{Author Notes}
Hello, and welcome to the sequel of "Bizarre Misadventures"! (There's a spin-off to that in my account called Ultra Hunters, but pay it no mind for now.)
Because this is a sequel, it means that there's a story before this. But you don't need to read it. Surprising, isn't it? The reason why I'm not telling you to read it is that I'm challenging myself as a writer to make a sequel story that new readers can get into and want to read the first story. A second and more obvious reason why I'm doing the sequel like this is that it's been some years since I finished that story. That means not even the old readers will remember much of it.
So even though it's a sequel, I'm doing my best to write it for first-time readers. I hope that this will get you wanting to read the first of this series. I had so much fun with this series that I want to have one more go with it. (Granted, it's got mistakes galore, but I dearly love it despite all its flaws.)
I hope you have fun with it as much as I do. Now, let's get to it, shall we?
[Bizarre Misadventures: Samurai Banzai]
[Episode 1: Land of the Rising Chaos]
God thinks I'm his father.
I, a black-haired and amber-eyed 15-year-old got called papa by a baby Arceus!? An Arceus!? Those things people consider the creator of the universe!?
How did I get stuck with a baby creator!?
... Oh right. Unova.
It all started with Amnesia, then came telepathy after the loss of my voice, and then after that! ... Ugh, that was like going on a roller coaster that went up, down, side to side, went through dimensions, time, logic, and backward while being blindfolded and on fire. I admit, not a very coherent string of thoughts, but my adventure in Unova was anything but.
'Papa! Papa!' A divine voice brought my attention back to the little Arceus floating in the air beside me. My hopes of this being a delusion go down the drain when I feel the little one's voice pervade my entire being. 'Papa Anto!'
He's too excited to be around me, and while I'm having a bit of a mental crisis right now, I don't want him to feel hurt if I ignore him. I lost my voice ever since I woke up, but for whatever reason, I can communicate with Pokemon with Telepathy. "Yes, little one?" I sighed before petting the newborn. I met another surprise in that the little Arceus was soft and plush to the touch, like a stuffed toy for children. That was one surprise I welcomed at least.
'I wannnnttt aaaaa naaammmmeee,' The little thing turned around in the air like a clock hand as he dragged out his words in a sing-song manner.
But what he said caught my attention. "A name?"
'Yea! It's me birthday, and I want one!' At that moment, the Arceus' eyes started glowing. Behind him, a Palpitoad appeared and then started singing "Santa Lucia" in operatic tones.
... I'm not making that up.
"~Venite all'agile barchetta mia, Santa Lucia! Santa Lucia! Venite all'agile barchetta mia—"
At that point, I tuned him out. Great, not only is the little guy powerful, but he's also random. That's a great mix. I needed this in my already needlessly stressful life.
I think I should think of a name before he makes something that can kill me by accident. But he's still a kid, and I don't want it to be half-hearted either. A word pops into my mind as the Palpitoad in the background sings in octaves that should not be possible.
"C-Can you, make him stop singing for a second?" I'd probably be moved to tears if I listened to him sing fully, but I can't think well over his singing.
To somewhat of my horror, the Palpitoad poofs out of existence like something out of a kid's cartoon.
'He went home. His people needed him.' The newborn creator tried to tell me while he was floating upsidedown. I'm glad he didn't kill him, or make him ... not exist? I hope. The saddest thing is that even something that could "poof" me out of existence feels mundane to me. Why is my life like this?
I ignored my complaining and focused back on the little guy. After setting him right side up, I looked him in the eye and said, "Apotheosis." The word came to me when the Palpitoad kept singing higher and higher. I think the name fits this little guy.
I spotted the little one's eyes widen after hearing his new name. 'WhoooOOoaaAa!' I take it he likes his name. 'I like that name! I am Ap-Ao-A-A... I'm Apo!' He struggled a bit, but he seemed to give himself a shorter nickname. He at least looks happy. He's also so enamored right now that I don't see him using his reality-bending powers anytime soon. Hopefully, that will give me time to let me convince Apo not to poof me out of existence. Hopefully, this conversation won't go too bad as it did with the others...
Others?
Oh, snap! I focused so much on Apo that I forgot about my friends! I need to find them! "Apo, come on. We need to go."
'Where are we going, papa?' Apotheosis floated after me.
That is a good question. I didn't know where, so I picked a direction and hoped I'd get somewhere. The bad thing is that, as a god, he is supposed to have all the answers. Something tells me Apotheosis doesn't even know how to count yet. Is it worse realizing that a complete nobody knows more than the creator himself, and that very nobody knows next-to-nothing!?
Still, I need to find the others. We got separated at the end, and I hope they're fine.
...
I heard another 'poof' noise.
Against every fiber of my being, I turned around and saw Apotheosis with a giant, curled up mustache. He also wore a ten-gallon sombrero that looked like a rainbow puked on it.
'¡Oye, Papá! ¡Mirada a mi nuevo bigote!'
"Puede usted... ¿¡Oye!? ¿¡Por qué no puede yo entender lo que digo!?"
'¿Qué?'
"¿¡Qué!?"
Tan pronto como entiendo lo que digo otra vez, voy a asegurarme que Apo controla sus poderes.
...Dios, odio mi vida.
A dozen confusing languages and surprise reality-bending musical numbers later, Anto and Apotheosis spotted their first sign of civilization from atop a cliff.
It looked like something straight out of a samurai movie: an eastern styled city with a large castle in the center of a sea of smaller buildings.
Civilization was a good sign for Anto to start looking for his friends, but he wanted to check the items he still had on his person. Besides the clothes on his back like the black zipper hoodie, faded and used jeans, the Union Jack shirt, and black rubber shoes with gold trims, he had other interesting items. One of them hung on his ear: a Battle Augmented Reality or Battle AR for short. Even for a modern world, it is an advanced device that allows the young teen to perform a Synergy Burst: a temporary power boost that could rival Mega Evolution. Unfortunately, with most of his Pokemon missing, it was nothing more than a fancy headpiece at the moment.
He did have something else that would help defend himself and Apotheosis if—when trouble hits the fan. It was an elaborate metallic gauntlet with a cracked screen around his wrist. Anto had a history with this device, nearly all of it traumatic. These machines used him and his friends as target practice more often than not. The only reason he had it was because he finally stole it from his enemies. They called it a Move Gauntlet, an advance brace that is capable of mimicking and launching Pokemon moves like Protect and Leaf Blade. Seeing as Anto was without his other combative partners, he trusted the device would help.
He hoped.
Anto pressed a button to activate the device, but at that moment, he saw it shoot off sparks and started to give off smoke. "Uh oh," Anto waited a second for it to cool down before trying again.
Apotheosis floated over Anto's shoulder and watched his supposed father attempt to troubleshoot the stolen device. To Anto's relief, the gauntlet booted up again. This time it looked like it was working fine.
Until Anto read the message on the screen.
"Of course this thing is broken from the last fight," The teen rolled his eyes before he read the message. He felt annoyed that the message said that its memory banks were corrupted. Basically, it meant he no longer had access to a large pool of Pokemon moves that were previously used against him. Currently, there were only four moves available on the gauntlet.
The first move: Sand-attack. "I can do that by just picking up dirt and throwing it at someone!"
The Second move: Peck. " ...I don't even know how that is going to work."
The third move, thankfully, seemed promising. "Reflect. I can work with a barrier."
The fourth move caused the trainer to raise his brow. "Bounce?"
Apotheosis hung himself over Anto's right shoulder before pointing at the list of moves in the gauntlet with a paw. 'What are those, Papa?'
The young teen fought this horrible feeling rising in his stomach and looked to Apotheosis. "These are Pokemon moves, normal attacks you could probably do."
Anto did not like how the Arceus' eyes widened, and how he gasped like a child meeting Santa Claus for the first time. 'I can do that!?'
Oh. That wasn't a good sign. "Apotheosis, you do know how to use Pokemon Moves, right?"
"Nooo!" Even without a mouth, the raven-haired teen knew Apo smiled when he exclaimed that. Apo may have been born minutes ago, but he thought newborn Pokemon knew how to use Pokemon moves!? The situation was worse than Anto thought it was. Apo didn't have any means to defend himself with! Apotheosis could change languages and summon music bands on a whim, but couldn't do the simplest things that such as using a single Pokemon Move?! Considering how much trouble found Anto, Apotheosis started to look more like a liability than a boon. Granted, all of his partners were like that, but he still loved them all.
It was times like these where Anto wished there was still a god up there that he could pray to. Since Arceus was now traveling with him, who was he going to complain to about all these unnecessary changes!? Then again, even around a year ago, he was sure no one listened to his prayers.
Anto decided to focus on something else and not get mad at the cute and plushy diety. He picked up another bunch of items he found in his backpack: six empty Poke Balls.
Three regular Poke Balls, one Great Ball, one Ultra Ball, and one... Dusk... Ball...
Apotheosis floated to a stop before he tilted his head. He watched Anto hold the Dusk Ball up then gently leaned his head on the metallic device.
'Papa?' Apotheosis tilted his head.
The teenager sucked his breath in. "Right, Apo, you need a disguise. I don't want people to stare at you when we walk into that city." He didn't know how people would react to seeing a baby Arceus, and he honestly didn't want to see those reactions.
'The ...sky?' The teen supposed he should have seen that coming. He fought an incoming headache after hearing the little god mispronounce the word, disguise. 'How I do that?'
The teen looked around at that moment, trying to focus on something else as his first plan crashed and burned before he could even explain it. He doubted he could teach the little god how to use his powers, seeing as he had near none to his name and that his telepathy was more times a curse than a gift. But even though Anto wondered how to bring an Arceus without alerting the entire world, something caught his attention beyond his supposed son. To his surprise, there was an old, but long brown cloak hanging atop a bush.
Anto didn't understand why that cloak was there, but after dusting it off, he examined the cloak. He noticed it would be long enough to hide him and Apotheosis when they went into the city. A small part of him suspected Apotheosis helped him, after all. However, he spotted the little one trying to do cartwheels in the air to the point of making himself dizzy, which made him think otherwise.
"This is going to be a long day. I can feel it." Anto lifted the cloak over him and called over Apotheosis.
The first thing Anto and Apotheosis noticed was the giant, eastern Castle in the distance. From above the cliff, it looked spectacular. However, even at the edges of the city, it looked far more elaborate than they both expected it to be. The duo saw many people wearing old clothes like kimonos as if they were the latest fashion. Anto found this more confusing as he saw no sign of any modern machine for miles while Pokemon and People filled the dirt roads. The trainer did notice there was a lot of Normal Type Pokemon. What was striking about the area was the lack of Pokemon Centers. In places with large populations, a Pokemon Center was sure to be there. Yet, there was no sign of the red building anywhere. He didn't even spot something red from the cliff that overlooked the city.
But that wasn't the only interesting about this place. Anto speculated that he and Apo entered during some sort of festival. People were in high spirits, the scent of cooked food filled the air, and the most telling clue was the small shrines located next to each door of each house and building.
The interesting thing about the shrines was they all had a symbol that looked a lot like Arceus' golden cross-wheel around his waist. Wait a second, Apo didn't have that. Did he grow that in maturity or something?
As Anto kept walking through the crowd, he overheard two men talking loudly.
"Today's Progenitor Festival is going to be special! The Shogun Of Aurora opened the castle courtyard to the public! They're hosting a special Prayer Ritual for all of Aurora to see!"
"So that's why there are so many people here!" To Anto's luck, with so many travelers here, no one really paid attention to him and Apo. "But I heard that the Prayer Ritual this year is headed by a beautiful priestess! She'll definitely make me want to pray more! Haha!"
Anto didn't know what those terms were. He did figure out that it was important, especially the progenitor part considering who he had as a self-proclaimed son. Either this was another annoying coincidence, or something pulled him and Apo to this place at this time. In both cases, he needed more information.
"Apo, stay close to me." As the young teen tried to pet the head of his new Pokemon, he noticed the distinct lack of divinity and softness in his arms.
The young teen looked down and saw no sign of the small god in his cloak.
The amber-eyed teen looked around desperately until he happened to glance upward and spotted Apotheosis floating just above the houses and heading towards the castle. "Apo, no! Get back here!"
The young boy ran after him while hoping that no one noticed a small god flying a few feet above them. As he spotted Apotheosis float towards the castle, he failed to notice the crowd of people getting denser than before.
As such, he crashed into someone and caused both him and that other stranger to fall.
Anto wanted to apologize, but he didn't want to startle the person with a voice in their head. Instead, he got back up the second he fell down then spotted one of his Poke Balls dropped. He scooped it up as he continued to run after Apotheosis.
The teen didn't notice the rather large man standing back up, then search his person for something frantically. Anto didn't notice the man, also in a large cloak, stare at the direction he went to.
To the relief of the teen, he spotted the little god heading towards a hill with a bamboo forest. What he didn't like was the fact this hill was too close to the entrance of the castle. He could see beyond the sea of people and spotted the elaborate stage inside the castle gates. He hoped no one spotted Apotheosis climbing up the hill before he ducked into the bamboo forest.
When he got to the hill, he spotted Apo looking at the castle even though there was a thick forest of bamboo blocking his way. "Apo! Don't stray away from me! It's dangerous!" For him and everyone else involved.
'But Paaaappaaaa, something was calling me," The little Arceus dragged his voice out in a sing-song manner.
"Calling you?" Anto would be a hypocrite and an idiot to call that crazy. Apotheosis is a newborn Arceus, which means that he's sensitive to whatever cosmic BS that feels important. Yet, Anto has this thing that whenever something important happens near him, it also happens to be stupidly dangerous.
"Yeah! In there!" He used his stubby, little paw to point to the castle with all of its large walls, many guards with sharp pointy weapons, and Pokemon tough enough to snap the boy in two without breaking a sweat.
"Any chance we could," Wow, the guards in the front have even sharper lances. He could even see it gleam from here! "Not listen to whatever's calling you?"
'But Papa, it's muy important! So says my inner mustache!' The little one grew a beard at will as if to insinuate his point.
"First of all: that's a beard. Second, how important can it be!?"
'It's super important because of what you picked up along with your Poke Ball!'
If this was a cartoon, Anto would have heard the sound of a record scratching to a stop. He blinked at the little god before he checked what he picked up. In his hand, besides his Poke Ball, he picked up a piece of parchment he was too in a hurry to notice before.
There was something written on it, but he didn't recognize the writing. But with the way it seemed structured, it looked like a coded message?
'Here!' Apo touched the parchment with the tip of his beard before the symbols started to change into something Anto could read.
-Kill the Aurora Shogun during the Progenitor Festival.
One would think that such a revelation would make the teen surprised or panicked. Instead, he fought the urge to roll his eyes.
"Great, an assassination plot." He complained as if this was a daily inconvenience. In all fairness, the boy did care, it's just the past year has not been kind to the young trainer. If he wasn't sarcastic, he might have lost his mind several times. That is not an exaggeration. Anto's complaining has saved his sanity more times than it should have.
'We can't let that Fo-Sho Gum get butted!' Anto hated how he still understood his self-proclaimed son even with that butchered sentence. 'We have to help that poor soul! What would my uncles and aunts say if they were here now?'
Instead of the assassination, the mention of Apo's uncles and aunts caught Anto by surprise. Did Apo know about them? And if he did, how? What Anto did know was that they would be dragging him to help save someone in need. "You're right on that, Apo. We're a lot of things, but we're too stupid to know what abandonment means." As Anto claimed that, one could hear the sense of nostalgia and fondness in repeating that odd saying. Anto looked fondly at the Poke Ball in his hands before his eyes lit up with a determined light. "Even though I'm a stranger in a strange land, have no idea where I am, what I'm doing, or where all my other friends or enemies are, I am going to honor the title I won from my friends and rivals as a c—"
'Hey, look! That butt person found us!' Apo quickly interrupted Anto's monologue.
Anto raised his brow then thought to himself, "Hold up. Apotheosis says butt because he can't pronounce—OH SNAP!?"
Plunk!
Anto got back up from ducking then saw the shurikens stabbing into several thick bamboo shoots. He turned around to see that same stranger he crashed into a while ago. Only this time, he could feel killing intent that he recognized from his enemies in Unova. He really hoped he wouldn't have to feel that again.
"I have never seen such strange Pokemon." Anto took that instant to grab Apotheosis and hid him under his cloak. However, it did little to stop the towering man from walking forward and revealing more shurikens in his hands. "But my feeling about you was true! You are a threat to the plan!"
Without wasting another second, the man leaped up in the air like a superhuman. But this was with the intent to silence the already mute teen.
Anto had only one response.
"Aww, phooey!" Then he ran away as someone who wasn't superhuman. He went towards the thicker part of the bamboo forest to try and lose his chaser.
It worked for a few seconds. Despite the chaser moving like some ninja, Anto was able to avoid a fair amount of Shurkiens that aimed for his vital points. The assailant knew this was getting him nowhere, and instead of throwing more weapons, he took out something from under his cloak.
At the same time, Anto turned his head back. He spotted the man take out a Great Ball? Wait. But he didn't see any modern-looking machines until now? Something was off.
"Go, Raboot!" Anto didn't recognize the Pokemon that came out. It looked like a red ninja-rabbit.
"That's new." Anto thought to himself before the rabbit sped after him faster than the assassin. The teen gave a quick curse before he avoided the Pokemon, who turned himself into a ball of fire. Even in a thicket of bamboo, the trainer of the new and strange fire type quickly put out the flames from spreading out the area. It clued Anto that his chaser didn't want to be seen or spotted by anyone else.
However, that new Pokemon, Raboot, if he recalled, was slowly closing in, and he couldn't avoid them for long at the rate he was going.
'Don't worry, Papa! I can help!' Anto had a bad feeling rise in his stomach when he heard his supposed son claim that. Said feeling grew worse when a second later, several dozen bamboo shoots bent into the teen's path and catapulted him into the sky without warning.
"OH COME ON!?" 'This is the best Bird-day eeevverrr!' The father and son duo screamed while they sailed the sky.
To the boy's luck or misfortune, Apotheosis launched them towards the castle. The young teen saw he was about to crash at the roof of one of its many walls. He would have too, if not for certain past events. Instead, the boy landed with a roll then into a sprint on the tiled roof. The way he landed suspiciously looked like he'd been doing it for years.
'Papa! He stopped following us; we're safe!' Apo threw out his two front paws in the air.
"Hey! You!" While not stopping his run, Anto spotted many, and I mean many, armed soldiers and Pokemon mobilizing towards him. "Trespassers will be punished!" A particularly scary soldier shouted and pointed his spear at him.
Anto wanted to run in the opposite direction—only to remember if he avoided the guards, he had to deal with the ninja. If didn't deal with the ninja, he had to face the castle guards.
Talk about being trapped between a rock and a hard place!
'Papa, we need to get to the cat-le! The thing that's doing the thing is thinging!' Anto despised the fact his new Pokemon told him to continue towards the scary-looking castle guards. He also didn't like the fact both people and Pokemon alike were closing around him.
"Alright, time for a leap of faith!" Anto reached for the move gauntlet. "Well, it's more of a bounce really, but—" The raven-haired boy slammed on the gauntlet as he selected the move.
The guards and their Pokemon stared in bewilderment as they saw the boy leap a good hundred feet in the air... then crash through the roof of the castle.
...
"He must be an assassin! Get him! Warn the Shogun!" The soldiers cried out as they scrambled to get back inside.
Meanwhile, back in the bamboo forest, the real assassin who chased after Anto clenched his fist.
"We must move quickly! That boy is threatening our mission!"
As the dust cloud settled, Anto used the last-minute Reflect barrier to push the debris off him. "Uhhh, Apo, are you alright? I wasn't expecting that move to launch me that high up." The boy looked at his move gauntlet before Apo popped into existence with a turban on his head.
'I'm more than alright. I'm almighty!' Then he gave a sneeze as a newborn Lillipup would, and the turban fell off. 'Bless myself.'
Anto shook his head. He knew they were on a time table, and they needed to escape fast. "We gotta move—where are we?"
It looked like a bedroom of some kind. Everything here looked high quality, but something about the air in the room told Anto that while this place was regularly cleaned, no one lived in the room.
What caught his eye, and apparently Apo's, was a small shrine that housed an amazing looking samurai armor.
"Papa! Look at this!" Anto turned around to see Apo near the bed. There was a smaller shrine that held a katana inside its ornate sheath. The Katana drew Anto in for some reason he couldn't explain. Specifically, he found himself staring at the jewel on the bottom of the hilt. It looked like some small, four-sided brown diamond, but it had this strange symbol etched in its center along with this faint glow of power.
Beside the blade was a necklace of an Arceus's cross-wheel. Now that Anto recalled, one of his friends had a similar necklace. That person wore it because they praised Arceus like a religion. How curious? Did he land somewhere where they have the same religion? And, seeing as he partnered up with a baby Arceus, was this really a coincidence?
"We should go before the guards get here, Apo," When the teen looked to his right, he noticed the empty air the floating diety should have been. "Really!?"
'You aren't allowed to be here!' That wasn't Apo, but Anto knew through his link that this new voice belonged to a Pokemon. He turned to Apo floating over an upset Eevee.
Anto takes that as a sign that they need to get out of here before something actually threatening finds them. "Oops. Sorry about that, our bad. We'll be out soon."
The Eevee rightly gets spooked at hearing a voice in their head. However, Apo perks up. 'No, Papi! We gotta save the Shorty Hun from the Buttocks Men! We can't leaf!'
'What was that about what I hope was the Shogun?' The Eevee looked to Apo, 'And what are you, exactly?'
'No space, citizen! We have a poop that we must uphold!' Anto hoped he was talking about time and duty, or his adventure was going to hit a new record low for him. However, to the teen's surprise, Apo flew and snatched the jeweled katana of its pedestal then flew fast out the doors.
"Apo, no!" 'Hey! Give that back!'
Anto and the Eevee ran for the doors then spotted the little one floating down the stairs. "Of course, he's becoming worse out of all my previous partners!" It didn't help that he heard the sounds of the guards and their Pokemon catching up with them and going up the stairs.
While this was all happening, the Progenitor Festival had already begun. Many in the castle courtyard watched as people of their religion started performing a sacred dance.
At the same time, on the outskirts of the stage, guards and personnel mysteriously disappeared. Also at the same time, the Eevee jumped on to Anto's shoulder before he leapt across the stairs to catch Apotheosis.
The stage cleared until a lone, beautiful woman with brown hair in an exotic dress stepped forward. The moment she opened her mouth, all eyes were on her.
Back inside the castle, Anto had overlooked the fact he and his new companions were about to crash into stairs. The boy activated his Move Gauntlet and summoned a Reflect barrier underneath them. Anto didn't think that all the way through. He thought that the barrier would take the impact and soften his landing.
It worked for the first two seconds.
On the third second, Anto didn't expect the barrier to move, which then made the boy started balancing for his life as he slid down on it like a makeshift snowboard.
Three people ended up screaming. Two of the three screamed in a panic because they sped past soldiers and Pokemon like bowling pins and showed no signs of stopping. The youngest among them screamed as if he was going down a slide for the first time, even if that slide discreetly reached maximum velocity.
She sang as the shadows slowly crept and stalked around her. At the height of her song, those that crept within the dark struck at last. For less than half a second, people noticed strange spheres roll into the stage. When the second finished, everything exploded into a cloud of smoke that obscured the stage.
Everyone, including the one singing, was startled at this sudden development.
From up above, a lone figure atop the stage descended down with a blade raised—
Only to get hit by something crashing into his back at maximum velocity.
Several dozen seconds ago, Anto, the Eevee, and Apo had accidentally defeated the palace guards. Now they faced their new opponent: a wall at the end of a long hallway.
'Stop this thing, or at least turn!' Eevee yelled as she started bitting on Anto's ear.
"I don't know how! And stop that! It's NOT helping!" The boy tried to swat away the Eevee from ripping his ear off.
'Don't worry, Papi, I can save us!' Eevee and Anto looked down as Apotheosis started to glow. His idea of saving them, however, was simply making the wall disappear. So instead of crashing into a wall, the three flew out of the castle in a very similar fashion to when Anto and Apo entered it.
At least they were consistent?
"Is that cloud supposed to be there!?" Anto yelled before they flew right into the large smokescreen that covered the courtyard. The boy held both Pokemon close to try and protect them. But luckily for them, they happened to crash into an assassin mid-fall that cushioned their crash into the stage.
Anto got up and thought of something. "Okay, that landing was softer than I expected it to be—why is there a thick smokescreen around us?" He looked down to see he had landed on someone. "And who is this!?"
'Hooray! I can't see anything anymore!' Apo yelled in joy and floated up.
The Eevee Anto took with them saw Apo drop the blade to the stage floor. Then the normal type jumped off to pick it up with its mouth. 'You two are insane!' The sentence was very muffled, but Anto knew what she meant. He couldn't fault her for saying that, though.
"Emiko!?" They all turned to the voice. Although they couldn't see much, they could tell the voice belonged to a female. "Who is there? Show yourself!?"
The Eevee started moving towards the figure. However, Apo quickly nudged Anto's right side. In a split second, Anto looked down again. When he did, he realized he saw a blade dropped by that man he crashed into.
In less than a second, Anto's instincts moved faster than his mind. His hand went to activate his Move Gaunlet while his feet moved to the side of the Eevee. When that second ended, Anto found himself holding up a Reflect Barrier to stop a cloaked man—ninja—from slashing the Eevee in half with his blade.
"You!" Anto recognized the voice belonging to the man he bumped into and who tried to kill him not too long ago. "How did you get here so fast!?"
Apparently, that was a rhetorical question as he backed off from the Reflect Barrier. As he did, the Eevee named Emiko brought the jeweled blade to the female in the smoke.
"No! I will not fail the mission!" Anto raised his brow—wait a tick—is he glowing!?
When the cloaked man glowed in a black aura and then fired a sword beam, Anto moved out of the way before his Reflect Barrier, and the rest of the floor got cut in half.
"Was that a SWORD BLAST!? HOW!?" "THAT IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!" 'Father' and 'son' screamed at the same time. Though, annoyance and excitement weren't exactly proper responses to being nearly killed.
'Papa, behind you!' Apo cried out before Anto turned to see nothing but the fog. He made the foolish decision to blink, and when he opened his eyes, he spotted the spark of two blades clashing, one of which would have cleaved him in half. The sword attempting to kill him was another man in black pajamas, which he assumed was a ninja. The owner of the sword protecting him belonged to a beautiful woman with long brown hair and the Eevee on her shoulder.
Even though the ninja was clearly larger and more muscular, the woman in priestess attire pushed the attacker away. Her deep blue eyes looked into Anto's amber ones. "You're a child!? How did you,"
Whatever she was about to ask was interrupted by the original cloaked man shouting in anguish. "No! The mission cannot fail! We will ensure the Shogun of Aurora dies by sun fall!"
The Pokemon Anto didn't recognize, Raboot if he heard it, landed beside the figure as he threw his right hand out with a band on it. Anto saw Mega Accessories before like rings and bands, but this one didn't look like a Mega Accessory. Oddly enough, it's glow looked like darkness to him for some reason than the bright light of mega evolutions.
Apotheosis stirred in Anto's arms as if he too sensed something amiss. 'Papa, he's about to Dynamax!'
"Dyna-what!?" The boy cried out as the man pressed something on the band that seemed to absorb the darkness around it.
Anto's question was answered, in the form of the Raboot suddenly growing to the size of half of the Aurora castle.
"RAAAAABBOOOOTTT!" The Fire Pokemon cried out as it reached its biggest form. When he did, the cloud of smoke faded. With the smokescreen gone, everyone in the audience spotted the giant Pokemon and ran away in fear. The few remaining guards had to help evacuate the citizens, while some that tried to get to the stage were carried away by the stampeding mob.
Anto gapped in shock. "What the heck is—"
Sadly, Anto couldn't finish his complaint because he spotted a large foot attempting to crush both him and the trainer of the Eevee.
When the smoke cleared, it showed that both Anto and the swordswoman were surrounded by other ninjas along with the cloaked leader and the titan fire type.
The woman pointed her blade at the trainer of the giant. "Who are you!? What is the meaning of attacking Aurora!?" She pointed her blade to the one that attacked Anto earlier. He seemed to be the leader. When he readied his blade, the other ninjas surrounding them tensed to a fight.
The leader of the group raised his hand. "Aurora dies with its Shogun! Raboot, Max Flame!"
When the giant Pokemon inhaled, the boy and the priestess felt tremendous pressure. To the boy's surprise, he saw the girl step forward and raise her blade as if to protect them, but he still saw the sweat pouring down from her head.
Time slowed down, but Anto's mind went into overdrive. He didn't know how that Pokemon grew in size, but he recognized the attack was also going to be super-sized. He doubted that woman, who apparently was the Shogun of the land, could protect them, let alone herself from this attack. They couldn't escape with other ninja cornering them like this. Anto doubted any of his moves from the Move Gauntlet could help them, even Bounce was iffy in the off chance the giant could still tag them. Apo didn't know how to use moves, and Anto doubted he could use any of the big, useful ones! All he knew how to do was make facial hair and summon singing Poke—
Holy crap, that's it! Well, that or his last words are going to sound incredibly stupid.
"Apo!" Anto pointed to the Raboot as he moved to unleash his breath. "Give him the biggest mustache you can make!"
Then Apotheosis started glowing.
Faster than anyone could expect or understand, the Raboot grew a mustache as large a monster truck. The two ends of the mustache snaked around Raboot's mouth and ensnared it shut just as he was about to unleash the fire move. Instead of a large flame attack burning the shogun and trainer alive like marshmallows to lava, everyone watched as the giant fire-type caught his head on fire.
The leader of the assassins was the first to speak, "By the progenitor!? What!?" Or scream. It was a reasonable reaction on his part, to be honest.
'Yes?' "Why did that work?" Apo asked in response to the Progenitor comment while Anto asked in general.
The leader turned back with his blade and pointed to Anto and the Shogun, "Kill them!"
The remaining ninjas all rushed for the two. As the enemies rushed for them, The Shogun of Aurora seemed to calm down. She exhaled deeply as her stance relaxed. It was like the stillness before the storm.
Then the storm arrived with all the speed of lightning and the power of thunder.
Said storm also happened to have a pink aura.
Anto and Apo watched as the Shogun decimated the attackers with speed and power that betrayed her beautiful and exotic appearance. She knocked the first ninja's blade to the sky and slammed her elbow into his stomach with enough force to create a shockwave. The first attacker crashed into two others before she sped past Anto and pushed him out of the way of several shurikens aiming for his back. Faster than the boy expected, she used the jeweled blade to cut the shurikens mid-air.
"What the heck!? Since when did everyone start glowing and using superhuman feats!?" Anto regained balance before jumping to his right to avoid more ninjas coming his way. He primed the move gauntlet to erect a Reflect barrier before the leader of the assassins tried to run him through with his blade.
"You! How did you do that!? Do you have power like those monsters!?"
Anto felt his stomach drop at the word, monsters. A chill went down to every blood cell. His mind pulled him back before he came to this strange land, he and his partners were in the fight of their lives in a losing battle. He remembered them: the ageless trainers and the mega-evolutions whose light felt twisted and malformed.
The teen's eyes widened with horror, which the assassin recognized. "Wait, you do know them! You're the 5th Monster!"
'Papa?' Apo looked up to Anto who took a step back.
"They're alive? Even after that, they're still alive?" If one was listening, they could hear the fear in his tone.
At that moment, several ninjas swarmed for the teen with the intent to kill him. When the boy looked up, he spotted the young shogun defend him with her inhuman speed.
She turned over to him. "I do not know what's going on, but it appears you saved my life. I owe you a debt, stranger."
Not quite yet. It seemed as if the giant fire type finally got over having his own face on fire. It jumped high with the intent to crush the group of four with its giant paws. Both humans and their Pokemon jumped to the right and avoided the paw that created a large hole on the stage. However, something caught Anto by his cloak. The leader of the assassins had moved in to catch the boy attempting to escape.
'Let go of papa!' Apo cried before he floated out and tackled his body into the face of the Assassin. That worked briefly before the leader grabbed on to Apotheosis by his neck.
Anto fell on his back, but he didn't care as he saw the little Arceus in danger. "APO!?"
"What is that creature with you?" The leader of the assassin made a move before he raised his blade to block the katana of the Shogun. The two started to glow, their auras seemed to clash with each other.
Meanwhile, Apotheosis started to struggle under the grip of the Assassin. 'PapaPapaPapa!? Papa Anto!' His eyes glowed again, but this time it wasn't the same golden look in his eyes. There was something darker about it.
They heard the sound of a monstrous scream. Raboot screamed in both anger and pain as his eyes turned black.
"What!?" The leader of the ninjas cried out before he retreated back with Apo still in his grasps. "Raboot, control yourself!"
The giant fire type either didn't listen or it didn't care. The dark clouds around it grew bigger while they started to wildly trash as if they were about to explode. The fire Pokemon raised his fists with the intent to bring them down hard. However, something happened as it turned its attention elsewhere. It smashed through the remainder of the stage and punched the castle walls, making it crumble and leaving a gaping hole for the whole city to see.
"Raboot!? What are you doing!?" The leader jumped to the shoulder of the giant, rampaging Pokemon.
Meanwhile, Anto felt something wrong with his entire body and fell to his knees. He didn't know why but he felt pain and loneliness—was he more connected to Apotheosis than he thought? That didn't matter. Apotheosis was in trouble.
Anto stepped forward then ran like a demon-possessed. The speech he tried to tell Apotheosis a while ago was cheesy, but he meant it. He wasn't going to abandon him, not even to a super ninja and a giant Pokemon!
Without warning, without even thinking himself, Anto already found himself running towards Apotheosis. He activated the Move Gauntlet, and a second later, he found himself up in the air as if he was leaping over a tall building. In this case, he jumped to land on the shoulder of a giant fire Pokemon to face a super ninja. Also, he was just a normal teen despite his bizarre circumstances. He really didn't think this through.
'Papa!'
For better or for worse, Anto's heart led the way. As the ninja saw the teen and raised his blade towards the unarmed trainer, Anto started to believe it was for the worse. He fully believed it when the ninja started glowing black and attacked him with the same speed and ferocity as a while ago.
Too bad that Anto couldn't run away anymore.
Instead, he ran towards the ninja. He primed a Reflect Barrier that caught the sword from cutting him in half. However, being a normal teenager against a powered-up adult was something of a mismatch. Anto felt himself being pushed off the giant's shoulder a second after the clash. Instead, the leader brought up his sword hand and started hacking away at the barrier. With that strange aura around him, he was slowly breaking through the Reflect Barrier.
"You! You ruined everything!" The ninja cried out as he kept slashing at the barrier. With his inhuman power, he started to create cracks on the barrier that grew from each blow. "I will kill you, then the shogun! I will finish the mission!"
However, the ninja spotted something interesting about his opponent. He had killed many people before, he had seen the look in their eyes as he killed them. Yet as the ninja stared into the child's amber eyes, he noticed something. The boy's eyes weren't on him, they were on the strange Pokemon he stole. He had seen eyes like that when a father tries to protect their family. The ninja killed men like them before, but there was something else about this child besides that look of defiant courage.
Why was the kid smirking?
The ninja raised his sword hand high—then Anto dropped the barrier and punched the air in front of the ninja. His arm was no way long enough to close the distance, but it distracted the ninja for a second.
Then sand blew right into his fist from the gauntlet. Anto used Sand Attack.
The ninja cried out as he felt his eyes burn. He let go of Apotheosis, who flew towards Anto after being freed. Anto quickly hugged the little guy close before looking back at the distracted ninja and priming his Move Gauntlet one more time.
"I really wish this was a cooler attack, but it's time to use PECK!" Anto used the last move on his gauntlet and ran up to deck the distracted ninja. Anto didn't notice Apo's eyes were glowing gold once more. And when Anto punched the ninja, his fist glowed with power—
CRACK!
"Aaauuuggghhh!?" The blow of the attack sent the ninja flying into the face of the Raboot with enough force to create a shockwave and imbalance the crazed Dynamaxed beast. However, the reason why Anto screamed in his link was that while the attack his powerful, he broke his fist while doing the punch. To him, it was like punching a solid steel wall, even if he did manage to dent it.
'Yay! Papa! You did it!' The little Arceus snuggled his cheeks up to a pained Anto. Silently, Anto promised himself he would break both his hands if it meant protecting the little guy. They really did bond in such a short amount of time.
However, there was another problem. The giant Raboot was falling into the castle, and Anto was still on the Pokemon's shoulder.
"Apo, get ready to jump!" Anto used his good hand to grab Apo, and he ended up jumping away as the Raboot crashed into the castle. In the last second, Apotheosis and Anto landed on a giant mustache that softened their landing.
The mustache vanished in a puff of smoke, and Anto looked around the destruction and devastation caused in his wake.
He couldn't help but feel a sense of deja vu. "Okay, now this is starting to look a lot like Unova. At least I'm not getting arrested again."
"Him! He's the trespasser who caused all this! Arrest him!" Anto turned to see the remainder of the Palace guards finally swarmed in and pointed their spears at the young teen.
Anto held Apo close to his chest and sighed. "The more things change, the more things stay the same."
Well, he wasn't quite wrong.
As Ransei, the name of the new land Anto found himself in, would find out, Anto was the sign things were going to change.
No one knew if it was going to be for better or for worse.
{Author Notes}
Finally, after all this time, I finished the first chapter of the Sequel. I hope you enjoyed it. And just in time for Valentine's Day! Whoo! I feel like it's something special to revive a story I love on the day of love.
Now, once more, I tried to make the story as newbie-friendly as possible. I hope you do give the first story a try. It's got a lot of mistakes, but I do love it with all my heart.
One fun little tidbit is that the first story ended around the time The Pokemon Sun and Moon games started, which means that the main character here doesn't know about Z-crystals and Dynamaxing. I wanted to put a line like this in the story but never could get to it.
Anto: (Witnessing Z-Crystals/Moves and Dynamaxing) I feel like I'm missing years of metagaming!?
Also, it's time for Behind the Scenes! Or Behind the Text, in this case. This is the part of the story where I explain some ideas I had that didn't make the cut.
When I first started this chapter, I actually wanted Anto and Apotheosis to get involved and roped into killing the shogun of Aurora, like that one Episode with Drake and Josh where they accidentally almost start a plot to kidnap the governor.
The point of that was so I could make this line:
Apotheosis: Yay for Assassinanaiton and Cocaine!
Anto: Great, I taught the creator of the universe murder and drugs on his birthday. I am a horrible father.
Sadly this didn't make the final cut because whenever I tried to tackle that, I ended up making those trying to perform the assassination sympathetic. They were all outcasts, and they were forced on a suicide mission to have any chance of returning home. And that didn't fit the tone I wanted for this story at all because as interesting it was to me, I wanted a more comedic story and there wouldn't be that much laughter with that idea. (Also, keeping track of characters is already going to be too much for me, the author, how much more for the readers?) I had to cut things out, and I just decided to scrap that idea.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy your day!