Chapter 22: An Immortal's Death

Dark Lucario roars murderously as he tries to swing his scythe at Snivy, who is ten feet in front of him, but she manages to evade the attack by slithering underneath the swing of the scythe like a snake and gets back up onto her feet behind him.

She jumps into the air and swings her tail at Dark Lucario's left wing.

Dark Lucario looks back at Snivy with a serious expression on his face as he sees half of his left wing fall to the ground with splatters of blood following the severed part of the wing.

Dark Lucario yells out as he starts turning towards Snivy, attempting to slice her down with his scythe, "You son of a…!"

As he starts swinging his scythe down towards Snivy's head, she smiles as she replies, "Now, now…"

After she disappears and the scythe stabs the ground, Dark Lucario's eyes widen with shock and he thinks while staring at that empty spot, 'Where the hell did she…?'

Before he could finish his thought, he cringes his eyes as he feels an intense amount of pain on his left shoulder blade.

When he looks back, his shocked expression turned into a serious one as he sees Snivy slicing his left wing with one single swing of her tail.

As the wing falls to the ground and Snivy disappears into thin air again, Dark Lucario has a serious expression on his face as he thinks, 'Why can't I regenerate anything? What the hell is happening to me?'

After Dark Lucario pulls out his scythe and tries to find Snivy, Riolu is still standing in the crater, thinking with a serious expression on his face as large amounts of white aura flows out of his right hand, 'It is impossible for anyone besides a God to me immortal… that certain Pokemon may have the ability to regenerate or stay alive after a deadly attack, but it all depends on the energy network in one's own body.'

After he closes his eyes, he hears the inner voice say to him, "Precisely, Riolu… of course there's no such thing as an immortal, except for the Gods of this world. In that case, the one true weakness of a Pokemon who has regenerative powers is to end a certain organ's functions."

Riolu opens his eyes and he continues, 'I figured you would come back. I'm surprised you didn't forget about me after Zorua tried to kill me off at that time.'

The voice replies in a serious tone, "Of course I wouldn't just forget about you, Riolu. After all, you're the only hope for this world's future existence. However, do you remember who I am?"

Riolu nods his head and he replies as he continues to focus his energy into his hand, 'I do remember… but it has certainly been a while since I've last seen you, Giratina…'

Giratina replies with a pleased tone in his voice, "It's about damn time you've remembered, Riolu. I've been trying to call you out ever since you've gotten into that deal with Darkrai…"

Riolu nods his head and he continues, 'Anyway, the only way to kill a regenerative Pokemon is by ceasing the functions of a certain organ?'

Giratina replies in a serious tone, "Correct… however, it would usually be difficult to cease an organ's functions without first getting to the organ yourself. Even if you destroy the organ, it'll just regenerate into its full form. But by ceasing its functions, the regeneration ability won't work, for restarting an organ is not regeneration, it's considered restarting."

Riolu nods his head as he continues, 'That makes sense, so it's lucky for me that the God's Arrow has penetrated Dark Lucario's heart, followed by the aura chain at the end of it.'

Giratina replies in a serious tone, "That was lucky of you… however, you sacrificed your evolution privilege… so in order for you to evolve once more, you have to wait until you regain the ability to use the God's Arrow again."

Riolu nods his head and he replies with a serious expression on his face, 'I know… I did that on purpose, so I won't be able to evolve.'

Giratina asks in a confused expression, "But why would you purposefully cease your evolution?"

Riolu replies as he looks down at his right hand, noticing the white aura flowing out of his hand like a torch, and he replies, 'I want to become stronger in this form first. Besides,'

Riolu looks away from his hand, looks up at the sky and continues, 'After all of this is finished and I regain my ability to use the God's Arrow, I want to see you in the Reverse Dimension before I evolve.'

Giratina replies in an understanding tone, "I see… so that's what you want to do, huh?"

Riolu nods his head with a serious expression in his eyes and he continues, 'Yeah… that's the plan.'

After Giratina disappears from Riolu's mind and Riolu continues to charge up his energy, Snivy is currently slicing Dark Lucario's wing clean off with her Leaf Blade, causing a trail of blood to fall to the ground from the wing.

Dark Lucario tries to catch Snivy with his left hand, but she disappears into thin air and reappears right in front of him.

Dark Lucario looks directly at Snivy with a serious expression in his eyes as Snivy prepares to jump into the air and attack him with her Leaf Blade.

Dark Lucario has a ticked off expression on his face as he thinks, 'Why am I not able to regenerate my wings and my chest wound? What the hell is going on here?'

After Snivy jumps into the air and tries to swing her tail at Dark Lucario's chest, he quickly blocks Snivy's Leaf Blade with his scythe.

After her Leaf Blade collides with the scythe, Dark Lucario's eyes widen with shock as the force from the impact send him flying back into the air, causing him to crash into the remaining charred trees and sending them all falling to the ground.

After he lands on his back and weakly gets himself back up onto his feet by using his scythe as a support, he thinks with a serious expression on his face, 'My power… why is it weakening like this? It feels as if something's draining my power from within my soul…'

After he stands back up and looks down at his chest, his eyes widen with shock as he starts seeing the white aura chain becoming visible.

He thinks with a look of shock on his face, 'So that's it… it must have been from Riolu's God's Arrow! But… if this chain came from the arrow, then that'll mean…'

Dark Lucario looks in the direction where Riolu is located and he continues with the same serious expression on his face, 'Riolu has figured it all out…'

Dark Lucario gets a tight grip on his scythe as he continues, 'However… Riolu still has a ways to go before he could use any other move. That'll still give me plenty of time to kill Snivy and then Riolu!'

As Dark Lucario starts running straight towards Snivy with a murderous expression on his face, Snivy stares down at Dark Lucario with a serious expression on her face and she thinks, 'I'm surprised you can still stand after that blow… I guess I better try harder!'

After she reveals her gloves from her cloak, she thinks with a serious expression in her eyes, 'It's been a while since I've used this… I hope I'll get a good handle on it!'

As Snivy closes her eyes and white aura flows out of Snivy's Heaven Gloves, Dark Lucario's eyes widen with shock and he thinks as he continues to run, 'Why does she have Riolu's white aura? Are they somehow sharing the same aura?'

After Snivy opens her eyes, she says with a serious expression on her face, "I hope you're ready for this!"

Dark Lucario's eyes widen with shock as he sees the white aura taking form of a two silver bladed, white colored scythe.

After she closes her hands on the hilt, she runs straight towards Dark Lucario while readying her scythe in attack formation.

Dark Lucario has an interested smirk on his face as he thinks, 'This should be interesting!'

After they both come into contact and swing their scythes at the same moment, an explosion of black and white aura bursts out of the scythes after they both collide with each other.

As Snivy tries to push Dark Lucario back with her remaining full strength, Dark Lucario manages to stand his ground, trying his hardest to push Snivy back with his remaining strength.

Snivy thinks as she focuses her attention on her scythe's power, 'There's a good reason why I don't summon this weapon, and that's because it takes almost half of my energy to summon it! However, I didn't have much of a choice this time…'

Dark Lucario looks down at Snivy with a serious grin on his face and he says, "You've spent most of your power from summoning that scythe of yours, huh? You're chances of surviving seems to have went down quite a bit!"

Snivy's eyes widen with shock as she feels her feet slowly sliding back from Dark Lucario's push.

She thinks as she tries to stand her ground, 'Riolu… please hurry up before it's too late!'

While Snivy tries to stand her ground, Riolu opens his eyes and he thinks as white aura starts exploding out of his body, 'Finally, my energy is back to full strength!'

Riolu quickly jumps out of the crater and runs in the direction where Snivy and Dark Lucario are located. He thinks with a serious expression in his eyes, 'The only way to kill a regenerator is by ceasing the function of an important organ, huh? Well in that case, my Force Palm should be able to finish the job!'

As Dark Lucario overpowers Snivy and sends her flying through the air in a spiral, Riolu reaches her in time and manages to catch her before she lands on the ground.

After her scythe disappears into thin air, she opens her eyes and sees Riolu looking down at her with a worried expression on his face.

He asks after putting down Snivy on her feet, "Are you all right, Snivy?"

Snivy nods her head and says with a weak expression in her eyes, "Yeah… I'll manage."

After Riolu looks directly at Dark Lucario with a serious expression on his face, he continues, "Thank you for everything that you've done, Snivy. Now it's my turn to deliver the final blow!"

Dark Lucario rushes straight towards Riolu, trying to kill him before he has the chance to deliver the final strike.

But Dark Lucario was too far away and Riolu uses his Force Palm from his right hand, traveling the forceful aura through the chain leading into his still beating heart that can be seen though his chest hole.

After the force aura reaches Dark Lucario's heart, his eyes widen with shock as he stops running dead in his tracks, falling down onto his hands and knees, coughing up blood from the attack on his heart.

But his heart is still functioning as a fast rate. As Dark Lucario struggles to breathe, Riolu thinks with a serious expression on his face, 'I need to fire more in order to kill him!'

As he fires a barrage of Force Palm aura through the chain, Dark Lucario's eyes widen with shock as the barrage of force aura flows into his heart, increasing the heart rate to a dangerous level.

Dark Lucario coughs up more blood onto the ground as blood begins to flow out of his eyes, nose, ears, and the hole wound.

But Dark Lucario still lives as Riolu continues to deliver more force aura through the chains, causing Dark Lucario's heart rate to increase to maximum levels and causing his arms and legs to flail, making most of his bone break into many places and piercing right through his skin.

His scythe and sent flying into the air during the flailing and it pierces into the ground one hundred feet away.

His eyes pop out of his eye sockets as he screams in pure agony, falling down to the ground on his back and blood flowing out of his eye sockets.

Dark Lucario yells out in pure agony, "Lord Darkrai! Lord Darkrai!"

He screams louder before Riolu delivers the final blow to his heart, "Lord Darkrai!"

His screams fall silent as he instantly dies from the final force of his heart.

After he dies completely, his body cracks like an egg and blood and guts spill out of his body.

After the chain and the God's Arrow disappear into thin air, the remains of Dark Lucario instantly catch black fire, turning his remains into ash.

Riolu has a serious expression on his face as he thinks, 'Now the only one to focus on… is Zoroark…'

After Dark Lucario's remains ceased to exist, his three bladed scythe instantly turns into white aura and flows straight towards Riolu.

Snivy has a confused expression on her face and she asks as the white aura forms into Riolu's gloves, "Why did his scythe turn into white aura, and why did it form into you?"

Riolu answers after it completely takes form in his gloves, "My guess… is that he had my remaining power after that mission…"

While Riolu and Snivy head back to the mountain, Darkrai and Zoroark are still out in the forest, having their battle.

Before Darkrai and Zoroark had the chance to exchange blows, they stop in their tracks as they hear Maractus and Audino say from the sidelines, "Dark Lucario… is dead!"

Both Darkrai and Zoroark look right at Audino and Maractus with serious expressions on their faces and Darkrai replies, "So after he was finally able to evolve, he ends up getting killed, huh?"

Audino nods her head and she replies, "Yes, my lord…!"

Before she could finish her sentence, Darkrai instantly reappears right in front of her and stabs her through the chest with his right hand.

Audino's eyes widen with shock and she starts coughing up blood.

Darkrai stares into Audino's eyes with a serious expression on his face and he says, "You know whose fault this is? It's both yours and…!"

He stabs Maractus through the heart with his left hand and he continues after Maractus's eyes widen with shock and she coughs up blood, "I gave you direct orders to keep your master here! And for disobeying my order, you two shall die!"

After he pulls out his arms and both Audino and Maractus fall onto their hands and knees, he stabs them both in the forehead, completely destroying their brains with his Dark Pulse attack.

As their heads explode off of their bodies from the Dark Pulse, Darkrai thinks as both of their bodies instantly crack up like glass and blood and organs spill out of their bodies, 'So Riolu managed to kill off his own dark clone, huh? And to think that dark clone was one of my best allies for the war…'

After Audino and Maractus's remains catch black fire, Darkrai says with a serious expression on his face, "Now, Zoroark! Since you've seen me kill two of your friends, attack me like you are going to kill me!"

But Zoroark just stands there with a serious expression on his face, staring into Darkrai's eyes.

Darkrai asks with a serious expression in his eyes, "What the hell is it, Zoroark? What's with that look?"

Zoroark continues as he charges up his Nigh Slash, "I don't care about those two, Lord Darkrai. They were already dead when I first met them, anyway. They weren't my friends… no one is…"

Darkrai has a serious expression on his face and he continues, "Is that so?"

As Darkrai charges up for his Night Slash, he thinks with a serious expression in his eyes, 'Zoroark… you are my top soldier indeed…'

After Darkrai fully charges up for his Night Slash, he yells out with a murderous grin on his face, "Now fight, Zoroark!"

They both vanish from where they stood, reappeared in the middle of the forest, and exchanged blows, continuing their never ending fight until one falls from battle.