraped, and pathetically whimpering. Oak also saw that his eyes were not red or purple, but ordinary brown. Cypress saw Oak, and started screaming in terror. "DON'T LEAVE ME! DON'T MAKE ME GO BACK! OH GOD, HELP ME!" Oak glared at him. "Be quiet, and take my hand!" Cypress did so, sobbing.

After pulling the wreck of a man up to the top part of the shell, Oak started looking around his surroundings. They were on Crescent Island, definitely, but there was no one in sight. He would have to figure out a way to get back to civilization with Cypress, since his Poke Gear was broken, and he had lost his Poke Balls.

"Alright, don't try anything funny. You are going to jail, and you are going to stay there. It doesn't look like you're so mighty now! Stay put, and maybe I won't kick you off to drown."

Cypress stopped crying, and started a low, horrible laugh that gradually rose in insanity. "Prison! Yes, yes take me there! And then what happens? Hmm? I stay for the rest of my days, correct?" Oak was confused at his sudden switch in behavior.

"Yes. You are going to stay there, live there, and die there." Cypress covered his eyes, whimpering. "DON'T SAY THAT WORD!" Oak was getting exasperated. "What, die?" Cypress screamed again. "YES! Oh please, if there is any mercy in the world, do not say it!"

Oak was curious at his sudden fear of death. "Fine. Why are you so uncomfortable with it anyway?" Cypress looked into Oak's face, eyes hateful. "Tell me, professor, have you ever wondered what happens after death?"

Oak was puzzled. "Of course. I will see my mother and father again in the halls of Arceus." Cypress spat. "HA! You don't know, don't know..."

The good professor grabbed him by the neck and shook him. "What is this? If you have something to say, spill it!

Cypress seemed to have calmed down enough to speak clearly. "Fine. I will draw it out for you, of course. Assume that the eternity is a infinitely large apple. The rind, of course, is not infinitely thick, and we are people sinking through it. But remember, this rind has a thickness of time. It is about 120 years thick in the very best places. And we are sinking through it to eternity underneath the rind. Do you understand?"

Oak nodded, and Cypress continued. "For this single reason, the most important thing is to stay in the rind for as long as possible! Extending it by a hour, minute, second, half-second...it is the only thing that matters. Like when a man condemned to die waits for death! What difference does a short reprieve make, you say? The difference!"

"That can't possibly be true!"

"Oh, I'll tell you what true. A little child sneaks upstairs when its parents are not looking, and sees the laid out body of its dead grandmother. It is terribly frightened, this is a rather large grandmother, you see."

"What do you mean by saying that's true?"

"You see...that child knows something...something that all science and religion are trying to hide."

"Like what?"

"Imagine this. Children know not to walk through a graveyard at night. The grown-ups say it's all silly nonsense, but the children know more than the grownups. Ancient Alolans doing beastly things in masks in the middle of the night know it too. The colonists and civil servants say it's all superstition, but the blacks know more than the whites! Dirty monks in back alleys in Nimbasa City, scaring children to death with horrible tales. You might say that they are unenlightened, but they are far more knowledgeable about how the universe works then you. The only thing they get wrong is that the think that there is a way out. There isn't! That's the real universe, forever and ever. That what's true."

"How does that prove anything?"

"Don't you see? Don't you realize that what they are realizing is what scientists are trying to avoid? What is the meaning about all this talk about the danger of life force extraction and Mega Evolution and the indeterminacy of the atom? The ancients knew. The Old Rorians certainty did. That all the dead have sunk below into what we call Death. Gibbering, writhing, decaying monsters. Boogeymen. Every reasonable person knows that the dead hate the living, like how old woman hate young girls who still have their good looks. It's quite alright to fear the ghosts. You're going to be one all the same!"

"Why should you care so much? It doesn't seem that you did in the past!" Oak said. Cypress twitched. "I see it now. It's all true, you know. I tried to convince myself that the human race and Pokémon really mattered, made a difference in the universe. Its all rubbish! Nothing matters but staying above the rind. All knowledge, all thought, becomes irrelevant afterwards!"

"I see," Oak sarcastically said. "That the way truth works changes very much on where someone is standing." Cypress licked his lips, droning on. "Yes, and also if you are inside or outside the rind! The nature of dead things is inherently unpleasant. All the happy accounts of contacting the dead are either legendary or theosophical. The real encounters with the dead...Ectoplasm, slimy films coming from a medium's belly. Automatic writing machines produce reams of garbage. Why do ghosts haunt? Because they are ghosts! What other reason?"

"Where did this fear of death come from? Surely you are worried about your judgement in the afterworld?" Cypress shook his head. "NO! NO! Not that! You see, all the experiences that make the thing we call 'logic,' vanish once you get beyond the rind! All pleasures of this earth, too. A delicious berry. A beautiful human body. And what is beneath this shell we call life? Darkness, heat, worms, pressure, salt, suffocation, stench."

"Ridiculous!" Oak thundered. "Arceus would never allow such a thing to be our fate!"

Cypress giggled manically. "ARCEUS! Arceus! Even if he does possess such power, which I doubt, it always says that he is the God of the Living, no? Not the God of the Dead! Whether he really is the all-powerful master of the universe or any rot like that, as soon as you cross the rind, goodbye! He is like a moon, orbiting outside of the rind. I never believed in God, but there is more truth in the old Hisunian manuscripts than most people realize. If He is infinite, always living and present, then once we go into Non-Living, that is like nothing to him. So, he can warrant to ignore us. He is in everything, not nothing! Then onward, forever, a godless eternity. Any black pleasures I felt within the land beyond the rind would surely have sent the righteous running for their prayers if they even got a glimpse of it!"

Oak was getting angry. "How would you know what death is like? You're alive, aren't you?" Cypress shook his head, eyes bulging. "He left me...I was forced down. Taken. Oh God, Oak, its awful. They take your head off...they drown you. Layers and layers. Buried alive. You try to connect things and can't. You can't even think back at life before the rind, because it all vanishes! You can't use logic, because that only applies to life in the rind! Real, unreal, true, false, they're all only on the surface. They give way the moment you press them!"

"I once had a vision, at a certain point in my life, although I never knew how true it was until now. I was sitting in a coffin, all clean and well dressed, ready for my funeral. There was this person sitting in the corner of the room, like a homeless man, you know, but instead of his clothes falling off, it was like the person itself was falling to pieces. It sat there, just hating me. "Oh, you go on and wait!" It said. "You think you're so important with your shiny coffin and nice sheets! They all start out like that. I did. Wait till you see what's coming!" I tell you, there were no humans in that place! Only trash. Remains. Human dust. The image of creation had been quenched so thoroughly, that it was all gone. All gone." Cypress then broke down into tears.

Oak grunted. "Have some courage, Cypress. Many children are facing death this very moment, with far more strength then you would! Well get out of this soon enough. If you really think it was that bad, perhaps you can find some strength in Arceus." Cypress sneered. "Oh, my friend, there is hope, I tell you. There is a way. It is the Spirit-Force."

"What?"

"I tell you, the only thing that is worthy of worship is the Spirit-Force. It goes above mere men and morals. It has ascended such things! It's will is quite clear in whether I should follow! Whether I will be saved from leaving the rind, is up to my devotion to it. It is unfathomable, yet conscious. Everything must be done in service to it."

"So, if this Spirit-Force told you to murder me, would you do it?"

"Yes."

"Or sell Kanto to Team Rocket?"

"Yes."

"Or publish serious lies in newspapers?"

"Yes."

"God help you!"

"There is no God but mine, you fool!"

Oak saw that they were approaching a waterfall. Cypress saw it as well, and started screaming. "OAK, SAVE ME! DON'T LET ME GO UNDER THE RIND AGAIN, HELP ME! Ohhhhh, shadows and dust..." Oak had to restrain him from falling of the Lapras.

"Don't worry! Just take it with hope, and maybe we'll get out of this one yet! I would say we could survive that fall, and even if we don't, drowning or hitting our heads wouldn't be too bad, better than a stab wound, or cancer. Reject this thing which you have been serving, and perhaps all will be well for you." Cypress shook him off, and pounded the shell, enraged.

"Idiot. IDIOT! Don't you understand, you pigeon-brained old fool? There is too far of a distinction between your ridiculous morals and IT! I am the central driver of MY universe! So help me, I will conquer you and your little friends..."

Oak saw what was happening. "Wait! If the thing left you, don't risk it again! You're coming too close to the point of contact! Completely giving yourself to the thing! Come back, try a second chance-"

Cypress cut him of with a voice that was nearly a howl. "QUIET! Don't you see, you timid scruple-mongering man? I am the universe! I, Cypress, am your God and your Devil! I call the Force into me completely..."

Then terrible things began to happen. Cypress's face contracted like he was about to vomit, and then clamped down onto the Lapras shell so hard his nails broke. His eyes glowed red, and the he started gave another cry of; "No, don't let him take me, good god, the dark has come-" and then started foaming like a rabid dog. Although one would suspect the latter, Oak thought that Cypress was in no pain at all, or indescribable pain.

They were almost at the waterfall, and the Lapras was readying for the fall.

Cypress was now hissing and vomiting up a strange green substance, eyes smoking. He was moaning the words; "I can't bear it." over and over. As they went over the edge, Oak could almost see Cypress smiling, eyes glowing violet.

The impact was so intense that Oak would likely have died if it weren't for the Lapras stabilizing the shock. Oak braced against the blinding spray of water, and finally opened his eyes once it his diminished to mere mist.

To Oak's left was the demon, on all fours, snickering at the wounded professor. "Ha ha ha ha! Looks like I get him again, old Samuel! Goodbye! Despite this setback, my plan will continue as intended. Bonne chance, old man!" Cypress jumped off the Lapras, and began paddling to the shore, his injuries healing.

Oak waited till the Lapras reached a narrow side of the lake, and rolled onto the soft earth. So, it had come to this.

The professor saw a shape blocked by the midday sun. It was Rowan, Red, and Cynthia on Red's Aero. Oak limped up, and grabbed Red's outstretched hand.

Cynthia peppered him with questions. "Where have you been? How did you get here? Do you know where Cypress is?" Oak held up his hands. "I've been with Cypress, and he said some interesting things that I'll talk about later. I've also been riding on the back of a Lapras. So, what happened after that blast?"

Everyone hesitated, and then Rowan spoke. "We cleared the base, but a few trainers who were fighting Cypress, including Koga say that he was totally overcome by some entity. A few people were injured in the fight against the virtual trainers, and Spenser..."

"Gone." Red said. "Cypress did it." Oak felt even more rage than he ever had at that man, totally devoured by evil, given himself to a power far beyond his imagination. He was gone, possibly forever.

"Bruno isn't doing well either." Cynthia said. "The smoke attack that Cypress hit him with seems to have poisoned him in a way that we can't describe. It's like his very life-force is being destroyed. I can't say if he'll recover or not. We didn't find too much in terms of intel, it seems that they cleaned it out. We don't know where the gunship has gone, but all our people are on it. I would say that this was a Pyrrhic victory, as they were going to leave in the first place."

Oak sighed, and winced at a pain in his side. "Well, I wouldn't say I'm doing my best either. I better get back and have someone check me up. Cypress is gone, by the way. I don't think we can find him even if we tried, at least here. We still have to see what he has planned, and put a irreversible stop to it."

Red edged Aero on, and the professor, Champion, and Pokedex Holder flew off to the volcano in the distance.

(Authors note: This was probably the hardest chapter to write ever, even though I did it quickly. No action, just talk. What is hell? That is hell!)