Category: Pokémon
Rating: M
Couples: ?/OC
Warnings: AU, hint of rape/character death
Chapter: 22
Copyright: Characters & places © By Game Freak, Plot © by me
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"I… can't..." Anistar's Gym Leader whimpered, clinging to herself. "Diantha..."
"You can." Kalos' Champion countered sharply. "You are Olympia, Kalos' most powerful Psychic. I do not believe that you cannot save yourself from this. I refuse to believe." She slowly approached, one eye on the still rotating ring. "Fantina says you can't, but what does she know? You are not going to die here."
She was answered with a pitiful whine, the woman in front of her crumbling with a broken moan. "I… can't..."
"You can." There was nothing she could do except encourage the Psychic at this point, so encourage her she would. Another dragon-howl filled the room, Allortan's Hydreigon seeming determined to not be silent during this matter. "You must. Olympia, only you can do this."
"Therese..." The ring shot free, whizzing through the air and embedding itself in one of the paintings on the far wall. The large windows on either side shattered from the reverberations of the impact, none of the shards entering the room, instead spraying outward. She could only hope that there was no one down there.
"Is the Mind Break breaking?" Steven wondered with a tinge of fear in his voice. Around them, the state of the room turned into something akin to a strobe-light, frantically flashing between the two states of present and past.
"Olympia?" Diantha noticed in horror that the blood was getting worse. At this rate, blood-loss would do the older woman in before anything else. "Don't you dare!" In the end, it was simple instinct that made her act, despite her knowing it probably was a horrible idea. Yanking her Gym Leader close, she nearly crushed the other in a fierce hug. At once the shielding provided by Malva's Houndoom failed, the full pressure feeling less like actual pressure and more like searing pain.
Olympia must have realized what she was feeling, because she tried to retreat. Diantha would not let her. "I refuse to let you die here. And if that means holding on forever, so be it." If this was what Olympia had been feeling, no wonder she was suffering so. Under the pain, a new one joined in; sharp nails clung to her, only not piercing her skin by virtue of the barrier formed by her clothes. They would be ruined after this, from more than being torn. It was disturbing that she could already feel the heat of the other's blood drenching the fabric on her shoulder.
"Diantha..." The Psychic whimpered, clinging to her now. Around them, the world actually calmed.
"No!" A ghostly howl rocked them both, Olympia convulsing with a scream. "She will not escape again!"
Cynthia's Spiritomb, being a Ghost-type itself, was the first to notice the new arrival. Without prompting of its' trainer, the ghostly form shot a Shadow Ball to the opposite wall from where Olympia's ring had ended up.
The ghostly form of a woman tore it apart, fading into view with an unearthly roar. "She. Will. Finish. Him!"
Now they understood; this ghost was the reason that Olympia's normal methods of freeing herself were not working. This ghost, looking like a middle-aged woman in old-fashioned clothes in various green-tints and a bloody hole in her chest had trapped her in her Mind Break.
"Let her go!" Diantha struggled to keep hold of Olympia, her Gym Leader trashing as if she was suffering a seizure. The appearance of the ghost had catapulted the older woman far further into her own mind, it seemed.
"She. Will. Finish. Him! He will not walk away again!" A Dark Pulse stopped her furious screeching, Hydreigon having fired triple beams of darkness at the ghost. "If not her, than you!"
"No." Soft and polite, the word echoed nevertheless. "No one will."
Glowing with Psychic power, an old woman appeared between Diantha and the raging ghost. Her presence seemed to repel the transparent form, and a new kind of pressure build quickly in the air around her.
"You!" Howling, the ghost retreated some. "Move!"
"No." The old woman snarled, brandishing her walking-stick like a sword. "We both failed our daughters back then, Antoinette. But I will not do so again."
Diantha clung to Olympia, the black-clad woman in her arms slack now that the ghost had its' attention elsewhere. Only her soft whimpers assured the actress that she was still with them.
"If she had just done it right the first time around, we wouldn't have to." The ghostly female shot forward, intend on attacking the newly arrived Psychic, only to smash into a Psychic shield.
"I have a minute of shielding… I need half that to deal with you." The black-and-white dress whipped around her form as the old woman drew herself up to her full height. "BEGONE!"
Diantha was certain the world exploded around them. The illusion of the Mind Break was simply blasted apart with the woman at its' centre. Houndoom lunged forward to shield the two League-members with its' body and both Steven and Cynthia would have been thrown out of the room by the shock-wave if not for the Hydreigon grabbing them both and shielding them from the worst of it.
The bookcases to the side fell over, spilling their contents all over the room. The desk folded in half, broken under some unseen impact. The ghost clawed at empty air, furiously roaring, but in the end the power of the living was too much and it disappeared.
Heavily breathing, the old woman stared at the wall the ghost had been floating in front of, trembling on her feet.
"Are you… alright?" Steven reached for her, the Hydreigon remaining at the door-opening.
"Of course, young man." Silver hair cascaded down her shoulders, everything about her looking flat and drained. "I can still win of a ghost, vengeful as it might be." She turned to Diantha.
"What… exactly happened here?" Kalos' Champion couldn't quite stop herself from tensing when the strange woman touched Olympia, who seemed to have fully fainted now.
"She died here… At Lombardt's hands..." Pulling a handkerchief from a pocket, she gently cleaned the bloody face as much as she could. "No doubt she saw Olympia's presence as a chance for revenge." The old woman sighed softly. "This house is haunted, in more ways than one. Antoinette is just the most obvious part of that."
"I suppose that is why it was abandoned?" There was a ring of the present house around them, but looking back out of the door, Cynthia could see that the rest was still stuck in the past.
"Very much so." The old woman briefly closed her eyes. "I assume Lombardt hoped my daughter would not enter the house because of the memories associated, fleeing here in an attempt to escape her. She did follow, but started a Mind Break that was aggravated by Antoinette."
"You're Olympia's mother?"
"Yes." The old woman smiled weakly at the Champion. "And I thank you, Diantha… for making sure that this time I could help her. I could tell she was struggling, but not why… and I could not risk coming here and falling into her Mind Break before I could figure out what was wrong. You helped her resist enough that Antoinette had to reveal herself and I could act. Thank you."
"Gladly." Even if the pain still lingered, her body relaxed some. "Will she be alright?"
"She must be attended, but yes." The old woman rose to her feet again. "I will send my son to retrieve her. I must take Lombardt myself."
"Why not take her yourself?" Cynthia used one hand to stabilize the swaying form.
"Because I can win of a ghost, but it is not easy." Olympia's mother took a deep breath, looking around the room. "I could take her, but Antoinette might return and just use one of your for her revenge if Lombardt is still here. This place is where she is at her most powerful, in the end. If I take him to beyond her influence, those that remain here are safe… I assume none of you would have the political cloud to being able to order a murder long-distance." She chuckled weakly. Finding the collapsed form of the old man, she headed over. "It is a true pity that him dying all those years ago would have been better. One would've hoped that he would have learned in prison… Alas, he did not." Looking at the Champions and their Pokémon, she prepared to teleport away. "I would suggest getting out of this building. Now that Olympia's Mind Break is over, it will start returning to the two-decade old ruin it has become over the years."