—Act 3: The Clone War—
Chapter 27: Welcome to the War
There was no song and dance that night.
I could barely sleep either. It was like a 2,000-ton weight dropped on my head. No matter which Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game I played, whether it was Blue Rescue Team, Explorers of Time, and even Explorers of Sky, the story involved the main character somehow having to die and leave all of their friends behind. It was all so sad…I cried almost every time. But I never considered what it would be like if that were to actually happen to me.
It wasn't fair. All this time, we've been marching up to someone's death? If only I knew something like that would happen, I wouldn't have gone on this adventure at all. I mean, I just graduated from high school. I wanted to be a manga artist so I could share my personal sci-fi series with the world. I had my own future waiting for me. All I wanted was to finish this adventure and go home so I could get on with my life. Why did my life have to end so soon? It was too short.
I then remembered seeing videos in Driver's Ed class about how there were lots of high school seniors who died on the night after they graduated. Now that was the pinnacle of unfairness. I've been the most careful driver I could ever be, always following the speed limit, never gotten any tickets…and never, ever, dragged a bunch of friends in the car with beer and stuff and drove at speeds in excess of 90 mph in the middle of the night. But I was still going to die anyway, on that very night I graduated as far as those back on Earth were concerned, and no one would ever know that it would be at the hands of Queen X from another dimension. What this all my life ever amounted to all along?
It was so unbelievable, too. I mean, it made perfect sense that I would want to become Amy Vee Purima in the future. She represented everything I ever wanted to be. But how the heck would that be possible? It just wasn't! And what would be the point of that, anyway? I wouldn't remember anything. She was living proof right here, because she sure didn't remember anything from my life.
The two of us just stared up at the stars for the last time in our bed, crying uncontrollably, before finally falling asleep. I was way too sad to even think about how weird this was that we were in the same bed if we actually did have the same soul like Kel-Zich said we did. I felt sick to my stomach. We promised we would be best friends forever…but now…it looked like it would be utterly impossible to keep that promise anymore.
In the morning, Kel-Zich led us to the top of the mountain, where the rest of the villagers were gathering. Kirby rode up it on his Winged Star, and he dragged along Big Amy's Slick Star. We saw Grovyle and Chikorita plodding up, led by Los-Nom and Plu-Thrim slithering up. Samus and her orange gunship, with Adam undeniably in it, were already there, and so were Celebi, Gandrayda, Old Bird, Gray Voice, Essence Sight, and everyone else. Speaking of Adam, I realized that I was too busy talk with him very much during our training, except that one time. I felt terrible about it, and resolved to discuss a few more things with him before...I shook that thought out of my head. Finally, we were all there. Kel-Zich addressed the five of us.
"Well, children, the time has come to face Queen X and save the galaxy. It is your last chance to make things right again. If you hurry, you shall be able to intercept her before she discovers where we are hidden. And do not worry. Kirby shall accompany you."
Kirby shouted, "YAAAAY!" in enthusiasm.
"Why?" asked Big Amy. "He'll be infected."
"Not if I do this!" he replied. He suddenly sucked her up in that huge mouth of his, and a flash of bright light emitting from his body nearly blinded us. When the light cleared, she was already safely out, and Kirby now had Jigglypuff ears and hair. A blue Jigglypuff, huh? Looked really silly, but cute at the same time. "I have Metwoid DNA thingies too now!" he explained.
Kel-Zich then continued, "Celebi, Gandrayda, Los-Nom, and Plu-Thrim shall remain here until it is safe for them to return to their home planets."
Celebi sniffed and cried, "I'll really miss you, Grovyle! Just don't do anything stupid, like die, okay?"
"Hey…" he smirked. "Since when did I ever do anything stupid?" I raised an eyebrow and glared at him to remind him of you-know-when, and he gulped.
"See ya later, Sammy. Oh, and both Amy's? Try not to think too badly of me, okay? It was all in good fun. Now get out there and kick Queen X's butt for me!" encouraged Gandrayda.
Los-Nom whispered, "Of all the planets I have traveled to, I have never met more extraordinary individuals than you." Plu-Thrim added, "Save the sunrises…for every being in this galaxy. We shall never forget you."
Samus walked up to Old Bird and Gray Voice and whispered, "Grandpa? Father? Thank you for everything you ever did for me."
"Little did we know that there would be four other Ultimate Warriors! You see, child? You are never truly alone," reassured Old Bird.
"It really has been a blessing to see you again, child. Take care of your friends for us. True friendship is very scarce, and you must never take it for granted," requested Gray Voice.
"I will, Father. I'm just glad I got a chance to see you again."
Kel-Zich floated up to me and held a bundle out for me that I recognized was my old space suit. I've always wondered where it ran off to. "Here, child. I have adjusted it in order to accommodate your new Ylla wings." I took it and pressed the button on the tag in the back. Another blinding flash of light, and my sailor suit was replaced with Colette's costume. Heh. With my wings, I really did look like Colette now!
"Thanks for everything, Kel-Zich. I promise I'll never forget everything you did for me."
Samus pulled out my Nintendo DS and preceded to hand it over to me, but I held up my hand, declining, "No. You can keep it, Samus. As something to…remember me by."
She slipped it back in one of her pockets and sighed. "Amy. You don't have to go this far for me! You really don't. You've already made it up to me with that birthday party…and letting me play those games…and—"
"Samus. When the last Metroid died, the galaxy lost the promise of using them for the power of good…but you lost the best friend you ever had. You know that, don't you? Ever since I've read this book…" —I pulled out the Metroid Fusion instruction manual and showed her— "I guess I've already decided in my heart, that if I were to ever meet you…I'd give you the happy ending you've always been looking for. No matter what the cost might be. And besides, if it weren't for you…I'd never be able to meet the best friends I've ever had." I turned to my Pokémon friends and smiled, blinking tears out of my eyes.
The four of us proceeded to follow her inside the ship, but Kel-Zich grasped my shoulder and explained, "Actually, all of you can now fly by yourselves now. I know you can. You are Ultimate Warriors now, after all."
As if on cue, Kirby also showed Grovyle and Chikorita their own Jet Star and Warpstar. They looked at each other, smiled, and then hopped on. Big Amy hopped on her Slick Star, and Kirby hopped on the Winged Star. I took at deep breath and activated my wings, spreading them out, ready to lead them all. Apparently, Samus' new orange ship had absolutely no space in the back to carry us, unlike the purple ship from the Galactic Federation. So we each had to fly on our own.
Adam groaned, "Aw, man! And after I was hoping it would be like old times…"
Samus interrupted him, "Adam. They're all just as powerful as I am, if not even more so. They won't do any good sitting behind us. We need all the power we can get."
"Fine, fine…" Adam grumbled something else we couldn't quite catch.
Kel-Zich had one final word to give to us. "Remember: Queen X cannot know about our Teleportation Warp Gate. The moment she does, she shall simply go back in time and destroy it so that her plan shall succeed…and this universe shall completely collapse."
We shuddered, but we gave him our word that we would never tell her anything.
The time came for us all to go. Samus charged up her ship's engine. Before I took off, though, I had one last word to give to everyone who'd be left behind. "Everyone? Thanks for saving our lives. Thanks for being so nice to us. If all people were like you guys, the galaxy really would be a better place. I promise I'll never forget you all, no matter what. And Kel-Zich?"
"Yes, Master of the Universe?" he replied.
"…You shall always be Master Kel-Zich to me," I concluded. I figured that it was okay to speak formally…just this once. After all, I would maybe never see any of them again. I then turned my face to the sky and whispered, "Goodbye…"
I launched into the air, with all of my friends beside me. Sometimes I looked back, but mostly, I kept my eyes forward, glued to the sky above. Adam didn't say anything in respect, and I guessed that Samus already explained everything to him. We rode through the troposphere…the stratosphere…the mesosphere…and finally, the thermosphere, seeing the void of space ahead of us. My spacesuit and the Pokémon's Oxygen Orbs protected us the whole way though.
In respect and in remembrance, the villagers played one more song for us…another Tarzan song, with lyrics modified to suit the situation.
For the sake of the ones that you love,
Two worlds, one family,
Trust your hearts, never give up,
So we can all be freeeeee!
What a fitting end; to start with Tarzan and end with Tarzan. Big Amy and I sang along with them too. The music lent a kind of epically emotional weight that propelled us to go on no matter what. As we flew farther and farther away from Planet Chozodia, I thought back over the best four weeks of my life. They really were a close-knit community, and I would forever be grateful to them. I vowed to never forget them no matter what.
"AMY [you know who]!"
The sudden sound laced with fury and revulsion jolted my heart. The seven of us had just exited the cover of the Oort Nebula when we heard the voice I wished we didn't hear so soon. We looked up. There she was, flying on all eight of her dark wings. I gulped as I suddenly remembered why Kel-Zich's wings looked so familiar. She must have absorbed a Ylla too, somewhere. At least we were finally even.
She still looked like a nasty 22-year-old version of me, dressed entirely in a tight black bodysuit, wearing black lipstick. In short, she was just as much as a dark angel as before. But I wasn't afraid this time. Thanks to Gandrayda's aggressive efforts, I've become a little more inured to such cosmopolitan sights. Hanging close to her wings were Zork, Zark, and Zoroark, all with jet packs attached to their backs. I heard Samus and Adam gasp. Clearly, they'd thought these guys were done for.
"Nice to see that you're still alive and well," she sneered, her voice clearly dripping with sarcasm. "I see that you even brought your oh-so-precious friends along with you. And you picked up Blue Kirby too, huh? Amy Purima…that is so very, very you." She suddenly stopped within 100 feet of us and held her nose. "EW! Something stinks! Hmm…I wonder what it could be? Oh yeah. The only way you all could possibly be alive today. You're all part-Metroid now. I understand that Samus Aran here saw to that. Nasty piece of work."
Samus glared and replied, "Hey, I crashed the BSL station—I threw my career as a Bounty Hunter away—to preserve galactic peace! The Chozo respect all life in the galaxy except you X Parasites, so I figured, that was as good a reason as any! Only HE had to come in and mess things up…" She pointed at Zoroark.
"A happy coincidence that I exploited to do my job. Just be lucky their incompetence bought you a little more time."
At that, her lackeys seemed to shiver a bit, but then quickly regained their composure. "Oh, don't worry," sniggered Zoroark. "Our grand mistress can easily handle little Metroid squirts like you."
"Yeh, 'cuz yer just a bunch of n00bs!" shot Zark.
"& u know whut Wii do 2 n00bs!" added Zork.
My heart was hammering rapidly, but I calmed myself down to make a snappy remark. "Oh, really? Sorry, guys. I think you'll find that we're not so n00b-ish anymore."
"I see…" muttered Queen X. "This is where you've been for the past four weeks. I shall admit it confused me at first as to why Ridley-X was still alive in this dimension, but when he disappeared around this general location about two weeks ago, instead of reporting to me like he was supposed to, I became suspicious. Sure enough, you are all here ready to take me on."
I involuntarily gasped as I thought back to the day I gained Ylla powers. How did she know about Ridley-X?
"You also gained Ylla DNA too, didn't you, Amy [you know who]? Watch out. Get too many transfusions like that and you'll end up like a genetic disaster area, mutant freak." She cackled before continuing. "And Kel-Zich's DNA, too. What do you know? Great minds think alike." She then extended her wings for emphasis.
I was flabbergasted. "How—I mean—he's still—but—Huhhhhh?" Not one of my most intelligent moments, but it was clearly impossible! How could she gain Kel-Zich's DNA too? He was still alive!
"Allow me to explain. In the original timeline, before I ordered Zoroark to drag you here himself"—she patted him on the head, and he chuckled and grinned at me—"Ridley-X also managed to escape from the crashed BSL Research Station. Like two weeks ago, he flew all the way to this general area of space. He discovered where the Chozo were hiding, and proceeded to destroy the whole village, and then used his X Parasite army to absorb them all, including Kel-Zich."
We all gasped and glanced at each other. Seems like we were all thinking the same thing. If we weren't there, everyone would've died the day Ridley-X came. Did Kel-Zich know that was coming and decided to give me the transfusion that day? No, he couldn't have. It had to be a serendipitous coincidence.
"So then Samus, Grovyle, Chikorita, and Amy Purima teamed up to defeat us, and they succeeded. But before it was too late, my Ylla servant went back in time and warned us about everything that would happen. And yes, Amy [you know who]. He was the one who let us know about your very existence. I absorbed his DNA before he disappeared into the vast recesses of time, of course. So I expected the same thing to happen in this timeline. Instead of Ridley-X, I find you! I thought I left you all for dead on Planet Portania, honestly! Who brought you all the way out here and how? What did they tell you, and where are they now?"
We gulped. This was it. There was no way we would break our promise to Kel-Zich. Ridley-X and his army nearly destroyed Yamamori Village. We couldn't put our friends back there at risk again. Not even their Weather Shield was powerful enough to keep Queen X out—she and her amorphous X Parasite subjects could just slip though the little cracks left open for rain. I was most worried about Kirby blowing our cover, but luckily, he was as smart as the rest of us and kept his mouth shut.
Queen X glared. "Fine, then. Guess we'll have to fight you first. I brought all my little friends along with me too. Told you great minds think alike."
She spread her wings and shot a dark laser upward through the vast depths of space. Slowly, within a few seconds, a sight descended upon us that made us all gasp. There were dozens—no, hundreds—of Space Pirate warships that materialized from behind her. "It's the whole fleet. She's taken control of the whole freakin' Space Pirate fleet!" whispered Adam in disbelief.
"No way…how…?" I was speechless.
"What do we do? They never trained us how to fight an ARMY!" whispered Big Amy in desperation.
"Give up already! Wii so totally out# u!" sniggered Zark.
"Yeh! Dere's like a bajillion of us, & only 7 of u!" agreed Zork.
"Hey, that's not fair! You're cheating!" accused Chikorita.
Queen X cackled, "Heheheheh…you are SO naïve, little Chikorita. Haven't you heard an old Earth saying? It goes like this: All's fair in love and war! Some of you have probably yet to learn how it applies to love—I mean, romance. Hmm?" She gazed down at us condescendingly.
Big Amy, Kirby, Grovyle, and I all glared.
"And this…is most definitely…WAR! My own personal Clone War against all of you!" she screeched, gathering a ton of dark energy around her. We gasped. War? More like genocide.
"War, huh? I suspected as much. But, really? You're using the whole fleet just to get rid of us? I still think that's overkill," replied Samus.
"Welcome to the war, filthy little Metroid brats!" Then she turned to her fleet and shouted, "ATTACK!"
Every single warship powered on their laser cannons. Samus was right. It was overkill. Queen X really wasn't taking any chances. We were so screwed. But at least we had to try. I thought of a plan fast.
"Everyone try to circle this fleet! Let's go, go, GO!" I ordered, and then sped away just as all those lasers shot at us.
Luckily, it seemed that they all responded as fast as I did. I flapped my wings as hard as I could and charged, performing barrel rolls to dodge the lasers. If any tried to hit, my force field generated by my Ylla energy and spacesuit combined was enough to completely repel it. I flew and flew, but I still couldn't find where the fleet ended. It was insane. And to make matters worse, Queen X flew after me personally. I shot pink energy beams at every weak point in the ships I could find, but I couldn't be sure that I was actually having much effect, as I flew too fast to see how the ships were doing.
I tried several tactics; including seeing if I could use my enhanced reflexes to zoom at a ship and turn away at the last second, hoping Queen X would crash right into it. But they never worked. She would always dodge just at the last second. In fact, I began to get a sinking feeling that she was anticipating my every move.
She was. Right when I cleared the field of ships, she zoomed right in front of me, too close for me to dodge. Before I knew it, all eight of her wings strangled me in place. "You're gotten much better…" she whispered in my ear, "But not nearly good enough! I'm no ordinary X Parasite! I can combine the powers of everyone I've ever absorbed!" And despite my shields, her dark energy continued to surge through me.
Just then, Samus and Adam shot several powerful lasers at Queen X from behind, forcing her to release me. I flew away. Just then, Samus shouted at me, "Amy, wait! There's a way to self-destruct all of these ships at once!"
I paused. I didn't expect that something like that would actually exist. "There is?"
Queen X recovered instantly, so we zoomed away. Samus shot more laser cannons at her to create a diversion. "Yes! Their mothership, the biggest on in the center! At the top, there's a control room with a self-destruct button. Get everyone together and GO!"
I called out on my radio, "Team Pecha, Kirby, follow me!"
Luckily, they managed to follow me without too much trouble, despite the fact that the three Z's were hot on their tails. All together, the seven of us managed to weave our way though the laser cannons of the warships AND stave the four villains off our tails. Easier said than done, obviously. Let's just say that lots and lots of barrel rolls were involved. Finally, we managed to put lots of distance between them by the time we reached the mothership. We all crashed right though the window of the bridge and blasted the Space Pirates manning the controls. The whole scene reminded me of a similar scene from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption—What am I saying? No time for that!
"I'll activate the self-destruct! You guys defend Adam!" ordered Samus, somersaulting out. She ran up to the console and furiously pressed several buttons. I conjured up the most powerful energy shield I could, repelling all the laser cannon fire and bouncing them back to where they came from. Just then, an overwhelming force broke through my shield and blasted Adam and us against the far wall. It was Queen X. I figured we couldn't hide from her for long. I couldn't let her disrupt Samus, so I charged with all of my might right at her.
We crashed, and it was like an energy tug-of-war, but in reverse. I pushed as hard as I could, but she was clearly stronger. I could only hope that it was enough time for Samus to finish her job. At least my friends helped to stave off the three Z's from interrupting me.
Suddenly, Queen X spread her eight wings across both sides of the room and pressed the four hidden buttons on each side, activating her secret weapon. The whole room was booby-trapped with hidden grenades that exploded in a mess of dark gas. To my surprise, the gas flew right through my shields and my suit, and rushed down my throat. It sent lashes of pain through my esophagus, causing me to collapse and choke a lot. To my dismay, the same thing happened to my friends, and Samus. She sputtered, "I…I know this…"
"Of course you do," mocked Queen X. "This is a sample of the poisonous atmosphere from Dark Aether that can penetrate spacesuits. Zoroark really liked it there. And the native Ing were gracious enough to provide me with a modified sample that specially affected organisms…with Metroid tissue. Good night!" My heart sank. How the heck did she come up with the plan of going to a place from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, a place that Samus destroyed, for that matter? Man, she must've been busy in that other dimension the past four weeks.
As I lost consciousness, I couldn't help but worry that she killed us all too soon. I heard the three Z's callous laughter. "U snooz, u looz!" taunted Zark.
Zork added, "Grand mistress! U pwned dem! U r so l33t!"
"w00t! w00t! w00t! w00t!"
Not again…
I was still alive?
I blinked my eyes open, feeling sick in the stomach from the effects of that dark gas. I couldn't move my arms, or my body, for some reason. I looked down to find out why…and gasped. They clamped metal bands around me and stuck me to an operating wall again! I looked around and found that Big Amy, Chikorita, Grovyle, Samus, and Kirby were all similarly bound. They were all waking up too. For a second, I was worried that we were on the Space Pirate Homeworld again, but upon closer investigation, the whitewashed walls looked a bit different. Maybe we were. I wasn't sure.
"Yo! Grand mistress! Dey woke up!" shouted Zark's voice.
"Zark, u dooshebag. I c dat alredi." I blinked. Queen X could speak in chatspeak, too?
She leapt down from the dark ceiling—dark because there were no lights up there—and landed right in front of us. Zork, Zark, and Zoroark came down from behind her. She glimpsed my bewildered expression and smiled. "Yes, Amy. I can talk like them. I can talk like anyone I meet, for that matter. Just reason number 35 as to why I deserve to be the real Master of This Universe, and not you! I'M the real Amy [you know who] now! So we couldn't stop that accursed Samus Aran from blowing up our entire fleet. Good for you. But guess what? She forgot to blow up this last one. So we win, in the end."
I glared at her. "What do you want, Queen X? Especially if you're not going to kill us?"
She grasped my chin, hard. "Oh, I'm going to kill you, all right. But before I do, you're going to tell me everything you learned within the past few weeks. And the name is Amy [you know who]. Call me Amy."
"You don't deserve that name. That's mine!" I retorted. Normally, I'd be way too scared to say anything at all, much less come up with snappy responses. But in one of my psychological training exercises, Kel-Zich taught me that captors want you to be too scared to talk. If you snap back, it'll make them think twice and keep you at a distance.
She didn't seem fazed in the least, though. She leaned in close and hissed, "Tell me how they beamed you all the way out here and what they told you! Tell me everything!"
It took all my effort to stare at her straight into her brown eyes laced with orange X-Parasite gleams, but I managed to. (Another tactic to prove to captors that you aren't afraid of them.) "Why should I? I thought you already knew everything I knew," I replied in the calmest matter-of-fact voice I could muster.
She sent a surge of dark energy through me. "Don't play dumb!" she hissed. "You know I can't copy you again now that you have Metroid DNA! Now tell me!"
"No!" I asserted. "You're just going to go there and kill everyone, like Ridley-X tried to do!" After all, Kel-Zich, Old Bird, Gray Voice, Gandrayda, Celebi, Los-Nom, Plu-Thrim, and the rest of the Chozo villagers were all so good to us. I would never sell out my friends or reveal the existence of that Teleportation Warp Gate no matter what. No way I would let Queen X go back in time and cause any time paradoxes or nasty stuff like that.
Another thought suddenly occurred to me. I remembered this feeling before. I shouted as loud as I could, "And besides, I already told Samus and Grovyle everything I knew, and they still nearly killed me! Just how stupid you think I am?"
Samus and Grovyle gasped in remembrance at the same time. Grovyle then added, as a matter-of-fact, "Oh yeah…she has a point."
For a moment, Queen X was at a loss for words. Then her expression grew dark and swiftly replied. "Oh, yes. Part of my plan back then. Very well. If you won't tell…perhaps one of your friends will." She looked at my friends one by one, who by now were all fully awake.
She repeated the interrogation to each of them, but nothing worked. Chikorita almost spilled the beans, though, nearly scaring us all to death. Kirby (who still had his Jigglypuff ears, and therefore, Metroid DNA) tried to suck her up, but she blasted his mouth and had Zoroark cover it up with a steel lid of some sort. "Hmm…this isn't working," she muttered. Suddenly, an idea came into her mind, and she smiled nastily. "But my plans with YOU have always succeeded…and it will this time too!"
Out of one of her wings popped an X Parasite. It immediately formed into a long, furry, disgusting spider-like creature, with eight twitching legs, sixteen beady black eyes, and a pair of long, sharp fangs. I gasped. Sure, Kel-Zich finally allowed me to conquer my fear of spiders…but only pictures of them. I wasn't exactly prepared for the real thing.
"Now where did I find this little bugger again…? Planet Cavious or something. Anyway, this little guy is like a cross between that worm you saw in that recent Star Trek movie and that spider from that one story you read in The Artemis Fowl Files. He is a parasite of his own. He enters the host through their mouths, crawls down their throats into their stomachs, and slices them from the inside out. Then when he has eaten enough, he bursts through their chests in the same mind-numbing horrifying manner as the titular parasite from Alien. You never actually saw that R-rated movie, did you, you goody-little-two-shoes child? Yet you already know what it can do. Yeah. Praise be to Spaceballs!"
My friends stared in confusion, and so did the three Z's. All those cultural references only seemed to prove her point that she wished to be the true me, yet I was so paralyzed with terror, I could barely hear anything. My eyes were fixated on the nasty hairy little spider, and my heart pounded faster than ever.
"This is your last chance. If you do not tell me who beamed you here, how they did it, what you learned, and where they are now, I will personally shove this guy down your throat and watch while he rips you apart from the inside. Then I will do the same to each of your friends if they do not cooperate, either. Either way, I win."
I stared in terror, unable to respond.
"No way! You can't do this to her!" shouted Chikorita in dismay.
Queen X looked bored. "Didn't I tell you? All's fair in love and war."
"She meant that we know that this is all a bluff. You're probably just going to shove that thing down her throat even if she tells you everything," clarified Grovyle.
"I am not bluffing. He is one of my loyal servants, and I control him at will. If you cooperate, I shall turn him back into an X-Parasite and absorb him. Well, Metroid child? Make your choice."
I still couldn't speak. How could I? I'd never break my promise and cause that deadly time paradox…even if…that freakish spider parasite…crawled down my throat and ripped me apart…from the inside…
"Don't tell her anything, Amy! Don't tell her!" whispered my friends urgently.
"Hey, shut up!" barked Zoroark, cutting at them with a Night Slash. Despite how much he hurt them, I still wouldn't back down. Four weeks ago, this might've been the point when I would've cracked and told her everything just to save myself. But not this time. I was stronger. I wouldn't tell her anything.
"Well?" she prompted.
I mustered up all of my courage, took a deep breath, and shouted, "Why the heck would you even DO this? How low can you possibly GET? I would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER resort to something this…this…brutal! You say you deserve my name, but if you did, you'd find a way to have us WANT to tell you everything! You'd try to gain our trust the same way Dusknoir gained Big Amy's and Chikorita's! Yeah, that's right! I admit it! I'm like Dusknoir that way and that way only! I wouldn't freaking coerce people! That's just not me! You're worse than Dusknoir! You can copy our bodies, but never our souls! At your core, you are Queen X and always will be! NO…MATTER…WHAT!"
That was the most rousing speech I've ever given, and was proud of myself for thinking of it on the spot. The stunned silence from everyone was proof. Finally, Zark commented, "U know…Why didn't Wii think of dat? Dat's actually b a gr8 idea, right, Grand Mistress? Pretend 2 b some1 dey trust &—*gack!*"
She yanked him by the throat and threw him across the room, but her eyes were still focused on me, and they were murderous. "Fine. You've made your choice. I hope you beg for mercy and shriek in terror so loudly, it'll actually be worth my while." She swooped up to me and pinched my nose. Hard.
"NOOOOOO!" my friends shouted in dismay.
I couldn't breathe. I had to open my mouth for air, but the moment I did, she'd shove that spider down my throat, and that'd be the end of me. In desperation, I tried breathing through my teeth in anger. At least there were a few air holes since my teeth didn't exactly line up 100% accurately. The spider leapt at my teeth and smashed its pincers against them, but I still held on. Why didn't they ever prepare me for this on Planet Chozodia? I couldn't see a way out of this anymore. Eventually, the little bugger would succeed in smashing though, and that'd be the end of the story. I squeezed my eyes shut. I could only wait for the end. And none of my friends could even begin to help save me this time.
Big Amy started to glow yellow again, I think, but I couldn't see for sure. Queen X was pinching my nose so hard that I couldn't even move my head. My teeth hurt like heck, and my gums were bleeding all over from where the spider attacked. I couldn't take another blow. 2½ years of orthodontist work down the drain would be the least of my worries.
It leapt. I shouted the most blood-curdling shout I could muster, hoping the sound waves would somehow stop it. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Queen X laughed evilly, certain her evil plan would succeed.
Suddenly…
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
We heard a booming, hollow voice shout out, and an unseen ripple in the air sliced the spider in two. It dissolved back into an X Parasite, which flew too fast to change course and landed right into my mouth, becoming absorbed though my body in the process. Yum! Tasted like Jell-O.
Queen X stood still in shock and anger. "…Who was that?" she whispered murderously.
"I…I don't know," numbly replied Chikorita. "It sounded like it could be Dialga…or maybe Palkia…"
"Or maybe…Arceus," she concluded. "Yes! It WAS Arceus! Only HE would have the power to break through my dimensional barriers! Why didn't I think of that earlier? I'll have to take care of that guy." She strode away from us and blasted the door on the other side, opening it and stepping through. "Lackeys!" The three of them stood up straight. "Continue the interrogation." With that, she left, and the door closed behind her.
We all stared in stunned silence. "No…not Lord Arceus…" moaned Grovyle.
"What? Who's Lord Arceus?" Samus desperately asked.
"He's the most powerful legendary Pokémon in the world. He watches over everyone and everything, and keeps the world in balance, too. If Queen X kills and copies him, our world…Planet Portania…will be doomed."
The door opened again, and Queen X stepped back through to deliver another word to us. "Oh, and one more thing."
"Whaaaaat?" we groaned. What was it now?
"Don't get any funny ideas, Amy [you know who]. Celebi can't send you back in time anymore. Neither can Dialga. Even Palkia's dimension-traveling system is down. The only chance you have of weaseling your way out of this mess is with Arceus…which is practically zip since there's no way you'll ever beat me there. See ya! Have a nice life!" With that, she finally exited through the door, cackling maniacally.
I was stunned. "…I'm an idiot," I uttered in dismay.
"No you're not! What's wrong?" asked Samus.
"Celebi. I should've asked her to send me back in time or something…before Queen X trapped me in like this." My Pokémon friends gasped in realization. I hung my head in shame. "But it's too late. If we can't get out of here and find Arceus in time…I'll be stuck here. And if I'm stuck here, then it won't matter if we can beat Queen X or not, because…I'm gonna die."
To be continued…
Coming up next: Queen X is on her way to Planet Portania to kill Arceus, and we have to stop her before she reaches him! But can we even escape from…wherever we are? And speaking of evil people, Team Pecha always thought Dusknoir's Redemption would be completely impossible. Or is it?