Chapter 23:
Mewtwo powered a Blizzard attack and sent it at the three enemy Pokémon and Cyrus. Samus also joined in, charging her Ice Beam and unleashing an expanding wave of ice from her Ice Spreader. Samus's Ice Spreader assisted Mewtwo's Blizzard in its attempt to overpower Cyrus's Pokémon's attacks. The attacks collided with the three attacks unleashed by the Trophy Arceus and the Dialga and Palkia that it had created. There, the attacks remained suspended in midair, Arceus's purple ball of Judgment, Dialga's Roar of Time, and Palkia's Spacial Rend pressing against Mewtwo's Blizzard and Samus's Ice Spreader. Despite the fact that it was three against two, with Samus only using an Ice Spreader that should not have had anywhere close to the power of Mewtwo's Blizzard, the two of them were more than able to hold their own against the attacks of the three Pokémon, something that did not escape the notice of either Mewtwo or Samus.
"Something's wrong with them," he said as his and Samus's attacks began to push back the attacks of the enemy Pokémon. "They should be far stronger than this, especially Arceus."
"I fought an Arceus outside the temple," Samus informed him. When I defeated it, it transformed into a trophy of some sort."
"Trophy?" Mewtwo asked, his eyes widening and glancing down towards Samus.
"Yes," she answered, nodding. "Why do you ask?"
Mewtwo considered her question for a second before answering, "Nothing. At least nothing that should distract us from the battle at hand." He paused for a moment before asking her, "What did you do once the first Arceus reverted back to a trophy?"
"I dropped a Power Bomb and destroyed it," she answered.
"Are you certain that the trophy was destroyed?"
"Positive," she said firmly. "I watched as it disintegrated."
That seemingly brought a sigh of relief to Mewtwo, but he did not let the new information distract him, or cause him to underestimate his foes. He could not afford to be caught off guard and defeated. He continued to push energy into his Blizzard attack and it continued to push back against the three attacks that the enemy Pokémon had launched.
As Mewtwo and Samus focused on the Pokémon, Cyrus was not sitting idle. He went over to one of the circles and charged his Shock Coil in an attempt to power the shields and weapons of his suit. His suit was not equipped with any missiles, but his Shock Coil required energy to fire and did not have unlimited ammunition. Once he had arrived at the blue circle of Dialga, he opened his Shock Coil's receptors and absorbed the energy into the weapon. He smiled at the modification that he had made to his suit and its weapons. He also managed to gain an Energy Tank's worth of shielding as well, but with his helmet having had its HUD destroyed and being useless, he knew that he had to avoid taking any shots to the head, for the shields would still allow bleed-through damage, which would be fatal on a hit to his head.
Once he had filled the sole Energy Tank that had not been burned out by the Power Bomb detonation, he focused back on the battle. He was just in time to see Mewtwo's Blizzard, and Samus's Ice Spreader break through the Pokémon's attacks and inflict damage on them. The Normal type Arceus and the Ice/Steel type Dialga managed to weather the storm without suffering too much damage, but they were sent skidding back a few steps. Palkia, despite being a Water/Dragon Pokémon, had fared much worse. It had taken the brunt of the impact and was frozen solid by the Blizzard and Samus's wave of ice, turning the Spatial Pokemon into an ice statue. Samus fired a single missile at the Pokémon and it was instantly shattered as the missile struck the frozen Pokémon and detonated. Shards of ice were hurled from the center of the explosion, but after a few seconds, they froze in midair, and reversed their momentum. In another second, they were returning to their point of origin, as if they were being rewound like a movie. After a couple of seconds, Palkia had re-formed, only this time, it was no longer frozen. Cyrus decided that it was best to hold back and wait to see how the battle resolved itself. He would only intervene directly if any of the Pokémon got in any real trouble.
Not too far away from where the Chairman of the Galactic Federation was observing the battle, Palkia reentered the fight and unleashed another Spacial Rend towards Samus. The bounty hunter was about to dodge the attack when Mewtwo teleported in front of the attack and used his shield to reflect it back at Palkia. Palkia took the attack and sustained no damage at all. Mewtwo then called over to Samus, "Focus on Arceus! The other two are immortal. Taking down Arceus is the only way to defeat them!"
Samus nodded and went to switch to her Light Beam. As she tried to do so, though, a field of energy surrounded her and she rose into the air. She checked her HUD and found that her shield strength was being depleted by the energy field. Seeing Arceus's eyes glow, she realized that it was using its telekinesis to lift her into the air and inflict damage. Seeing that she still had her Ice Beam, she attempted to pull the trigger of her Ice Beam so as to charge an Ice Spreader shot. She found herself able to do so and once more, her Ice Spreader was charging. As she was charging it, though, Dialga and Palkia unleashed their Roar of Time and Spacial rend on her, respectively. Using all of her strength, she was barely able to curl into a Screw Attack and cause the blasts to strike her shield and detonate, inflicting no damage to her, or to the rest of the universe. Looking at the two Pokémon, she realized that if they were able to get their attacks to collide once more, that another universe could be created and Cyrus would still have his dreams fulfilled. It was not over yet. Still, if Mewtwo had spent the entire year fighting inside the other dimension, or even merely a day or two, he would undoubtedly be tired and be struggling to maintain anything close to his full power. Knowing that Dialga and Palkia were indestructible also meant that they would be able to cover Arceus against Mewtwo when he went to fight the Pokémon trophy.
Samus looked over at Mewtwo and told him, "We only have one shot at this. You take on Arceus. I'll distract Dialga and Palkia. I might not be able to destroy them, but I can take them out of action for at least a few moments and make it a one-on-one fight at the very least."
Mewtwo nodded and replied, "Go for it."
Samus then charged forward and opened fire with her Ice Beam, targeting the two Pokémon. Her intention was to make them, or rather, Arceus, think that she viewed her Ice Beam as being doubly effective due to them being Dragon type Pokémon, seemingly not knowing about their second types of Steel for Dialga, and Water for Palkia. For her part, though, Samus knew that she was not going to inflict any real damage to the two Pokémon, her only hope was that they would be frozen by one of her attacks so that she and Mewtwo could focus on beating Arceus.
As she opened fire, the Pokémon took the hits indicating that they were suffering only a minimum of damage, if any. Still, she had to be careful, for if she allowed them to attack at the same time, then the risk of their attacks colliding and beginning another universe, at the cost of this one, was a very real possibility. She positioned herself so that one of the two Pokémon was standing in front of the other. In this case, Dialga was standing in front of Palkia. As soon as she had assumed her chosen position, she charged her Ice Beam and fired. Her ball of ice streaked towards the Pokémon and scored a direct hit on the Temporal Pokémon. The ball of ice detonated but it did not freeze Dialga solid. She grimaced as he returned fire with a Roar of Time. She leapt into a Screw Attack and allowed the indigo blast to wash over her. The beam struck her and crashed around the Screw Attack shield, washing over it but not managing to have any if its energy bleed through to inflict damage to her suit. Samus was pleasantly surprised at the lack of power, relatively speaking, in the attacks. From what little she had heard of Dialga and Palkia, they were extremely powerful Pokémon whose Roar of Time should have a the very least inflicted bleed-through damage However, here she was, not only holding her own against them, but merely having to hold out long enough for Mewtwo to deal with Arceus, who, himself, seemed to be noticeably weaker than he should have been, especially compared to Dark Arceus. She figured that their power was proportionate to the power of the Arceus trophy that Mewtwo was facing; and since the Arceus trophy was weaker than the original Arceus, it followed that these Pokémon would be that much weaker than their counterparts. That brought up the question in the bounty hunter's mind as to whether or not the black globe really would have created a new universe and have destroyed this one. She did not doubt that it would have likely caused a great deal of destruction on the Earth, but the question remained as to whether or not Cyrus's dreams would have been fulfilled. She did not want to take the risk of Dialga and Palkia being able to fulfill Cyrus's wishes and create a new universe at the expense of this one, so she decided that she had to deal with them, once and for all.
She charged another shot from her Ice Beam and targeted the two Pokémon, making sure that they were close together so that she would be able to hit both of her opponents with her Ice Spreader. Once the beam was charged, an expanding wave of ice erupted from her arm cannon and rocketed towards the Pokémon. Palkia and Dialga countered by preparing to launch their signature attacks, but before they were able to power them up, the wave of ice hit them, with Palkia taking a direct hit from the ice wave. Upon impact, the wave of ice exploded and encased the Spatial Pokémon in a block of ice, freezing it solid. Dialga was able to escape suffering the same fate, but not able to avoid taking damage from the attack. It recoiled a bit and glanced over at Palkia. Seemingly realizing that it could restore Palkia if it shattered the frozen Pokémon, it powered a Roar of Time.
Seeing this, Samus interposed herself between the two Pokémon and leapt into a Screw Attack just as she was charging another Ice Spreader. Dialga fired his attack and a thick indigo beam erupted towards the bounty hunter. Shielding herself with her Screw Attack shields, she managed to avoid sustaining any damage from the attack. Even better was the fact that the beam crashed upon her Screw Attack shields and was deflected not only around Samus, but also around the frozen Palkia. She knew that Palkia would not remain frozen forever, but every second that it did remain frozen gave Mewtwo more time to deal with Trophy Arceus less interference coming from Dialga or Palkia. Once Dialga's attack had finished, Samus unleashed another Ice Spreader blast upon it. The expanding wave of ice streaked towards the Pokémon as it powered another Roar of Time. However, just as with Palkia, Dialga suffered a direct hit before it managed to get its next attack off. The wave of ice struck Dialga in its center of mass and detonated, releasing a tremendous blast wave of ice in all directions. Dialga was frozen instantly and its attack dissipated. Samus then moved to her left and charged her Ice Beam once more, this time, unleashing a Charged Shot on Palkia in order to make sure that it remained frozen. Once her shot scored a direct hit on the already frozen Palkia and undid the progress that Palkia had made in trying to thaw itself, she kept a close watch on both Pokémon in order to make sure that neither of them thawed and attacked Mewtwo while he was engaging Trophy Arceus.
Meanwhile, Mewtwo was holding his own against the Arceus trophy that was fighting him. He glanced over at Samus and saw that she had her battle against Dialga and Palkia well in hand, and concentrated on his own fight against Trophy Arceus. Trophy Arceus powered a purple ball of energy in its mouth and launched it directly at Mewtwo. Mewtwo teleported out of the way of the attack, appearing behind Arceus, unleashing a swirling blue Aura Sphere. The sphere scored a direct hit on Arceus and sent the Pokémon flying through the air. The Alpha Pokémon quickly recovered and grinned, thinking that Mewtwo had not noticed its attack splitting apart and all of the purple meteors zeroing in on him. However, Mewtwo was well aware of the nature of Judgment and was merely waiting for the attack to split. He powered a reflector shield and allowed the meteors to hit it. Since they were far weaker than the regular Arceus's, or Dark Arceus's, for that matter, he knew that his shields would be able to withstand the attack and send it back to Trophy Arceus.
Just as he had expected, the purple meteors collided with his shields, causing the blue barrier to flare into existence with each hit, and reflected them back at Trophy Arceus. As the blasts were reflected back at Arceus, it recoiled in surprise and prepared to counter with a Hyper Beam. Unfortunately, its own attack collided with it and knocked it backwards before it had finished charging the Hyper Beam. This caused Arceus to spontaneously unleash the Hyper Beam towards the ceiling of the temple. The beam bored a hole straight through the ceiling, which continued its path, vaporizing a few Federation Claymore-class bombers, and an Assault Transport that was coming to deliver reinforcements for Cyrus. The blast continued until it hit Earth's planetary shields. The beam splashed against them and the shields took the full brunt of the impact, shrugging it off just as it had the numerous, and far more powerful, energy blasts from the capital ships that were pounding on the shield.
After Arceus unleashed its Hyper Beam, it remained suspended in midair, motionless, recharging from unleashing the tremendous attack. Out of the corner of her eye, Samus had witnessed the blast and saw that it was likely a lot more powerful than anything the Trophy Arceus that she had fought had unleashed. She did not know whether or not she had merely managed to catch it off guard, or if he had been weaker than this current Arceus. She did not care, though, as she quickly turned to focus on the Arceus and inflict as much damage to it as she could before it recharged and entered the fight once more. Despite the fact that the Trophy Arceus's life bar on the top of her HUD was showing that it had lost more than half of its life, she did not want to give it a chance to recover. She charged her Light Beam and took aim at the recharging Pokémon, just as Mewtwo was powering a Psystrike.
Not too far away, was watching the battle, both enraged and terrified: enraged that his Pokémon were losing the battle, but also terrified since he knew that he was not powerful enough to go up against Samus, let alone Mewtwo, especially if Trophy Arceus's Dialga and Palkia could not do much to the duo. When he saw his enemies getting the better of his Pokémon, he decided that he had to try something. The problem was that without his helmet, he could not enter his Lockjaw form and lay down any of his energy mines. Those were the only weapon that he had, at the moment, that he felt would have been enough to inflict some real damage to Samus. Seeing that if he did nothing, that his Pokémon would be defeated, though, he decided to enter the fray and target Samus, since she had demonstrated that she had the ability to defeat a Trophy Arceus, likely due to her Light Beam, or one of her stronger Charge Beam Combos.
He charged towards Samus, readying his Shock Coil, but before he could launch an attack, Mewtwo cried out towards the bounty hunter in warning, "Samus, watch out!"
Samus had already spotted Cyrus coming, though, and redirected her arm cannon to focus on him. As soon as she spotted him, she let fly with a Charged Light Beam blast, not wanting to waste a Light Missile on him. The Light Beam blast scored a direct hit on Cyrus's chest and bathed him in an aura of golden light. Cyrus wailed aloud in agony as the light burned him, even through his shields, which had been taken down to half strength by the attack. The light burned his body and his face, leaving several horrible scars across his face before it dissipated. The Team Galactic leader fell to the ground, writhing in agony as he fired his Shock Coil into the ground, further inflicting damage to his shields when the electricity and neutrinos were attracted to his suit's shields. He immediately shut down his attack and gazed out at the battle as Samus refocused her attention towards Trophy Arceus, and the defrosting Dialga and Palkia. Seeing that engaging Samus was of little use, he focused on trying to flee the battle so he could live to plan another attempt at creating a new universe for himself. He then noticed one of Palkia's Spacial Rends that had not been sealed. Remembering that this rend was the one that Mewtwo had emerged from, he decided that fleeing through it was better than staying here and likely getting killed, for he saw no way for Trophy Arceus to be able to defeat Mewtwo. Using what little strength he had left, he struggled over towards the rend, hoping that it would lead to either an escape, or, in his wildest dreams, another universe that he could rule.
Back at the fighting, Mewtwo had fully powered his Psystrike and pointed his right paw up towards the Trophy Arceus. Just as he was targeting Arceus, Dialga and Palkia broke free of the ice and prepared their attacks. Ice shards were sent flying from the Pokémon and rained upon the party. Samus, who was charging her Light Beam, looked up and noticed the Pokémon preparing their attacks. She adjusted her aim towards the Pokémon and readied a Light Missile for firing. As she was about to open fire, though, she caught Mewtwo unleashing his Psystrike on Trophy Arceus out of the corner of her eye. Seeing that it would be a good idea to wait before wasting ten missiles for a Light Missile that might not be necessary, she leapt into a Screw Attack and positioned herself close to Mewtwo, protecting him from the attacks of Dialga and Palkia as they were on the verge of launching them; but the attacks never came.
The blue psychic energy wave that was Mewtwo's Psystrike was propelled towards Trophy Arceus as it was still recharging from its failed Hyper Beam. The blue wave of energy surged towards the stricken Pokémon and scored a direct hit on it. Upon taking the full brunt of the strike, Trophy Arceus's flesh immediately transformed into metal as a golden base formed beneath the Pokémon. After a few seconds, Arceus had turned back into a trophy. After Arceus had reverted to a trophy, it fell from the air and clattered on the ground, eventually landing on its base. Once the trophy had landed, Mewtwo launched an Aura Sphere at the trophy and blew it apart with one strike. The pieces of the trophy flew through the air and landed in various parts of the temple. As they did so, they erupted into an unnatural green flame. Each piece of the trophy took a few seconds before it was consumed by said flames. As Arceus was being destroyed, Samus gazed upwards and saw the blue and pink highlights of Dialga and Palkia light up. As they did so, a blue and pink outline formed around the two Pokémon. She could tell that this was a prelude to them disappearing, for with Arceus destroyed, there was no will keeping them intact. Sparkles emerged from the bodies as they faded away into nothingness, with even the sparkles fading after a few seconds. After the two Pokémon had vanished, Mewtwo relaxed, obviously winded from the battle, and likely from whatever fighting he did in the dimension that he had just escaped from when Palkia had used its Spacial Rend.
After the Pokémon disappeared, Samus turned to the Spacial Rend that Palkia had launched at her that she had avoided earlier in the battle. She saw it begin to shrink and she approached it to make sure that it vanished. As she approached it, though, the outlines of her map turned red, indicating the presence of an enemy. Quickly looking at the entrance to the temple, she saw no signs of anyone coming, so she focused her attention back to the shrinking Spacial Rend. As it was beginning to close, she saw a figure emerging from the rend. Her eyes went wide as she recognized the figure as being a Magic Lord. Given his physical appearance, short red hair, blue eyes, appearing to be about sixteen Earth years old, and wearing golden armor, he was likely the same one that she had fought over a year ago. For a fleeting instant, she wondered how the Magic Lord had survived the battle, but she quickly shook off the thought. She then focused her Light Beam on the Magic Lord and prayed that it would be effective against him.
As she tracked the Magic Lord, she realized that he was going for a blitz on Mewtwo, hoping to catch the Pokémon with his guard down. Samus, seeing the youth draw his sword, which was beginning to emit a golden glow, cried, "Mewtwo, watch out!" as she fired her Light Beam at the Magic Lord.
Her Light Beam erupted from her cannon and crossed the distance between herself and the Magic Lord at the speed of light, instantly catching the youth and knocking him away from the Pokémon as he turned to face his attacker. The Magic Lord youth gave out a cry as he was surrounded by an aura of golden light. When Mewtwo turned, instead of spotting the Magic Lord, he caught sight of another figure, this one female. Back behind the female Magic Lord, he saw the Spacial Rend closing until it vanished completely. He narrowed his gaze on her and snarled, "Aglara."
Aglara ignored Mewtwo as she glanced over to Aramon, who was still screaming as the last flickers of golden light shimmered around his body. Her eyes went wide with shock and fear as she looked over at Samus, who was already charging her Light Beam for another attack. "Damn!" she swore. "How did she get a hold of a Light Weapon?"
Samus did not care about what Aglara was talking about, only that the Light Beam seemed to do wonders for her. She scanned the Magic Lady, her scan coming back, Morphology – Female Elvanheim. This Elvanheim youth is powerful for one of her age. Also known as Magic Lords, subject's kind possess skills in all forms of magic and are said to ride dragons across the cosmos and between dimensions, sometimes being referred to as Dragon Lords by races they encounter, and kill. Subject has a glaring weakness to special Light energy, as well as a smaller vulnerability to the Wave Beam.
After scanning Aglara, she promptly scanned the male Magic Lord that had attempted to catch Mewtwo off guard. This scan came back, Morphology – Male Elvanheim. Like the female Elvanheim, this one is also strong for his age. Subject is less skilled in the areas of magic, but makes up for it in his physical combat skills, which are second to none. Subject's only weaknesses are the Light Beam, Wave Beam, their Charge Combos, and psychic powers.
After reading the scans, she was surprised that the male was still vulnerable to psychic powers, while the female did not seem to have any particular vulnerability to them. Before the fighting began in earnest, though, Mewtwo called over to her and told her, "You take Aramon while I deal with Aglara."
Believing that Aglara was the female that did not have a vulnerability to psychic powers, Samus asked, "Are you sure about that? My scans indicate that Aramon is vulnerable to psychic powers. Perhaps I should take on…" but she would not get to choose her opponent, for Aramon had chosen to face her when he launched a golden energy blast at her from his sword.
"You," he seethed. "You embarrassed me a year ago, your time. For me, though, that humiliation was only a couple of days ago. Now, I will get my revenge…by killing you!" he cried.
Aramon charged forward towards Samus, his sword held high. Aglara saw the reckless charge and yelled to her brother, "Wait! She's different from before!"
He did not listen, though, and continued his charge. Samus, for her part, merely charged her Light Beam and prepared to attack. She zeroed in on the Magic Lord as he pointed his sword towards her. He let loose another blast of golden energy from his sword, which Samus was already in the process of dodging. The blast sailed over her head and hit the ground several dozen meters behind her. She countered with a Charged Light Beam blast that managed to score a direct hit on him. This time, though, Aramon was prepared. He had raised a magical shield over himself that absorbed the blow, only allowing a small amount of energy to bleed through and inflict actual damage to him. Still, the damage that managed to seep through was significant. He howled in agony as the light struck his body and burned it, creating an aura that continued to burn him. Before Samus could attack again, though, he vanished from his current location and reappeared right behind the bounty hunter. She was expecting him to try a sneak attack, though, so she instinctively curled up into her Morph Ball form, causing his sword slash to sail over top of her, and laid a Power Bomb. Once she laid the Power Bomb, she rolled as far away as possible before its detonation.
Aramon, heedless of the bomb at his feet, stepped on the bomb, causing it to detonate. The explosion washed over him, his shield focusing the full brunt of the blast on him, rather than allowing it to spread out and risk damaging the building. Aramon had cared nothing for the temple, though. He merely did not feel the need to lower his shield, even though in his weakened condition, the shield was severely strained due to the Power Bomb's detonation. Samus rolled back and laid down another Power Bomb, hoping to finish the job. Aramon, however, had other ideas. Chanting a spell, a purple ball of energy formed over his head. Once the ball was formed, he fired it directly at the Power Bomb. The ball of energy collided with the Power Bomb and the bomb vanished into thin air. However, Aramon did not consider the possibility of the Power Bomb merely being a decoy, for as he was dealing with the threat of the Power Bomb, Samus was charging her Light Beam once more. Once it was charged, she decided that her best chance to kill Aramon quickly would be the Light Missile, for while the Light Beam did inflict severe damage to him, she wanted to deal with him quickly so she could help Mewtwo deal with Aglara. She unleashed her Light Missile on Aramon as he fired his spell on the Power Bomb. The missile crossed the distance between Samus and Aramon at faster than the speed of sound and it struck the Magic Lord squarely in the chest and detonated. A wave of light emerged from the detonating missile and crashed over Aramon. Aramon, having already suffered damage from a previous Light Beam attack, as well as suffering minor damage from the Power Bomb detonation, was unable to handle the Light Missile's explosion. He gave a cry of agony as his body disintegrated under the pure light that assaulted his body. After a few seconds, all traces of Aramon were gone.
All but forgotten during the fight with the Pokémon, and later, the Magic Lords, Cyrus stood in the center of the stage, gradually replenishing his energy and ammunition for his Shock Coil. He realized that without a helmet, he would not be able to scan Samus and find out her own shield strength, and not have a quick readout of his own shield and ammunition levels, but a small side monitor did have an indicator of his shield strength and remaining ammunition in the form of two solid bars, green for his shields, blue for his Shock Coil ammunition. Once both bars were filled, he went ran over to Samus and opened fire on her. He would let the newcomer, who he figured was a Magic Lord or some other powerful fighter, deal with Mewtwo. With any luck, they would kill each other and he would deal with Samus, destroying the only real threats to any further chances of him managing to accomplish his objectives. Even with the Trophy Arceus having been destroyed, the real Arceus was still out there, somewhere. Should he manage to reconstruct a Red Chain, he would theoretically be able to take control of Arceus and create his new universe once more. First, though, he would have to deal with Samus.
He began the fight by charging towards her and unleashing a stream of electricity and neutrinos from his Shock Coil. The stream of electricity made contact with Samus's suit and began to drain it of its energy. The drain was slow, though, due to Samus's enhanced shielding and resistance to weapons like the Shock Coil. The weapon's effect was significantly reduced from what the reports that Cyrus had read about the weapon had indicated. The slow drain gave Samus all day to move to her left, switch to her Wave Beam, charge it, and unleash a stream of electricity from her Wavebuster. The stream of electricity arced towards Cyrus's suit and inflicted massive damage to its shields. Cyrus immediately fled from Samus as he watched his green shield bar constantly decrease. He occasionally turned back to use his Shock Coil against Samus in order to drain her of some of her energy, but it was not having the desired effect. For each unit of energy that Cyrus managed to restore, he lost ten. Quickly realizing that he had to cut the connection between himself and Samus, he fled to one of the fallen statues. Ducking behind it, he managed to sever his connection with Samus, but not before he lost more than three quarters of his suit's energy. Cursing, he switched to his own Power Beam, since it was actually more effective than his Shock Coil against her and, knowing that he had little chance of success, but no real option at the moment, hid behind the statue and took a few potshots at Samus, hoping to get lucky. This prompted Samus to turn fire a Super Missile towards him. He dove away from the missile, but it still landed close to him and the explosion hurled him through the air, inflicting damage to his suit. Once he was down, Samus looked over at Aglara and Mewtwo fighting, and switched to her Light Beam once more so she could assist him in the fighting. Cyrus, however, was far from finished, and merely waited for his moment to be able to inflict some damage to his enemies.
Meanwhile, during Samus's fight against Aramon, Aglara launched and assault on Mewtwo. Chanting an alien spell, she unleashed a vicious cone of fire on Mewtwo. Unfortunately, for her, though, Mewtwo had raised a shield over his body and reflected the stream of fire back at her. The spell crashed against her shield and collapsed it, but it did not inflict any real damage to her, using up all of its energy against her own shield. Mewtwo followed up with a Psystrike. Blue waves of energy formed in front of him and were then launched Aglara's way. She raised another shield to protect herself from Mewtwo's attack, and hopefully repel it back towards him, but it was not enough. Her shield strained under the weight of Mewtwo's attack and even her improved defenses against psychic attacks proved to be insufficient to stop his attack. The attack broke through her shields and inflicted direct damage to her. The damage was not fatal, but it was significant enough for Aglara to cast a healing spell on herself just to make sure that a lucky shot from Mewtwo would not be sufficient to take her out.
Once she had completed the spell, she focused her energy on taking down Mewtwo once more. She drew her sword and launched a quick volley of energy blasts in the direction of the psychic Pokémon. Before the first shot was fired, though, Mewtwo vanished from his location and teleported behind her. Guessing that he would try a tactic like that, Aglara grinned as she sent the energy blasts behind her, firing at the location that Mewtwo had just reappeared a moment earlier. However, her energy blasts merely sizzled air as Mewtwo teleported away once more. As the female Magic Lord was trying to ascertain where Mewtwo would reappear, she found herself flying through the air, and towards a wall. She crashed into the wall and slid down, blue blood leaking from the back of her head. Once she landed, she fell into a heap and was slow to rise. It was not until she witnessed Samus kill Aramon that she managed to stand; her eyes wide at the shocking sight. How was this possible? There was no way a Magic Lord could fall to a mere mortal. She could understand falling to Mewtwo. He was powerful and psychics were strong against Magic Lords. But for a mortal like Samus to kill him? Even with a Light weapon, it was hard for her to believe that Aramon would die against her. However, she would not let Aramon's death go unavenged.
She pointed her sword towards Samus and prepared to launch an energy blast when she found herself flying through the air once more. She crashed into a wall and fell to the ground, dazed but not too badly hurt. She rose and saw Mewtwo standing between her and Samus. She grimaced. Despite the fact that in her Aramon's fight against Mewtwo, she had managed to find a way to neutralize a psychic's natural advantage over her, Mewtwo was still a very capable opponent. In fact, she began to think that he was every bit as powerful as a Magic Lord. And even with her brother, had there not been other forces inside the Warp Zone with them, coming to their aid, or rather, sacrificing themselves so that the two of them could recover from their battles, they would not have survived this long fighting Mewtwo. Now, it did not matter, though, for her brother, and also lover, was now dead; killed by a Light weapon wielded by a mortal human. She knew that she could not defeat both fighters in this battle, but if she could deal with one of them, that would be a great boon to both her and her people and their plans for this galaxy. She gritted her teeth and raised her sword once more. Gazing at Mewtwo, she could see that the psychic Pokémon was weakening. His strength had reached its limit. While she wanted to get revenge on Samus for the murder of her brother, she knew that in order to get to the bounty hunter, she would have to go through Mewtwo, and while he was tiring out, she knew that he still had enough stamina to deal with her if she was distracted by the bounty hunter.
Knowing that she had no choice, she pointed her sword at Mewtwo and sent a volley of energy blasts his way while simultaneously extending her left hand and unleashing a stream of lightning from her fingertips at the Pokémon. Mewtwo's shield caught the energy blasts and strained against them, flaring but managed to hold firm. Her magical lightning attack, though, was much more difficult for him to deal with, though. Her overcoming her weakness to psychic attacks had the side effect of allowing her own lighting to break through enemy shields, just like the Earth psychic attack, PSI Thunder used by members of the Chosen Four and other Earth human psychics. Her lightning attack partially managed to do what she had intended. While PSI Thunder usually managed to not only break down shields, but also inflict damage on its targets, her magical lightning merely managed to shatter Mewtwo's shields. She fired a second burst of lightning, this time managing to inflict damage to Mewtwo. Electricity arced across Mewtwo's body and he was stood frozen in place, seemingly paralyzed by the attack.
Seeing this as her best chance to kill Mewtwo, she charged forward, keeping a close eye on Samus, who was had just fired a Super Missile at Cyrus, knocking him away from the fight. Seeing this as her chance to kill Mewtwo without any interference, she raised her sword and, charging it to glow gold, she charged the Pokémon as electricity still arced across his body. She grinned as she rushed towards him. Once she was a few feet away, she thrust her sword forward, intending to impale Mewtwo in the heart. However, just as her sword was merely an inch away, Mewtwo raised his left hand and a shield formed over his body. Her sword struck the shield and both strained against the other.
"Crap!" the female Magic Lady swore as her sword struck Mewtwo's shield. The only good thing about the current stalemate was the fact that Mewtwo had not initiated an attack on her. Still, she saw that her sword was not making any progress. Instead, Mewtwo's shield was pushing back and she felt herself giving way.
Seeing that her current level of strength was not sufficient, she realized that she had no choice but to push all of her remaining strength into the thrust. She gave a cry as she continued to push against Mewtwo's shield. She grunted as Mewtwo pushed back, but she continued to push towards his shield. Little by little, she saw her sword begin to make its way through the cat-like Pokémon's shield and she began to grin. "Looks like you're not gonna win this one, are ya?" she gloated.
Mewtwo merely grinned as he tightened his shield, locking her sword in its current position. Aglara tried to shove her sword through, pushing more energy into the sword, but it refused to budge. "Move!" she cried to the sword. "Damn it, move!"
Mewtwo countered by pushing against the Magic Lord, forcing her backwards. Aglara pushed back, though and managed to regain the ground she had lost, grunting as she attempted to power through Mewtwo's shield and stab him. Little by little, she felt her sword pushing through his shield, but her strength was beginning to wane. She then felt a thump to her lower abdomen as an energy blast hit her, her own natural shield being the only thing preventing the blast from inflicting real damage as the pulse of energy blew through the shield and burned the armor, transferring some of the heat to Aglara's skin. "Crap!" she swore again, grunting. "That one hurt."
She then continued forcing her sword through Mewtwo's shield, forcing him to push more energy to stop its momentum, mere millimeters away from his chest. However, she tilted the sword upwards, and now it was pointing straight at his head. She continued to push the sword towards his head, nearly managing to have the glowing edges make contact with Mewtwo's skin, when the sword came to a sudden halt, as if it had hit a steel wall. "C'mon!" she roared. "Just…#$%&ing…die!" she cried, failing to notice Samus charging her Light Beam behind her.
Mewtwo promptly reached out with his left hand and grabbed Aglara's sword hand, closing his paw over her hand. The sound of bones cracking and breaking echoed throughout the temple. Aglara cried out as her hand was crushed. A second jerk dislocated her shoulder, causing her to howl in pain once more. Once she was disabled, Mewtwo nodded towards Samus. Samus unleashed her Light Beam upon Aglara, the golden beams of light striking her in the back. As soon as the beam struck her, an explosion of light washed over her, burning her armor and body in the process. Burns and scars formed across her arms, legs, and face as the light continued to shine forth around her, horribly deforming her as her right arm fell off, its flesh being disintegrated by the light. She continued to cry and scream as she endured the assault. After a few more seconds, though, the light faded and the assault mercifully ended and she fell to her knees, and then to the ground, tears streaming from her eyes. Both Mewtwo and Samus were shocked by the end result, for while Aglara was not yet dead, third degree burns now covered most of her exposed body, and there were numerous blisters, puddles, and burns on her once pristine armor. She struggled to move as she crawled towards her enemies, her hatred for them still showing on her face.
A pang of sympathy entered the hearts of Mewtwo and Samus as they saw Aglara, who still looked to be no older than a human teenager, writhing in agony on the ground. Then Samus remembered how close humanity had come to near extinction because of Aglara and her brother. That gave her the resolve to neutralize her threat, permanently. She pointed her arm cannon at the fallen Magic Lord, who weakly turned her head to face her enemies. She managed to croak, "You…will…die," before she vanished from their sight. Both Samus and Mewtwo looked around to see where she would reappear…if she would reappear. Their search came up negative, though, Mewtwo eventually saying, "I can't sense her presence at all. It looks like she escaped, for now."
"You have experience fighting her, do you think that she'll survive those wounds?" Samus asked.
"I don't know," Mewtwo answered, shaking his head. "I can't see how, but then again, the Magic Lords are powerful, and she had managed to neutralize her inherent weakness against psychics. I wouldn't put it past her surviving such an injury."
Samus then nodded and relaxed for a moment. The fights against the Pokémon, Cyrus, and Aramon had taken their toll and she wished to catch her breath for a moment. Cyrus refused to give her that chance, though, for once the fight was over, he came up from behind her and launched a Charged Beam from his arm cannon. Samus saw him coming and dove to the ground, causing the blast to sail over her head. As she dove to the ground, Mewtwo returned the earlier favor of her shooting Aramon, preventing the Magic Lord youth from killing or severely injuring him, by shooting a lance of blue energy from his right paw. The lance speared Cyrus in the chest and sent him flying backwards, a massive hole where most of his heart and part of a lung used to be. The beam cauterized the wound, but did Cyrus little good, for without his heart, and part of his left lung, he was doomed to die. He hit the floor of the stage and slid a few feet on it until he came to a halt. Samus then jumped up onto the stage and fired a single uncharged Plasma Beam blast at his head, just to make sure that he was dead, and would stay that way. The beam burned a massive hole in his head, ensuring his demise, if the missing heart and destroyed lung had not already done so first.
After the fighting had finally ended, both Samus and Mewtwo sat down on the stage for a moment to catch their breaths. "It's over," Samus sighed. "It's finally over." And she was right. Regardless of whether or not the Federation in Exile or the so-called Galactic Federation won this battle, the true threat to Earth had been destroyed, for everyone could agree that the Magic Lords were a threat to the entire galaxy. She felt that with Cyrus dead, the two sides could come to some kind of agreement given what she had seen of this war. There was still the issue of war crimes having been committed by members of the Galactic Federation military in various battles during the civil war, but they would likely be dealt with in the courts. Still, there was a very real possibility that now that Cyrus was dead, there was no longer the urgency for the Federation in Exile to retake the planet, since the current threat to the Earth, and the entire universe, was now dead. Evidence and testimonies would tell that Cyrus had been the enemy all along, and while the Galactic Federation Council would not want to give up the power it had recently obtained, she felt that the need for fighting had ended, for a time.
After a few minutes, she rose and headed towards the entrance to the temple, quickly followed by Mewtwo. When they reached the door, they pushed it open and outside, they saw two dozen Cornerian fighters, a dozen Rapiers, a dozen Claymores, six Epées, and two Federation Assault Shuttles with metallic ropes coming from the sides of the craft, hovering over the temple. On the ground stood a company of Galactic Federation Marines and Army Troopers, along with a platoon of Cornerian soldiers, four Ylla warriors, and two N'Kren Technobles, all leveling their weapons at Samus and Mewtwo. The leader of the force, one of the Technobles, walked up towards Samus and demanded, "Samus Aran and unknown creature, in the name of the Galactic Federation and its allies, we command you to surrender now, or die."
Mewtwo merely scoffed, while Samus responded, "I won't surrender. The war is over. Cyrus has been killed and his plans of recreating the universe have been thwarted. We even have one confirmed Magic Lord kill, and another probable."
The N'Kren soldier scoffed. "Like hell you do." Turning to one of the Cornerians, he said, "Go inside the temple and scan it for any traces of foreign energy and signs of Cyrus. If he's dead, we'll have a good reason to charge them with murder and summarily execute them."
"Understood," the Cornerian, a humanoid dog, replied. Samus was about to protest, but a calm Mewtwo shaking his head told her that she should wait before fighting their way out of this. She nodded in agreement, knowing that even as fatigued as he was, Mewtwo would make short work of the forces that were arrayed against them.
Ignoring the bounty hunter and Pokémon in front of him, the Cornerian took a scanner and entered the temple, Mewtwo and Samus allowing him to pass without incident. After entering the temple, he took out his scanner and scanned it. The readings showed signs of a tremendous battle, as did the body on the stage with two holes in it. The Cornerian rushed over to it and ran the scanner over the body. While he had recognized the face as belonging to Cyrus, he wanted to make a positive identification. All scans came back positive. He then went back outside and reported, "Sir, I can confirm that Cyrus was killed inside the temple. There are also many unknown weapons and energy signatures." He handed the scanner over to the Technoble. "The energy signature of the shot to Cyrus's head does match the signatures to the shots that killed Executive of Team Galactic Jupiter and several of the Pokémon present, but does not match the signatures found from the remains of Mars or Venus.
"So we have all of the evidence we need to convict Samus of murder and kill her and this…thing," the Technoble said, motioning towards Mewtwo condescendingly.
The Cornerian was not convinced. "Sir, there were other readings in there that we could not identify."
"We can," one of the Ylla volunteered, coming over. The soldier looked at the readings and his face went white. "I don't believe it," he whispered, as if his mind was someplace else.
"What is it?" the Cornerian asked.
"Those readings are identical to the magical remains of Elvanheim, what you call Magic Lords, along with special Light energy that was utilized by the Luminoth during our war with the Elvanheim. They were here. And at least one of them was killed by a Light weapon."
As if to confirm the killer of the Magic Lord, Samus switched to her Light Beam and charged it. As the Cornerian and the Ylla saw the golden light form at the end of her arm cannon, they took a scan of it. "That's the same energy I detected inside the temple!" he cried. "I also detected that same energy as one of the weapons signatures on Cyrus, and while it was not the fatal shot, several of his scars did show the same weapons signature."
"It does not matter, we have enough information as is," the Technoble blurted. "Samus is guilty of killing Cyrus."
"But this is shows that Cyrus was harmed by the Light Beam!" the Ylla countered.
"In the long run, it means nothing. All human politicians would be either killed or horribly deformed by a Light weapon, even if they had shields up at the time they were hit."
"But it puts the situation in doubt, especially since some were saying that humans were siding with the Magic Lords," the Ylla and Cornerian continued.
"Shut up. My mind is made up!" the N'Kren Technoble roared. Turning to the rest of the force, he commanded, "It's time, everyone, get ready!"
All of the soldiers, save for the Cornerian and the Ylla warriors, who were glancing at one another, and back at their comrade, raised their weapons and targeted Samus. The fighters hovering in the air also readied their weapons. Mewtwo and Samus, however, merely stood by and waited, both smiling knowingly. The discussion had given Mewtwo an opportunity to catch his breath, but even if he had practically been on his last legs, he would have been able to defeat these enemies. The only issue was dealing with the two Technobles, since he could still hear the sounds of fighting off in the distance not too far away from the temple. Extending his psychic senses, he got a good sense of the battle. The rest of the Team Galactic Executives had either been killed or forced to retreat, along with the rest of their troops. The only thing keeping Cynthia and Ethan from getting to the temple were a force of Galactic Federation, N'Kren, and Cornerian soldiers that had already been on Earth when Dane's forces had come to retake the planet. Still, slowly but surely, they were making their way through. They had already reached Wes, Cassandra, and their Pokémon, reviving them and adding the two trainers and their Pokémon to the ranks of the force trying to reach the Sinjoh Ruins, not yet realizing that the battle had already been won.
In the air battle not too far away, Mewtwo also sensed the remains of Star Fox still dogfighting with Star Wolf. Panther Caroso had suffered damage to his Wolfen and had been forced to withdraw due to damage, but not before shooting down Slippy Toad, who managed to safely bail out of his doomed Arwing. As for the others, they were holding their own against each other, for the moment but the damage was beginning to mount for the Arwings. Aside from Panther, who had required both Falco and Slippy to double team him, which cost Slippy his Arwing, and caused Falco to lose a wing and to have to consider withdrawing from the fight since Leon had been all over him, to even force the newest member of Star Wolf to merely withdraw for some repairs before reentering the battle, the rest of Star Wolf was still relatively unscathed. It was clear that the battle was going poorly. And with the Federation in Exile Heavy Assault Shuttles and transports already landing troops to launch an assault on the temple, everyone knew that it would only be a matter of time before the battle was lost. To make matters worse for the Federation, the Federation in Exile atmospheric fighters and starfighters were manhandling their Galactic Federation counterparts, having kill ratios of twelve-to-one, and better. Peppy and the surviving fighters knew that something had to be done quickly, or this battle would be lost. Little did they know, though, that the battle was already lost.
Back at the Sinjoh Ruins temple, Mewtwo and Samus waited for the Federation forces and their allies to open fire on them and bring a swift end to the battle. All he had to do was make sure that the allied forces behind the Federation forces were not harmed. Waving his had, he erected a shield around the entire pass, separating the two forces from one another. Now all that remained was for the Federation to fire on them and destroy themselves via their reflected fire. The Federation forces obliged them as they opened fire on them; red and blue energy bolts and energy-sheathed bullets erupting from their rifles and energy cannons. Missiles also rained down on Mewtwo and Samus. All of the weapons fire was stopped by Mewtwo's reflector shield, which flared blue with each hit, and was sent back to its original source. Missiles and plasma cannon blasts fell among the ranks of the Federation Marines and Army Troopers, gouging massive holes in their ranks, sending bodies flying all over the place. For the N'Kren Technobles, Mewtwo caused their energy projectors to overload and explode, sending the soldiers flying. They hit the ground and skidded a few feet across the surface before coming to a halt. Mewtwo then psychically pried the armor off of the two soldiers, and pressed them to the ground, keeping them out of the fight. The fighters fared no better. Their energy blasts were reflected right back at them, oftentimes right into their cockpits. They promptly fell from the sky and crashed among the ranks of Federation soldiers that were still fighting. As for the shuttles, Mewtwo merely used his psychic abilities to cause them to explode. Just as they exploded, the passengers and crew of the shuttles reappeared in the valley, among the Galactic Federation Troopers, gazing around, wondering how they had arrived in the pass. In less than ten seconds, all of the fighters were destroyed, the Technobles had been stripped of their armor, and there were only a handful of surviving Marines, Army Troopers, and Cornerian soldiers.
Things only got worse for them as they went to retreat, only to find Cynthia, Ethan, Wes, Cassandra, and all of their Pokémon waiting for them. Turning back towards Mewtwo and Samus, they saw the two soldiers approach, with the Ylla warriors and the Cornerian soldier that had confirmed Cyrus's death having joined Samus and Mewtwo in their approach. Once they were a few feet away from the soldiers, they stopped and Samus declared in a loud voice, "The war is over. Lay down your weapons and you will not be harmed. You have our word."
Seeing the power that Mewtwo had demonstrated to them, as well as the fact that Cyrus was now dead, the choice was obvious. They placed their weapons on the ground, kicked them away, and knelt down, placing their hands behind their head, surrendering to the bounty hunter and Mewtwo. It was then that Cynthia and the other Pokémon Trainers had arrived. Not only that, but the two soon heard the roar of a Heavy Assault Shuttle's engines sound above them. The shuttle made its way past the scene and descended off in the distance. She, Mewtwo, and the others ushered the captives in the direction of the shuttle.
Not too far into their walk, they came across General Hastings, wearing a suit of Galactic Federation Marine power armor, escorted by a squad of Galactic Federation in Exile Marines. Following them was the rest of the platoon that had come with them. Once they saw Samus, and Mewtwo, the general went over to her and said, "I take it your mission was successful?"
Samus nodded. "It was, sir. We managed to stop Cyrus from creating his new universe. He was killed during the fighting. As you can see, Mewtwo was also found, managing to return during the battle. We also fought two Magic Lords, with one confirmed kill, and another probable. I'll give you a full report once I can get to my ship and write it up."
"I'll look forward to reading it," the general said jovially, "as will a lot of other people. Along with others who won't be looking forward to reading it," he added in a somber tone, indicating the good soldiers and commanders who had followed along with the Galactic Federation, not knowing about Cyrus's evil intentions or deeds. He directed two Marines to go to the temple, along with Cynthia, and pick up Cyrus's remains. To the others, he said, "Come on," beckoning everyone to come with him to the shuttle "We have a war to end, here."
Up in outer space, the battle for the possession of the Earth continued to be waged. Standing on the bridge of the G.F.S. Olympus, Admiral Dane gripped his chair as she ship shook from the impact of an energy beam. A scarlet lance had erupted from an enemy Olympus-class battleship approximately fifty thousand kilometers away. "Forward guns, target that battleship and destroy it!" he cried over the din. Looking out the bridge window, he saw two scarlet lances of energy reach out in the distance. He saw explosions erupt all throughout space as the two fleets had closed to within firing range of each other. The lances continued to fire until he saw another bright flash in the distance come into existence for a brief instant. "Target destroyed," came the voice of Lieutenant Commander Bly.
As soon as the ship had been destroyed, Bly began searching for a new target. Despite the fact that they had been outnumbered more than two-to-one, they had at least been holding their own. Still, casualties had been significant. Only four thousand ships were still in fighting condition, with twelve hundred ships having been destroyed, and eight hundred more having suffered heavy enough damage that they were either dead in space, or crippled. Fortunately, though, most, if not all, of them would be salvageable, assuming the Federation in Exile pulled through and won this fight. In addition to the lost ships, though, thirty Heavy Defense Platforms had been destroyed in the battle, as well as one hundred Medium and Light Defense Platforms, and more than two hundred defense turrets that carried various munitions from laser cannons, plasma cannons, to missile launchers. Still, there were more than eight hundred space defense turrets remaining, as well as several hundred lighter defense platforms. Despite the numerical disadvantage that the Federation in Exile and Earth Defense Fleets had in numbers, they more than made up for it with the abilities of the remaining static defenses, and the current battle was showing as such, for the Federation fleet was down to eight thousand starships. If this continued, while it would be a pyrrhic victory for Earth, its fleet would be able to hold back the current Federation fleet and destroy it, though no one wanted to have to fight for that long.
Once the enemy Olympus-class ship had been destroyed, Bly scanned for another target. She found one in the form of a Unicorn-class destroyer that had opened fire on a Griffin-class frigate. The frigate's shields were holding, for the moment, but they would not last much longer under the withering fire of the destroyer. The destroyer would not fire on it for much longer, though, for the Olympus targeted the destroyer and opened fire with all of its heavy weapons batteries, obliterating the already weakened destroyer in a single volley. Soon after the destroyer had been destroyed, the voice of Lieutenant Gates sounded out over the bridge, saying, "Admiral Dane, sir, I'm picking up a signal from Earth to all starships in the orbit of Earth!"
Hope filled Admiral Dane's heart as he shouted, "Put it on!"
The bridge window was soon filled with the image of Earth President Jonathan Richardson looking somber, yet with also a hint of relief. "All Galactic Federation, Galactic Federation in Exile, and Earth starships, I bring both glad and somber tidings. The somber tidings is that the Galactic Federation Chairman, Cyrus, is dead, along with all of the leaders of Team Galactic. The glad tidings, however, is that he did not manage to accomplish his goals of recreating the universe, as evidenced by the fact that we are still here. This plea goes out to all who participate in this fight. The danger has passed. Please stop fighting and let negotiations begin. Only then can the healing begin."
As President Richardson began to speak on the events that led to the demise of Cyrus of Team Galactic, Admiral Dane sat back in his seat, not paying attention to the speech. They had done it. Against all odds, they had done it. They had defeated Cyrus and stopped his plans, permanently. The threat that he and Team Galactic posed was finally over forever. Now, they could focus on rebuilding the Galactic Federation and putting up a defense against any potential invasion by the Magic Lords, for Dane realized that the Magic Lords were a very dangerous threat. He then told Lieutenant Gates, "Open a channel to the Galactic Federation fleet. Tell them that we wish to end the fighting and begin negotiations."
"Sending the signal, sir," Gates responded, a beep indicating that the signal had been sent.
After a few seconds, the image of the broken bridge of the G.F.S. Lucifer appeared on the Olympus's bridge window. Sparks erupted from one of the consoles in the background and Dane could see the figure of a Simian slumped over one of the consoles, obviously dead. "Well, if it isn't Admiral Dane, come to offer his surrender," Admiral Breaz gloated. This raised a few eyebrows from the bridge crew of the Olympus, for given how the battle was going; the Federation would lose unless something drastic happened. Admiral Dane was quick to let Breaz know this.
"Admiral, the Galactic Federation fleet has been horribly bloodied, your bridge is smashed, you're losing your fight against the G.F.S. Michael, and given your fleet's losses compared to our own, in both percentage and numbers, you'll lose."
Breaz then cut the channel and opened fire on both the Olympus, and the Archangel-class battlecruiser, the G.F.S. Michael that it had been fighting. The Olympus shuddered under the weight of the fire, but its shields managed to absorb the blows and most of the Gehenna-class dreadnaught's remaining firepower was focused on the Michael. The Michael defended itself by returning fire, unleashing a volley of energy lances from its cannons. One of its lances drilled through the bridge of the Lucifer, vaporizing it and everyone onboard it. Another one, however, drilled through the engineering section, causing a massive core breach, which annihilated the vessel. The Lucifer went up in a magnificent display of fireworks and shrapnel as it exploded, the Olympus not having to fire a singe shot.
Once the ship was destroyed, Dane waited to see what the reaction to the destruction of the Lucifer, and the death of Admiral Breaz would be. "Anything?" he asked Gates.
"Yes, sir," she answered. "There's a lot of chatter going on between the fleet."
A few minutes later, Dane got his answer when another image appeared on the screen. The image was of a human male from one of the outlier colonies. He said, "This is Captain Anderson of the G.F.S. Amaterasu, an Olympus-class battleship. I have been authorized by the fleet to accept your offer. Power down your weapons, and we'll do the same."
Dane was unconvinced. "You first," he said warily.
Anderson sighed. "Very well, Admiral."
He glanced at Lieutenant Commander Bly, who replied in a surprised, but hopeful tone, "Sir, they're powering down their weapons, and lowering their shields. They're also recalling their surviving starfighters."
"Lower our own shields and power down our weapons and recall our starfighters," Dane directed. "And tell the other ships in the fleet to do the same."
"Understood, sir," came the voices of both Lieutenant Gates and Lieutenant Commander Bly. After that, the fleet powered down its weapons and shields, and recalled its starfighters. Once the fighters had been recalled, the Federation fleet backed off to one million kilometers away from the Federation in Exile fleet and they waited. Dane could only sit back and wait, and hope that the negotiators would be able to negotiate a treaty. It was his hope that the Galactic Federation in Exile would soon be reintegrated into a true Galactic Federation, one that had not existed since the death of former Chairman Keaton.
Meanwhile, in the reaches of space, several hundred lightyears away from Earth, the damaged Space Pirate transport that Weavel had used to evacuate the surviving Space Pirates from Earth emerged from subspace in the void between stars. Sparks flew from the ship as a large part of one of its engines was missing, and the rear half of the ship was exposed to space. The pilot sitting at his station looked back at General Weavel and said, "This is as far as we can go with the damage we've sustained and the power we have left."
"Are there any inhabitable planets nearby?"
The pilot looked down at his sensors and saw something of interest and his head perked up for a bit before he lowered it once more. "What is it?" Weavel asked.
"Sir, there is an inhabitable planet a few lightyears away. However, we don't have enough power for a jump and we don't have any spare parts with which to repair our warp drive," the pilot answered.
"Could we get the necessary power for a jump?" Weavel asked.
"Possibly," the pilot surmised, but we would have to take it from life support, and there's no telling how long we would last without life support. We'd definitely need to lighten our burden. If we could restrict life support to the control cockpit, then we could probably get enough power to make the jump, or at least get us close and let our normal momentum carry us to the planet."
"But the command cockpit isn't large enough to carry Ridley," the copilot blurted. "What will we do about him?"
The general gave a sinister smile. "Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made," he replied, almost with a smirk. "Ridley may have been a valuable leader for the Pirates, but he's not more important than all of us. Tell the others to get up here, now. I'll go back and let Ridley know the situation."
He then went to the back of the transport as the pilot and copilot relayed Weavel's order for the rest of the Pirates to come up to the control cockpit. As he went back, he saw six critically injured Space Pirate Troopers in fully enclosed armor lying near Ridley, who was still bleeding and barely breathing.. My fellow Space Pirates, and our glorious leader, Ridley," Weavel began. This caused Ridley to open his eyes and weakly turn his head towards the general. "During our escape from Earth, this ship was damaged beyond repair. We are now on the run and have used the last of our power, emerging from warp here. In order to gain the power necessary to perform a jump to a planet less than a lightyear away, we'll all the power we can get. Unfortunately, we have to take it from life support." Turning to Ridley, he added, "Oh, and just so you know, we can't afford to have your additional mass while we attempt to land on the inhabitable planet. As such, it is my solemn and sad duty to inform you that you must be expelled from this ship."
Weavel then went over to the wall and pulled a lever. As he did so, a door began to open and air began to rush out. "No, wait! Please stop!" the six wounded Pirates cried, but their cries fell on deaf ears as Weavel watched them, one by one, get pushed into outer space by the rush of air leaving the area. His magnetic boots allowed him to keep his footing. He then neared Ridley, who had dug his claws into the floor of the ship in order to keep himself from being cast into space. Weavel then deployed his energy scythe and prepared to cut off Ridley's lifeline.
"Wait," Ridley said, weakly. "I'm not dead yet."
"Neither were the others," Weavel replied with a smirk. Leaning down, he then continued, "I must say that I never envisioned getting this opportunity to take over the Space Pirates. But for too long, we've had outsiders rule us. Even though you were the organizing force behind us, you were never an Urtragian. Hell, you weren't even a Zebesian style Space Pirate. You were nothing but a Space Dragon, a relic from a time long ago, a member of a slave species. You were a good leader, for a time, but you made one mistake. You let your bloodlust get the better of you and you murdered a girl's parents right in front of her eyes, when you were trying to kill her."
This prompted Ridley to give a weak laugh. "Heh, heh, heh. Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same," the dragon retorted.
Thinking about it, Weavel replied, "You're right. I would have. I just would have made sure to kill the girl, and then destroy their bodies so that one does not become a bounty hunter whose hobby it is to violate us every week."
Weavel then brought his scythe down on Ridley's right wrist, severing his hand. This caused his body to rise and he struggled to hold on as the air continued to rush out. Weavel then went over to his left wrist, which was also weak due to the damage that Ridley had suffered. "Look at it this way," Weavel called to the dragon, over the artificial windstorm. "You were beyond our ability to save anyway." With that, he performed one more slash, and cut off the Space Dragon's left hand. "Weavelllll!" Ridley croaked as he was blown into space by the rush of air. Once he had been forced off of the ship, the hatch closed and Weavel walked back to the cockpit and directed the ship to get underway. Ridley and the other wounded Space Pirates watched as the single remaining engine on the transport began to glow. After a few seconds, it rocketed off into the distance and disappeared, having jumped to warp. All Ridley could do now was shut down almost all of his biological systems so as to prolong his life for as long as possible, and hope for someone to come and save him, for he knew that Weavel was right. His wounds were fatal, and the Space Pirates did not have the necessary knowledge, or resources, to save him.
Back on Earth, in an abandoned building in the Kanto Region of Japan, an adult male Magic Lord stood, waiting patiently for the return of his daughter. He was tall, more than six feet in height, and had light brown hair and red eyes. He had sensed the disappearance of his daughter, along with her brother's disappearance, a year ago, and he had felt their return when they had emerged from the Warp Zone. He had also felt his son's death, along with the grievous injuries inflicted on his daughter. While he did not have any special love for his children, he knew since they were natural born Magic Lords, that their survival was essential for the continuation of the species. The fact that Aramon was dead, and Aglara had been severely injured was troubling. With less than one hundred adults left, with only four hundred youth and adolescents, the loss of any Magic Lords would be devastating, especially since at least half of the children would die when they reached maturity and started fighting each other to gain power.
A flash of light illuminated the room behind the Magic Lord, followed by a clap, indicating the arrival of Aglara. The adult Magic Lord turned and saw the horribly scarred, one-armed form of his daughter fall to her knees upon arriving. He gasped at the sight. "Aglara, what happened?"
"The legacy of the Chozo, the human bounty hunter, Samus Aran, shot me with a Light Beam, and Mewtwo shattered my right arm," Aglara replied weakly. She slowly crawled to the Magic Lord, clutching her side with her sole remaining arm. She weakly looked up at her father and pleaded, "Father, please help me."
Going over to his daughter, the Magic Lord bent down and looked over her body. He then grabbed her throat and brought her face to his. She gasped for air as he tightened his grip. "Father, what are you doing? I need your help."
"Your wounds are beyond my ability to heal," the Magic Lord replied nonchalantly. "There is nothing I can do to save you."
"But…I've discovered…the secret to neutralizing…our weakness to…psychics," she gasped.
"Then your sacrifice shall not be in vain," the Magic Lord answered as he kissed her lips, and drained her of her remaining life energy. As he absorbed her energy, he also absorbed some of the light energy that was attacking her. Much to the Magic Lord's surprise, the Light did not hurt him nearly as much as he thought it would. While it was painful, the pain was not debilitating and were he to fall under attack, he would be able to fight it off. The pain soon began to subside and he felt a resistance to the Light grow within him. As he continued to drain his daughter her body began to wither, her remaining flesh practically melting off of her body. Sparkles of energy floated off of her body like wisps of gas and after a few more moments, her body collapsed. An unnatural blue flame erupted from her remains and soon, all traces of her body vanished. Once she was dead, the Magic Lord said, "Fear not, Aglara, your sacrifice was not in vain. Thanks to you, I not only have resistance to psychic powers, but also to the Light as well."
After he was finished, he then went to the center of the room and chanted a spell. After the spell was completed, a portal opened and he stepped on through. He needed to inform the rest of his people of his discovery, as well as of the recent events that had just taken place. In his mind, the time was right, and the Earth would never be more vulnerable to attack.