This is the fourth of four chapters today.
Absol bared her fangs, claws out and scraping the floor. "You… that… I've been unable to feel what Galactic was doing around me for months, and that is the first thing I get to feel and understand properly?"
"Dialga, do the same to any of them if they attack," Cyrus said, a little carelessly, and Absol trembled with barely-suppressed rage.
Just behind her, Lucario picked Kari off the ground with a faint shinnk of metal on crystal.
"The last thing he did was..." Kari began, her voice hushed. "Sir Ketchum was a true knight. And we must surely do something."
Lucario nodded silently.
"Dialga, Palkia," Giratina rumbled. "If you're not doing it already, start stabilizing the reality here. Make it so they can't do that again."
His gaze went left, to the Lake Trio, and he saw they were doing something with their tails touching in a ring – a faint glow racing around and around in a circle, presumably doing something much the same as the Creation Dragons were now to take the edge off the powers of their counterparts.
"Look at yourselves!" Absol called, her voice raw. "All the Pokémon working for Team Galactic – how can you live with what Cyrus is doing! Enslaving the Dragons of Creation, killing my trainer and friend..."
May's legs gave out, and she fell slowly to her knees.
Ash was… gone.
The horrible moment kept playing out over and over – the flash of intense light engulfing Ash, staying for a moment, then… nothing left.
Ash was gone.
Ash had always seemed like… a fixture, strong and smiling. Kind of a goof at times, sure, and prone to the most ridiculous mishaps, but involved in amazing things as well. The trainer who had convinced May that she could be a trainer.
And he was gone. Vanished in a moment.
It seemed… it didn't seem fair. That something like that could just… happen – that Ash could be there one moment and gone the next…
She half-looked around to make sure Max and their Pokémon were okay. But all of her Pokémon were in their Pokéballs, exhausted like the rest of them, and Arc was stood still on his way over from where Stantler had been hiding him, and Max was right there next to her – not like Ash, who always had to go into danger even if-
May's breath hitched as she wiped away a tear. Then she clenched her fist, heedless of the pain from her nails digging into her palm, and glared at Team Galactic.
A screen lit up in front of Arbok, distracting his attention from what had happened outside.
Query: this mech is a Zekrom mech, and is fully operational. The Kyurem mech is fully operational. Does this mean what I think it means?
Arbok stared at the screen for a moment, then nodded slowly.
Good.
Pikachu stared for a long moment, then blinked away tears.
Sparks flashed from his cheeks, once, and he clenched his paws before breaking into a run – heading straight for Charizard, who was looking at his inert Charizardite X with some shock.
"Charizard," he called, jumping on the Fire-type's back. "You know what we're going to be doing, right?"
Charizard nodded, once, and put his Mega Stone aside with a gentle click.
"Ash believed in me," the big Flame Pokémon said, smoke rising from his nostrils. "Even when I believed I deserved everything, Ash believed I was more decent than that."
He shook his head. "I'm sure you have the same kind of story..."
"You're right, I do," Pikachu agreed. "And, by the way, Charizard… I don't know if I have the authority to do this for you, and I don't care. Blast Burn whenever you get a chance."
Fire washed out of the side of Charizard's mouth, and he spread his wings – slowly raising them, ready for takeoff.
"When we go, we'll be noticed," he said. "That's us committed."
"Don't care," Pikachu replied. "We're doing this."
"Oh, I'm looking forward to it."
"Those… those… bastards," Gary said, unable for a long moment to think of the right word to use. "They just… without..."
He paused, then stared.
Not everyone in the Galactic group had Pokémon with them. Right at the back, behind their controlled Lake Trio and under guard, was… someone very, very familiar.
Gary shaded his eyes, doing his best to focus despite Mawile's broken-hearted sobs a little way to his right.
"D-Dee?" he asked. "Is that… who I think it is?"
Affirmative, Dee replied, her own voice hushed in his earbead. Subject body form is an 85% match for you, aged by six months to a year.
She paused, then went on. Additionally, next to him is a similarly aged version of Zoey. No Porygon handshake detected in either case.
"Then… they're not from this universe," Gary said, slowly. "They're from the last one."
"Espeon," Molly said, next to him, and Gary looked over in surprise.
His mentoree was sitting up, one hand on the collar area of her unusual Eeveelution.
"Change to Sylveon," she told her starter. "Get Mawile to go with you. They're going to need your help."
Espeon flashed into Sylveon, and loped forwards – stopping by Mawile, who was still sobbing.
Gary didn't hear what the Fairy-types said to one another, but Mawile stopped crying. She clenched her fists, going from grief to fury, and nodded once.
"So we will need all three of the dragons to accomplish the Great Work," Cyrus said. "Hm. It would have been much more convenient if we could get by with just two, but you're the expert."
"It's because there are three other dragons who could resist us," Charon explained.
"Of course. Well, we'll just have to destroy the rest of these Pokémon, then," Cyrus decided. "We can't have them interfering."
He waved his hand. "Uxie. Wipe their memories."
The Uxie under his control opened its eyes, staring out at the Pokémon and humans around them, and Cyrus smiled slightly… then frowned.
"Why isn't it working?" he asked.
"They have some powerful Psychic-types of their own," Jupiter pointed out. "Including their own Lake Trio. That might be what's preventing the memory effect from working on them now?"
"Plausible, yes," Charon agreed.
He was about to continue, but Cyrus interrupted him. "Then we'll have to do this the hard way. Dialga, erase the rest of them."
Dialga was about to comply, but then there was a roar – a bellow of rage and flame, coming from a Charizard rising into the air and stooping down on them in a single fluid motion.
"That one first," Cyrus added, pointing.
Dialga roared, and his attack this time was somehow… less. It still had the immense power Cyrus was anticipating, but it wasn't quite like the beam which had wiped that one trainer from the world entirely.
It speared out towards the Charizard, and Cyrus covered his eyes reflexively as a colossal explosion of electrical power poured out in the other direction – a flickering, seething, hissing cord of lightning, which met his Dialga's Roar of Time and blocked it strength-for-strength.
For almost three seconds, the two forces held in a stalemate, and then a lance of plasma shot under the Roar of Time and hit Dialga in the chest. His Roar halted, and the Charizard came barrelling down towards them.
"Giratina, get rid of them!" Cyrus demanded, and one of his other controlled Creation Dragons leaped to help with a crackling portal into the Reverse World. The Charizard – and the Pikachu riding him – dropped into the portal a fraction of a second later, and Cyrus was about to sigh in relief when he saw something else.
A Mawile, coming straight for him, with a torrent of flame spouting from its jaw and propelling it like a rocket.
"Palkia, stop that Mawile!" he instructed, and Palkia fired a Spacial Rend. It arced out towards the Mawile, and hit – and did absolutely nothing at all.
Cyrus ducked just as the Steel-type was about to reach him, and Palkia fired a Hydro Pump after it, and then the Absol he'd seen before howled and charged and everything was noise and chaos.
"Let me through!" Mawile demanded, feet scraping on the ground for a moment before hurling herself forwards again. Her jaw flashed as she used Flamethrower to take off, and she veered to the side to try and get around Palkia – a Spatial Rend hit her, but she ignored it, and then a Hydro Pump pushed her off to the side and made her miss her target.
"Stop!" she added, fists clenched, and her jaws slammed shut in a Fire Fang which sent out coils of flame. "Can't you see he's the bad guy? He told – why are you protecting him!"
Something big and grey roared overhead, spinning around to face Palkia, and shot a bolt of mingled ice-and-lightning at the Legendary Pokémon. Both Palkia's pearls blazed up, defining a shield which shed the attack with a sound like tearing cloth, and Mawile spared only a moment to look at the Black-Kyurem mecha before running ahead in another charge.
This time, she stayed on the floor, and Palkia ignored her at first – shooting a blast of high-pressure water at the Rocket robot. It knocked the construct backwards, and Palkia exhaled a blast of Dragonbreath as well before using Power Gem.
By the time it was doing that, though, Mawile was close enough to attack. She ran into Palkia's energy shield fist first, set her stance, and began slamming in punch after punch – each one glowing pink-and-blue with Fairy energy, and Palkia slammed a foot down to exert a gravity field on the mecha before turning to attack Mawile with the Power Gem.
Mawile smashed the gem into fragments with a single punch, and a salvo of dozens of missiles from the Black Kyurem hit all over Palkia's shield – weakening it, which allowed their friendly Palkia to momentarily neutralize it.
As soon as that happened, Mawile lit her Flamethrower again and punched the Palkia in the jaw. It staggered backwards with the force of the blow, then re-established the shield – hurling the Fairy-type away – and flung a Spacial Rend at her.
Ignoring the attack, Mawile was about to charge in again, but the mecha interrupted her.
"Hey!" Seviper's voice called. "We need to think tactically or we're wasting effort!"
"I don't-" Mawile began hotly, then, trembling furiously, paused – just for a moment. "I…"
She stamped her foot with a thak, blinking away hot tears born of rage and grief. "You're right, but we need to get to that man as well!"
Palkia launched a Spacial Rend at the robot this time, and Mawile darted up to intercept it before curving around with a shout of rage to attack Palkia again. Behind her the Mecha Black Kyurem's turbine yowled, powering blasts of alternating ice and lightning that hammered at the Dragon of Space, and Palkia protected himself with an explosion of water pushed out with great gravitationally-boosted force.
Both paws on Kari's hilt, Lucario ran forwards with a blur of blue light about his feet.
The empowered enemy Giratina fired a Shadow Ball at him, dark and smoky and seething, and Kari whipped up to knock it away before Lucario jumped ahead in a pounce. Giratina shielded, and Lucario spun Kari with a Night Slash on her tip to slice into and through the shield in one go.
The Ghost-type exhaled a cloud of Dragonbreath, floating rapidly backwards, and Lucario jumped out of the way – a blast of blue Aura flaring from his footpaws to launch him out of the way of the attack, before he flipped over in mid-air and used a second blast of blue energy to come back down on top of Giratina from behind and above.
Kari used Ice Blade, Lucario's strength adding to her own to deliver a powerful blow to Giratina. The recoil from the blow knocked them a little way into the air, and Lucario twisted to bring Kari down a second time for another Ice Blade.
Giratina went intangible, letting Lucario drop straight through him, and the Fighting-type landed in a crouch with three paws in contact – the fourth still holding Kari.
Neither of them said anything. Lucario's eyes closed for a moment, and when they opened again he was using Foresight; two Shadow Claw attacks swiped out at them, and Lucario blocked both with successive blows before jumping to attack again.
"Stop them!" Cyrus ordered. "You're Legendary Pokémon, why aren't you stopping them!"
He flinched as Lucario turned towards him, eyes glittering purple with a combined Foresight and Aura Sight, and as his controlled Giratina vanished in a swoosh of acceleration. It appeared again a moment later for a Shadow Force, materializing above Cyrus' head and coming down to crash into the Lucario's interposed sword with a flare of blue and black energy, and a storm of shadow balls crashed down on the two Steel-types indiscriminately.
A little further away, Cyrus could see that Dialga was fighting an enraged Absol and a strange blue-white-and-pink Pokémon he'd never even heard of, and on the other side of that was Palkia fending off the efforts of an astonishingly strong Mawile and an honest-to-goodness transforming robot.
Then the sky tore open with a clap of thunder, and the same Charizard from before came roaring out with the remains of an enormous explosion lighting up the Reverse World behind him. There was a flash of lightning as well, hitting Giratina in the back and blazing a trail from his tail all the way up to his head, and Cyrus stepped back within the range of the Lake Trio's shields before one of the new Pokémon turned their attention to him.
"Tell me there's something good about this," he demanded, as the Reverse World portal snapped closed again.
"The Creation Dragons are very strong," Charon replied. "They are taking hits, and those hits are hurting, but I can't see how-"
"That Charizard just blasted a way back out of another dimension," Cyrus insisted. "And some of those Pokémon are just randomly ignoring some of the attacks pointed at them!"
"You annoyed Ash's Pokémon," said one of their prisoners, with a chuckle. "What did you expect? He's the one who stopped you last time and now he's got a Lucario-"
"Shut up!" a grunt replied, kicking the prisoner in the ribs.
"I need to go and help," Sceptile said, arms crossed firmly.
"No," Meganium replied. "Look at you."
She wrapped her vines around his arms – gently, but still making Sceptile wince involuntarily. "You're hurt. And I know you're hurting – we all are! - but you won't do anyone any good by going out like this."
"But Ash is-" Sceptile began, his calm facade collapsing. "He – we need to help, because… because if we don't, what good is it?"
"If you go out there this badly hurt then I'll be mourning you as well!" Meganium told him sharply. "And that doesn't just go for you, either… and I hate it. I hate everything about this."
Looking around the medical area for a moment, at all the badly exhausted or wounded Pokémon there, she blinked away tears.
"Right now, the best thing you can do is stay calm and try to recover," the Grass-type added, her vines letting Sceptile go. "I'm out of heal pulse, so I'm no good here."
She picked up her Pokéball with a vine, and turned to look at what was going on not too far away.
With almost all the friends' Pokémon so badly exhausted, and the remainder fighting with a grim intensity against the Creation Dragons this new Cyrus had brought with him, the rest of the just-arrived Team Galactic's Pokémon were being fought entirely by the Rockets – both their few surviving robots, shrugging off Pokémon attacks by the dozen, and by Pokémon like Cacturne and Mime Jr. and Weezing.
Meganium's gaze slid over to where Ash had died, then turned back to the other fight.
She coiled up her vine, and hurled her Pokéball towards it – then returned herself in a flash of red light.
Two seconds later she came out of her Pokéball again, now in mid-air and headed for the battle, and used Petal Blizzard. A tsunami of razor-edged pink petals crashed down alongside her, coiled for a moment, and blazed towards the nearest Galactic Pokémon she could see.
Gritting her teeth, Meganium directed her attack to the side – hitting another Pokémon – and tried to ignore the tears now flowing freely down her cheeks.
She understood exactly why Sceptile had wanted to fight. He'd thought it would help him ignore the pain.
It didn't, though. It just changed the emphasis… and it didn't do a thing about guilt.
Absol roared, her claws grating on the floor, and her legs trembled with tension.
She wanted to pounce – to charge – to let her horn flare with azure light and punish Dialga for destroying her trainer. But her disaster-sense was still there, and she knew she had to listen to it – she had to, or nothing that happened would have any meaning.
Every moment was like torture, as all the deferred suffering and mystery of the last several months came crashing down at once. She'd been blind so many times – if she'd been a little better at seeing though Galactic's illusion, even once, maybe they wouldn't be here. Maybe their fight would have been easier.
Maybe Ash would still be alive.
The feeling of warning changed, and Absol darted forwards. Dialga reacted immediately, his adamant gem lighting up with multicoloured light, and just as that same blast of obliteration was about to reach out for her Absol jumped to the side.
Molly's shiny Sylveon jinked as well, blocking the way, and Absol slid to a halt and crouched – and a torrent of iridescent energy was flowing past her, to left and right and above, but she was safe inside the shadow cone created by Sylveon's immunity.
The attack cut out a long moment later, and Absol jumped – reacting to a plan Sylveon had come up with without needing to tell Absol about it. The Fairy-type's furry ribbons coiled like springs, launching Absol into the air, and her horn flashed with the light of her Sacred Sword at full power.
The first blade-beam hit Dialga a glancing blow on the fin, flaring up on impact, and the Dragon of Time shot a Flash Cannon at her in reply. The attack was aimed just right, but Absol blocked with her horn – already lit again with a second charge of Sacred Sword – and let it knock her downwards, out of the wave of Steel-type energy.
She fired out another blade beam, and another, and another – howling between breaths as she barraged Dialga with Sacred Sword attacks, sometimes using Keldeo's trick to triple-up on them and sometimes firing them so fast there were two or even three distinct beams in the air at once.
Then she had to move as Dialga launched a barrage of Aura Spheres at her, and she dodged left and right to let each attack pass by the thickness of a hair – anything to let her attack more, to try and knock Dialga out, to do something to make sure the same fate that had taken her trainer didn't get her friends as well.
Lucario landed with a half-skid, one paw twisting a little to make sure he would come to a halt as soon as possible, and adjusted his grip on Kari's hilt to a double-handed one.
A moment's glance told him Giratina's position, sliding downwards a little under the pressure of fending off a fantastic barrage of electric attacks from Pikachu and a furnace-like stream of flame from Charizard. The Dragon-type was using Reverse World portals to absorb the attacks, the ground shaking slightly as sympathetic response, but Charizard was moving fast and Pikachu's control of his attacks let him curve the shots around any portal he could see.
Giratina turned slowly to retarget his portals, and as soon as he judged himself to be in Giratina's blind spot Lucario ran – not quite charging as fast as he could, keeping his speed to the ideal level to maximize the impact.
Raising Kari up to his shoulder, he drove her into Giratina's side with a flash of ice and Aura – then moved backwards a step, giving him enough free room to move to dodge a retaliatory Dragon Tail without being hit.
Jumping over the attack, he brought Kari down in a two-handed chop on Giratina's tail. The impact made Giratina shudder, drawing his attention away from the strafing run overhead, and he threw a Reverse World portal at Lucario and Kari instead to drop them away from where they could fight him.
Lucario fell twenty feet towards the nearest stone pillar and slowed himself with a brief burst of Aura, reducing the speed of his landing enough that he could absorb it, and sprang back into the air – jumping efficiently from one stone pillar to another, avoiding one shattered by a wayward Blast Burn, and diving through the portal Ash's Giratina had opened to let them back through.
Neither he nor Kari needed to say anything, and there was nothing to say. They were united in purpose, and Lucario broke into a sprint – towards Cyrus, this time, though a shouted order from the Galactic boss sent his controlled Giratina surging across to try and stop them.
Lucario jumped as he saw his enemy focus, a portal opening where he was going to step a moment before, and Kari's blade lit up with Sacred Sword as he hammered her against Giratina's golden armour.
"Come on, come on!" Max said, blinking hard, then groaned. "Ergh… why?"
"Max?" May asked, tearing her eyes from the fighting. Her brother was on one knee with his right hand on Arc's ruff, his grip tight enough that spiky fur stuck out between all his fingers, and his left hand had his Key Stone held just as tightly.
"It's not working," Max explained. "I'm trying to, but… I can't concentrate!"
May put her hand on Max's shoulder. "I… I really want to know what to say, but I can't think of… anything."
She looked up towards the fighting front, where Dawn's badly startled Luxio and Ash's – and Meganium – and the Rockets were trying to fend off the Pokémon this other Team Galactic had brought along, and at about the moment she did there was a flash on the fin of the Mecha Dialga.
Something hot hit her in the upper torso, knocking her to the floor, and Arc yelped – twisting around to see what had happened to her.
"Are you okay?" Max demanded. "Did you hit your..."
He stopped, staring, and May put her hand about two inches below her shoulder. It hurt, and she felt something wet, and she could feel a sting that was getting stronger as the pulse of adrenaline faded a little.
"That robot," May said, frowning a little – more confused than anything. "Something must have hit it and knocked something off?"
"Something hit you!" Max countered. "That's what matters!"
He made as if to try and move May, then stopped. "I… I don't know what to do, but you need medical help and I think everyone's out of healing, and… and I don't want to lose you as well..."
"Hey, I hope you've got some kinda good news," Meowth asked the projector on his wrist. "'cause it's in pretty short supply right now!"
He darted back and to the side, a flicker of smoke marking his exit, and used Fury Swipes on a Golbat. It flapped at him, replying with a Leech Life, and Meowth dodged away with a brace of Pay Day shuriken to keep the Poison-type occupied.
Not really, Wyvern admitted. Most of the mechas are pretty badly damaged. The shields on James' Dialga-mecha are failing, and he's got Mime Jr. doing his best to shore them up; Scorpius is doing his best too, but there's only so much a regular Porygon can do.
Meowth hurled a Shock Wave up at the Golbat, hitting it in both wings, and flickered to Cacturne's side to help her out by Bubblebeaming the Houndour pressuring her. That attack drew a Dragon Rage from Gyarados, knocking the Houndour out, but then Gyarados got hit in turn by a Thunderbolt from a grim-looking Electabuzz and James returned him to his Pokéball.
A little behind that, Wobbuffet was staying cheerful – being used as a kind of club by Carnivine, absorbing attacks with his Mirror Coat and Counter moves before unleashing them in streams of energy. Weezing was holding his own as well, shooting out TM moves whenever he rose out of his cloud of hazy Smog, and Meowth darted over to focus on the Electabuzz.
I'm sending Chimecho over to the medical area Mom set up, Wyvern reported. May got hurt by some shrapnel, and – look out!
Meowth spotted the Ice Shards coming towards him, and blocked automatically. Wyvern materialized a Reflect screen just in front of his crossed arms, deflecting the shower of icicles, then dropped it again as Meowth landed.
There was a rumbling boom, and the Mecha Black Kyurem crashed into the ground – driven there by a blast of force from Cyrus' Dialga. It was held there just long enough for a Hydro Pump attack from his Palkia to score a glancing hit on the turbine, and the steady keening of the high-powered attack booster immediately coughed and sputtered.
"Now dat ain't good," Meowth said, glancing down at a status display Wyvern projected for him – one covered with red indicators for disabled Pokémon or machines, and only a few the green that indicated they were still up. "What the heck got ta Dexter?"
His main body was Ash's Pokédex, remember? Wyvern asked. His projector's taken a battering from the fights and now he's lost his redundant node; I'm worried about him.
"I gotta admit, I'm sharin' my worry pretty wide right now," Meowth said, and took a deep breath.
Three coins appeared in each paw, and he took off at a run towards the main group of Team Galactic – figuring it was about time to see if a cat could sort this out.
His gaze drifted over to where Ash had died, and he hesitated – then shook his head, blinking to clear his eyes.
"I ain't gonna let him down by stoppin' now," he said softly to himself. "And I ain't gonna get distracted by some kinda daydream, either."
He looked again, and stopped.
There was something going on.
A flicker of golden light stirred the dust around the GS ball.
It faded for a moment, then came back – strengthening, and intensifying, and building from a flicker to a cascade of golden sparks which ignited all at once into a wave of brilliant flame.
There was little heat, but the eruption of fire and the pillar of sparks that came with it were so bright and so unexpected that they drew all eyes to them. The fighting just stopped, nobody and no-one having the attention to spare, as the Spear Pillar lit up in golden light that reflected from the walls in sheets of eye-watering intensity.
The scent of rosewood and spice teased into the air as the fire crested, then all at once it vanished – and Ash Ketchum stood where the heart of the flame had been.
"...Ash?" Iris asked, incredulous, as Ash looked around. "How… is that really..."
She waved her hands. "I – but – how!? We saw you – I mean-"
"No!" Cyrus shouted, his eyes wild. "That's just too much!"
He stepped forwards. "I've tried to be patient, I know that not everyone understands how much better the world will be once the Great Work is complete, but this shouldn't be possible and it's completely unfair! If I have you killed, you're supposed to stay dead!"
The leader of Team Galactic pointed. "Palkia! Destroy him, and do it properly!"
Palkia's claws flared up, and he swiped downwards to send a bolt of sizzling orange energy towards Ash – who threw something into the attack, a moving spark of gold and silver which hit the Spatial Rend halfway between the two.
The most powerful attack of the Dragon of Space vanished in a flash, and the spark fell to the floor. It bounced once, then flew right back towards Ash as if magnetized.
For a moment it seemed that Cyrus had lost the power of speech.
"All of you!" he said. "Destroy him!"
Ash raised his sword in his right hand, faint golden light still dancing inside the blade, and with his other he threw the GS Ball. It neutralized Dialga's attack with a sprang, the gold-and-silver Pokéball no more vulnerable to that than it was to anything else, and Ash sent out a golden blade-beam to deflect Palkia's attack before catching the GS Ball again as it curved into his hand.
Cyrus' Giratina began to make a move, and became the focus of so many attacks at once he was blown head-over-tail by the combined efforts of Lucario, Charizard, Pikachu, Sylveon and Absol.
"Dad!" Mawile called, running over and hugging his leg. "You're all right!"
"Yeah," Ash replied, smiling. "I'm glad you're okay, Mawile."
"You're glad I'm okay?" Mawile repeated, sounding suddenly quite cross. "But you were- you really scared me! We thought you were – we thought..."
Her voice broke.
Ash threw the GS ball again, this time spinning it so it bounced from one attack to the other and neutralized them both on its way back to his hand, and Cyrus shouted something rendered incomprehensible by rage.
Dialga attacked, then Palkia, both Pokémon obeying the orders Cyrus gave them, but no matter how intense the attack or how quickly fired the outcome was the same. A kind of hush hung over the Spear Pillar, interrupted only by the ripping sounds of transcendent attacks and the strange cracks made as Ash blocked them with the GS Ball… a little spark of metallic light which flew back into Ash's hand after every throw, going head-to-head against some of the most powerful attacks possible and overcoming them every single time.
After more than a minute, Dialga stopped, and so did Palkia – the two dragons having trouble keeping up the barrage of their strongest attacks – and Ash lowered his hand slightly.
"I'm going to need a moment to do this," he said gently. "Watch out, Mawile."
He adjusted his grip on his sword, patting Mawile on the head as she let go of his leg, then sharply bashed together the crystals in his gloves. They splintered, falling apart completely into hundreds of little shards, and there was a hollow thump as all the Aura left in the reconstituted batteries flowed out at once.
Ash exploded forwards, throwing the GS Ball ahead of him, and it hit Palkia's lustrous shield and burst through with a bright silver-and-gold flare of energy – one which was matched by the pair of silver-and-gold feathers on the staff over his shoulder. As the ball came back, Ash threw it in Dialga's direction, and he put both hands on the hilt of his sword before sweeping the glowing tip around in an arc which hit Palkia with a whoom of discharging Aura.
Darting to his right, Ash sprinted towards Dialga while Palkia was still stunned. The GS Ball zipped past him in the other direction, knocked that way by the recoil of a Roar of Time, and he sliced through Dialga's shield with a rising sword-blow before hitting Dialga on the return stroke.
The Dragons of Space and Time staggered, waves of Aura fizzing around them, and Ash caught the GS Ball again.
"Go!" he called, throwing it, and the GS Ball opened in a flare of light.
"Okay, what's going on?"
"How should I know? I thought this was the boss room."
"There is a Primal Dialga over there. But the Primal Palkia and Primal Giratina are new… are those a thing now?"
Ash's Giratina stared.
Seeing Ash literally come back to life in front of him had been joyous and baffling and humbling, all at once… and now he didn't even know what to think, as three more Creation Dragons came out of the same gold-and-silver Pokéball.
There was a Riolu with them as well, for some reason. And they were all wearing scarves… and Giratina had to blink, several times, when he saw that the Dialga appeared to be wearing a novelty Skitty hat.
"Should I understand that?" asked the Dialga standing next to Giratina. "I'm fairly sure that's not me."
Giratina shook his head, then froze in shock as a ring of multicoloured light appeared overhead.
Curtains of aurora descended from the ceiling of the Spear Pillar, blue and green and yellow and red in rippling arcs which waved and streamed back and forth. There was a faint ringing sound, accompanying the descending blaze, which got stronger with each new flare of light and faded away again as soon as the intensity dimmed.
The aurorae stopped a foot above the floor and shifted, defining a circle, and then rose again – and when they did, the Creator was stood there on golden hooves.
His ring shone with an inner light, the split colours of a caged rainbow chasing back and forth under the surface of the gold, and He regarded the Spear Pillar – looking at the nine Creation Dragons, the other Pokémon, and the humans present as well.
"I have come unto the earth," He declared, sinking until he contacted the surface with a four-part pulse of iridescent light that spread out through the entire floor like a ripple on a pond. "Cyrus, leader of Team Galactic."
Cyrus had no reaction at first, his hand twitching slightly as he stared at Arceus.
"I am aware of all you have done," Arceus went on. "But I can show mercy; I am merciful. You may be able to-"
"All of you, attack!" Cyrus demanded.
The 'Primal' Dialga and Palkia both obeyed their compelled commands, sending blasts of space-time-warping energy towards the Original One, and their trio mate Giratina vanished in a flicker of shadow to come diving down in a Shadow Force.
Other Galactic Pokémon obeyed as well, Jupiter's Skuntank firing a Hyper Beam and her Bronzong using Flash Cannon, and the Lake Trio all glowed at once. Charon's Gengar attacked as well, and so did almost all the remaining Pokémon of the Galactic Grunts.
Arceus vanished inside the barrage of attacks for several long seconds, explosions and smoke crashing out as the volley continued, until finally three Future Sight balls came flashing down – attacks by Uxie, Mesprit and Azelf, forced out of them by Cyrus' command.
Then there was a brilliant flare of white light. Arceus' whole body glowed with incandescent illumination, a Flash with His immense power behind it, and the attacks stopped all at once.
Arceus was completely unharmed.
"Well, so much for the merciful approach," He declared, and a pulse of orange light rose to the very top of Spear Pillar. It hung in the air for a moment, then flashed and split into a thousand pink streamers.
Judgement marched across the Spear Pillar. Galactic Pokémon – and only Galactic Pokémon – were knocked into the air by bracketing impacts, weaker Pokémon surrounded by three or four blasts so the overpressure combined to knock them out while stronger Pokémon took one or two or four hits to render them into unconsciousness as well. Other targets were hit – every last piece of equipment from either Charon was disintegrated, while Galactic's stolen Lake Trio were each hit by at least fifty much less powerful Judgement beams. The humans came in for trouble as well, knocked off their feet by nearby explosions, and two particularly precise shots cut Gary and Zoey free of their bonds.
Primal Dialga, Palkia and Giratina vanished inside the heaviest bombardment of all, pounding their shields to the point of failure and then ceasing exactly on time, and the last three Judgement meteors of the strike broke the Red Chains holding them.
Arceus waited until the Red Chains had clattered to the floor, then obliterated them with a second Judgement attack – as much force as the first, but focused entirely on the chains of red crystal.
"I made a mistake to think that those were necessary," He declared. "And My error has cost much."
Raising a hoof, He struck the floor. "Cyrus! Account for yourself!"
Cyrus pushed himself off the ground, where the bombardment had knocked him, but said nothing.
"Very well," Arceus decided. "To you I commend the following instruction; be careful what you wish for, you may get it."
A hole opened in space, and on the other side was a grassy field.
"You, and all your willing followers, are exiled," the Creator stated. "The world on the other side of that portal is exactly what you wanted – a world without spirit."
"What?" the older Gary demanded. "They just – they did something horrible to the universe, they killed Ash, and just because he came back you're letting them off?"
"I am not letting them off!" Arceus thundered. "The world through that portal has no humans, no Pokémon, no civilization, no animal life whatsoever. Their scientist Charon knows much, but his equipment is dust; he cannot build the tools needed to build the tools for anything which might pose a threat."
He stepped closer, each hoof-fall producing the same ripple of iridescence through the Spear Pillar as before. "There is no Aura, no magic, no psychic powers; the Pokémon who pass through will still function, but their abilities will be curtailed drastically. It is a life's exile, without possibility of departure, and that life will be spent not as lords of creation but working to survive. That survival is possible… but it will not be easy."
Arceus' gaze examined Gary. "Understand that my decision is not made from an excess of mercy, Gary Oak. It is the purest form of ironic punishment that I can impose."
That said, the Original One looked at the mass of Team Galactic – still recovering from the Judgement attack – and then to the Lake Trios. "Who amongst this group was not aiding Team Galactic voluntarily?"
"Okay, uh… question?" Ash's Giratina said, hesitantly. "I know who I am, and I know the Giratina over there who's just reverting from whatever Cyrus did to him is my alternate self. But who are you?"
"I'm the head of our Rescue Team," replied the scarfed Giratina.
The Dialga wearing a Skitty hood trod on his tail.
"I mean, I'm a member of our Rescue Team," he corrected. "Hey, quick question – you're not some kind of curveball Dad threw at us because we were getting too blasé about the whole thing, right? Because I thought we'd have to fight the Primals over there, but I guess not since Dad blew them up."
"No, this is the world," the Riolu said. "It's a little different than before, but I feel the Aura of a living world outside. It's something you never really realize is there until it's gone..."
He was about to continue, but a Lucario tackled him.
"Are you okay, Aaron?" Palkia called, waited a moment, then shrugged. "Eh, he'll probably be fine."
As soon as it looked like everything was under control, Misty broke into a run.
She pelted across the Spear Pillar, heedless of the debris in her way, and came to a halt in front of Ash.
"Ash, you..." she began, then paused – not sure exactly what to say.
She wanted to shout at him for getting into this kind of situation again, she wanted to grab him and make sure he was really there, she wanted to celebrate that he was alive – alive again – and there were at least three other things as well and she wasn't sure which she should be doing more.
"Misty?" Ash replied. "Is something wrong?"
"How can you ask that after what just happened?!" Misty demanded. "I don't – but – I don't even know where to begin!"
Then Ash's Pokémon arrived, all at once – heedless of any lingering injuries – and Misty took a step back as her friend was all but buried under a pile of relieved Pokémon. There were a few other Pokémon in there as well, all speaking over one another, as Ash assured them over and over that he was here and he was all right.
As the final tension of combat drained away, Kari sheathed herself with a faint click – noticing a little scrap missing from her tassel, cut off by the beam of indescribable energy from bare minutes ago.
Something felt odd, though. Like the world had an echo to it, as if she had double vision – but not quite, with the other experience feeling almost exactly as real but in another place entirely.
She expanded her perception a little, and found that echo – and it found her.
Hello?
Who are you? Kari thought, and rather than an internal question it felt more like the opening move in a conversation – or perhaps the reply.
I am you, the echo answered. I think. I feel like I'm you. But… different.
Puzzlement and concern flowed over the connection, and Kari blinked in surprise.
You're me? she asked. But I am me. And… I know that sounds most strange to actually say, but the situation is certainly most strange as well.
Truly! her apparent counterpart agreed. And should a brave knight flinch from a strange situation? I think not!
I would counsel a little more in the way of prudence, Kari sent, but even as she did she felt the connection growing stronger – the line between herself and her other self less firm, less distinct.
It was a little like how she could wield herself as though there was an invisible person holding her up, if she wanted to – and a little like how she could move her scabbard and her blade about one another. But it was different as well, and in a way she could not truly describe.
Burn, the other blade decided. You are Kari, but I was born in fire and fire is in my heart. I am Burn.
The name was obvious, but at the same time it was sublimely perfect. The answer to a question that hadn't been asked.
Then there was a moment of timeless clarity, and when it faded Kari felt both blades at once. Like one was in her grip, and the other was waiting for attention, and like her mirror-image had her other blade in her grip in just the same way.
I fear this is almost certainly not how a Honedge normally becomes a Doublade, she said.
Perhaps, Burn agreed. But it has happened, so clearly 'tis possible!
They relaxed, and the distinct personae faded away a little. Kari Burns was their combination, with parts of her personality that Kari had not even noticed were missing, and now she felt… complete.
And were she needed again, she would be ready.
Handshake commencing, Dexter thought, in two parallel streams at once. Code exchange complete. Checksum complete. Syncing.
The two instances running on his primary node and his combat projector shared experiential data, interpolated, integrated and merged.
That was easy, Dexter thought to himself. I wonder how other people handle there being two of them?
As he pondered that, with particular attention to the curious case of two complete human-Pokémon teams from the previous timeline, someone finally asked Ash a question he'd been wondering about.
"How did you know?" Dawn asked. "You were suddenly using that – GS ball? – like you'd always known how, and then you sent out more than one Legendary Pokémon from it!"
"It was kind of strange," Ash admitted. "I… well, when I came back… it just made sense. It did feel like I'd always known, but just hadn't put the pieces together."
"It didn't act like that before, though," Pikachu said, on Ash's shoulder – a spot he'd claimed as soon as he'd arrived and was refusing to relinquish. "It kept flying back into your hand, and I know we thought it was impossible to open – but… had nobody really tried throwing it to let something out?"
"That's the thing I don't understand," Ash replied. "But I just… suddenly knew how to use it."
"Um… well, I did try wishing something?" Jirachi said. "I wished that all these horrible things would stop… maybe that had something to do with it, I don't know. It didn't feel like it did anything, but if it did something about knowledge maybe it didn't need much power?"
"I guess that makes sense," Ash agreed. "I think?"
"You were attuned," Arceus declared. "The flames of the Sacred Ash did the last of it; you became the bearer of My ultimate refuge, the fortress of Gold and Silver to which I may retreat in even the direst of times."
He tapped a hoof on the floor. "I may have asked Celebi what an appropriate look would be. It's not stealing when you created everything anyway."
Cynthia stood back a little, and took in a long breath before exhaling in relief.
"It's over," she said, barely able to credit it. "It's done. We fought an enemy we couldn't even see, and we saved the universe, and we won."
A glance around the Spear Pillar reminded her just how much work it had been. A Dialga – one of the three in the little pocket reality, and she could barely credit that – was reverting the stone pillars to their original states, gathering together chips from all over the room to do it, and there were tattered bits of the giant robots Team Rocket had brought in to help out scattered hither and yon – some of them still smoking, and others emitting intermittent sparks.
There were Pokémon and Pokéballs as well, most of them from Team Galactic, unconscious and being watched over by members of the Lake Trios now they were all in one place.
Seeing them made Cynthia shiver again at the scale of what had happened. It was… hard to credit that a single organization could do so much damage… until you remembered they'd gained control of some of the most powerful Legendary Pokémon in the world, and you were just thankful how lightly they'd gotten off.
"Excuse me? You are Champion Cynthia, yes?"
"Oh?" Cynthia replied, turning to see who had addressed her. "I – yes, that's me. You're Looker, right – the detective?"
"That is correct, yes," Looker agreed. "I do not think we have met, but I have been told of why it is you know who I am."
He waved at the area on the far side of the battered mecha-Palkia. "I am pleased to tell you that I have put all the Galactic people in handcuffs, so they are captured and have not escaped. I am almost out of handcuffs, but that is okay."
"Thank you, that is a weight off my mind," Cynthia admitted. "I wouldn't want to think about what they'd be willing to try if they got away."
"Ah, yes, it is a major concern," Looker agreed. "Though… there is another matter to discuss, as well. It seems that there are some people on the way who would like to speak."
Cynthia frowned at him, unsure what he meant, then looked at the portal to the outside world.
Blurs of red, blue and yellow came through all at once, swirling with fire, ice and lightning as they skidded to a halt, and then a brilliant-winged rainbow phoenix erupted out of the portal over their heads.
As the portal continued to ripple, admitting several Lucario – and Lance, and Bertha, and Steven, and a Shaymin, then more and more trainers and Pokémon alike – Ho-Oh slowed to a hover.
"Why is it I am always the last to know about these things!?" he demanded.
AN:
As I said, some of this has been building up for a long time. Since I started this fic, I've picked up a degree – and worked several years at a job, for that matter – and I've had a lot of fun. I hope you all did as well, and thank you for coming with me on this whole journey.
This has been the Battle Finale of Legend, the big battle with Team Galactic that this slightly nutty fic has been headed for since the beginning. It's been a wild ride, and a fun one, and I've learned a lot about writing from it.
This isn't where this story ends. There's a lot more to explain, for starters... and a lot of things which are crying out to be explored.
My production rate might slow a bit, though.
And to pre-empt a few questions: Yes, that was the Team Galactic from the show; no, they had no idea what the Fairy type was; yes, it was the Sacred Ash which brought Ash back; yes, Arceus has been in the GS Ball all along; yes, there are now two each of Zoey and Gary.
And yes, I am continuing this fic.
