Artic was halfway through charging an Icebeam to use on Laura when she felt it.
The bonds that controlled her body weakened, just for a second. She turned her head towards her 'master' in confusion.
He was being attacked! Dodging flamethrower after flamethrower, he was ducking around wildly... Who was attacking him? Eric?
Maura!
How could that be? Maura was under his control, just like she was. She still had the memories of the horrible burns, branded on her mind, to prove that.
And yet, there was no doubt what she was seeing. That was a Moltres, sending a ceaseless barrage of Flamethrowers from her beak. And that was a very shocked-looking Charizard, dodging, leaping, shooting side to side...
...And getting hit full in the face with a Fire Blast
In the shock and pain, the instructions Aria recieved were garbled and panicked. She lost control of her body, but it seemed he didn't have much power over it either... the Ice Beam in the back of her throat was released. She'd been too busy staring at this incredible event to remember it.
By pure chance, it hit the Charizard morph full-on.
At first the shock coursed through her body from the connection... then she felt it. Freedom. She could control herself again.
But then the power coursed back at her. No. Defend, don't attack the Charizard. Charizard friend. Attack winged girl.
Nuh-uh. Maura's the good one. Charizard bad. And he's gonna die.
The voices in her head melted like butter under a Fire Blast. She was in control now. Goodbye, Charizard, 'Master'.
Artic was quickly beside Maura in a ceaseless rage, attacking the being in front of her with everything she had. Ice Beam after Ice Beam flew from her beak, biting cold wind and shards of ice poured from her wings as she flapped them furiously.
I'm stronger than some stupid Charizard! DIE! Her lungs, her eyes, her throat, her heart, every part of her body burned from the effort. But she didn't care. Nothing mattered except the Charizard. All she wanted was to hurt that morph as much as possible, even if it killed her.
However, neither her ice or Maura's fire was doing much damage to the fire-based Charizard. He'd begun to get over the shock. The power holding her under his control was beginning to return. He was beginning to fight back. A fireball slammed her backwards. But she wasn't nearly finished yet.
She was soon finding it harder and harder to control herself. Every attack took a little more effort than the last. She found herself desperately resisting the urge to turn on Maura, next to her.
This wasn't going to work, she realised. It was fun while it lasted, but...
A deep scream sounded, and the control slipped again. Sammy stood there on all fours, the last vestiges of a Hydro Pump dripping from his jaws.
Zelda and Holly flew in nearby, forming a circle about the Charizard, who was still recovering from the deadly water attack.
This was going to get ugly.

~-~-~-~

Dodging furiously, the Charizard was in trouble. The Moltres was the first one to have broken free of his powers. The others followed, one by one... until they'd all broken free of control... joined forces with the other four... And now he had nothing but the lesser pokemon that he'd captured to protect him. They were being worn down easily. He couldn't win.
He felt the despair, the hopelessness, knowing he couldn't possibly win this one... It was eating away at his core...

His eyes snapped open. A dream... a nightmare... his heart was racing, adreniline pumping...
He looked around. The Houou morph, Holly, she was watching him. Staring at him. He remembered those eyes from the dream... accusing, evil...
"It was you, wasn't it?" He glared at her. "You're manipulating my mind."
She physically didn't change, simply nodded... But even from here he could feel the psychic waves of smugness.
"Now you know what it feels like..." She whispered. "To know hopelessness..."
Damian sighed, knowing that it had all been a dream. He hadn't sent them out to attack yet, since Maura had been captured. But he was still shaken. She shouldn't have that sort of power, not while under his control. But he pushed it down, and glared at her.
"Well... I think this next row will make you think twice about trying that again. This is what you're going to do..."

Sometime later

In some hidden location somewhere, the Charizard sat, apparently asleep, but just thinking about what had happened... and what was certain to happen soon. The five legendaries were laying around near him - he was in a good mood, for some reason, and was letting them have a break from their training.
Holly, sitting next to him in a very similar position, suddenly looked up. "She's awake."
"Really? Well... I guess you know what to do then..."
She nodded, and closed her eyes again, concentrating. He allowed her to enter his mind, and felt his mind connect with hers... and then spinning out through the etheral plane, searching out a single mind...

~-~-~-~

Maura slowly regained consciousness. The first thing she was aware of was a group of four standing in front of her, and she somehow instinctively knew they were the enemy. She unleashed a flamethrower in their direction...
When the flames cleared, they were standing there unharmed, and a blue-tinted barrier faded back into invisiblity. Her eyes cleared a little, and she realised she'd just attacked her friends.
Then she saw the stern looks they were giving her, and the memories tumbled back. She tried to move her body, and couldn't... but then her body made a move without her, and it still couldn't move.
She felt the desperation coming back as her head was forced to move left, right, and saw the cuffs that chained her wing-arms to the wall. Trying to move her legs, she found they were cuffed too.
"Don't bother. They're practically unbreakable. And completely fireproof too."
Maura felt her face curl into a sneer. "You'll never hold me. I'll get free."
"We'll see about that."
"You can't protect her. There's only four of you, and I've got six including Maura."
"What?" The others were quite confused to hear their friend talk about herself in third person, possessed or not.
"Oh, I guess I should explain." Her face curled into an evil grin. "This is Damian here, the one who's been capturing your friends. I'm talking through this little girl, thanks to the psychic powers of your Houou friend. (If shown in video, this would have an image of Damian's face superimposed on Maura's for a few seconds, saying the same words at the same time.)
"Just let her go. And the others."
"Let them go?" She laughed cruelly, which was a very strange sound coming from the gentle Moltres morph. "I think not."
"What do you want from us?"
"Exactly that. You. Once I get all ten of you, the ten most powerful pokemon in the history of the world... who will be able to stop me?" She laughed again. "Of course... you could make it easy and surrender... but I'm fairly sure you won't do that."
"Damn right we won't. We'll take you down."
"Really? And what about your friends? Will you 'take them down' too?"
There was a silence. "Thought not. It's amazing, this technology. Every command, they follow to the letter. All that's left of them is their minds, crying and sobbing for freedom. Useless. It's impossible to break out of the pokeball's restraints..."
"Let them go!" Shreiked Silver, unable to take it any more. Firebird's eyes glared into hers.
"I'm not sure which is more satisfying... the power I have over them, to control them... or how they feel about it inside. I could have Maura attack you now, you realise. Your Mewtwo's shields can't last forever."
Blue's eyes narrowed, as if to say "Neither can her flames."
"Or, alternatively, I could make her kill herself." He continued through her. "How about that? I could tell her to put her own flames out... and her life would be snuffed along with them. A normal Moltres has instinctive barriers that would prevent such a thing occurring, and so does your friend... but they're no match for the power of the pokeball."
"But you won't, will you?" Laura retorted. "You wouldn't lose one of your prizes."
The flaming feathers of the Firebird suddenly dimmed, losing their fiery glow. All four of the remaining legendaries yelled in suprise.
"Scared you, didn't I? Don't worry... she'll live. But it hurt her... I can feel her pain, hear her screams all the way back here." The fire began to slowly build up again.
"Why can't you just leave us alone?"
"What fun would that be? Anyway... right now I am leaving you alone."
"But you're not leaving Maura alone. Or Holly, or Artic, or BJ, or Draco, or Zelda!" Silver was almost crying now.
"Oh, I could be doing much worse." Maura's grin twisted into something even eviller, which did not suit her face. "Holly, here... she's sitting right next to me. Transmitting my mind to Maura. She's pretty cute, isn't she?"
"You leave her alone!"
"Or Aria, the Articuno..." A short hum. "Such lovely, soft feathers..."
"Don't touch her!"
"Zelda... she's a little spiky for me, but..."
"Stop it! Stop it!" Gold had now completely broken into tears.
"Stop it? Why, I'm only getting started. No, I think I'll leave the Zapdos alone for now. Back to Artic... How about a kiss?" There was silence for a moment, then another grin, this time looking curious, interested. "She's not bad... if a little cold..." He laughed at his own joke.
"Please... stop it..."
"Okay... maybe Holly again... Hmm, she seems a little disgusted by me stroking her hair..."
"Why wouldn't she be, you freak?!"
"My, my... Yes, she's got quite a bit of hatred for me in her thoughts. Amazing what you can pick up with these psychic links. Would you like to know what she's thinking?"
He didn't wait for a reply. Suddenly Maura's body slumped in its chains, and the confident controlled voice of Damian melted away into almost incoherent, fevered mumblings.
"OhgodletmegoleavemyfriendsalonegetmeoutofherestopthisletmegoyoubastardletmeoutofthisnightmareNOyoufreakI'mnotgonnakissyou... ohgodIcan'tstop... bleahdisgusting... fuckingbastard... ohgod... letmeout... makeitstop..." It fell into crying and sobbing, punctuated by the occasional plea or insult.
"STOP IT!" Silver screeched, in much the same state. "Please... no more... please stop it."
Maura's head snapped up again. "You don't like that? Your other friends are thinking something along the same lines. Although with your Moltres friend it's almost all cursing. I've never seen anyone with so much hatred in their hearts. Would you like me to..."
Josh made a cutting motion with one hand, and shook his head sternly. Maura laughed again.
"She'll break eventually. Accept your fate. It'd be a lot easier, in the long run. There's no real mental torture, once you accept it..."
"I'd prefer to be tortured every day for the rest of my life than work with you."
"No... that's not what I meant. I mean accept that there's no escape. That you really will do whatever I say. I've been working on some rather interesting ways to do that to your friends. I think... probably killing one of your friends slowly would probably do the trick. Let's see... What's the Suikun's name again? Bubblejet, isn't it? BJ? Hey, BJ! Got any... interests in any of the girls?"
There was a pause. "Hmmm... he says he's got a fairly big crush on Artic. And she feels... the same way, whaddya know! So... how about I have them battle to the death?"
"You wouldn't dare." Eric snarled.
"I think BJ's fangs could do a fair bit of damage... Pretty strong stuff... Hey, there's an idea. I could have him eat her alive! Hmm... and her beak looks like it could cause some fairly nasty tears too..."
"Please... stop it... we'll do anything..." Silver sobbed frantically.
"Join me. Join your friends."
"No! Then you'll just do the same things anyway! And with us too."
"Hmm... well then. That does put you in a bit of a dilemma then, doesn't it? I'll tell you what... Your Moltres friend here... she won't eat anything. She won't try to escape, but she'll refuse to eat, drink, anything. If you hand yourselves over to me, then I'll let her go... but otherwise, you're condemning your friend to a long, slow, painful death. Have fun, and hopefully see you soon..." Maura winked, and then her head fell down, along with the rest of her body, as if unconscious.
The four of them looked at each other. This couldn't be good... not at all...

~-~-~-~

They were on their way home from the prison cell where Maura was being held when Silver looked at Blue, trying to clear tears from her eyes. "You should run away." She said, carefully.
"What?!" He signed frantically, "And leave you guys by yourselves? No way!"
"Listen... if Damian gets you, then we're all screwed. The rest of us can't beat you... but if you stay free, run away somewhere else, then someday you can come back with the element of suprise... Once you've worked out how to use those powers of yours properly. And you can free us all, if we're okay..."
"But..."
"No buts! Get going. Somewhere where nobody would ever suspect. Don't tell us, or he'll know. Please... go. Now..."
Blue looked to the others for support... but they were nodding sadly, agreeing with her. Sighing, he moved his consciousness to the psychic plane and picked a location at random, far away from here...
His form shimmered and faded... and vanished...
The four became three... and they readied theirselves for the final battle...