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Plains Of Har Meggido
And once more the drama begins.
-Bronze Tercano upon ascending to the position of World Chairman
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The battle is met.
As the Dark Lord descended through the clouds with all his glory and demon lords, Zacian and Zamazenta, as silent as statues until then, moved with terrifying speed. With a wolf-like howl, they seized the Rusted Shield and Rusted Sword, caught Henry and Casey by the necks with their claws, and sped out of the ship, through fire and death, toward the wide wasteland beneath.
Eternatus halted over the center of the Eclipse flight, coming to a rest in an Eternatmaxed form. A vortex boiled above its body, and without any delay or elegant soliloquy, the Dark Lord threw himself into the Typhoon Struggle.
From the great head of Eternatus came falling stars that cut through ray shielding and metal, devastating dozens of Association vessels. Robot fighters rammed into important Vengeance Fleet ships with no regard for their own safety, while brutal melee increased in intensity on the plain of Har Meggido.
Bronze hoped his ray shields would hold out against the sudden onslaught. If Eternatus targeted the L.S. Victory, the ship would be destroyed in a single eyeblink. Watching as the massive ballista guns of the capital ship tore an Eclipse frigate to shreds, Bronze hoped that Zacian and Zamazenta would engage the Dark Lord in time.
As another Darkest Day began over Roria, robot drop pods emptied hundred of Poke Balls onto the ground. Wild Pokemon were released, with about a fifth of their numbers suddenly Dyanmaxing and running wild. Infantry forces released their own fighters, and then the devastation on the ground became visible from the atmosphere. Explosions and the shapes of struggling giants graced the landscape, while carrion birds swarmed in throngs.
Some Vengeance Fleet craft managed to fire their heavy cannons at Eternatus, but the Dark Lord seemed immune to the blasts. Between the Eclipse Alliance's devastating thermal burners and the Association's Pokemon, a stalemate formed: each thermal burner would be intercepted by Pokemon on the ground or the air, but the sheer amount of destructive projectiles limited their mobility.
Although Bronze would have preferred to put his full power against to main enemy contingent, he knew that the Eclipse fighters would take the plain and destroy the Vengeance Fleet from below. The ground would have to be held.
"Another day, another passage in the Hisuian coda fulfilled," Moon said. "That wasn't how it always was."
"Peace is a thing of the past," Bronze said. "We are a people of war, so that our children will be economists, so that their children will be artists and renaissance children. But today we fight!"
"Not just today, but all days," Cobalion said, striding over to the open blast door with his two companions. "We will go and fight upon the open battlefield."
Several jihad fighters had already neutralized two atomic bombs that the Eclipse fleet had launched at the ground and the Vengeance Fleet, but one missed their target sweep. Landing somewhat away from the many-mile-wide field of conflict, the bomb detonated.
A burning mushroom cloud, orange-gold, sprung up as if after a soft rain.
The entire battlefield reeled in the shockwave. Several soldiers lost their hearing. Fire and smoke glutted into the sky, mixing with the red-black vortex in the heavens, setting Eternatus ablaze with burning light. The resistant plastiglass on the Vengeance Fleet's ships did not shatter, but radioactive dust and fallout gathered in a looming cloud, moving swiftly toward the plain.
Bronze ordered all available reserves to be put to mitigating the damage caused by the nuclear cloud, although he knew that nothing could stop its inexorable advance. The only way to escape would be to flee, and abandon the warriors already landed on the ground.
It was a terribly pragmatic decision, but a necessary one. Bronze then realized that Henry and Casey would be in the path of the bomb...
...
The ground increased in size from a small dusty sliver to a backdrop for Henry's entire vision. Zacian and Zamazenta landed amid the chaos of the battle, racing across the field toward Eternatus. Casey and Henry found that they were protected against the force of impact by some divine providence.
And then the bomb detonated.
The cloud's limited blast radius left Har Meggido unscathed, but the shockwave passed over the Earth with abrupt suddenness. Vehicles and soldiers toppled, mechs collapsed, and Pokemon shuddered in the force-winds. Dark scabs of radioactive ashes plummeted downward, posing to scorch the field into a scorched mass.
"Arceus, help!"
Two beams of disparate light, alike and yet unlike in purpose and alignment, flew into the toxic maelstrom. A massive upwelling of energy split the cloud like a separate explosion within the looming storm's core as Mewtwo and Deoxys continued to tumble through the air. The great haze dispersed, and the battlefield was spared from the indiscriminate violence of the bomb.
"The people of these times have made many ways to slay each other quickly," Zacian said, continuing her charge. "You have traded honor for blood sport. But first, we must destroy Eternatus."
"Why do you need us?" Casey shouted. "Why can't you fight Eternatus yourself, like last time?"
"Ah, but we were stronger in the Elder Days," Zamazenta said. "You are the ones who will lead us into the fight. Eternatus will tempt you and send spirits of despair. But once we take the heirlooms that belonged to us, the Rusted Sword and Rusted Shield, we will become truly glorified and all the forces of Light will not know fear when they lay eyes upon us."
The battle is met.
Thousands of shuttles landed to meet thousands of drop pods, and the warriors of House Berlitz and the Association engaged in vicious combat with enemy Pokemon and combat mechs. Larger walker-forms containing human brains, elite cloned Eclipse soldiers, and war-Pokemon were among the ranks of the Dark Lord's army, and they cut a wide swath of destruction even as the war raged in the skies.
The Swords of Justice came doughty and guileful into the battle, and they lifted up the hearts of those around them, and broke down the walls of foes that circled around them. In the Spirit Realm, millions of invisible demons clashed with heavenly warriors, sent from Deep Heaven in this time of great need. Weapons glinted, attacks fell, and blows were exchanged upon the plain of Har Meggido.
...
Gold entered the landing pod, strafed through artillery fire, and landed after the atomic bomb had been dispersed to vapor. Thirty Swordmasters under his command followed him into combat, prepared to fight and die if it meant that others could see another day.
Crass as ever, he counted every mech he scrapped, remembering if it was his own weapons or Pokemon that destroyed the unthinking minion. Even when his pool cue broke from a wrestling match with a mech, he continued the relentless campaign. He blasted a cannonade, broke down a drop pod, and helped a dozen other soldiers topple an immense walker-form.
Eventually, he found that he had killed twelve Eclipse clones, destroyed ninety combat mechs, and all within an hour. There were so many enemies to choose from, and the battle had not even waxed on for an hour. Indeed, with every moment, the risk of another atomic bomb falling grew greater...
Monsters and Pokemon, newer and newer amalgams, played over Gold's vision. Where an enemy was two more appeared, and the hordes of foes seemed to increase in endless aggregation. Some things he only half-saw, and realized that it was better that he did not fully comprehend the visions.
A Vengeance Fleet frigate above him exploded, the wreckage sent crashing down into the fallout radius of the dispersed bomb. Gold wondered who had been commanding it, and if anyone aboard had survived.
He felt a great deal more worried about that one ship than the others.
He was now under the Eclipse fleet, as darkness swirled above and titans clomped over the Earth. There was a walker-form coming directly at him, even more massive than the others. Human malice was in its movements, an intent to kill with cruelty.
His hand quivered.
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The Plains Of Har Meggido
Voracious from hunger, lustful from thirst, I was brought to Har Meggido to watch the nations assemble for war.
Pseduographical text from the Expanded Hisuian Coda
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The woman crawled across the radioactive battlefield. She was a mote caught in the glare of the red light that filtered down from the cataclysmic typhoon that surrounded Eternatus. She was dressed only in a torn laboratory coat, and a burnt dress uniform. A hulking wreckage lay nearby, a silent mound mixed with so many ruins.
She had only barely managed to escape the ruined frigate, but for what?
The woman stopped near a shattered support girder that had been scattered over the plain, and her arms clung to its surface. Blood had flowed down her arms and back and legs. Patches of grey dust, radioactive and deadly, clung to the wounds.
Slowly, she pushed against the girder with her hands, and brought herself to her feet, swaying.
"I am Crystal," she said, addressing herself to the wasteland, her voice containing only a sliver of the strength it had once known. "I am the Regional Professor of Johto. I am the Catcher of the Pokedex Holders. I am a steward of Pokemon."
She stumbled. Her hands dug feebly into the glassy sand. They made weak, scrabbling motions across the ground.
I am a steward of nothing.
It was always difficult to kill a Pokedex Holder. We don't die easily. I should be dead now...I will be dead soon...but I cannot stop being the Catcher.
"The highest function of catching Pokemon is understanding consequences."
The voice shocked her. She recognized it and realized that the owner of it was dead. It was the voice of Samuel Oak who had lived before her, now long dead, slain by the ravages of age.
"Got yourself in quite a fix here, Crys," Oak said. "You should have known the consequences of marching out into battle with Tercano. Your safety was never ensured."
I'm delirious, Crystal thought.
The voice seemed to come from her right. She looked, and only saw heat devils playing across the fallout clouds. When it spoke again, it came from his left. "The more life there is in a system, the more niches there are for life. Life improves the environment around it to continue to sustain life."
Why does he keep harping on the same subject? I knew all this before I was eleven.
Her cheek slumped against the burning ash. The burned odor of rock filled her nostrils. She looked up and saw carrion birds above her; Mandibuzz, Vullaby, and nonsentient vultures. They glinted like dark and silver arrows as they circled above her, and she realized that they were to feast on her corpse, and those of others. The great banquet of the Typhoon Struggle.
"You will die," Oak said. "It's coming and you know it. You can smell death."
Why doesn't he shut up? Always lecturing me! Can't he see that I need a moment of rest?
Hopefully, some of her Pokemon, scattered in the impact, would find her and bring her to safety. Her Parasect's spores would stabilize her, and there existed treatments advanced enough to reverse even the most severe radiation poisoning. That was the last sliver of hope that remained.
Crystal pushed herself to her knees, heard a bird screech, the hurried flapping of wings.
"Movement across land is a necessity for life," Oak said. "All Pokemon know this. That's why you can find certain Pokemon in many parts of the world. But when a certain species has put itself in a niche, then it no longer adapts. This makes it at risk of extinction."
"Shut up, old man," Crystal muttered.
Her skin was turning brown from the radiation. If her cells could not be repaired, she would have to hold onto the hope that all fighters in the Second Rorian Jihad shared. All warriors that die in the name of the virtuous struggle go to Paradise. After today, Paradise was going to be a very crowded place.
"The lines of movement gave humans the first clues about the relationship between climate and regional forms."
"Shut up!" Crystal croaked.
The sensation of the ground was becoming more and more remote. A Vullaby landed on the sand near her outstretched hand. Crystal saw it fold up its stubby wings, and tip its head to stare at him. The Pokemon then hopped away two steps, but continued to stare.
She still heard Oak. Lecturing, lecturing, lecturing. He would never stop lecturing.
"Catching Pokemon is not a one-crop task," Oak said. "It does support a ruling species that live as alphas have lived in all times, and beneath them, a non-human mass of species that pick the leavings. It's the masses, the Pokemon, that occupy our attention. They are far more valuable and precious than could be expected."
"I'm ignoring you, Oak," Crystal whispered. "Go away."
Surely my Pokemon must be near. They will see the birds and come to investigate!
"Catching Pokemon contains a semimystical attraction to some who will never know the full extent of the art that goes into it."
In a minute I'll get up and tell him what I think of him. Standing there lecturing me when he should be helping me!
The Vullaby took a hop toward Crystal's hand. Two falcons drifted down beside it.
Where are my Pokemon now when I need them most? She wanted to turn in the direction of Oak's face, stare the old man down. Muscles refused to obey her simple commands.
A profound clarity filled Crystal's mind. He saw a potential in her life that she had never seen or used. Oak was reading her mind. Well, let him.
The Vullaby came within slashing distance of her hand. It tipped its head to examine the flesh. Abruptly, it lifted its head, straightened, and with a single screech, banked upward and banked away overhead with its companions.
My Pokemon have come! They've found me!
Then she heard the rumbling.
A red glow filled the wasteland. The birds screeched overhead, voicing their frustration. But only for a second.
Crystal felt Eternatus's energy beam hit the ground beside her, felt it break and the dust whirlpool engulf her, dragging her down to cool darkness. For a second, the coolness was a blessed relief. Then, as the energy killed her, it occurred to Crystal that she and Oak and all the other scientists were wrong. The most persistent principle of the universe was misfortune.
Even the Pokemon could appreciate that fact.
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END OF THE LINE: CATCHER
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Plains Of Har Meggido
I saw in the Heavens three Elohim with three plagues; a great and marvelous sign. because with them Arceus's wrath would be completed. And the first of the vials of wrath was poured on the sun, and Solgaleo was given the power to scorch the inhabitants of the Earth with his flames. Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed Arceus and His Kingdom because of the pain of the heat.
-The Hisuian Coda
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Bronze heard the report. Crystal's ship had been destroyed, the remains strewn in the fallout. There was no way that anyone aboard could have survived.
As soon as Silver heard the terrible news, he let out a ragged wail over the comsystem. "Crystal? Dead?" The system could not convey the grief that bubbled through his mind for the woman who he had known nearly his whole life, healed his heart, and had even once been his lover.
Occupied with the battle, Bronze had to do what needed to be done. He put his grief away, and focused on the raging firefight. "We can mourn later. But now the Pokedex Holders are one less."
It was only a moment later when Bronze realized that Silver's craft, a medium-sized cruiser, had deviated from its formation and was on a collision course with Eternatus.
Bronze frantically sent an emergency order to the ship, stalling its advance by cutting out its engines. However, Silver rerouted the life-support system's oxygen to the burners, sending the silvery behemoth rocketing toward the Dark Lord. It crushed through a skeleton-Eclipse ship, heading toward Eternatus's head.
Three red lasers trisected the cruiser, sending the finely-cut pieces careening down into the Eclipse ranks. Huge slabs of metal and wreaths of caustic smoke broke off of the ruined vessel, smashing into the Eclipse ships. The closely-packed machine frigates toppled into one another, displacing over a dozen warships, causing those to ram into the sides of others.
"Pokedex Holder Silver! Status report!"
The fuel cells on Silver's ship exploded, melting at least a dozen enemy craft. However, anything on the ship could not have survived.
Then, Bronze espied a small black dot above the churning smoke. He looked through a set of paragoggles, and saw the lone form of Silver hanging from his Honchkrow's wing.
"He's alive!" Bronze said, to the cheers of the bridge crew. "Send in a fast-flyer to recover Pokedex Holder Silver! That's an order!"
Eternatus growled, and then jutted its head upward. Bronze then looked outside, and saw that the sun was no longer shrouded in the eerie darkness. In fact, it was becoming bright.
Too bright.
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Kalos
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Miles away from any Eclipse-controlled settlement, a band was about to play.
The Four Horsemen had set up shop in the midst of Kalos, picking a forested glade for their performance. Having capitulated to the New Eclipse Order, some valuable diplomats, scientists, and civilians with military experience were allowed limited freedom of movement. The Four Horsemen had agreed to only play state-approved songs, although the audience had not come for the music. Rather, they wished only for a break from their labors.
Judd Van, the head singer of the Four Horsemen, did not usually play in the daytime. This day, however, was special.
Rumors had come that the remnants of the Pokemon Association had united and were now meeting the Eclipse Alliance in open combat on the Plains of Har Meggido. The wonder worker Emrett had told any spiritualists in the Eclipse empire to do whatever they could to curse the Vengeance Fleet and its crew, in hopes of decreasing the coalition's chances of victory.
Always a sympathizer, Judd Van had agreed.
In the south, dark clouds loomed, interspersed by flashes of red lighting. Enjoying the demonic atmosphere, Judd Van played his songs: Dark Lord Rising, Return Of Shadow, Glory To Eclipse, and several others.
Blasphemous, sure. But it was the only way the members of the Four Horsemen would keep their heads, or at least their Pokemon. Several rebels had been executed at guillotines near the ruins of Lumoise City. Already, a Loudred had been taken with several other Pokemon for the war effort.
Before his fourth performance, Van, standing in the shade of the small amphitheater, noticed that the audience was restless. They kept on wiping their heads on their sleeves, drinking water, and covering their eyes from the sun.
No matter. It must have been a bad glare. Van began to play, but in a matter of seconds, the crowd could hardly pay attention.
All he could hear were screams.
The crowd began to panic, shouting and trampling each other in an attempt to move, to get anywhere but their seats. Confused, Van reached for the microphone, but found that it was too hot to hold. He drew his hand back, and spit on the slight burn.
Next, he grabbed two drumsticks and lifted the microphone as if it was a piece of Johtoian food to be eaten with chopsticks. When he put it to his lips, he realized it was fried. Panicking, he ran backstage with the rest of the band members, watching the horror unfold.
Already, some people had been crushed to death before the first one was incinerated by the heat. The sun's rays were like a tangible, malicious entity, cutting down Eclipse loyalists where they stood with intense heat.
There was another burst of gore that came from behind, the viscera landing with a sodden thump on the ground. Van saw in horror that his lead guitarist had put his head out into the sun's light out of curiosity, causing him to explode.
Radios and Omninet messages reported the same thing happening all over the world. Buildings splintered, smoked, and collapsed. Metal melted, crushing hundreds of thousands of elites and loyalists alive. People melted in the streets, their skin sloughing off in the radiance of the sun. The only ones spared were Pokemon without a single exception, captured slaves, and all those that did not swear allegiance to the Eclipse Alliance.
Galar and Roria only experienced higher-than-normal temperatures, while Castelia City was unaffected. The heart of the New Eclipse Order had been spared from judgment.
Still, Lord Cypress did not appear in a vision to console Judd Van when he was flattened by the collapsing roof of the amphitheater.
...
In the Heavens, Azelf withdrew the Bowl of Wrath from the Sun, and then stood once more in the Halls of Arceus in all their splendor. With a loud voice, she cried: "It is done!"
Arceus answered her. "I am just in this judgment. For they have scorched the flesh of my people and my prophets, and I have given the sun authority to burn them, as they deserve. Beware, for this is now a time of judgment, not of Grace. The time of redemption has passed, the era of tribulation has come. I have remembered the Evil One and will give him the cup filled with my fury, at the end of ages."
The gods and spirits sang again in chorus. "Yes, Almighty, true and just are your judgments."
...
The sun now shone with an odd mixture of dark and light. The Darkest Day still covered the sky, but now the sun was too bright to even glance at. Heat devils spun through the air, covering the desert below and the air above.
Silver wavered in the light, a single speck above an ocean of bloody war. He seemed unharmed, and the fast-flyer jet was almost below him.
At least, until Eternatus fired another blast from his eyes, and then there was no more Silver to rescue. There was nothing but a dark blot of smoke where the Pokedex Holder had once been, drifting amid thousands of others.
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END OF THE LINE(?): EXCHANGER
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Plains Of Har Meggido
Behold, for I am making a feast in Har Meggido, a sacrifice of blood!
-The Hisuian Coda
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Still reeling from Silver's sudden death, Bronze hardly noticed the other streams of information coming to him regarding the sun.
"It's a worldwide event, sir!" a fresh-faced officer told him. "The battlefield seems unaffected, but the sun is scorching people who turned to the Eclipse Alliance's side in nearly every region! And it's no accident! Slaves, even buildings with slaves in them, are completely unharmed, while houses right next to them collapse from fires!"
"A vial judgment, as was prophesized," Bronze mused. "In the wake of Silver's death, we must consider this sudden disaster as a gift from Arceus. More are to come."
"More, sir?"
"The second Elohim poured the vial of wrath into the sea, and it turned to blood as that of a dead man, and every living thing in the sea died. The vial was also poured on the rivers and springs, and they became blood."
"Understood, sir."
Mewtwo and Deoxys made another destructive circle through the armies, destroying whatever they touched without discrimination. Latios and Latias were wonderful fighters, but Cypress had been prepared for their arrival. Many younger soldiers received their first taste of the sound of heavy artillery as they fought on the ground, within the frigates, or in smaller fast-flyers.
Two more atomic bombs were destroyed before they hit the ground. The tempest moaned in the half-light, as Eternatus destroyed ship after ship. No attack of Men or Pokemon could pierce its hide. Bronze watched a thermal bomb come soaring toward Eternatus's head, only for the Dark Lord to strike it away.
Eternatus's wrath, more fierce than fire, laid low the forces of Light. The sky blazed with light like a great crimson smear. And then, in the heat of the battle, another line of the war was set.
Zacian and Zamzenta stood before the Dark Lord.
"Yes!" Magnolia exclaimed. "Now they show themselves. Here we go!"
As machines of war and soldiers moved aside as if moved by the hand of the Original One, Eternatus lowered his body, his neck like a great serpent. The Dark Lord spoke to his foes, issuing a challenge that was heard over the whole of the northern expanse of Roria.
"If you wish to be spared, dogs and churls alike, bow to your knees, bend your heads, and attune your heart with me. Swear that you will be secure in my rule, and the greatness of my kingdom under all of Heaven, which is an everlasting empire, and one that all dominions will obey! Do the Elohim stand and fight? Or will they go to sleep for another three thousand years?"
On the ground, Henry and Casey kept their eyes fixed on Eternatus. Zacian and Zamazenta did not move. Red lights blazed overhead.
"What say you?"
A hush fell.