As the smoke cleared, accompanied by Ulfsigr and Connor both swearing vehemently, a man strode out, his hands held out as if seeking applause, a long red cape flowing behind him. He wore no mask, save for a red bandana covering the lower half of his face. He wore black armor with ornate ruby emblems across it, and two steely handles were strapped to his chain-link belt. He also wore a wide-brimmed hat, which shaded his face but still revealed his glowing blue eyes.
"Greetings, Legendborn!", he declared, "You may refer to me as the Big Y, and I believe I must end you here and now! Hold still, and it will be over quickly and mostly painlessly."
Ulfsigr pulled out his gun. "Nah, that doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I think we should end you, for all the suffering you've caused so far!"
Mantis clanged his pincers together. "That's right! I'll help him do it, too!"
Connor readied a Pokeball. "Yeah, we're not letting you get away with this!"
The Big Y sighed. "How unfortunate. Very well then, I will have to put you in your place!"
He reached out with one of his hands, and it started glowing an ominous red.
But Ulfsigr shot him first. The man stumbled back, clutching his chest, but then stood up straight once more, laughing evilly.
"The Darkness will not let me die so easily!", he declared, "You will only delay us, by just a little bit! It would be much easier for you to surrender, rather than see what is in store for this world."
Gary replied, "That's what you'd like to think!"
He sent out his Ninetales, shouting, "Morgan, attack him with Flamethrower! Don't let him use his magic on you!"
Morgan nodded, dashing towards the Big Y and breathing a jet of flames from her jaws. However, he simply dodged around it, with only his cape getting singed. He then grabbed the handles from his belt, which hummed before lighting up with double axeblades on each hilt, which were made of a volatile crackling red energy.
"More aurablades!?", exclaimed Ray, "Your master really outfitted you lot, huh? I won't let that stop us, though!"
He released his Corviknight, who squawked a battlecry and spread his wings out protectively. Meanwhile, Connor sent out Arch, who started spinning a web to try and entrap the Dark Legendborn.
As their enemy started spinning his aura axes, Kelly summoned her sword of water to counter him. She swung her blade into his with a flurry of sparks, but the Big Y was much more experienced and swiftly deflected her blade and kicked her into the ground.
Before he could land a finishing blow on her, though, Carla and Carlos sent out their pair of Pyroars, who both pounced at the Darkness's servant. He retreated, then summoned a burst of dark energy that blasted everyone back.
Mantis screeched angrily and charged him, pincers lighting up with steely energy, but the Big Y swung his axes and a blast of fiery energy sent the bug Pokemon crashing into the monolith.
"You will never triumph!", he roared, "I am far stronger than all of you combined!"
"Perhaps we'll never win by brute force...", Connor mused, "But that's not the only thing we can do."
Behind him, his Sniny Snom used an Icy Wind to freeze a section of the ground.
The Big Y laughed. "Is that all you've got? A little bug that can't even hit me with an attack?"
Clara smiled. "Actually, that's not what he's doing."
She sent out Nimbi. "Quickly, use Earthquake to break that out of the ground!"
The Altaria seemed confused, but caused the ground to start shaking. The chunk of ice-coated earth rose up and broke free, for a purpose not many had figured out yet.
Gary seemed to figure it out, and slid in front of it, hands up. "I surrender! Please finish me off quickly!"
Behind him, Ulfsigr raced over to the chunk of earth and rose it so the icy surface faced the Big Y, the Dark Legendborn's reflection seen across it.
"I'm so glad one of you finally saw reason!", declared the Big Y, booting away Kelly as she tried to charge him again. He rose his hand, red light crackling around it once more, while Mantis cried, "What are you guys DOING!?"
"Watch and see.", whispered Connor, watching as the Big Y pointed at Gary.
One had to give Gary credit for how fast he dodged - impossibly so, as the red spell barely missed him and struck the icy surface. The Big Y's eyes widened as he realized what was happening, but by then it was too late.
The spell struck the mirror and bounced back, hitting him directly. He screamed as it struck him, but it was cut off as his body turned to stone.
Everyone whooped and cheered, high-fiving each other and celebrating their success. Ray looked at Connor, asking, "How did you know that was going to work?"
"I didn't.", Connor admitted, "But I figured that was the best plan, and it succeeded."
Gary chuckled. "Good thing I was dumb enough to throw myself in that very dangerous position without question, that's for sure. Catherine certainly wouldn't have done that."
Clara smiled. "I guessed that was the plan pretty quickly. There was a legend of an old monster that turned people into stone in some of the tombs people have explored, and it was defeated in a very similar manner."
At that moment, Mantis landed among them, holding something in his claws.
"I retrieved the item from the top of the pillar for you guys.", he said, "It is...very strange."
He laid a small black box in front of them.
"What is that?", asked Clara curiously.
Mantis shrugged. "No idea."
Connor picked it up to investigate it further, but as he did so some mist leaked out and swirled around him, shimmering with a strange aura.
Ray gasped. "You're the only one who can use it now!"
"Um, what?", asked Connor.
"Remember? Yveltal said whoever picked it up was the only one who could use it!", answered Ray, "Whatever the mystery behind that is, only you can solve it now!"
Connor frowned. "Well, damn. I know nothing about this weird magic stuff."
He tucked it into his bag. "I'll deal with it later. What are we going to do now?"
Ray looked around, and his eyes widened. "Hey, whatever happened to that kid who showed up earlier?"
Mantis looked around, and spotted something at the base of a tree. "Look!"
The Legendborn ran over, and saw that it was a broken mask, the same one the cultists wore.
"That accursed smoke bomb!", yelled Ulfsigr, "They must have abducted him while it was up!"
"There are footprints leading away from it. Looks like we can follow them.", commented Clara.
Ray nodded. "Let's go at once!"
Gary moaned. "I suppose that means there's not going to be any lunch?" (-o-)
AN: Finally, another chapter!
Embarrassingly enough, I had forgotten I had made my newest addition to the story show up at the end of the last chapter until I was three-quarters of the way done with this one, so I had to quickly squeeze in a reason why at the end here.
However, we won't be checking back with this group for a little bit, because the next chapter is going to be about the other group and what's going on with them!
See you all next time!