.
.
.
Plains Of Har Meggido
And the third Elohim poured out the final vial of wrath onto the throne of the Dark Lord, and his kingdom was plunged into darkness. Men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the Lord of Heaven because of their pains and their burns, but they refused to repent from what they had done.
-The Hisuian Coda
.
"We are ware of you, Evil One," said Zacian and Zamazenta. "Do not think we will go against you in armed combat so lightly! Be watchful, for it is your doom that is at hand, not ours!"
Thus befell the next contest of the Two Princes and Eternatus, and the one of the most renown. For Zacian and Zamazenta both strove with songs of power and crafty runes, and their power was very great. Yet still it seemed that Eternatus had the mastery, as is told in this tale.
With the world as a witness, the song-battle was not about invoking arcane powers or putting into play what scientists call "thaumaturgy" and attempt to categorize with mundane language. It was about themes, emotions, Truth, and good Ideals. Eternatus spoke of wicked things, while the Two sang of wonderous things. Bronze's mind was bombarded by these contrasting melodies as they were brought forth.
Eternatus spoke first. The words were indescribable, of pure darkness and hatred. Later a song would be made of them that went somewhat like this:
...
He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying...
...
The cold that followed the Dark Lord's words was bitter. Within every frigate, the soldiers were chilled from dread and despair. The full might of the Accuser's magic was poured into the damnable syllables of power that he uttered. There was no escape, no hope of hiding from the withering glance of the Lord of Darkness.
And then Zacian and Zamazenta sang in answer:
...
Then suddenly the Two there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying
Resisting, battling against power
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower!
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape,
Of changing and of shifting shape
Of snares eluded, broken traps
The prison opening, the chain that snaps!
...
Immediately, the cold vanished like an ill memory. The dark imaginings of terror disappeared like rain on a windy mountain. A new song had begun in opposition to the Dark Lord, and now all the Vengeance Fleet was attuned to its glorious melody.
The Two Princes and Eternatus were now at a dreadful impasse. Neither could attack without being overwhelmed by the swelling tide of either side's battle-hymn, and neither could break their own song. It would be a battle of magic over might, spoken word over force, decided during the cosmic battle for the ages.
Distinctly Hisuian words came out of the mouths of Zacian and Zamazenta then, with Eterantus responding in like.
...
"Nai hiruvalyë Beulah."
"Nai elyë hiruva. Namárië!"
(Maybe thou shalt find Beulah. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!)
Standing by Zacian's side, Henry also saw that the Elohim was crying her pearly tears again. Kind as they were, the Two Princes were able to muster up compassion for their mortal foe, even in the darkest of hours.
Eternatus spoke next:
"Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva?"
"Sí vanwa ná, Rómello vanwa, Beulah!"
(Who now shall refill the cup for me? Now lost, lost to those from the West is Beulah!)
Henry remembered that Beulah was gone. There was no Avalon to sail toward over the sea. It had been there in a past era, but no longer. The world had been mapped and such a place had never been found. Stranger still, he felt a lingering sadness in Eternatus's words, a longing for what could have been, even in this darkest of demons.
The opposing songs rose and rose. Eternatus wove thoughts of evil into his music, creating rhythms that could be felt but not heard. Straightaway there was a tremendous discord wherever the melodies of the Two Princes and the Dark Lord met in the air. Henry and Casey felt as though they were in the center of a boiling nexus of imponderable concepts and the cognitive processes of higher beings.
Many parts of the Plains Of Har Megiddo foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. Metal bent and shattered from the strain. As Bronze sat and hearkened, it seemed as though there was a raging storm about Eternatus and the Two Princes, as dark waters that made war on each other in an endless wrath that could not be assuaged.
...
Backwards and forwards swayed their song,
Reeling and foundering as ever more strong
The chanting swelling, the Princes fought
And all the magic and might they brought
Of Westernesse in their words.
...
A new theme from the Two Princes began amid the storm, like and yet unlike their former song. The faintest whispers of Arceus were within it, the Original One in the diatonic scale. It gathered power and new beauty, and even the harsh glaring of the sun and the brooding darkness of the clouds seemed less terrible when faced with the new melody.
But the discord of Eternatus rose in uproar and contended with it. Again there was a war of sound more violent than before, and now Henry and Casey knelt, cowering behind the forms of Zacian and Zamazenta lest they be swept away in the music's fury. Ringing noise, not of evil but of overwhelming cacophony, invaded the human defender's ears. Once more, Eternatus had mastery.
Now Zacian and Zamazenta arose again, and their faces were stern. The Rusted Shield and Rusted Sword lay unglorified at their feet. A third theme grew amid the confusion, and at first it seemed soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate tones, but it could not be quenched by Eternatus's clamor, and it took to itself power and profundity.
And now it seemed at last that two kinds of music were progressing at once on the fighting field of the Last Battle, and they were utterly at variance. The one from the Two was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow from which its beauty chiefly came. You could not hear it without thinking of something that made you want to weep.
The other that came from Eternatus had now achieved a unity of its own, but it was loud, vain, and endlessly repetitive. It had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets screaming out a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music in the sheer violence of its voice...but it seemed as though its most triumphant notes were taken by the other song and woven into its own solemn pattern!
In the midst of this strife, in which the Earth shook and the sky trembled and the mightiest vessels seemed flimsy and vulnerable to the unyielding notes, the very spirit of the Original One now arose in Zacian and Zamazenta's song. Something other than iron will prevented Henry and Casey from being pierced and slain by the terrible chord.
Against Eternatus there was now an endless, interchanging theme woven into a harmony that passed beyond the realm of hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the echo of the music went over the whole universe. Men and Pokemon were glad, trees yet unscorched rustled in delight, and the very rocks cried out in jubilant throngs. Never in that age had any being made any music like that music, though it is said that a greater still will be made after the End of Days.
Eternatus was pushed back against the perfection of the combined strength of the song played by his enemies, and his armies cowered, and his Willpower left his servants. But then he imagined that he would interweave things to break Zacian and Zamazenta's spirits into his own music, with the aid of others.
There were three shrieks that mixed in with the dissonance, and then a trio of new beings had taken to the side of Eternatus. From some Poke Ball in some unknowable place, Moltress, Articuno, and Zapdos had come, yet they were different in appearance and now fought for the Enemy. And so with their song, Eternaus once again leveled the strength of each side.
And then it all ended.
The very thing that had been intended to occur took place. The Rusted Shield and Sword became like two suns, and then they were filled with the power of Arceus as Zacian and Zamazenta allowed its power to enter their bodies.
Brighter than even the engorged sun that was now eliminating the supporters of the New World Order, Zacian and Zamazenta were now glorified and filled with a holy light that exuded from every pore on their great, beautiful forms. More raw power than Henry and Casey had ever felt, even during the Gloria at the Crown Shrine, came forth in a burst. Here were intellectuals, virtuous luminaries, soldiers of a divine universe.
Now the Crowned Shield and Crown Sword stood against Eternatus. Twins of iron, duo of adamant, impassable, inescapable, sires of the gods. It was done.
...
Zacian and Zamazenta brought a new theme into their music to cripple Eternatus. Higher than ever before, a stream of notes came that recounted the glory of Logaria and Hisui, jewels among empires.
Softly in the gloom they heard the birds
Singing afar in Northerlond,*
The sighing of the Sea beyond,
Beyond the southern world, on sand,
On sand of pearls on Sutherland.
Nai hiruvalyë Beulah.
Lá Rómello vanwa, Beulah!
(Maybe thou shall find Beulah. Not lost to the West is Beulah!)
...
The mightiest of all, the very essence of Logaria and Hisui came sweeping over the plain, one mighty and mournful, the other wonderous yet soft. The power of the previous melody was magnified threefold. Demons and wicked withered in the power of Zacian and Zamazenta.
But instead of the crescendo continuing to swell, to the doom of Eternatus and the salvation of all, the music faltered. For another theme had been played by a clever hand, and now the very light of Logaria and Hisui was being cast down by a new darkness, a darkness of blood. Eternatus had waited, and now the jaws of an iron trap were slamming shut.
...
Then the doom gathered; darkness growing
In Logaria, the red blood flowing
Beside the Sea, where the Southmen slew
The Foamriders, and stealing drew
Their white ships, with their white sails
From lamplit havens. The wind wails,
The wolf howls! The ravens flee!
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea!
"Antolle ulua sulrim, andoliun!"
"Meren en draugrim, nadorhaumrim!"
(Much wind comes from your mouth, gate-bird! Feast of wolves, cowardly dogs!)
...
Zacian and Zamazenta faltered. Henry felt that they were drowning in despair. The light of their glorified forms faded as a fire died, leaving only darkness. The heavenly voices in the Song of Arceus were no more. Only one theme remained, and that was the noise of Eternatus.
"Please!" Casey yelled. "You have to sing again! Please!"
But no new song came. The Two Princes were reeling in grief from the very mention of the Fall of Logaria. The chains had been made, forged by the treachery of the kindred of Men. The memory of the blood shed by the South-kingdom before its Fall could cast down any light. The song was not only defeated, but corrupted and twisted into an awful new form.
...
The captives sad in Logaria mourn...
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn...
And the Two fell before...the...throne...
.
.
.
Plains Of Har Meggido
Then another Elohim sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the mercy of Arceus in their hearts. They were not allowed to kill them but to torture them for a time. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes. During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
-The Hisuian Coda
.
It never entered Bronze's mind that Zacian and Zamazenta could be defeated. The Two Princes collapsed before the Dark Lord, leaving Eternatus and his armies in their glory.
"You are impotent!" the fallen spirit said. "Get up! Come out of your stupor and face me! Challenge me! Answer me! Move forth, fly, transport yourself however you are able!"
Eternatus's insectoid head turned toward the robot armies, where thousands of cameras recorded the entire battle. "Should I now fear their words? Will these two rise up and slay me?" The Dark Lord hurled Zacian and Zamazenta upward with a psychic blast, throwing Henry and Casey back onto the charred and pitted ground. The Two Princes were slammed downward, creating another crater.
"These are the heroes destined to face me! Your judges! Your 'saviors!' And what do they have to say for themselves? Nothing! They have been tried and convicted and sentenced. All that is left is the rendering of justice, as I have decreed, and I will carry it out!"
Casey was shouting at Eternatus. Bronze focused his paragoggles, and saw that her Pokemon were spewing out attacks that could not have been more than pinpricks against an invincible foe. A brighter flash accompanied the sudden evolution of Henry's Thwacky into a Rillaboom.
"Missiles, now!" Bronze screamed. "Launch everything you have! Attack!"
A hundred thousand available soldiers followed his orders. Riders on Pokemon came at full speed, firing as they went, foot soldiers running and shooting, fast-flyers launching their payloads at the Dark Lord, frigate guns flaring, and rolling stock sending missiles soaring.
Eternatus merely turned toward the charging militia of the Vengeance Fleet, and said with a voice like a roaring trumpet and the sound of many rushing waters, "I am who I am!"
All the running and firing and galloping and rolling stopped. Soldiers screamed as they fell, smoke rising from their bodies as the enchanted words of the Dark Lord cleaved them open. Bodies burst open from head to toe at every word that came out of Eternatus's mouth. The L.S. Victory strained and groaned, and Bronze and his escort fighters struggled to get out of range.
"Retreat!" Bronze yelled. "Return to the sea! We'll launch our atomics from Galar once the rest of us have gotten away!"
Emrett appeared on the comsystem again, laughing. "Pathetic! You run at the very Typhoon Struggle, this day of wrath, in which all that is written will be fulfilled? Your loftiness is bowed down, and the haughtiness of your armies has been brought low! Eternatus alone will be exalted today."
Bronze found that he had no words that could be used to deny what Emrett said. His plans were falling apart in his hands. His men were being slaughtered in droves by the unmitigated fury of the Word of the Dark Lord, and he fled. What sort of leader would he be, then?
As Bronze considered his options, another thing passed. The next vial judgment occurred.
...
It went unnoticed for several seconds, until Aziz yelled in alarm after seeing a data input from their reserves in Galar.
"Grand Bashar! The seas...have turned to blood!"
"What?" Bronze turned to the port windows, seeing if the glint of the distant sea was now dotted with a reddish hue. More footage poured into the command bridge, images of red seas, dead or dying fish pouring up against shores, and entire rivers turned into a sanguine fluid.
Even worse, the heat of the engorged sun boiled up the blood at an even faster pace than the water that had once been there. Pictures of red bubbles growing and exploding into crimson steam could be seen, along with millions of dead sea creatures suddenly washing up on beachfronts all over the world. The smell must have been horrible to anyone unfortunate enough to be around the coastlines.
Curiously enough, Bronze saw two Lumineon, a male and a female, playfully splashing in the sea of blood around Kalos. The Pokemon in the oceans and streams were entirely unharmed; only mundane fish were killed off. Still, this next disaster was an ecological catastrophe of impossible proportions.
People are going to die of thirst. They cannot drink blood!
Next, tidal waves began their inexorable advance over the blood seas. The polar ice caps had melted from the sun's heat, causing tsunamis filled with rotten, bloated corpses to collide with beaches and coastal breakheads. Bronze realized how much damage this would do, but then remembered that Castelia City was a seaport...
On the camera system, Emrett looked at the docks, and saw the blood replace the dirty water, stained from industrial runoff. He snarled, and cut the communication. Still, the last glimpse that Bronze had of the shore was the sight of a massive, bloodred wave beginning to form, coming closer to the city.
Eternatus shuddered, as if wounded. He looked to the sea, and roared in fury and terror. As ancient prophecy became more and more closely fulfilled, the chance of his eventual doom increased. Even if he won, the Dark Lord would have to inherit a scorched and bloody Earth as a kingdom. Hardly a prize.
...
Uxie drew back the vial of wrath that she had poured into the seas and springs of the world. The Hall of Origin rejoiced once more at the great victory over the Enemy that was sure to come. "The kingdoms of this world will become His kingdom, and His kingdom will reign for ever!"
"This judgment is true and just," Arceus said. "For as they have split the blood of My saints, I have given them blood to drink, as is their just punishment. "It is a righteous thing with Me to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest. I have come to be glorified in My saints and to be admired among all those who believe."
"The nations are angry, and Your wrath now comes," the Heavenly Host sang. "This is the time when You will reward Your servants and prophets on Earth, and that those who hate Your name, small or great, should be destroyed and removed from the Earth so that the road might be cleared for the Ten Century Kingdom."
...
"Please, Zacian and Zamazenta! You have to move!"
The Two Princes were listless. Around Henry and Casey, the slaughter of the Association soldiers and Pokemon was forming a mire of gore, ankle-high in some places. Millions of carrion birds descended to devour the dead flesh, taking their part in the great supper of Arceus.
"It's no use, Casey," Henry said. His face was cut from Eternatus's attack, and blood covered his shirt. "They can't do anything. It's over, and we lost. Even with the Rusted Sword and Shield, we lost."
"But..."
"There is no other way. This is the end. With our backs to the wall, the Darkest Day fell upon us."
"We never did quite think that we would lose everything, did we, Henry?"
Henry sighed. "Not everything. And we haven't, actually. We still have our Pokemon." He gestured toward Urshifu and the other members of his team. "We still can't do anything but make a last whimper before the true end, death."
"Death is the Gift of Men," Casye intoned. "We aren't children anymore. We ought to know that."
He looked to the southern skies. Great fires were blazing about, and even without Eternatus's attention, the field was still crawling with foes. The wind was turning, and now he smelled a hint of blood on it, faint as it was. Above the reeking clouds, he assumed that it was sometime around sunset.
Something froze Henry as to make him not move a single muscle. Right then, in some far place that still remembered good times and cheerful laughter, a Murkrow cawed. Shrill and clear it was, reckoning nothing of wizardry or words of power or terrible war, welcoming the sun that rode high above the shadows of death.
And as if in answer came another note, not an echo from Zacian and Zamazenta's song, but from another source. Horns, horns, horns. In the darkness, dimly echoed, great horns of the Crown Tundra wildly blew.
It was dark and hazy, and Henry could see little, but he knew that Calyrex had come at last.
...
Calyrex stood reined to Glastrier, but Spectrier was also by his side. Tall and proud he seemed again, and rising in the stirrups of the Reins of Unity he cried out a challenge. With that, Calyrex made a sound on a horn that he seized from a banner-bearer, and blew such a blast into it that it shattered.
Straightaway, all the horns in the five-hundred-strong host, all riding upon Rapidash, were lifted up in music, and the sound of it was like thunder on the plains and lightning in the mountains. "Ride now, ride to Roria!"
Look for my coming when all seems darkest, Calyrex had said. Now the darkness was lifted.
Suddenly, Calyrex shrieked, and Glastrier sprung away with the god atop. After him thundered the allies of the southern tribesmen, but the Elohim outpaced them, moving at a speed far greater than any mortal Pokemon could ever achieve. A crystal shield was uncovered, and it shone in the dim light like an image of the sun. Grass and plants flamed into new, green life at the feet of his steed.
For now new light came, and the hosts of the Dark Lord wailed or gaped in terror, and panic took those that were in his path. A song came from the host of Calyrex, and the sound of that singing was almost as fair as the sound of the song of the Two Princes.
But it was no military man or clever commander that led the Host of the Eclipse Alliance. Eternatus saw that the darkness was breaking too soon, and fortune betrayed him for the moment, the world had turned against him with the vial judgments and the arrival of Calyrex; victory was slipping from his hand even as he reached out to grasp it.
No matter. His arm was long, and he was still in command, wielding great powers. God, Dark Lord, Elohim, Lord of Crows, he had many weapons.
...
At the arrival of Calyrex, the tide turned once more. Warships and mechanical warriors collapsed in the force of the charge and the blade of Caylrex. Spectrier was among their ranks, slaying, hewing, driving them back into pits. All the southern portion of the battlefield was now routed, and Bronze still held the western border. Robots, their sensors frayed and disoriented, shambled away from the men of the Crown Tundra like a herd before many hunters.
But they had not yet retaken the whole plain. Many miles lay between them and Eternatus, and even then the Dark Lord would pose a nigh-impossible foe to best. The Dynamaxed Pokemon that rampaged over the plain and harrassed Association forces had turned against Calyrex and his riders, with overwhelming purpose and force coming from the mind of the Black Captain to guide them thus.
Calyrex, Latios, and Latias whistled a merry tune, and the Swords of Justice, as well as they fought, realized that the time had come for a new stratagem. Suddenly, it seemed that the Dynamaxed Pokemon under Eternatus's control were stopping their frantic charges, and turning toward the Eclipse fleet.
The first of the Dyanamaxed Pokemon to change sides was a Lycanroc. A frigate went down as the Pokemon bit into the vessel's engines. More and more joined in, and there seemed to be a new Pokemon on the side of the Vengeance Fleet every second. The maddening commands of Eternatus seemed to only incite them to riot further.
The Pokemon did not stop to mind what they had destroyed or killed, or to take more than one moment of rest. There were hundreds of ruined husks and a great splattering of blood and gelcircuitry electronics over the Plains of Har Meggido, for the Pokemon were bashing and attacking whatever they saw that had the insignia of the Eclipse Alliance.
A Copperajah came into the battle, crushing drop pods and Eclipse soldiers like a child crushing grapes. It simply trampled them by the dozen, aided by its fellows. The sea of blood, a three-part mix of liquid that had flowed in from the seas, dead Association soldiers mutilated by Eternatus, and exsanguinated Eclipse warriors grew into such a sodden mess that every step was rather thick and wet, of flesh, blood, and rusted metal.
Broken from his moment of pride and insolent glory, Eternatus felt a black fear rise up. His forces were falling into a rout. Cypress, watching from Castelia City, was creaming in rage. And only two of the Pokedex Holders had been killed! An unacceptable failure!
Belial, Ashtaroth, and Baal came out to meet Calyrex, leaving Eternatus to face this new foe. The Lord of Bountiful Harvests was aware of them, and would not wait for them to come to him, but rather his spurred Glastrier to ride forth and meet them. Great was the clash of their meeting. But the white fury of Calyrex burned the hotter, and more skilled was his knighthood.
Out swept Calyrex's silver sword, and the banner of the Dark Lord that had been lifted up in thickets of enemies faltered, metal staff and fiber standard hewed. All that was left unharmed of Eternatus's armies retreated from the southern part of Har Meggido and utterly deserted it and left in the hands of the enemy, as Calyrex cut through them like a bolt of fire.
Eternatus, still releasing beams of death at whatever foe he saw, heard the Swords of Justice say in one voice, loud and intolerably glad amid the riot and confusion of Armageddon: "Qui Verhum Dei contempserunt, eis auferetur etiam verbam hominis."
They that have despised the word of Arceus, from them shall the word of man also be taken away.
And then the curse of Babel fell on every last member of the Eclipse Alliance, artificial and biological alike. Commands and radio transmissions became gibberish, and then more and more vehement as their senders attempted to coax out a coherent word. Robot frigates lost control without the commands of their human pilots to guide them, making them ram and bash into other vessels in a glorious dance of death.
"Regroup! Make a defensive formation around Eternatus!" came out as "the surrogates in a contemptible display of variations." Not a word could be understood. The Vengeance Fleet took advantage of the confusion of their enemy, and took back all the eastern and western fields, and then moved on toward the north. Less than half of the original Eclipse fleet remained.
Emrett appeared on the wallscreen again, and although Bronze could not see how the tidal wave affected the city, the Eclipse Lord's words were furious, yet unintelligible. "You are doomed in the face of our power" sounded something like "the madrigore of verijuice must be talthinialthibased!"
The wonder worker screamed in bloody rage once he realized that everyone was laughing at him and not taking anything that he said into account. "For the Devil, that proud spirit," Moon said, humming along with the tune that Calyrex sang, "Cannot endure to be mocked."
Emrett was making an attempt to write down his words, when the final vial judgment struck Castelia City.
...
Mespirit finished pouring the last vial of wrath upon Castelia City, the throne of the Dark Lord. "It is finished!"
Along with the darkness, Arceus sent down a storm of hail as well, and caused an earthquake that destroyed a tenth of the city. Seven thousand Eclipse defenders died, and although their companions scrambled to contain the damage, the dead would be considered the lucky ones once Darkrai released his own disaster.
...
The image on the screen became pitch black. Bronze thought that a stray attack had blasted off the L.S. Victory's radio tower, but Emrett still screamed his creative strings of nonsense. It was as if Castelia City had been utterly plunged into a basin of black ink. With a final scream, Emrett fumbled in the dark, grabbed the recording camera, and smashed it to pieces.
Satellite footage revealed that Castelia City was shrouded in a covering of darkness, so deep that not even the most powerful of Flash attacks could lift it for a moment. With shouts and singing, the bridge crew rejoiced. "Arceus is doing all of our work for us!"
Knowing that the vial judgments had been completed, and with the grim foreknowledge of what was to come next, Bronze pointed toward Eternatus. "Run him through! Spare no expense or weapon!"
Another firey bombardment began, enough to turn a city into molten slag. Eternatus was stunned, wounded, and utterly confused by the sudden onslaught. The ground rumbled as what was left of the Eclipse Alliance's drop pods were annihilated. As prophecy after age-old prophecy was fulfilled to the word, it seemed that the End of Days was finally, finally at hand.
In pain and on the verge of defeat, Eternatus descended lower into the place where the robot vessels were thickest. Galar Particles enveloped the three thousand frigates, and their noses turned to the north, and very slightly west.
"They are going to retreat to Castelia City," Tess calculated. "Projection: Eternatus is afraid."
"Well, stop them!" Red shouted over the comline. "We can't have them get back to their prison city, not when we've got them in a vice here!"
A last hail of projectiles destroyed dozens of vessels, but not before Eternatus retreated once more. A sudden swelling of darkness blotted out the blazing sun, and even the brilliant shield of Calyrex. Dark fell about the plain. Rapidash reared and screamed. Men that lay dead or dying groveled on the bloody ground.
"To me! To me!" Calyrex cried. "Up with Arceus! Fear no darkness!" But Glastrier was wild with terror, and with a great neighing he crashed to his side, for one of Eternatus's attacks had pierced him. Calyrex fell beneath him, powerless under a shadow that descended like a falling cloud.
Mastered by the terror of their steeds, the riders of the Crown Tundra broke their ranks. Slain men lay in the mires of blood all about. Right through the charge Henry and Casey had yet been unharmed, but now they crawled around the collapsed Zacian and Zamazenta, blind and sick with horror. He wished to move and fight, but his Willpower made no answer to his heart's entreaties.
With yet another cry, Eternatus sailed along a tachyon wind, folding space. The Darkest Day ended, and the clouds broke into many sparkling colors. Eternatus's scream went up like a shrill wailing, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was then swallowed up by a great distance. The Dark Lord had escaped once more.
