This is the second of four chapters today.
Latias deposited Ash on the pond, not far from the stricken Giratina, then flipped end-over-end and shot off to join in the brawl going on overhead. The Megarig's controlling intelligence – Infi, Ash thought – was turning out to be surpassingly good at the job of controlling a complicated suite of newly acquired powers, and the fighting in the Reverse World was only intensifying – especially as Mewtwo and the others were handicapped by the need to avoid collateral damage.
He sent out Meganium immediately, and she got to trying to heal Giratina without a word.
The scientist guy with the Shieldon arrived as well, and did a double-take on seeing Ash.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Aren't you that… that… that boy who sometimes battles with Gary Oak?"
Pikachu blinked. "That's one way to put it..."
"We came here to help Giratina," Ash replied. "What happened – is Giratina still alive? That guy stole his powers, but..."
"Yes, sadly that was my creation," the scientist replied. "It was intended to find out how one could travel through the dimensions outside the normal three-plus-one, but I destroyed it when I calculated it would kill Giratina."
Shaymin was swooping in to land as the scientist said that, and gasped in horror. "I… if they knew it would kill Giratina, why would they do it?"
"My student, Zero, must have rebuilt it for himself," the scientist replied. "Giratina seems to still be alive, but I can see that your Pokémon isn't healing him very much – it seems that Zero drained him very nearly dry."
"He's right, Ash," Meganium reported, haloed by the glowing pollen from her Heal Pulses. "I can't seem to manage anything."
"Then I'll try," Ash decided. "I can help out a bit, at least."
He knelt down, palm already glowing blue as he prepared to transfer some of his energy, and-
Absol focused, breathing deeply and evenly.
The fact that the cause of these incipient catastrophes wasn't even in the same dimension was giving her trouble – at least, trouble in giving a timely warning – but she'd been able to keep on top of it so far.
The real problem was making sure to focus not only on the disaster of what was about to happen, but the second-order disaster of what would happen if she didn't send the right warning. That was chance-dancing in a nutshell, reverse-engineering the golden path that would see the least danger and following it as best she could.
"You two to the east!" she called, waving a paw. It wasn't entirely clear to her who 'you two' were, but the Pokémon who moved off – Torterra and Primeape – seemed to know, and the risk factor from that area dropped to prove that it had been the right thing to say.
This kind of thing could give a Pokémon a headache if they thought about it too long.
Then something really big flashed up, and Absol did a double-take.
"All water and psychic types to the lakeside!" she shouted.
The tremors began even as she spoke, stronger than any of the previous ones and making the water in the lake slop back and forth.
"What did she say?" Cynthia asked, looking over at her Lucario.
"Water and Psychic types to the lake side," Lucario reported.
"Right," Cynthia confirmed, sending out her Milotic. The Water-type joined the lakeside team, and Cynthia took a moment to look at the impressive collection.
Lugia was still busy in the next valley over, so he wasn't here, but Misty's entire team was and only a couple of them were anything other than Water-typed. On top of that, Cynthia could see several of the Pokémon she knew May, Max, Brock and Ash to have (and one of Dawn's Pokémon, her Piplup), and three or four locals as well who were tying to help.
"That doesn't really look like it needs such a huge thing," Cynthia said, frowning at the lake water sloshing back and forth. "What's going to happen?"
Her Lucario pointed. "Look out!"
Cynthia followed his paw, and stared.
A huge chunk of mountain was giving way directly over the lake, Pidgey and Starly abandoning it with a whirr of wings, and it broke up as it fell. The landslide curved towards the horizontal as it rumbled down the mountain slope, then smashed deep into the lake and sent up a wave the likes of which Cynthia had never seen before.
It wasn't a tsunami, those were different – almost like an incoming tide on a much larger and faster scale. This was a single massive wall of water, over half the lake slapped up as a unit by the force of the landslide, and it loomed up so fast Cynthia barely had time to react.
It began to crest over, leaning and falling towards them – hundreds of thousands of tons of water about to flatten them – and Cynthia raised her arm to block in futile reflex.
Except that the wave didn't hit her.
Cynthia hesitated a moment, then looked out – blinking in surprise.
The whole of the wave was just hanging there, trapped in place and unable to fall, and startled Magikarp and Remoraid swam aimlessly inside the metres-thick wall of water.
Then the wave began to flow downwards and collapse in on itself. Draining from the base and shrinking from the crest, flowing back into the lake, and raising the water level back up to a little higher than it had been originally.
Cynthia watched as the last rivulets of the wave flowed back into the lake, then saw who had done it – Manaphy, lowering his flippers as he flopped back with a sigh.
"I think I'd like a snack now, mama..." he mumbled.
-Ash heard a voice.
Okay, this is a real emergency so I don't have much time to tell this.
Azelf? Ash asked, recognizing the voice. What-
This is just a memory, Azelf told him. You won't be able to ask me questions, this is just as much as I can put into a flash of information before whatever's going on neutralizes all of us. I'm going to have to explain things quickly.
Azelf's tone changed. Okay so basically you know we're under attack right now, which is a huge problem. And we might not be able to help you out in future. But I can help with this one. We can help with this one – we're still connected, and I think we can do this.
The voice fell silent, and something else replaced it. Some great surging mass of power, concealed until the right moment for it – erupting up and making Ash tingle all over with Aura before rushing out his fingers at the point of contact.
Giratina moved. The movement was panicked and sudden, knocking Ash back a couple of steps, and his tendrils splashed into the water. His head jerked, looking around for something, and contacted the pondside with a thwack.
"Aagh!" the big Ghost-type yelped, incidentally inhaling a lot of the spores from Meganium's Heal Pulse. That seemed to help a bit, and he shook his head to try and clear it before turning to focus on Ash.
"When did you get – never mind, that's not important," he said. "I'm grateful you're here, now we need to… stop..."
The Renegade Pokémon's voice stopped.
"Why is that moron's airship in one piece again?"
"What?" Ash asked.
"What?" Pikachu contributed.
"Huh?" Shaymin volunteered.
"What do you mean, again?" Ash went on.
"Oh, great work Dialga," Giratina mumbled. "Throw me back in time, great get-out clause if I don't know a thing about… wait, shouldn't I be in the sidereal world? And how come you can understand me?"
"...no way," Pikachu said. "Ash, I thought you couldn't do that any more?"
"So did I," Ash replied. "But when I touched him Azelf said something… or maybe he hid something in me that would speak to me when I touched him, or… I don't know!"
Meganium coughed. "Can we please pay attention to the wounded Legendary Pokémon and the apocalyptic battle overhead?"
Aboard the Megarig, Zero examined the latest developments.
"Giratina has survived," he said, with a smile. "That's good news – I'd resigned myself to Giratina's regrettable death, but if he's alive that's much better."
Infi displayed additional screens, highlighting the identity of the trainer whose Pokémon were already causing problems.
"Thank you, Infi," Zero told his AI courteously. "Ash Ketchum… I wonder if he's inclined to listen to reason?"
"Unlikely," Infi replied, one of her holograms appearing next to him. "The activities of the Megarig fall into the category of events Ash Ketchum is known to disapprove of."
Zero nodded his understanding, thinking. "I see. What do you recommend?"
"Your greatest chance of personal survival is to split their forces," Infi advised. "The Mecha Giratina has been loaded with all information gained from the analysis machine, and is ready for departure."
Zero got up from his chair. "All right, then… down the corridor on the left, correct?"
"Correct," Infi confirmed.
Zero walked out of the observation room, a hologram of Infi by his side in case he needed anything. It was a short walk to the boarding tube, and he was halfway there before another question occurred to him.
"Infi," he began. "Doesn't that mean one instance of you will have to remain behind on the Megarig?"
"Confirmed," Infi stated.
"Are you all right with that?"
"It is my duty to fulfil your commands to the best of my abilities," Infi answered.
"That's not what I asked," Zero said, pausing at the door. "I asked if you were all right with that."
Infi paused – just a moment, but longer for a computer.
"I will be all right with that," she confirmed finally.
"Thank you, Infi," Zero told her, then went through the door – finding the Mecha Giratina, his parasite fighter, already nearly ready to launch as another iteration of Infi ran through the final preflight checks.
"Launch ready in fifteen seconds," Infi's voice told him, her holographic image appearing on the screen.
"Let's go, then," Zero decided, as the whole airship shook slightly from side to side. "We can come back to the Reverse World whenever we need to."
He took the controls in both hands, and tensed.
"That thing again?" Giratina rumbled. "This is just… and it's stolen my powers, as well. Great."
He floated a few inches off the ground, grimacing, then focused his attention on the rest of the fight. "Okay, that's not normal – what Pokémon is that? Where did all those others come from?"
"Most of them are mine, actually," Ash replied. "It's kind of a long story. That purple one using all the psychic powers is Mewtwo."
He looked down at Giratina, checking with Aura sight this time. "Are you okay?"
"Still a bit tired," Giratina admitted, then shook his tendrils. "But I'll recover. I'm certainly not going to sit out getting my own back!"
Rising into the air a little higher, he shot a Shadow Ball up at the Megarig. It splashed off a half-there shield mottled in white and black, but the impact was noticeable – pushing the Megarig back a little and making it sway from side to side.
"Is that like the Counter Shield?" Ash asked. "I just realized – that's your version of the energy shields Dialga and Palkia have, right?"
"What's a Counter Shield?"
Giratina didn't get an immediate reply to his question, as Charizard came swooping down to alight just next to Ash.
"That shield's really tough," he told Ash. "Mewtwo thinks he can backstop me if I go Mega and Blast Burn it."
"Go ahead and Blast Burn if you think it's a good idea," Ash replied. "But there is someone on there."
"Two someones," the scientist volunteered. "The system has an artificial intelligence aboard by the name of Infi."
"Oh, you're that Newton guy," Giratina realized, not that Newton understood him.
As Ash got his staff ready to Mega Evolve the Pokémon here, however, something flashed out of a concealed docking port on the Megarig. Bursting out of the main shield, it revealed that it too had the same kind of shield as Giratina, and promptly demonstrated that it had all of Giratina's abilities by ripping a hole open back into the conventional world and passing through.
"You're not getting away with that!" Giratina announced, bristling. "Come on, Ash!"
One of his tendrils picked up the somewhat surprised Ash, depositing him on Giratina's back, and he surged towards the portal – only to be diverted away by the same effect Palkia had already set up. "Oh, come on!"
"Mewtwo, you can get us back to our world, right?" Ash asked.
In reply, Mewtwo gestured up at the open void. The Megarig phased back into reality a moment later and about half a mile away, firing a burst of Will O' Wisp and setting a nearby floating island on fire.
Mewtwo quickly snuffed the flames, enclosing the island in a psychic bubble and then rapidly expanding the bubble to depressurize it. The expedient handled that, but the Megarig then focused a Hex attack on the group, one which Mewtwo blocked but which strained him to shield the whole group.
"I can help," Shaymin said.
Giratina looked down, surprised, then nodded. "If you're willing to help, then thank you."
Shaymin looked baffled by the situation – not expecting to get thanked by Giratina – then nodded a little uncertainly and flew off to the still-smouldering island to charge up.
"We'd better hurry," Ash decided. "I… guess I'm going with Giratina. Mewtwo, can you handle that?"
"I can keep it contained, but not stop it," Mewtwo replied. "Not by myself."
"I have a plan," Lucario suggested. "That ship's controlled by an artificial intelligence, we know that… so we're going to need Dexter. What Pokémon does Zero have?"
"Oh – well, he mostly trains Magnemite, or did when I knew him," Newton replied.
"Then we'll need Pikachu," Lucario went on. "And me. Between us we can handle them. Apart from that, we mostly need Pokémon who can get us on board while Mewtwo keeps it busy."
"That thing was fast," Pidgeot volunteered. "I can keep up, but I'm not sure Charizard can."
Ash thought for several seconds, then nodded.
"Okay," he said, unbuckling his belt and passing it over – with Kari. "Lucario – you take Kari, Pikachu and Dexter and get on board if you can. Latios, Latias, one of you should take them on board. Meganium, we'll need you with Giratina in case he has trouble… Mewtwo, can you, Ho-Oh and Charizard handle fighting the Megarig?"
Mewtwo nodded. "We should be able to, Ash, though it'll be a tough fight."
"Good luck, Ash," Pikachu said. "And don't get killed again."
"You bet," Ash replied. "Zorua, I know you can help, but that scientist guy needs to be taken out of danger if anything happens. You handle that!"
Zorua nodded. "You can count on me, Ash!"
Then Shaymin used Seed Flare about four hundred yards away, and blew open a hole in the universe.
"Okay, that's that one dealt with," Absol sighed in relief. "Next-"
She paused, blinking, then took a deep breath.
"Fire!" she called, and flicked an Ice Blade beam off towards the west.
Suicune looked, and saw nothing – but she didn't assume that meant Absol had made a mistake. Instead she broke into a flat-out sprint, her speed ramping up as fast as she could manage.
Ahead and to her left she saw Goodra wave his hand, then return himself. Mawile swooped down, using her glider wing, and snagged her friend's Pokéball from the grass with a careful catch before throwing it ahead of Suicune.
The extra distance that earned let Suicune fit catching it into her trajectory, and she jumped high to gently pick Goodra's Pokéball out of the air.
Landing back down with a thump, she kept going until a second Sword Beam hit the ground to her right – the signal she'd been expecting, and one which Absol's chance-dancing skill had let her reverse-engineer. She threw Goodra's Pokéball into the air as soon as the signal hit, and he used Rain Dance before he even hit the ground.
A moment later a swath of flame erupted out of thin air. It lasted for perhaps two or three seconds before fading – two or three seconds in which Suicune doused both herself and Goodra with a blast of Hydro Pump – but neither the Hydro Pump nor Goodra's quick Rain Dance prevented the flame from catching all over the area. Trees began to smoulder and burn, grass caught with a hiss of steam, and frightened Pokémon began wailing for help.
Mega Arc came barrelling up, using his charged-up power to increase his speed, then halted with a bang and a tingle of eddy current braking. "Anyone who needs out, get on me!"
As some of the ground-bound Pokémon nearby – including three Shaymin and a group of Cherubi – came to get on Mega Arc and get evacuated, Suicune concentrated her efforts on one side of the fire. Keldeo came soaring in on his own Hydro Pump water rockets, spraying water everywhere but especially on top of the fire, then landed in the middle of one particularly hot section.
Suicune lost track of him for a moment, then he rose out again with a cargo of Pineco and took them off to be let down past the edge of the flames.
"Hey, um, should we use the reserve yet?" Swellow asked.
"Not yet," Suicune replied. "Not until Absol decides it's better than doing without them."
She swept her water attack across the area, feeling it amplified by the rain, then crouched and jumped as high into the air as she could manage.
Focusing, she let out one enormous Hydro Pump, and water sprayed in all directions before raining down all over the area.
"I think that got it," she said, landing with a splat, and began pacing to look for patches that were still smouldering.
A flicker of movement caught her eye, and then she was nearly bowled off her feet by a gust of wind so strong she was surprised it wasn't just a shockwave.
"Good thing the fire was basically out before that came through," Goodra muttered.
"There's some under here," Cynthia's Lucario reported.
"Right," Cynthia said. "Spiritomb?"
Spiritomb dove into the rock, shadowy form wrapped protectively around the keystone to let it phase through as well, and vanished.
"How are they doing?" she asked her Fighting-type.
"I think they're okay for now," Lucario told her. "They have an air pocket, and none of them look too badly injured. But we'll need to get them to Chansey soon."
Spiritomb phased back out of the rock and said something.
"You got that, Garchomp?" Lucario asked.
Garchomp nodded.
"All right, go ahead," Cynthia instructed.
Her Garchomp dug into the rock fall, hauling rocks out of the way, and Lucario stepped up behind to move the rocks further and prevent them becoming an obstacle.
"Slow down a bit, you're getting close," Lucario advised, and Garchomp duly slowed down a bit. Then she broke through, and Spiritomb's whole tenebrous form glowed as the Ghost-type held up the other rocks to prevent them falling on the trapped Pokémon.
"Out you come," Lucario called them – three Swinub, a pair of Delibird and a Snover – and helped all six Pokémon get out, carrying one of the Swinub because she'd either badly bruised or broken something.
As the rock fall crashed back closed again, Cynthia's Togekiss collected up the most injured Pokémon before flying them over to the medical area. All the Pokémon available with some healing skill were gathered there, along with some Joys that were apparently friends of Raikou, and Cynthia smiled for a moment at the knowledge that their rescuees would be taken care of.
Then she looked back at Lucario. "Any more?"
"Not at the moment," Lucario replied, scanning the area in Aura sight.
Even as he spoke, however, Brock's Crobat came flying over and called out.
"Absol says we're needed this way," Lucario announced, pointing before starting on an easy lope. Cynthia nodded, returning Garchomp, then gave Spiritomb a nod.
The ghost collective picked up their trainer with Psychic and followed Lucario, giving Cynthia a surprisingly comfortable ride.
The Mecha Giratina banked into a turn, and Zero glanced up at the screens.
"Everything works?" he asked.
"Confirmed," the Infi iteration told him. "The systems are all functioning optimally. You have the full power of Giratina available."
"Wonderful," Zero said sincerely. "Let's see, now… ah, that looks like a good test target."
He slowed the fighter, hovering it on the repulsors instead of with dynamic lift, and spun it around to point at a nearby snow cornice hanging over a steep valley.
"Weapons are online," Infi supplied. "Are you sure this is a good target?"
"Of course it is," Zero replied. "It's fragile, I suppose, but it'll be a good way to get my eye in."
One of the smaller screens changed, showing the likely consequences of firing on the snow cornice – a collapse by the snow down onto the valley sides, triggering an avalanche which would hit a town below.
Zero looked at the diagram for a few seconds, then waved it away. "It's sad, I admit," he said. "And a pity that there's not a better target nearby. But it's more than worth it. Show me the attack options."
Infi did so, a grid appearing with all of the copied attacks, and Zero contemplated it for a moment before nodding to himself.
He selected the attack – Earth Power – and fired, sending a beam of orange-red light out to strike the cornice. The impact was glancing, with the beam punching straight through the hardened snow and ice, and cracks spread quickly before the whole thing crumbled down onto the ice field below.
"Alert," Infi said suddenly. "Planar rupture detected."
Zero looked over at the screen she highlighted, seeing a portal erupt from thin air nearby. A group of Pokémon came though, including a Mega… Latias, he thought, though it could have been a Mega Latios… and a Pidgeot, along with Giratina.
The Ghost-type Legendary roared something, and Zero spun his fighter out of the way of an Aeroblast fired by the Pidgeot. The attack glanced off the shields, and Zero frowned slightly as he pushed the Mecha Giratina into a dive.
"Bring the shields in closer, Infi," he instructed. "I don't want to see them being damaged when we could have dodged."
"Confirmed," Infi stated, and they skimmed low over the ongoing avalanche before Zero opened another portal and dropped back into the Reverse World.
"Here?" Karen asked her Absol. "Are you sure?"
Absol nodded. "Soooool-ab!"
Karen glanced at her fellow Elite Four members. "Did...did any of you get that?"
"I did," Will supplied. "Or, rather, Alakazam did. Absol is sure that this is where we can currently do the most help."
"Well, you're generally pretty good about that," Karen shrugged. "It's a pity you can't get more details, though."
Absol hung her head. "Sol-ab."
"That one doesn't really need translating," Bruno chuckled. "Hey, Lance, any idea how close we are to that thing Misty's at?"
"Fairly close, I think," Lance replied. "I'm not certain, but I know she said she was going to somewhere in Sinnoh. Apparently Cynthia's got her own Elite Four team involved, as well, so-"
The ground trembled.
"Oh, damn," Bruno said softly, looking upslope. "Guys – avalanche!"
He sent out an Onix and a Steelix, who both formed dams with their bodies to help divert the snow away from the group of trainers, and Will sent out all his Psychic-types to help.
Karen's Absol looked smug, for about half a second, before swirling up a Razor Wind and throwing it into the avalanche to help break it up.
The mountain shook under them as Lance's dragons joined in as well, doing their best to reduce the load on Will's Psychic-type team, and most of the Kanto-Johto Elite Four were so busy coordinating their Pokémon they barely noticed as Zero's supernaturally-enhanced fighter plunged into the ground nearby.
"We need to follow him!" Ash called.
"I know, but the portal's closed!" Giratina replied, drifting slowly towards the ground as he used his Ghost abilities to negate most of his weight. "I'm going to need a moment to break whatever Palkia did, hold on!"
"Shaymin, can you help?" Ash asked, turning to the Legendary flying alongside.
"I don't even know how to open portals except with a big explosion on the other side!" Shaymin protested. "And this is mountain air! There's no pollution here to use!"
"What do we do when we catch up?" Mega Latios checked. "Just open fire? Pidgeot was doing that."
"Yeah, I think it's a good start," Ash replied. "I… I'd rather you stop it without making it crash, but if you can't stop it without putting Zero and Infi in danger then stop it."
"I understand the distinction," Mega Latios nodded.
"Okay, I think I've got a handle on this!" Giratina called. "It'll weaken every time I transit back from this world to my one, but Shaymin's going to need to be the one to lead us out for the next few jumps!"
Shaymin swallowed audibly, then nodded.
That said, Giratina ripped open a hole in space. Mega Latios went through first, accelerating at a punishing speed – far faster than he could have managed with Ash on his back – and Pidgeot flew through a second later, conjuring her white wings of air as soon as she was on the far side of the portal.
Giratina went next, with Shaymin just behind him, and the portal snapped closed.
"There!" Ash called, pointing overhead – towards an expanse of water, which rippled continuously and sent patterns of reflection shifting through the area.
"I see him!" Giratina agreed. "Hold on!"
Ash did his best to hold on with Aura as Giratina swam through the air – transitioning from Altered Form back to Origin Form and taking on an undulating and surprisingly rapid style of movement.
"Pidgeot!" Ash called, remembering. "Latios! Careful with what's behind where you're firing!"
"Right!" Mega Latios agreed, realizing. "We might do more damage than he can – whoah!"
Ahead of them, the Mecha Giratina fired out an Ominous Wind. It punched right through the water, which turned out to be only about five feet deep, and the streamlined fighter spun as it passed through the gap it had created.
Zero immediately yawed once through the hole, shielding himself from direct observation, and jumped back to the normal world with a flash.
Ash thought for a moment. "Shaymin! Come over here, I'll have Meganium charge you up!"
An unknown distance away in the Reverse World, the Megarig's effectors flared and shot out a blast of greenish flames.
Charizard rolled, snatching his wing away from the first rush of Dragon Breath, and countered it with his own gout of Dragon-typed flames. The two clashed with a series of flashes, pockets where the energy built up to create explosions, then after a few seconds a wall of light slammed across between Charizard and the Megarig and blocked the rest of the attack from hitting him.
"Thanks!" Charizard called to Mewtwo, wings cupping the air and letting him speed around to the side. Another attack came flicking out at him, this one a Thunderbolt, and he endured it with a snort of laughter before launching a Fire Blast back.
The Megarig's shield took it with ease, prompting Charizard to glance around for where Mewtwo was and fly over to him as Ho-Oh took up the attack.
"That shield's pretty tough," he reported. "I'm not Mega, sure, but that feels every bit as strong as what Dialga and Palkia were doing."
I've been examining it, Mewtwo replied, and launched a powerful Psystrike at the shield – producing a noticeable ripple in a shield already taking Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire, though the Megarig drifted out of phase with reality before the strain built up too much. I wonder if the basis of the shield is something to do with particle physics, like how Dialga and Palkia presumably use their own powers of time and space to build their shields.
"I… don't pretend to understand enough to know if that helps," Charizard admitted ruefully.
Fair point, Mewtwo said readily. It's quite esoteric.
Latias called out, and Mewtwo spun to where she'd directed – watching as the Megarig phased back into solidity. Interesting. It looks like there's a limit to how long it can dive before it has to return to the real world again. That could be useful.
"What I want to know is whether I can do something useful to it if I hit it really hard," Charizard said. "Can you backstop me?"
Of course, Mewtwo replied, deflecting a Thunderbolt attack away with a wave of his hand.
Thus assured, Charizard took a deep breath. His wings crackled with eddies and embers of hot air as he hovered in the void, and then he charged in what wasn't properly a dive – just a Flare Blitz aimed straight at the Megarig.
A light built up in his throat, then he reached optimal range and fired. What emerged from his open mouth was a lance of white-hot plasma, a Charific Valley Blast Burn – pure and simple, delivered with all the power his years of training could muster, and focused down to a single point.
That attack certainly made a visible impression. The Megarig's shields distorted inwards, forced out of their position by the sheer power of the attack, and the faint pale-dark pattern marking out the position of the shield bubble brightened as it fought to resist the impact. A counterattack speared out, a stream of Dragon Pulse, and Ho-Oh's personal ramjet roared as he came blasting over to intercept it – wrapping himself in a Counter Shield of Sacred Fire and physically interposing himself into the path of the attack.
Charizard kept his own Blast Beam up, forcing himself to sustain the attack a little longer, and a black patch of localized failure formed – then he had to stop, and the shield closed back up over the hole.
It was still brightly lit, though, and Latias came charging in. She fired a Mist Ball, Pikachu used Volt Crash, and Lucario hurled forwards an Aura Sphere.
The attacks passed right through the shield without slowing, and a moment later the Megarig was gone – back out of phase, where it was impossible to attack.
"Sorry," Latias told them, slowing down. "We missed the chance."
"There will be another," Kari reminded them. "It seems we must gird ourselves for the attempt, then make it all at once as soon as the Megarig returns – not this time, but one of the ones to come."
"That sounds like a plan," Lucario agreed. "Though…"
He reached down to the belt Ash had lent him, taking Kari's hilt. "It also occurs to me that perhaps it might be best to fight Ghost-type powers with a Ghost?"
"It doesn't have the ring of fight fire with fire," Pikachu said. "Though it is more likely to work."
"I've never understood why that saying's not 'fight dragon with dragon'," Latias volunteered, then yelped and dodged aside as the Megarig hurled an Ancientpower at them.
The other Ancientpower rock of the attack flew right at Charizard, who headbutted it hard enough to blow it to bits.
"...that was impressive," Latias blinked, then refocused and fired a Dragon Pulse at the Megarig. At the same moment, Lucario rose to his full height on her back, paws glowing blue to hold on – and used Sacred Sword, channelling it through Kari.
The Dragon Pulse passed right though the Megarig without any effect.
The Sacred Sword, however, passed right through the shield. It made contact with the Megarig with a visible flash, making it suddenly jolt to one side, and it passed right through a cluster of orbiting rocks.
Unfortunately, not all of the Sacred Sword attack actually hit the Megarig itself. Some of the attack went wide, slicing into the rocks, and Lucario winced.
"I… hope that didn't break anything important," he said.
I would not count on it, Dexter replied. Perhaps we should remember to alert Mewtwo for attacks like that.
At one end of the Gracidea Valley, Dawn checked the situation again before allowing herself to breathe a sigh of relief.
With all the Ice-types and Ice users here now, along with a fantastic collection of strong Pokémon headed by a Regigigas, the glacier seemed to have finally stopped sliding downhill. She'd taken on the project for herself as soon as they arrived in the valley, and though it had been harder to handle the coordination than last time she was fairly sure she'd managed to stop it a little earlier than last time.
Another tremble ran through the ground, and Dawn's first reaction was to check that the glacier hadn't begun moving again. Fortunately it hadn't, but that left Dawn with a puzzle – until Buneary waved to get her attention.
"Over there!" she pointed.
Dawn looked, and did a double-take. The top of one of the nearby mountains had been blown off, sending rocks tumbling down on all sides, and the peak itself – which looked worryingly big – was tumbling lazily through the air towards Gracidea.
"All of you, use Hyper Beam!" Brandon called, getting the attention of all three of his Regi titans. "If you can break it into small enough pieces they'll all slow down in the air!"
An orange light came stabbing down from the sky above, from so high Dawn had trouble making out where it had started – the light trail just receding into invisibility somewhere above the highest clouds – and halted, hanging in mid-air for a moment as the tumbling peak reached the crest of its arc and began to fall.
Then the rock stopped – just stopped, in mid-air.
"Oh, hey, it's Max's Deoxys!" Glaceon called.
"Like… cool," Skitty shrugged. "I've been, like, using Blizzard until my teeth hurt. Like, everything's cool now."
"Here we go!" Shaymin announced, then used Seed Flare. The explosion of her attack blew a hole in space, about where Zero's fighter had vanished, and she swept through with Giratina and the others behind her.
They came out in a canyon, and Pidgeot flared her wings to slow down before climbing to get over the wall of rock just ahead of them. Mega Latios and Shaymin pulled up as well, and Ash held on tight as Giratina phased them both through the wall.
"Sorry about that," Giratina apologized, skidding to a halt on the other side of the rock wall. "It didn't feel weird, did it?"
"A bit," Ash replied. "But it's not-"
A flash of light hit them from the side, and Giratina grunted as he took the impact of a Dark Pulse. He staggered sideways despite the six legs of his Altered Form, and established his shield with a flicker of energy before turning and firing a Shadow Ball right back.
Ash caught sight of Zero's fighter retreating back into one of the nearby expanses of rock, and winced. "That's going to be a problem..."
"Yeah, we can both phase but I can't fly as fast as him in Altered Form," Giratina agreed. "Best I can do is float… I should really find what happened to my Orb one of these days – anyway! Where did the fighter go?"
"It's that way!" Ash replied, looking around using Aura Sight and seeing the energy lighting up the fighter. "I can't tell if it's inside the rock at the moment, though – Latios?"
Mega Latios and Pidgeot both flew overhead, noticing where Ash was pointing and focusing on that area, and Mega Latios shot a Dragon Pulse down from overhead.
"Inside the rock!" he called.
"Right!" Giratina replied, and broke into a run. He built up speed as fast as he could, then jumped and phased – reducing his weight to a tiny fraction of what it had been, and letting him fly straight through the pillars and walls of rock to collide with the Mecha Giratina.
Their shields clashed against one another, waste energy arcing out into the rock and causing fractures to open up, and when fighter and Pokémon emerged on the far side of the rock they left behind a pillar that was crumbling under its own weight.
"That's really bizarre!" Ash called. "I could see stuff with Aura, but my regular vision was just seeing rock right in front of it!"
Giratina grabbed at Zero's fighter again, but it slipped out of his grip and spun end-over-end. Lighting the engines at full power, it evaded Giratina's barrage of Shadow Ball attacks and stood on its tail to get some sky room.
Pidgeot came stooping down from her position as top cover, hammering an Ominous Wind at it, then dove slightly underneath the parasite fighter and fired Aeroblast. With nothing to backstop her but the sky, she could go full-power, and the brilliant red beam of light stayed on Zero's shields for almost three seconds before he managed to shake her with a dive into a valley.
Ash closed an eye so he could keep following the situation, one arm pointing out Zero's position for the Pokémon, and so he saw it ahead of time when Mega Latios fired his Luster Purge while cloaked.
Zero's fighter dodged at the last moment, and the powerful attack exploded just above the bow of the Mecha Giratina – but that was almost as bad, as it sent the fighter craft into a spin and knocked it towards the ground.
At that point Giratina came out of the next cliff, and Ash could see the situation directly – Zero's fighter falling toward the valley floor far below, recovering from the spin it was in, then opening a portal and vanishing back into the Reverse World before impact.
Giratina opened their own portal right where he was, rather than following Zero's fighter the extra mile to where their target had transitioned, and waited long enough for Pidgeot, Mega Latios and Shaymin to head through first before going through himself.
"Good work, Infi," Zero said, checking the readouts. "Any damage?"
"Moderate damage," Infi replied. "Aerodynamic manoeuvre capability compromised. One weapons projector offline."
A number of more minor damage reports lit up the schematic, the yellow of reduced capability rather than the orange or red of nonfunctionality, and Zero shook his head.
"It's a pity that Giratina has decided to pick a fight," he said, looking around at the area they were in. "He'll be following soon."
"Affirmative," Infi agreed.
The area they were in was certainly quite a sight. A thin sheen of ice stretched for three miles on their right, a mirror of the lake down in the valley floor, and in front of them was a pair of volcanoes – one of them erupting out a cloud of flame and smoke and ash, the other sucking in the entire cloud and making it vanish completely. The two volcanoes shared a base, which was probably how it worked on a level of basic mass availability, but it was still one of the stranger sights even for the Reverse World.
"Portal detected," Infi highlighted, and Zero boosted in the direction of the pyrocumulus cloud – operating on the repulsors for steering, and keeping the shield hardened enough to avoid air turbulence working at the compromised fairing.
That annoyingly fast Dragon came through first, the Mega Lati-whatever, and the Pidgeot followed a moment later. Zero dialled up an attack from the rear weapons projectors, an Ancientpower beam, and fired it at the area of the portal – only to see the Mega Lati destroy it with a precisely aimed Psywave.
He did still have an advantage, and he put it to use by circling around the twin volcanoes – if they wanted to attack, they'd have to come for him or risk doing damage to the Reverse World. That was something they seemed to have real problems with, though Zero regarded the matter with indifference – it wasn't as if the place had been pristine when he found it, after all, and who cared if it had an effect elsewhere?
His moment of introspection was interrupted by a flicker of light, and Zero stared for a second before recognizing it as the same attack that had nearly caused catastrophe back in the real world. Then he threw the shield to full power and broke for cover, though the explosion still hammered at the Mecha Giratina and lit up warnings all over the board.
So that Lati could make the attack explode in mid-air. That was good to know...
AN:
Just so it's completely clear, this Giratina is not the Giratina currently playing Explorers of Sky with a harassed Arceus as the programmer.
