The heart of Serene Village still slept beneath a heavy moon. A crisp breeze drew waves over the lake and lapped at the reeds. This was it, the Fennekin thought to herself. The last look she would have of her home. At all of her friends, and all the people she loved. Everyone.
Vallion shuffled listlessly in the grass beside her. No. Not everyone.
"I just wanted to get a good, long look at this scenery..." Panne begun, the words stuck at the back of her tongue. She forced herself to say them-to make them a reality. "...It's finally time to leave the village."
"Are you okay?" the Snivy quietly asked. Did he see the tears that had welled up beneath her eyes?
She sniffled. "Yeah. I'm alright."
"We don't have to leave right this instant," Vallion scooted up a little closer. "We could still sneak back in, just like we got out. You could hide that letter again before anyone finds it. We can wait if you want."
"No. No more waiting! We have to go if we want to make our dreams come true!" The Fennekin stuck out her chest all proud and triumphant, even if her cheeks were starting to get wet. "It's just that, when I look down at the village, I see nothing but good things. There's so much I don't want to say goodbye to!"
His tiny smile was so reassuring. Just seeing it made her feel like she could walk the world over. "I know it's hard, but you can do it. We'll do it together. And when we make a map of the world, we can come back and show it to everyone, and they'll all be so impressed and proud that they won't even mind."
"Heh. They will be proud, won't they? Still, I bet Pops' is gonna chew my head off the second I get back though, map or not." Panne chuckled with him, the fluttering feeling in her stomach flying away at the beautiful sound. Running off was always going to hurt, but it was a pain that was necessary for the future. To become an explorer worthy of accomplishing something great, you need to be able to make the hardest choices. At least she wasn't alone. There was no one in the whole world she trusted more than the pokemon beside her now.
The Fennekin sighed. She was about to turn to Vallion, ready to say that they should be off already, but something stopped her. Just when she was about to dismiss the feeling as another pang of doubt, it manifested itself in her stomach and sat like a ball of lead. She gazed out into the sleepy valley with a disturbed look stuck to her face. There was something off here, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out what it was. Maybe it was something in the air? No, it couldn't be. She caught all the scents of a normal summer morning and that was all.
"...Are you sure you're gonna be okay?" Vallion asked. She glanced his way and felt her blood instantly run cold at the sight of his worried expression. Still, there was no answer for what had gotten under her skin. "Have you been staring at the barrow again? You look like you've just seen a ghost."
"Haha. No, I-.."
His eyes. Wide and bright, full of that golden color she loved so much, but there was something about them that didn't look quite right. The last thing he had said rang in her ears and bounced around inside her skull. It was the word ghost that screamed at her most. What was once a chilly midnight breeze had devolved into a frigid wind that ran shudders down her back. It was as if a veil she wasn't even aware of had suddenly been ripped away right before her eyes. When Panne jumped away from the Snivy, her upright body was that of a Delphox once more.
"No! It's you! You're not Val!"
"Huh? What's with you all of a sudden? Of course I'm Vallion!" The mockery of her lover took a step forward. She took two backwards in response.
"You stay back!" She held her arms out in front of her, but no flames came to life. Even the gentle moonlight of this monumental night bore down on her. "You thought you could trick me, huh? You couldn't even pass off for him in my own dreams! I'll make you regret this, you bastard!"
"Panne, I don't know what you're talking about! Just tell me what's going on!" The imposter did its best to look anguished, and the effect it had on her was devastating-seeing his face scrunch up like that. "Please, just tell me what's wrong. Don't look at me like that."
She tried so, so hard to make it seem like the act had no effect on her, but a flood of tears blurred her vision almost immediately. "You're never going to hurt him again. I won't let you near Vallion ever, ever again. Mark my words, demon!"
Like a mirror, the Snivy's eyes began to water. "You're seriously scaring me, Panne! Snap out of it! It's really me! This is the scarf you gave me, see?!" He pointed to the Harmony Scarf around his neck. "You said you wanted to be best friends with me, remember? Please remember!"
"That's just an illusion! You can't-!" The Delphox's voice cracked when she glanced at her barren wrist. She grasped at the empty space in vain, staring wide-eyed at what was around the imposter's neck. "How did you get that? You're not him! That doesn't belong on you!"
They extended a vine, only to slowly touch the Harmony Scarf that was around her neck. "These are just like our old ones, you know. I spent so long trying to get them. Xerneas doesn't let anything leave the island, not even something as harmless as the sand on the beaches. I tried so hard to make my gift more special than ever."
"Enough of this!" Panne knocked the vine away. "You're evil! Worse than Dark Matter, even! You're just a parasite that's living in his image! If you cared at all, you'd know that Val would rather die than let me be tortured like this! You would know!"
"Is that really what I would want?" their off-key voice dripped with so much sincerity that it made Panne sick to her stomach.
"I- I-" The Delphox went from brandishing her claws to clutching her chest. The very air throbbed with the pounding of her heart. She watched through a sheen of tears as the Snivy became enveloped in a shroud of golden light. The light that was supposed to surround her.
"I can go if you want me to," the mirage said, twinkling sparks floating off of their puffy eyes. "I would do anything for you. If you wanted me to leave, I would."
Panne coughed as a fit of sobs wracked her frame. "You! You can't just-!" It became too hard to speak. The Snivy turned away and stared down at the valley as their form began to shimmer and fade. She extended her hand towards him, but it was too late. The lights shot up into the clouds. Then, one by one, they faded into nothingness. The Delphox collapsed into the grass and wept as the waves lapped on.
...
"Come on, guys! We're almost there!"
Mew danced through the air, urging most of the Society through a terribly dense patch of brambles while she effortlessly floated above. The already massive flora only seemed to grow larger with every step they took towards the center of the jungle. Judging from the ten-foot tall blades of grass that grew between whole pillars of roots, they probably weren't far now. What little rain managed to filter past the nigh-impenetrable canopy dropped onto their heads at uneven intervals. Even the wind seemed to slow down in here. Panne bit her tongue in silence, knowing full well that the storm could only wane when the Spiritomb was holding its breath.
"That's easy for you to say!" Volcarona complained, struggling to crawl along the jungle floor with her wings catching on every little snag. "I am so done with walking! If I ever complain about having to fly in the wind again, somebody smack me across the face!"
"Don't worry, I promise to remember!" Jirachi shouted.
Mew stopped at the base of a mossy trunk and sniffed the air. Her eyes narrowed towards the east. "If I could just figure out where the spot I'm thinking of jumped off to, you'll have plenty of room to be up in the air! Hmm. At this time of day... Uh...Does anyone know if it's low tide right now? Or if it's supposed to be a crescent moon tonight? I haven't been paying much attention to the sky in the last few days. You know what, don't even tell me. I'm pretty sure I know where I'm going."
Panne's grip tightened around the gnarled branch she'd borrowed from the jungle. It was pretty much a twig compared to the limbs of the trees that surrounded them now, but if the time came that she needed to take to the air, it was gonna be soon. Either way, her only other form of quick transportation was a fresh pounce wand stashed in the fur of her arm.
No amount of preparation or availability of equipment was going to make her feel like she was ready. Her hand hovered protectively over the pocket in which she hid the Tempest Looplet, all loaded up with emeras and ready for a fight-including the crystal that the others would have forbade her from using. It didn't matter how many advantages were stacked upon one another, though. In battles like this, a single mistake was all it took for everything to come crashing down. She wondered how many of her friends were going to see the end of the day. She then stopped trying to think altogether.
Much to their surprise, the looming majesty of the deep jungle began to wane back down to normal size. Mew apparently had stopped wandering and finally picked up on the trail she'd been looking for. An overflowing stream lead them down a series of hills not unlike the ones they were forced to scale yesterday. Vallion seemed to have no trouble at all adapting to his new body, scaling the heights with such ease that Panne still felt impressed even while floating effortlessly down on her branch. She couldn't stare for too long, otherwise the heartache would start back up.
The foliage thinned out even further. Several more streams flowed parallel to the one they followed, ultimately converging in a rocky crevice where the waters were stained a rich orange from all the clay that had been washed away. Beyond the mouth of the muddy river and just a few minutes down was a clearing in the jungle that must have been nearly a mile across. Strands of land pressed out into the basin like grasping fingers, and deeper still were little islands whose highest cattails were half-drowned by the floodwaters. The clearing was almost completely devoid of trees, apart from a few lonely saplings that dared to grow on the outer rim. A breath caught in the Delphox's throat as sunbeams peeked out from behind the clouds, shining down as patches of light all throughout the clearing. If she squinted hard enough, she could see a rainbow forming on the far side.
"This is where all the streams eventually meet up in, before they get to the big river," Mew said while the Society emerged from the brush. "When it floods, it ends up becoming a big swamp. I know it just looks like a bunch of narrow paths and islands now, but normally this would the perfect place to have a big fight! You're still not going to find much better spots around here for that sort of thing. Unless you guys wanna fight in the trees, that is."
"Heh. Funny. I kinda wish Floatzel were here," Dedenne muttered from Ampharos' shoulder.
They ended up stashing most of their equipment in the branches of the tallest tree they could find, keeping only the tools they'd use in the coming battle. As Panne pulled the Tempest Looplet from her bag, she made sure to hold it with her palm covering Go For Broke. Volcarona was overjoyed to fly around the clearing at her full wingspan. Ampharos and a few others did stretches at the water's edge, clearly rigid with anticipation. Mismagius stared off into the distance, as deathly quiet as he'd been since morning. Vallion fiddled with his looplet with a furrowed expression on his face, though she doubted the brace was causing any issues.
The air was clear. Still, Panne couldn't quite catch her breath. "You sure you want to stay for the fight?" she asked the Serperior, her voice far softer than she intended it to be. "Hydreigon can still put you outside the arena spell if you want. The Spiritomb isn't just going to trap us this time. It's gonna be life or death pretty much from the start."
"I'll be fine," Vallion automatically answered, a twitch of determination in his brow. "I never expected it to take us so lightly, anyway. I'm ready for it this time. We all are."
The Delphox bit her tongue. "I don't know what I can really do to help you in a fight, but I'll try to stick close, okay? If you're ever in trouble, just shout and I'll be right there. I promise I will."
"I know," he said unconvincingly. It still didn't feel quite right, like a strap she couldn't quite fasten tight enough. There was no way she could fight feeling like this. Her left hand worked at the knot around her right wrist. The scarf itself barely weighed anything, but it felt like she was holding a thousand pounds between her claws.
Panne swallowed at the lump in her throat. "Val, I have one last thing to ask before we start."
The Serperior tilted his head. "And what's that?"
She held the scarf towards him, trying as hard as she could not to look pleading. "I know what you're going to say, but I swear to god I need this. Will you please wear your scarf, just this once?"
The brave posture Vallion had been working up for several minutes deflated like a balloon in less than two seconds. "Oh, Panne..."
"No, don't even say it!" the Delphox interjected, thrusting the Harmony Scarf towards him once more. "Just shut up and wear the damn scarf. It's not about which Val's real and which one's fake, alright? Put it on until the end of this fight at least. Then I swear you'll never have to wear it again if you don't want to."
A tiny chuckle rose from his throat. He stared down at her hands, looked back up at her desperate expression, then sighed as he turned and revealed the back of his neck. "I guess it's fine for now. I am taking it off once we're done, though."
The rush of relief weakened Panne's knees. The same knot she'd just undone became twice as hard to tie, her fingers growing clumsier with each second she spent touching his scales. Even just feeling the heat of his body made her forget the simplest of steps. She was practically shaking by the time Vallion pulled away. He regarded himself for a moment in the reflection of the water, then stuck out his core proudly like he was an actor in a play.
She searched for something to say that was a litle more subtle than what originally came to the tip of her tongue. "It... It looks really great. Thank you so much."
"This Spiritomb's kind of like my own Dark Matter, isn't it?" Vallion coiled around himself as he settled back down, looking so goddamn picturesque that it hurt her heart. "...No, that still sounds too weird. Even while wearing the scarf, that's too weird."
A shudder ran down her back. Panne couldn't take it anymore. She lunged froward and wrapped her arms around the Serperior, burying her face in his neck. No matter how hard she squeezed, it never fully expressed just how much she'd been missing him. His scales, his scent, his breath-no matter what anyone said, no matter what the Spiritomb wanted her to believe-No matter what HE wanted her to believe, the Vallion she loved was right here. That reality sunk in like the warmth of the sun soaked into the wooden bridge back home. Feeling him nuzzle her back even the slightest amount sent shivers of satisfaction down her spine.
Vallion pulled away before she wanted, but she probably would've never left had it been up to her. "You feeling better?" he asked.
"...Yeah." Panne had to catch her breath. "Mhm. Okay, I think I'm ready now."
"Good. Let's go meet up with the others, then. It looks like something's happening." Side by side, the two of them started towards the spot where Hydreigon had rounded everyone up.
The dragon lead them deeper into the basin along the veins of the land that spanned it. Muddy rapids rushed past on either side, at times carrying the unfortunate trees whose soil supports were washed away by the storm. Panne pulled the pounce wand from her fur and twirled it between her fingers. The absence of Vallion's scarf was so obvious that she had to find other means to fidget her nervousness away. She used the branch as a walking staff with her other hand, the Tempest Looplet still pressed tightly between it and the palm of her hand.
They nearly ran out of land to walk entirely before Hydreigon finally stopped. They pointed a mouth downwards and released a steady stream of blue flames, quickly burning a clean circle in the grass. The dragon mumbled something to themselves and flattened the charred circle even further. Once every little detail had been metered out and perfected, they dropped a red Wonder Orb in the very center, its shape slightly oblong and its insides disconcertingly murky. "There. Absolutely minimum room for error. We do only have this one shot, after all."
"How can we be so sure that the Spiritomb's going to respond to our summons?" Mismagius asked, his voice laced with a frustration. "It's not like it isn't aware of what we're doing. Why would it willingly fling itself into the most obvious trap that has ever been laid?"
"Ah, that's where you're mistaken," the dragon said with a thoughtful frown. "Clever as it may originally seem, this abomination is not above its own primal thirsts. Even a Spiritomb which remains bound to its keystone often carries a certain level of instability. One this massive, completely unbound and unfiltered, is essentially a force of nature. It still clings to the shattered psyches that made up its previous existence, but no matter how determined those psyches may have once been, it will ever hunger to become whole. A Mothim might breath and die for its convictions, but ever is there an allure to the flame..."
Hydreigon motioned for Panne, Mew, and Vallion to all step forward. "This shouldn't take too long at all. If anyone here isn't prepared to fight the abomination, speak up now or you'll regret it very soon." The silence that followed spoke of how long this had been coming. The time had come. "Good. Panne, if you would just touch Mew's hand, I'll be able to begin."
Panne did as she was told, stowing her wand so she could reach for the psychic type's tiny fingers. The dragon nodded. "The abomination channels its spells through brute force. It bends nature rather than allowing nature to bend for it. A being such as myself, however, only needs but a pebble to set an avalanche in motion." Hydreigon leaned forward and poked both hers and Mew's foreheads with a single touch. There was hardly any force behind it, but Panne suddenly felt her stomach lurch as if she had been blown backwards. Within seconds, a golden light began to swirl around the point of contact the two of them.
"Hydreigon?! What- What is this?!" Panne struggled not to rip her hand away at the mere sight of the glow.
"Relax! It's not going to hurt either of you. All I did was cause a resonance-like ripples in a pond. Just think of it like ripples in a pond." Even though every fiber of the Delphox's being-conscious or impulsive-wanted to tear away from the pink pokemon, Panne forced herself to hold still. Whatever this was, it was for Vallion's sake. "Good, good. Keep in mind that you cannot be pulled back into Mew. The time when that was even possible has long, long since passed. I...admit that it uses the same process, though. I required a certain catalyst, and there is little else available besides the conflict between two souls that were once one."
"So it's like some kind of feedback loop?" Jirachi commented. "Or maybe an error that keeps repeating itself until it crashes?"
The dragon shrugged, still eyeing the glow intensely. "If by that you imply something similar to heat caused by friction, then yes. It's...like that, I suppose."
Mew scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Messing with people's souls is something only a dirty old man would do. Tch."
"Dirty old man?! If there was anyone with the authority to cast magic of the soul, wouldn't you think it's the Voice of Life itself?" Hydreigon shook the distraction away, turning their middle head towards Vallion. "Nevermind you. Vallion, wrap a vine around their hands and wait for me to pull them apart. This will cause a reaction that will surely draw the abomination out of hiding. It'll also be rather uncomfortable, so be prepared for that."
As the Serperior obliged, the same terrible thrumming that filled the Spiritomb's rituals filled the air. Panne attempted to maintain her composure, but it was like trying to swim against a riptide. Every nerve in her body was wired to the point that she couldn't even think straight. The drone grew stronger, and with it came a feeling of vulnerability that mercilessly carved into her chest. Just when it was about to become too much to bear, Hydreigon butt his head into her hand and knocked the connection away. In the span of a gasp, the sensation collapsed in on itself and disappeared into a point just beneath her throat. After that, all was normal again.
"See what I mean?" said Mew with a shiver. "Only dirty old men would do something like that! It's just not right!"
Vallion flinched away as if something had touched him from behind. He stared out into the treeline, his pupils mere slits. "It's already coming."
The shadow of a dense cloud passed over them. They were on a stage, bright spotlights shining down on their heads. From the vast treeline watched an audience that burned with a supernatural hatred. The Society began to spread out. Volcarona and Altaria took to the sky while everyone else formed squads and barked orders to each other. The Delphox, however, remained frozen in place.
"Panne..!"
Vallion's desperate voice shouted from far away. Even with the real Val standing right there, the very sound was enough to make her skin crawl. But she wouldn't be manipulated so easily! The only Vallion here was the one wearing the scarf around his neck!
Soon she realized that it wasn't her legs shaking, but the ground itself. A faint rumbling came from the jungle that seemed to reverberate through her very bones. Another mocking chorus followed. "PANNE!"
"FUCK OFF!" The Delphox slapped the Tempest Looplet around her neck. A stinging electric sensation surged down her spine and jumped into her limbs, tapering off into numbness as she sucked in a breath of empowered air. On a parallel strand across from her own, the crackling sound of mega-evolution gave way to Ampharos' confident laugh. Altaria called down that she saw something crashing through the jungle towards them. Hydreigon hovered over their artificial orb with an indefatigable look of concentration.
When the Spiritomb arrived, it had clearly abandoned any notion of subtlety. A tsunami of black water crashed over the eastern boundary of trees and immediately started to dilute the canals. The dark beneath the water's surface traveled far quicker than the wave, bleeding into the center of the basin in a matter of seconds while they scrambled to the highest grounds they could find. It was something she could only gawk at in utter awe. It was huge before, but how on earth did it get this massive? How many pokemon did it have to kill to get to this point?
"Now!" Hydreigon blasted the ground beneath them, and from the cloud of soil came an incredible light. A wall of pressure smashed past Panne and exploded outwards-the same kind of weird force that a mystery dungeon exerts when it shifts. The shockwave traveled all the way out past the treeline before it suddenly stopped with a resounding boom. A scarlet sheen rose up from every direction and met with itself at the very top of the sky, forming an incredible dome of shimmering color that turned absolutely everything in sight a deep shade of red. Panne remembered to breathe when the dragon shouted at the top of their lungs. "Only fifteen minutes, Go!"
The demon let loose an enraged roar like the sound of a thousand tons of metal scraping against the bottom of the ocean. The blackness spread to the shore below her feet, where the waves began to undulate in unpredictable ways. The Delphox hopped onto her staff, and with a mere twitch of her psychic ability, she came between Vallion and the waters. Before she could even strike, however, a blue surge of energy blasted the anomaly into a splash of hot mist.
"Fourteen forty-five!" said Hydreigon as they swooped down from above. "Panne, I'll protect Vallion! You need to do as much damage as possible!" The Serperior simply nodded and extended his vines. He didn't need to waste his breath to say that everything was going to be okay.
Panne nodded back and pointed her staff upwards. The back of her neck prickled as she launched into the sky, the complex act of telekinesis reduced to something that felt as easy as lifting a finger. The first thing she saw from above was the blinding glare of Volcarona's inferno. A deluge of yellow flames smashed into the head of the tsunami and engulfed both the bug type and the surrounding area in steam. Although Volcarona was entirely obscured, the glow from her attack continued to shine on.
Not to be outdone, the Delphox unleashed her own stream of fire as she swooped over a churning canal. Black tendrils shot up after her, but couldn't even come close to matching her speed. A series of popping explosions followed in the wake of her flames and obliterated everything in its path. The waves that rushed to fill in the gap wriggled even worse than before. Panne ignored the stinging sensation as she came around for another pass. She sucked in a breath, only to lose it when a flash of white completely overrode the red tinge of the dome. Thunder rolled across the arena like an earthquake and rang in her ears long after the attack had ended. Ampharos seemed like he was doing well.
Just when she started to wonder if her swooping had any effect, the writhing crater erupted into a pillar of dark mist that propelled straight after her. She pulled up, almost too slowly. The fog must have come within inches of her head. Spikes of pain jabbed into her shoulders as she jerked to the side, but the pain was replaced with numbness as she launched a blast in retaliation. Just as quickly as it formed, the cloud condensed back into a liquid state and rained back down into the basin. Several other fingers of mist had formed all across the arena.
Panne took in a lungful of smoke and took off before anything else could catch her off-guard. Like a Talonflame after its prey, she swooped past the towering clouds one after another, severed them at the base with explosive force. Volleys of shadow balls and legions of lashing tentacles trailed behind her with every pass, but nothing came even close to hitting her. Something between a war cry and a bubble of laughter had built up in her chest. Panne had been flown before, but she had never been the one doing the flying, and it certainly never felt like this. The battering wind, the blur of the world around her, the natural flow of turning and diving-and best of all, the carnage left in her wake!
A harrowing shout ripped Panne straight out from her fantasy. She could only tell where it had come from by the swell of the waves as they climbed onto land, clamoring after the wounded like a wild beast. Kadabra tried her best to repel the rising tide, but what she lacked in power compounded how little of a scope her attacks affected. At her feet laid Altaria, whose wing was stuck bent at an unnatural angle. The psychic type shouted for help after she blasted another few tendrils out of the air.
Mismagius arrived first. He materialized by the fallen dragon in an instant and launched an arc of violet wind at the opposite shore. Panne pulled the smouldering branch out from beneath her and dismounted directly into the fray, twisting the motion of landing into a swing of her staff, bathing the eastern tides in a storm of detonations. Her legs immediately buckled as the rush of blood mingled with the intense prickling of Go For Broke. Still, her and Mismagius' efforts were enough to hold the demon off for another few moments.
"I need more time!" Kadabra shouted from the wounded dragon's side, fiddling around in her satchel for a reviver seed. "Just hold on, I can fix this-!" She was interrupted by the deafening thunder that rolled over the basin.
All at once, the black waters surged to their weakest flank. It would have crashed into them in the matter of seconds had a pink barrier not appeared to take the brunt of the impact. Mew flew down from above, darting around the tiny island as she built the protective dome. Cracks had already started to appear in the wall. The Spiritomb pounded against it with all its strength, its punches rolling in like the rogue waves of a summer storm. It got worse with every blow, as did Mew's pained whimpering. They only had a short time to prepare. Panne sucked in a deep breath and let her looplet lock it in her lungs.
The barrier shattered with a resounding snap. She spun a vortex around them using her own staff as kindling, putting every ounce of strength into repelling the waters. Black turned to red, red turned to white, and white became a terrible cacophony of sound and steam. Mismagius joined the swirling flames with his own dark winds and blew the brilliant shower of sparks further into the tide. The basin blew back into itself, hot droplets raining down on their heads from the sheer force of her attack. Gasping for breath, the Delphox watched as the surface continued to boil and churn.
"Are we even hurting this thing? This is a waste of time!" Mismagius screamed.
"It's spread so thin that it's probably absorbing most of the damage with the water!" Altaria replied with a grunt, gradually pushing to a stand with Kadabra's help.
Staving off the hollow sensation of Go For Broke, Panne mounted her staff once more. There had to be some way to separate the ghost from the environment. Even the clouds she'd blasted through were mostly condensation rather than the usual noxious stuff. Was it just waiting out the Domain Orb, or did it intend on wearing them down?
Lightning flashed. The smell of burning and decay mingled. Panne could barely feel her own insides by this point. She dug her claws into bark and she darted away. Dozens of tentacles shot up from the waterways behind her, a mere reflex of the creature that lurked below. They still couldn't quite reach her in time, but she was definitely slowing down. The toll Go For Broke had taken on her body was beginning to mount. Blurred vision, shaking hands, and an almost unbearable tingling that radiated like pain from the folds of her muscles.
All it took was one moment of distraction. The tendrils had started to lead her on, and while she was reeling from her stunned senses, a mangled mass of them burst from the stream just head. She twisted her whole body in an attempt to bank to the left, but it was far too late to dodge by then. The impact didn't hurt as much as it was disorienting, yet she very clearly felt herself tumble out of the sky towards the water. Muscle memory urged her to reach for the pounce wand. Panicked reason tried to force the branch into flying again. Both thoughts collided and yielded nothing.
Rather than hitting the surface of the waves, it was almost as if it had opened up to swallow her whole. The abyss wrapped over her head and surrounded her with pressure from all sides. Although the stream itself was shallow enough to stand up in, it held her down at the bottom like a thousand powerful hands. She fought the invisible force to pull the pounce wand from her fur, but couldn't budge more than a few inches before the pressure redoubled and shoved her deeper into the mud.
It was in the howling mixture of the Spiritomb's dismembered voices and the constant roar of the current that she heard the tiniest of splashes. By the end of the next few seconds, another sudden vacuum enveloped the Delphox, a rush of atmosphere encircling her in the blink of an eye. Light and sound flooded back into her senses, but she could do little more than cough.
"Dummy!" Mew shouted as she fussed over the Delphox. "You're terrible at flying, you know that? Shoulda stayed on the ground if you were just gonna run into it like that!" She reached out for something that was just beyond Panne's vision.
It was hard to even stay conscious at this point. A maelstrom of prickling assaulted the Delphox while her limbs seized up in agony. The leg that ended up taking the blow directly suffered worst of all, the sensation comparable to if her flesh were boiling just beneath her skin. Of the few times she had used Go For Broke, it never got nearly as bad as this. Through squinted eyes, she caught sight of Volcarona and Jirachi as they tore a hole into a bulging cloud, leaving a trail of blooming flames and metallic sparks in their wake.
When Mew came back into Panne's vision, a seed had appeared in her hands. "How are you supposed to protect Val while laying there, huh? It's your job now, I shouldn't have to-" the psychic type cut off, her eyes suddenly glued to the Tempest Looplet. She shook her head. "Panne, I'm taking that off."
"You can't," the Delphox croaked, gritting her teeth. "I can barely put a dent in this thing with all these emeras. I'm not gonna be strong enough without them."
Panne tried to sit up using only her elbows, but even a motion as simple as that drew upon the very power that crippled her in the first place. However, once she sat up fully, the unbearable discomfort wavered into one that was just distracting. Attempting to stand reignited the electric sensation in her right leg and turned it into a searing bolt of lightning. She was floored again instantly.
Mew winced away, her empathetic expression darkened through the omnipresent red filter that shrouded everything. "I hate the fact that I would've done the same thing." The constant sound of crashing water deafened her voice, and it only grew worse by the second.
There were worse things to worry about than a tiny green crystal in her looplet. From the center of the basin rose a black cloud so large that its very presence darkened everything in sight. Any part of it not directly highlighted with the blood-red glow blended together into a single plane of sheer black. In the void's absolute shadow, the surface of the water pulled upwards into an incredible vortex, gradually feeding into the Spiritomb's body. As if punctuating the menacing sight, a crack of white slashed through the sky and struck the cloud with an ear-shattering boom.
"Mew," Panne began, remembering to breathe. "Go get me a branch."
"No way I'm doing that!" Mew shouted in return. Seeing Mew's face was like looking into a mirror. "Listen. We're about to do something really stupid, okay? I don't want you telling Vallion about this once he gets his memories back. Got it? Good."
A gasp escaped Panne's throat as she felt herself become weightless. Mew groaned at the effort, lifting the Delphox up into the air with her. "Jeez, lay off the pastries every once in a while! Do you got anything to burn? A wand or something?"
It was hard to think straight while watching the canal drain right before her very eyes, and even harder when Mew started to move. "I- I have a pounce wand, but that's it! Nothing that's going to help us blast this thing apart!"
"Well look down then! If the banks are all drying up, there's gonna be a ton of crap washed in from the rest of the jungle!"
Mew took them low enough that she could see their reflection in the surface of the frothing waters. The muddy banks certainly were littered with all manner of debris now that they were revealed, be it treasure or just evidence of destruction. The colorful glint of orbs and emeras lodged in the muck caught her eye countless times, yet it was impossible to tell a wand from any other twig in the tens of thousands they passed. It was no good.
"You two!" Ampharos' voice pulled the Delphox away from her fruitless search. He'd been standing at the edge of a peninsula, illuminated like a spotlight by the white-blue flashes in his mane and tail as they flowed weightlessly. Dedenne stood atop his shoulder, and Mawile stood beside. "Get down here! We don't have much time!"
Panne tried to land on her right leg and collapsed beneath her own weight once more. Sucking in the pain, the Delphox spoke through her teeth. "I'm fine, I'm fine! Don't worry about me! Is Val alright?"
Dedenne nodded. "I saw him with Hydreigon across the way a minute ago," she said, wheezing. "How are we going to crack this thing, Panne? You've fought it more times than any of us. How'd you do it before?"
"I don't know! Don't ask me, I just get lucky and blow it apart! I'm not even going to pretend that that's possible anymore!" The Delphox crawled over to the shore and frantically scanned the bottom, but it was all just garbage. Wet wood wasn't going to burn with even a fraction of the intensity she needed right now. "I just-! Do any of you have a blasting wand? Or anything actually useful?"
"What, you don't have one? How were you throwing out so much fire before this?" Mawile slung her bag around and tossed Panne an curved twig in a single motion. Panne tried to catch it, but the weight of the stick was nearly enough to cause her to fumble it outright. Either this was an incredible specimen of a wand, or she was a whole lot weaker than she originally thought.
A gurgling groan reverberated throughout the crimson dome as the Spiritomb swelled in size. It was nearly a fourth of the size of the prison it was currently trapped in-as large as the peak of a mountain. It was well beyond killable by any reasonable standard. Panne took in a painful breath. She was through being reasonable.
"Fine," she finally said, gesturing for Mew to lift her up once more. "Just keep pelting it with as much lightning as possible. We'll work out way around and see if we can't find any opportunities on the other side. Don't stop until you hit something important!"
Ampharos gave his signature salute, his eyes ablaze with ferocity. "Will do! Keep safe out there, and remember what you're fighting for!" Panne grunted as she took up the blasting wand in both hands. With Mew's telekinesis, they were off once more.
The Spiritomb shuddered under its own weight. Thousands of thousands of tons of water all shifted at once with an earth-shaking rumble. They flew beside the shadow of the demon where Jirachi and Volcarona were still carving lines up and down the cloud. It was hard to say they were doing any damage at all by this point. The orb probably didn't have much time left either, and once that barrier went down, all this would have been for nothing. "What the hell are we supposed to do?" The Delphox shouted.
"You expect me to know?!" Mew's voice cracked in reply. "Just look at that thing! It's eating those massive lightning bolts like they're nothing! I was hoping we'd just figure something out along the way!"
When the monster eventually attempted to move, the sheer force it took to displace all that water appeared as a ripple which traveled from one end to the other. It lurched towards the top of the dome while the Society's attacks hopelessly grazed off its dense surface. Panne clutched the twig in her hands. "I think we need to fly into there!"
"Hell no! Next plan!" the psychic type shot back.
Another ripple appeared in the Spiritomb's body, this time directly in their direction. The cloud appeared to move incredibly slowly at first, but that perception changed rather quickly when her vision filled almost completely with black. She pointed the wand towards it, but there wasn't an emera in the world that could help her stop that. "Up! Up! Not in, up!"
"Make up your miiind!" Mew pulled skywards as hard as she could. Panne launched off a few bolts while they passed, her wand bucking with recoil like those mere fireballs were cannon shots. They barely scraped by over the top of the demon as her attacks buried into the mist and detonated a short ways beneath, leaving nothing but a few small craters that almost immediately started to fill back in. It was like trying to beat a pillow in with a pebble.
Something churned underneath the surface. A swell of water, extended from the main mass like a tornado and chased after them. The Delphox swung her wand at the protrusion, the supernatural impacts scattering the head of the advancing mists. From the impact point came what must have been several thousand tendrils. Unlike the vortex, these shot out towards them at unavoidable speeds. She felt Mew's tail wrap around her torso in an instant. Space warped around them like a gasp, and all of a sudden they were on the opposite side of the dome. The spot they once flew was completely swallowed up seconds later.
From this distance, the cloud looked like a bottomless hole stabbed into the fabric of the universe, and the way it moved reminded her of ink spilled onto paper. Two more white cracks in the sky overwrote the endless red for a fraction of a second, to no effect. Then came a volley of meteors from directly beneath her. Panne ignored Hydreigon's artillery barrage, knowing full well the result of the effort, and instead trained her eyes on the speck of green so invisible that she had to squint just to make out his shape. Something in the back of her mind was certain that Vallion was staring back.
"It doesn't mean anything!" Panne sighed, flexing her fingers just to try and feel their soreness. "We don't have enough time or energy to pound on the outside forever. It would take a whole goddamn army to carve a hole into that thing, so we just have to go in. It's protecting something in there, I know it is. Once we find it, I can kill it."
"But what if there's just nothing in there?" Mew quivered with adrenaline, which translated directly into her telekinetic grip. "You come up with such terrible ideas! Why wouldn't it just spread itself out?!"
"Because I think it needs to spin to maintain its shape, so it's gotta be concentrated in the center, right? And if there's really nothing in there, we were already going to lose anyway." she said, barely audible above the battle. "We don't even have a choice anymore, so unless you come up with any better ideas, we're going in."
The psychic type faltered. Just below the distant booms and rolling thunder, Mew gave a tiny growl. "You know I'm not good at planning in these situations!"
"Come on, then. Val's counting on us."
Simply approaching the monster caused the Tempest Looplet to start to squeeze. What little light filtered in through the top of the dome was lost when half of the sky went dark. Panne stole from the rushing wind the biggest breath her lungs could hold. She closed her eyes to the oncoming darkness and imagined the voice of her lover.
CRASH!
They dove beneath the surface of the demonic sea. The few parts of her body that still had feeling instantly began to burn from the cold, and even the parts that didn't began had a stinging sensation bleed through. There was no light at all, but there was all the sound, and the Spiritomb's dimension was screaming. The dying groans of countless pokemon accompanied the roaring currents which played with them. Panne could do naught but curl up into a ball while the riptides blasted them in whichever direction. Time moved slowly from agony, but it was absolutely moving. She needed air now, though.
'There!' Mew's telepathy exploded into the Delphox's head. Panne lurched from the abrupt change in direction, her head now faced against the current. 'I can see it! Hold on!'
The pressure bearing down on them seemed to intensify twice-fold. They had to be getting close to the center. Everything somehow grew even louder than she thought possible. Gathering up what little oxygen was left inside her chest, the Delphox began to channel a violent heat within her. Either her blood was pumping way too hard in her temples, or the water pressure around them was starting to pulse like a heartbeat.
"PANNE!" A single word, reverberating so powerfully that the Tempest Looplet was the only thing that kept her from gasping. In the wake of the howl, despite everything, Mew manage to communicate the only thing the Delphox needed to hear.
'Now!'
Panne raised her left leg up to her chest, grabbed the blasting wand on both ends, and notched it beneath her foot. The heat in her throat went down past her shoulders, down further into her hands, and finally reached its destination in the puny twig. She kicked. It snapped without question. The water went from glacial cold to scalding in the span of a single moment. Red light pressed into her closed eyelids, boiling and bubbling and yearning to be released. She grabbed hold of the fire almost as easily as it was to imagine the picture of a flame. Aimed towards the core of the vortex, she let the expanding force loose.
The world became pain, and then black.
...
Millions of needles. There were millions of needles stabbing into every conceivable nerve. That alone was enough to rouse Panne from the abyss. She opened her eyes to a blue sky. The noon sun was directly over her, so bright that she'd rather just stay asleep. Panne struggled to even take a breath, much less turn her head towards the basin, which had utterly overflowed and now spilled out over the last few islands in the clearing.
Mew laid a few feet away, her whole body involved with taking single gasps. "Dummy..." she wheezed. "If I couldn't teleport... You'd be so dead..."
For a while, Panne laid there and contemplated the pain she was in. She could still feel her pounding pulse bulging against the Tempest Looplet, yet lacked the will to tear it off for fear of the stinging that would engulf her arms. Then she heard somebody shout from far away. Were they really not done yet? Gathering up the scattered remains of her courage, she sucked in her gut and attempted to see what was wrong. The yelling continued, and it started to sound more and more like Val. Suddenly the pain was a lot easier to ignore.
The Serperior had made it to high ground, but so had a black amalgamation which he was currently slashing at. The Spiritomb. The... The Spiritomb still lived!
Panne yanked the pounce wand from the fur of her wrist, breathlessly mouthing the numbers of the islands she would have to jump to just to get over. Of course, she immediately fell back down when she tried to stand, a hundred spears jabbing into the whole length of her right leg. The second attempt mostly consisted of balancing on one foot and trying not to scream at the top of her lungs. With a quick swing of the wand, the Delphox warped over to the next marooned patch of land, collapsed, and pushed up to do it again.
With each island she traversed, the Spiritomb's deteriorating condition was further revealed. All the aqueous parts of its form were gone, leaving only the black shade she'd originally fought back at Revelation Mountain, but it seemed to struggle at maintaining even that. Entire chunks of its body sloughed off as it undulated in panic, swiping at Vallion with pathetic jabs. One island closer, she started to hear its discordant voices argue among themselves. Some still spoke as distorted versions of Vallion while others had reverted back to their original voices, but every last one participated in the storm of bickering.
"Panne!" Vallion glanced back as she materialized half-way in the water behind him. Every part of her trembling, she clawed her way up onto land and took a labored kneel. Breathe, dammit! "Panne, we have to finish it off! We have to kill it!"
The Spiritomb ignored her presence entirely and continued to clumsily lunge at the Serperior. The argument rose to a fever pitch as the unintelligible shouts became raw noise, the demon spending its last few moments in the most bitter way possible. It was almost pitiful. The Delphox took a deep breath and let her looplet squeeze away, crimson flames sprouting from her palms and climbing all the way to her elbows. Spikes of pain jammed into her nerves, but using Go For Broke dulled the pain it caused itself, giving her more strength to press on. Almost pitiful-as if anyone would ever take pity on something like this!
Panne envisioned the jaws of a beast while the flames grew, gnashing teeth and crushing muscles all. Cinder spittle would fly from its maw as it bound towards its prey, sharpened pupils locked onto the vulnerable back of its neck. Her flames obeyed the imagery, and the shape of a sneering snout began to form in their excited dancing. The beast opened its jaw and made a roaring motion, it's tongue quivering within. Only then did the Spiritomb seem to notice her presence, which was ironically the point of the move in the first place. Far too late. With a weak swing of her arms, Panne launched a torrent of fire with the beast's head at the front of it all-a pounce to land the final strike.
When the flames bit down on the demon's semi-solid body, she commanded them to shake as if it were ripping flesh and breaking bones. The force it applied caused the Spiritomb to roll backwards, bringing with it the flame beast's head and causing its neck to extend like a serpent's. As the imagery changed in her head, so did the attack's shape begin to morph. It wrapped layer upon layer of fire over its prey until she could no longer see black at all. Panne took in another breath and barely managed to hold it in without choking, spots appearing in her vision already. The sparks in her fire slowly started to pop against her fading will, yet she seized control and forced them to all detonate at once.
The explosion rumbled. Smoke blew past her head. The weight the Delphox had felt lift away from her mind was too much. She fell backwards with a satisfied grin on her face, yet she never did feel herself hit the ground.