Ch.120: The Warrior with Unlimited Potential! Let Light Conquer Darkness!
"…You want to start up your own dojo?"
Ella finished packing up her supplies for the journey toward the idol. She looked back at her mentor, Willow, and smiled. "I've taken some inspiration from my teachers."
The Absol smiled. "Well, I never would've expected. What brought this on?"
She sighed and looked up to the ceiling. "I've had a lot of time to think about what I've been through. Pokémon like me with so much talent and skill probably feel left behind with the development of magic, their skills underappreciated and seemingly useless. I probably would've been in that camp had I not seen the wonders on my journey. You, Oswald, and many others have found ways to circumvent these limitations. Ava taught me how to overcome my own weaknesses and utilize my strengths. I'm still here, running alongside my friends even as they get stronger."
Willow hummed in understanding. "I see." She chuckled. "I was like you at one point in my life. I never inherited my father's magic, even after he passed on his life force to me." She placed her paw over the sealed wound on her chest. "Yet I proved through hard work and determination that any obstacle can be overcome."
"Though, not everyone will find the means to break their limits." Ella crossed her forelegs. "I want to start a dojo that exemplifies the hidden talents of all creatures, giving them a means to stand tall amongst their magical rivals. That way, no one will feel left out as the world continues to advance."
"A lot of work for one Espeon."
"Not for me, it won't." Ella sighed. "I'm actually thinking of interning at my parents' company."
Willow's eyes widened. "Oh?"
"I've neglected a lot of things to stick to my carefree existence, but I want my dojo to be something anyone can access, not just my little village. So, I want to learn how to run my own business and market it across Mysto. Maybe even to other regions who wish to partake in our little slice of the world. All I wanted was to not feel restrained by the expectations of my parents. I think they understand that now." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "That's why I want to learn from them."
"…" Willow smiled. "You've really matured, Ella."
She flicked her bangs and laughed. "Yeah, I am pretty awesome, aren't I?"
"Not even remotely what I said."
She snickered. "Can't be helped. No matter how much I mature, I'll still be me."
Willow chuckled. "The world could use a little more Ella Cipher."
She nodded and whistled for Daybreak. It floated off the bed and sheathed itself onto her back. "I won't let anyone call me third rate ever again. This time, I'm going to prove to the shadows just what I'm capable of."
The adrenaline ran fast through her system, still amped from her battle against Apollo and Zaros. Despite the odds, she held her own and was still fighting. She felt she could conquer anything.
Though, the battle ahead was significantly tougher now that her new opponent had his undivided attention on her.
Ella used her psionic power to make herself weightless, skating over the battleground as a swarm of shadow missiles streaked through the air and descended on her position. She maneuvered through them as they impacted and exploded across the ground, riddling the area around her in explosive voids. As they converged on her movement, she teleported at the last second and let the missiles collide together.
She reappeared in the sky, but wasn't safe for long. From below, the Shadow Chesnaught known as Nightmare leapt into the air with dark blades projecting from his arms. He crossed them together and swung for her neck. Ella ducked back at the last second, feeling the blades shave off the tip of her whiskers.
"Terror Blade!" Nightmare reared his arm back, generating a mass of shadow magic through the blade's edge.
Ella prepared a psychic bubble just as he brought the blade down. It absorbed the impact, but sent her careening out of the sky. She teleported before her psychic bubble hit the ground and reappeared, skidding along the dirt to her momentum. However, not a moment's rest was allowed as Nightmare fired off the spikes from his shell, transforming them into shadow missiles.
Ella inhaled and let loose a psychically charged shriek. It knocked the missiles off course, causing them to explode into the ground away from her. She applied her psychic field and dodged Nightmare as he dove on her position, impaling his blades through the earth.
"Terror Blade: Nightmare Forest!" Shadow blades erupted from the earth all around him, rising in succession toward the Espeon.
She whistled and called upon the collapsed Daybreak. Spewing psychic energy out, it sailed forward like a missile and punched through the swords heading her way, creating a clear path for her to run through. It summoned up two more batons that followed alongside Ella as they neared Nightmare. The two batons extended in three-sectioned staves.
"Take this!" She commanded the staves to swing and strike Nightmare from both sides while the lone baton rocketed into his chest.
Nightmare manifested shields from his arms to block the saves and endured the rocketing baton. He kept himself anchored in place, resisting the three-way attacks. "You're a difficult creature to destroy, Ella Cipher," he noted.
She glared. "Comes with the territory." She stamped her paws down and caused the ground to rumble. Geysers of dust shot up and obscured the battlefield. She collected Daybreak's components and backed off into the thick dust.
Nightmare stretched his fingers into serrated claws and sliced through the dust field, partially blowing it apart. He waved some dust flowing across his face and stepped lightly in search of the hidden Espeon. Without a magic aura, they were both equally blind to each other, though something told him she had the advantage.
"One clean hit is all I need, Cipher," Nightmare stated, glaring cautiously through the dust. "You don't have the same defenses as your friends. It's only a matter of time before I break through your psychic field. It can only save you so many times."
He sensed movement and swiped through the dust. There was nothing behind the veil. He narrowed his eyes as the dust started to swirl around him by an unknown wind. Or rather, a psychic force. The dust closed in around him. He sliced through, striking anything vaguely resembling an Espeon only to be met with open air.
"This passiveness of yours can only save you for so long, Cipher," Nightmare said. "If your aim is to play mind games, you're wasting your energy. Even if you do attack me, you won't be able to destroy me. I can come back from whatever damage you inflict."
"Then pay attention—" Nightmare's eyes widened, sensing the Espeon standing below him with her hindlegs raised. "—because I'm about to drop the smackdown on ya!"
He tried to counterattack, but she sprung into action faster than he could. She landed a psychically charged kick to the jaw, splitting his head into a geyser of shadows. With the headless warrior briefly staggered, Ella spun and kicked him, throwing him across the battlefield.
"One clean hit? Then I'll just hit you over and over until you can't fight back!" Ella stomped the ground, ripping out two boulders, and psychically throwing them at the flying Shadow Chesnaught.
Nightmare caught himself on the ground and braced for the boulders smashing across his body. His head reformed, showing his fierce glare and bared teeth. He snapped his fingers, calling upon dozens of shadow spears. "Spear of Darkness: Dusk Rain!" He flicked his wrist and commanded the spears to fly toward Ella.
She summoned and split Daybreak apart. They formed into a heptagonal shape and projected a barrier in front of her, absorbing the rain of spears. Two curved around the barrier and tried to pierce her, but she jumped over them and flew up into the air with her batons following behind.
"Terror Chord!" He emitted a screeching sound wave from his hand.
It struck Ella, causing her to seize up and cover her ears. She grunted, feeling the vibrations rumbling her insides. It gave Nightmare time to expose his shell and fire off dozens of shadow missiles at the frozen Espeon. They spread out and converged from multiple angles to limit the time for escape, and the Terror Chord kept her from concentrating to teleport.
However, she wouldn't go down so easily. After quickly scanning the approaching projectiles, she whistled and ordered the Daybreak batons to circle around her. They flew faster and faster around her until they formed a seven-ringed barrier tightly packed over her. The missiles collided, but their energy dispersed due to the spinning force of the batons. She felt the force of the explosions from the recoil, but she was at least spared from major damage.
Nightmare dropped onto his hands. His shell bubbled with darkness. "Terror Harvest!" Shadows ruptured out from his shell, transforming into a legion of arms baring claws. They surged through the air toward the airborne Espeon.
Ella dropped the protective field and took off flying as the arms chased her down. Their fiendish claws closed in, attempting to grab any part of her they could. She outputted more energy and dove toward the ground with the arms still in hot pursuit. She pulled up at the last second, skimming over the earth. The claws barreled through the earth, but tore out from underground to continue hunting her.
She growled. With Apollo's influence, he must've gained more power. I don't remember doing half this stuff before. She turned to try and shake off their pursuit, though the shadow arms were locked onto her position. She considered teleporting, but her head was still ringing from the exposure to Terror Chord.
In that case…!
Ella clamped Daybreak between her teeth and extended it into its staff form. She stopped, faced the approaching swarm of arms, and swung. She grazed the end of her staff across the ground, sweeping up a psychically charged dust storm. She concentrated on the rocks swept up in the storm and enhanced their speed, causing them to shoot and rip through the arms like hypersonic bullets. The shadow arms were torn to shreds and faded into dark wisps.
Nightmare reformed his shell and rose. "I remember when we first battled, Cipher. You did little more than throw debris at me. Now I find a warrior who has truly embraced her natural gifts." He clenched his fists. "A warrior with no magic standing against the darkness! Truly inspiring!"
Ella balanced Daybreak over her shoulders and glared. "Where's this coming from?"
"…" Nightmare glared back. "Some of us wished we had your tenacity. Now my only desire is to serve the Shadow King until my end." He manifested his Terror Blades from his wrists. "My desire to serve and protect my forces until the bitter end grants me unparalleled strength!"
"…" She smirked. "Heh. Well, my stubborn insistence of being defiant grants me such strength. Let's see which holds out the longest."
"Agreed. Terror Blade: Midnight Execution!" He crossed the blades, grinded their edges together, and fired off a massive X-shaped projectile of shadow magic.
With her head finally cleared, Ella teleported into the sky just before the attack landed. It struck the earth and exploded, scarring the land with an inferno of darkness that etched its shape across the surface. Even from so high up, she shielded her face from the chilling wind that rose from the blast. She felt her fur bristling.
"As my desire to serve the king grows—" Her eyes widened, suddenly feeling Nightmare's presence above her. "—so does my power!"
Daybreak flew out of her grasp and blocked his downward swipe. Dark crackles of magic and psychic energy flowed from the collision. Ella pressed her paws against the staff to keep up the stalemate. The energy flow reached critical and blew the two apart. They skidded along the air, keeping themselves aloft.
"Terror Battalion!" Nightmare reared his back up and launched dozens of shadow missiles through the air, all arching toward the Espeon.
Ella took a deep breath and unleashed a psychic wail that, once again, sent the missiles flying off course. However, Nightmare raised his hands toward the wayward missiles and took control. With a swipe of his hands, he sent them back on course to flank her unguarded sides.
She channeled and concentrated a layer of psychic energy over her body before releasing. The resulting blast wave prematurely detonated the missiles and pushed the explosion away from her. She paused a moment to catch her breath as her psychic field flickered.
"Wide open!" She turned her eyes open as Nightmare hovered above, extended his enlarged arm down on top of her. He engulfed her within his fist and smashed her all the way down to the surface, punching straight through. "Terror Battalion!" Missiles fired from his back and dove toward his closed fist, detonating the ground around it.
From the blast, Ella came flying out with flames flickering off her fur and some burnt patches. She barely reinforced her psychic field before the blast. She took cover in the air and extinguished the flames from herself. However, lifting her gaze for a brief second, her eyes widened to another volley of shadow missiles heading straight for her.
Nightmare snapped his fingers and exclaimed, "Checkmate, Cipher!"
"…" She smirked. "Not yet!" She closed her eyes and concentrated psychic energy through her gemstone.
Right as the missiles came within range of her, Ella's psychic aura flared up, almost mirroring that of active magic. Psionic energy concentrated into her forehead and took shape into her Third Eye. The golden pupil in the center quickly scanned the approaching missiles in half a second before widening. Streaks of psychic energy released from Ella's body and targeted the individual missiles, pushing and detonating them away from her.
Nightmare hovered closer and guarded against the shockwave. "So, it seems even those without magic have found ways to circumvent the gap."
Ella opened her eyes and smirked proudly. "Nah. I'm just that awesome." She spun Daybreak around herself and pointed it at the Shadow Chesnaught. "My generation has been kicking ass and taking names far longer than you've been dead, you old relic!"
Nightmare smirked back. "What's this excitement I'm feeling?" He extended his Terror Blades. "The thrill of battle? Or a latent sense of pride long forgotten?" He dove at her with darkness erupted from the blades. "I never thought a mortal could pose such a challenge!"
Ella reached around into Wes' bag. "Then allow me to turn up the heat!" She pulled out a freeze charm and sprayed a stream of ice into his face.
"GAH!" Nightmare stopped and tried to claw the ice off.
She pocketed the charm and flew around the Shadow Chesnaught, raising her staff high above his head. "Or maybe I should've said down!" She smacked her staff down on his head and spiked him out of the air.
He crashed into the earth, his body deforming into a puddle of darkness that splashed up. The liquid shadow twisted back together and propelled back into the sky. The amorphous darkness took the vague shape of a serpent dragon baring its large set of teeth at the airborne Espeon to be torn to shreds.
Ella cleared out of the way, wincing as her side was clipped by the shadows. She floated quickly through the air as Nightmare reformed and casted down more shadow missiles. Seeing they were being manually guided again, she dove to shake them off.
Her third eye peered into the future, sensing several missiles overtaking her ahead. Ella split Daybreak into seven batons and commanded them to fly ahead right as the missiles came into view. She flicked her paws and struck down the individual missiles before flying blind in the smoke.
Nightmare tracked her from above. A seam opened over his chest, splitting it apart into a vertical mouth with large red eye sitting in the darkness. "Terror Chord: Song of Trauma!" He unleashed a wide, screeching soundwave straight toward the earth.
Ella, unable to escape its range, tensed up and screamed out in agony. She covered her ears to block out the noise, but it penetrated through her skull and rattled her insides. Her psychic field waned until she lost flight and plummeted out of the sky. She hardly noticed with the horrible shockwaves exploding inside her.
It was when she pried an eye open that she saw the ground closing it. She manifested as much of her energy as she could to cushion the fall. It worked, though not by much. She crashed down hard, knocking the wind out of her on top of the aggravating soundwaves rattling her. She felt completely paralyzed from overstimulation of pain.
Nightmare dove from the sky, brandishing his Terror Blades. He crossed them together and aimed to slam their weight down onto Ella's neck. "Fall into darkness, Cipher!"
Ella struggled through the pain. As she saw Nightmare fast approaching, she willed herself to rock side-to-side on her back until she worked up enough strength to toss herself aside. She barely avoided the crashing execution, the impact shaking the ground and knocking her through the air in a cloud of dust.
Nightmare recovered immediately, blowing the dust aside with a single slash of his blade. He found Ella struggling to get back onto her feet, finally catching her breath. He reared his arms back and swung, detaching the blades and launching them like boomerangs. "Terror Blade: Dusk Horizon!"
Ella barely caught a glimpse of the flying blades generating a field of darkness around them. With her head partially cleared, she psychically launched herself to the left and avoided them by the skin of her teeth. She watched them impale into the earth before detonating into a torrent of jet-black flames.
Nightmare charged at her while she was distracted, rolling himself into a ball and protruding jagged spikes. "Terror Impact!"
Ella's eyes widened. "Are you kidding me?!" Still unable to work up the strength to fly, she settled for hovering an inch off the ground and skating off. Nightmare turned sharply and followed after her. He left a trail of riddled earth behind him.
As she tried to escape the rolling ball of darkness, Ella started concentrating energy through her forehead and reactivated her third eye. Peering briefly into the future, she foresaw multiple attempts at escape, though none to put the boss shadow down permanently. Strongest of all the shadows, he could come back from virtually anything he through at her.
Or at least, anything she could currently do.
I only have one shot of turning this into my favor. She glared over her shoulder. Ava only taught me how to activate it, but I've never actually used it. If I mistime it, I'll leave myself burned out and vulnerable. I need to approach this cautiously.
She spun herself around and stopped, staring down the approaching spike ball. She took a deep breath and slammed her paws down, raising a ramp of earth in front of Nightmare. His spiked form charged into the ramp, riding up the angle and destroying it along the way. He flew over Ella, allowing her to concentrate through her third eye and fired a condensed beam to blast him higher into the sky.
Nightmare uncurled with his arms morphed into shields to stave off the beam. He redirected it around himself, then observed the Espeon cautiously. "There's a shift in her behavior. She's planning something."
Ella shook off the last of her nerves, feeling herself able to concentrate fully again. Taking a deep breath, she summoned up Daybreak into its staff form and started spinning it around her body. The dust and earth followed the flow of psychic energy, surrounding her in a condensed dust storm.
"Terror Battalion!" Nightmare launched a volley of missiles from his back and guided them into the epicenter of the storm.
Glittering teal lights shined from within the dust storm before an entire upward shower of psychically charged pebbles fired out. Like a hail of bullets being fired from an opposing army, the pebbles ripped through Nightmare's missiles and clouded the air between them in a thick cloud of smoke. From Nightmare's side, the pebbles fired out from cover and struck into him, tearing into his body.
"HA!" Nightmare slammed his fists together and manifested a barrier to withstand the attacks. He looked at his blind spots cautiously, fully expecting Ella to make a surprise attack at any moment. "Show yourself, Cipher. I'm waiting."
CRACK!
He gasped as Ella's Daybreak pierced through the other side of his barrier and clobbered him upside the chin. He dropped the shield and caught the staff, but it split apart and rocketed off in different directions until they ripped away from his hands.
"Surprise!"
He blinked in bewilderment as a psychic phantom of the Espeon broke through the smoke veil and headbutted him in the chest. He extended his fingers into giant claws and swiped into her, but the astral projection shook off the attack and struck him with her paws.
"You haven't seen anything yet, Nightmare!" Ella exclaimed.
He growled. "Clearly. Terror Chord!" He brought his hands together and blasted the projection with a sonic wave. No body or not, Ella recoiled with her astral form fizzling out. Nightmare switched up to his fists and punched through the projection's head, tearing it off. He concentrated more of the spell and blasted it through the smoke veil, aiming down the astral projection's trail.
It struck the ground and split the smoke apart, but there was no sign of the Espeon. Nightmare roared and released a barrage of missiles from his back. They struck down into the earth, tearing it open in explosions of darkness to draw the psychic out.
"Try again!" The astral projection recovered and struck him from behind with an enlarged set of claws. She smacked him out of the air in one swipe.
Nightmare caught himself on the air and tried to follow the protection's connective tail back to her body, but the smoke from his missiles further obscured ground level. The tail was hidden among the smoke and dust. Seeing the astral projection racing toward him, he morphed his arms into shields and guarded against her swipe. The claws wrapped over his arms and dragged him from the air, where he braced himself for a critical impact into the earth. Ella's projection drove him deep below the earth before vanishing.
Nightmare pulled himself topside and shook the rubble from inside his shell. He waved the dust out of his face, his eyes searching for Ella. "How long do you intend to hide, Cipher?"
"Long enough. I've bought myself enough time."
Suddenly, Nightmare recoiled as a psychic force blew across the terrain and pushed the field of dust aside. He endured the forceful winds and glared toward the epicenter of the shockwave, finding his target standing within it. However, as he focused in on her, he realized the Espeon had changed dramatically since vanishing in both appearance and power.
Her fur turned a bright teal, radiating with flowing energy. Her eyes turned navy blue with golden irises sitting in the center. Her psychic field expanded further out from her body, resembling blue flame encompassing her. Daybreak, split into its baton form, floated around her alight in the same flowing aura.
Nightmare narrowed his eyes in concern. He extended his Terror Blades and raised them defensively. "What is this?"
Ella, in a voice that projected like that of a god overlooking their dominion, looked upon the Being of Nightmares and said, "This…is the culmination of hard work and mortal pride!"
Five Hundred Years Ago…
"AAAAAHHHHH!"
The Chesnaught warrior collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath as he clutched his bleeding side. His armor had been ripped to pieces. His sword was rent from his hand. His body's natural defenses were torn off, blackened to a crisp from the arcane arts he dared to confront. He believed he could overcome their dark sorcery, but he was gravely mistaken.
He looked all around at the torched battlefield and gazed on at the fallen sight of his comrades. Pools of blood poured out over the earth and corpses were burnt to a crisp. They fought bravely, but it was all for naught in the end. They couldn't break through the enemy's impenetrable defenses.
"This one lasted longer than expected."
"Indeed. He even anticipated my assassination technique."
"His soul is quite hearty to still be alive with those injuries."
"I do wonder what kind of experiments I could run on him."
The warrior gazed up at the four-man team who obliterated his forces. One man cloaked in unbreakable armor. Another wrapped in a veil of glowing string. One who could summon monstrous creatures from pure black fog. Another who could destroy with but a touch. They all exuded a suffocating malice that twisted the hearts of his men and drove them mad with fear. They were nightmares given form.
Yet he would not be conquered.
The warrior rose to his feet and lifted the shattered remains of his sword. "Dare not come a step closer, monsters. I shall see you all in hell by the end of my last breath. This, I swear."
The masked assassin glared. "He's serious. Even with those injuries…"
The dark warrior lifted his sword in opposition. "Perhaps he is worth a challenge after all."
The summoner groaned. "We've wasted enough time here. The objective was to suppress the resisting forces."
The dark magician scratched his chin and hummed. "Quite a puzzling situation." He looked over his shoulder. "My king, what shall we do with this one?"
The Chesnaught's eyes widened as the leader of their destroyers approached, stepping through his four monstrous soldiers. Cloaked in a cape billowing with darkness and adorned with a dark metal helmet that shined under the pale moonlight, a red-eyed Feraligatr peered down at the wounded soldier with intrigue.
"Such talent would be a waste," he said. He lifted his hand, projecting darkness from it. "I can sense the anguish in your heart, warrior."
The Chesnaught staggered to one knee, gazing upon the darkness with worry…yet also intrigue. "W-What?"
"Fallen warrior, do you wish to see your comrades reborn once again?" the king asked. "I can grant you and them salvation. Exile yourself from flesh and blood, become reborn in darkness. Take on a new shape and become my general. You shall lead my armies to subjugate the people of this era. You…will become the nightmare before reality."
The warrior's eyes widened in awe as the king pressed his hand to his face. The darkness spilled out and engulfed his body. He felt his spirit wavering. He felt himself becoming detached from his physical form. All his anguish for his fallen men, his hatred for the invading army…
He will use his newfound strength to lead an even greater army.
And to serve his new king.
The Shadow King.
The two foes stared each other down an equal distance apart, shifting their stances and readying their weapons for the other to make the first strike. Nightmare kept a cautious eye on the empowered Espeon, sensing that she had a myriad of tricks to unleash if he wasn't careful. Unrestricted psychic power was flowing out from her, and even he knew the fight ahead would not be easily won.
Even so, he gritted his teeth into a smile. "A mortal fighting to the bitter end against the darkness. What a familiar tale."
Ella smirked. "Have I finally instilled fear into the fearless Being of Nightmares? Does my transformation make you quiver at my awesomeness? Please, please, praise me more."
"Ella Cipher…" Nightmare crossed his blades together. "I hereby acknowledge you as a worthy rival for this final battle."
"And I acknowledge you, Nightmare. Shall we see whose power rises up to the occasion? Light or darkness!"
"To the victor go the spoils!" With a battle-hardened roar, Nightmare made the first move by breaking into a mad dash. His blades grinded off the ground, leaving a rising wall of shadow behind him.
Ella met him halfway, charging within a cloak of psychic power. Two pairs of batons joined together, channeling her energy into psychic sabers.
They collided, swinging their blades together and splitting the earth under them from the rippling outpour of energy. Nightmare pressed his weight through the blades and overpowered Ella's attack, but she leapt back at the last second and avoided the brutal strike.
She flipped through the air with her batons generating energy in between them. "ESP Rail Cannon!" The energy fired in a straight line, rupturing the sound barrier and striking the boss shadow hard.
Nightmare attempted to block it, but the blast ripped through his arms and sent their wispy remains scattering across the air. Undeterred, he roared and charged at Ella with new arms reforming in their place. He summoned another set of Terror Blades, this time with teeth on the edges that revved to life.
"Terror Blade: Rip and Tear!"
Ella shaped four batons to form a barrier and blocked Nightmare's strike. The spinning teeth of the blade chewed through the barrier, digging their way toward her. Unfazed, she teleported just before the blades pierced through and reappeared directly behind Nightmare. Using her batons, she gave herself an accelerated boost to kick into his shell.
Nightmare braced himself as soon as the kick register and morphed his shell into a dragon's maw to bite down on the Espeon. She teleported before the teeth could snap down around her. Nightmare, after reforming his shell, roared out with a barrage of missiles blasting out from his back. They exploded halfway into the air, riddling the atmosphere with incendiary shockwaves.
Ella reappeared in time to brace herself against the explosions. Three missiles went off close to her and blasted her higher into the sky. Her third eye darted about frantically as more missiles popped out of the clouds on a direct course for her. Sensing their approach, she stretched her paws out and began to spin, generating a psychic wind around herself. The wind caught the missiles and trapped them within the spinning force before being fired off in random directions of the battlefield.
Nightmare dodged a couple missiles heading his way, then watched the rest scatter all about in the distance. He noticed some sniping down the Honchkrow golems attacking the resisting alliance.
"You've got guts, Cipher, but they aren't enough to safe your hide!" Revving up his blades again, he lunged into the sky. "Only the darkness is absolute!"
Ella whistled for her batons to hover around her, jetting out psychic energy from their ends. "Perhaps, but my light will never burn out!" She flicked her paw and sent the batons flying down to intercept Nightmare.
He swung his blades, deflecting three batons before the remaining four crashed into him. Two struck his shoulders, one battered his chest, and the last snapped his amorphous jaw loose. Sensing the impact, Ella increased the output of the batons and rocketed Nightmare into the ground before pursuing. She conjured a ball of dense psychic energy in her paw and slammed it on top of him, releasing a blinding teal explosion.
The ground tore open from beneath, the blast extending far across the battlefield with a light that could be mistaken for a star. However, despite the output of energy, Nightmare held on. He shielded against Ella with his reinforced arms, pushing back against her before finding the strength to throw her off. She broke through her own explosion and dispersed it with the force of her launch.
Nightmare raised his arms and split his knuckles open. "Terror Bullet!" He fired bullets of dark energy from his split knuckles.
Ella balanced herself in the air and spotted the stream of energy bullets chasing her down. She inhaled and yelled, "ESP Death Shriek!" A visible sonic wave blasted out from deep within her throat and barreled through the storm of bullets. The psychic waves being generated from her voice caused the bullets to shake their structured form before dissipating.
"Terror Chord: Song of Malevolence!" Nightmare split his chest open once more, this time releasing an explosive scream that met Ella's halfway.
The two sonic screams collided, the destructive attributes of both shaking the atmosphere around them. The earth started shaking, splitting itself apart and eroding at an accelerated rate. Nightmare could feel it slipping from under his feet, but he hovered an inch off the ground and continued his attack.
Both fighters felt their attacks waning from prolonged usage, but opted to keep going until the other gave out first. Predicting she would fall first, Ella telepathically commanded Daybreak's batons to target Nightmare from above and crash down on top of his head.
Nightmare cried out in pain, his Terror Chord cancelling, and leaving him open for the last of Ella's destructive scream. It drove and pushed him through the ground, digging up a trail that stretched across several meters. Nightmare dug his claws through the earth to stop himself and launched shadow missiles from his back just as the screaming stopped.
Ella teleported before the missiles collided into her, but Nightmare already anticipated her next move. He enlarged and stretched out his arm right as Ella appeared above him, catching her in his fist. Without giving her a chance to teleport again, he swung and bashed his fist into the ground, then detonated shadow flames inside it.
Nightmare pulled himself up as he retracted his arm. He summoned his Terror Blades and raised them defensively. "There's no way that took her out."
He was proven right as the ground burst open from where he crushed her. Ella popped out of the ground and let loose a tidal wave of earth being pushed up in her psychic fields. He sliced down the center of the wave, cutting it around him. Right as he did, Ella had already launched herself and dropkicked him across the face. Nightmare held his stance strong, grabbed her ankle, and swung her over his shoulder into the ground.
"Spear of Darkness: Dusk Rain!" He summoned several dozen shadow spears and directed them on top of her.
Ella released psionic pressure from her body to keep the spears at bay, then the kicked Nightmare's arm. "ESP Piercing Rend!" She released a concentrated burst of psychic energy from her kick, obliterating his arm from her leg. She darted out of the way and let the spears strike into the ground.
Nightmare reformed his arm and chuckled dryly. "You've been holding back."
She smirked. "So have you."
"Tell me something, Cipher. Do you still think you can defeat the Shadow King? Even if he had access to the idol's full power?"
"…" She closed her eyes and laughed. "What a silly question. I doubt I could…on my own. No, my friends and I will kick his ass all the same."
"Such stalwart attitudes you possess."
"Don't underestimate my generation."
Nightmare brandished his blades and charged at her. "Even so, the tides of battle will shift toward darkness, and my king will create a world without suffering!"
Ella whistled and called back Daybreak, fusing the batons back into its seven-segmented form. "The funny thing about suffering is…" She grabbed it between her paws and spun it. "We only got this strong because of our struggles!"
She slammed the end of the staff into the ground, causing a web of psychic energy to stretch and burst out from underground. Nightmare stopped and gasped as the light past under him, leaving them both standing in a beacon of light.
She smirked and raised her paw. "No matter how much life throws us for a loop." She flicked her paw up and caused the ground to rupture from beneath them.
Nightmare braced himself as the ground gave way and exploded upward into a tower of dust and rock. He was lifted within the psychic vortex and found himself thrashing about from all sides. His vision became obscured and clouded in the exploding earth, and he felt himself rising higher and higher up into the air. He could only make out the vague shapes of boulders flying alongside him.
What is this?
He tried to regain his balance midair, but the thrashing winds kept throwing him around. He couldn't get a clear indication of which direction he was looking. He couldn't tell which way was up or down, either. His entire spatial awareness had been thrown off in one clean maneuver, and he couldn't even fly to escape it.
The winds eventually calmed, and Nightmare found himself landing on a boulder. Still lost in his spatial orientation, he looked around to see he was somewhere within a dense fog of dust. Too dense to blow apart with his magical pressure or even a basic swing from his Terror Blades. Furthermore, the boulder he clung to was locked in place, suspended in the air. The few boulders he could see were also locked in place.
An aerial arena. She's using fog of war tactics on me. He stood up, stumbling a bit as he felt a brief spell of weightlessness over himself. Even the gravity has been significantly altered so I can't tell which way I'm positioned. All of this with just her natural abilities?
"Oh where, oh where, have you run off to, Nightmare~?"
Her voice rang out in the fog with a childish canter carrying it. Nightmare raised his Terror Blades and walked along the boulder he perched on before jumping to the next one over. Even in his crossing through the space, he felt no indication of where gravity was pulling him.
"So, this is the power of the Third Eye," he concluded. "This much power being used at once must be incredibly taxing. How long will she be able to keep this active?"
"That's for me to know—" Nightmare saw a light shining in the fog and dodged a psychic beam that grazed his cheek. "—and for you to find out."
Nightmare kept his guard up, taking note of the shifting in the dust. Her batons were on patrol, he guessed, syphoning off her psychic energy to fire on him at her leisure. She was playing games at this point, taking command of the battle. Even she knew direct combat was risky. This was the safer option in the long run.
Nightmare smirked. "Fine. I'll play along. Terror Battalion!" He raised his shell and fired volley after volley of shadow missiles. They passed through the dense fog, where the brief glow of the explosions mapped out the width of the aerial terrain. Continuously firing off missiles, he jumped to the next boulder over, then the next one after that.
His missiles soon encompassed a majority of the atmosphere, giving him a general idea of what could prevent him from fleeing. He sensed a cluster of missiles being halted at the same distance away. It felt like they were exploding across a wall, except he could feel the explosion being shifted as soon as it went off.
She's concentrating a storm layer around the fog. Nothing can get out without being tossed around. Clever.
Through his peripherals, he saw one of Ella's batons launching toward him. He jumped out of the way, gliding toward the next rock over. He split his knuckles open and fired out Terror Bullet, peppering the obscured space for any sign of the Espeon. Instead, two more batons flew out from the dust and nearly struck him. He shaped his body around them at the last second.
"ESP Piercing Rend!"
Nightmare turned around a second too late to Ella's dropkick. She channeled a burst of psionic energy through her paws and blew his head apart. He tried to grab her leg, but she teleported from his grasp and returned into the dust.
With his head reformed, Nightmare formed multiple sets of arms and grew spikes out of them. "Terror Bullet Battalion!" He fired off fast-moving missiles from his arms, spinning in place to blast everything around him. A cyclone of smoke and shadow fire spread out across the space, rupturing any surface they collided with.
"And another!" Nightmare spotted the Espeon descending from above and combined all his arms into a dense shield. Ella struck with her ESP Piercing Rend, but Nightmare's barrier withstood the impact even at the cost of shattering. The second his shield broke, he swung an uppercut into her stomach. "GAH!"
He wasted not a second grabbing her tail and slamming her down into the rocky perch. He fired out his Terror Bullet from his free hand, to which Ella intensified her psychic field to deflect the bullets away from her. She could feel the attacks inching closer to her face the more they bounced off her field.
"Daybreak!" She whistled, calling down her split staff to pummel down on the Shadow Chesnaught's back. It briefly staggered, allowing her to rear her hindlegs up and kick him off.
Nightmare flailed through the air before catching himself on another boulder platform. He flipped onto the surface and released another barrage of shadow missiles. Ella sped out of the way before the missiles piled down on her. She ricocheted between air-locked boulders and reached one directly above Nightmare.
"ESP Piercing Rend!" She launched off from the bottom, channeling energy into her paw.
Nightmare jumped back right as she slammed her attack into his platform, rupturing it to pieces. He reared his leg back and drove it into her stomach. Ella spat blood before being kicked into the upper levels of her psychic domain, crashing into a fog-covered boulder's underside.
"Terror Battalion!" Nightmare dropped to all fours and unloaded a barrage of missiles skyward.
Ella's third eye detected the approaching missiles. She pulled herself up and swung to the top of the boulder before they impacted. The blast destroyed the boulder and knocked her higher into the air. She shook her head to regain her bearings and psychically grabbed all the loose rubble. After calling back Daybreak, she whistled and commanded the rocks to orbit around her.
"ESP Meteor Shower!" Ella spun her batons and commanded them to strike the floating rocks. The speed and power of each strike caused the rocks to catch fire thanks to the psychic field around them. They rained down like shooting stars of death.
Nightmare, seeing the lights heading his way, bunkered down under his shield arms and waited out the attack. He tensed up, feeling each rock crashing down on his body with the force of Guardian's attack rush. An endless barrage of attacks that were designed to overwhelm with sheer number and brutality.
Ella ceased her attack and whistled for Daybreak to split off again. Four batons rushed down to Nightmare's level and began revolving around him. Right when he noticed, a chain of psychic energy surged in between the batons.
Ella clapped her paws and shouted, "ESP Psionic Bolt!"
Mirroring that of lightning, the psychic energy lit up everything in the center of their formation. Nightmare screamed out in agony, feeling his shadow body fizzling and contorting from the attack. He nearly melted into liquid shadow, but he retained his general shape in an attempt to resist.
Ella growled. "What does it take to put you down?" She reached her paw out to a nearby boulder and commanded it to shatter into individual pebbles. "ESP Meteor Shower!" She drew the rocks to her remaining batons, using them to accelerate the rubble for another attack.
Nightmare reacted through the psy-lightning and crossed his Terror Blades together. "Terror Blade: Midnight Execution!" He broke through and fired the cross slash. It plowed through Ella's attack and nearly took her foreleg off had she not dodged in time.
"W-Whoa!" Ella gasped.
With her attack on Nightmare severed, he lunged and seized her by the throat. "Terror Chord!" He raised his hand over her face and fired a blank-point sonic wave at her.
"GAAAAAAAAHHH!"
Nightmare expected the dust domain to fall apart, but it all remained locked in the air. Has her concentration improved, too?
Ella gritted her teeth through his attack and dug her claws into his arm. "ESP Mind Break!"
Nightmare suddenly recoiled from a telepathic assault. He ceased his Terror Chord and gripped his head, feeling all his neurons exploding at once. If he were still living flesh and bone, her attack could've easily shut his brain down from overstimulation.
Ella felt her form flickering from the attack. Not sure how much longer I can hold this transformation up. Shaking off her concerns, she flew into the staggered shadow and tackled him across the domain. "Daybreak!" Her split staff joined behind and rammed into Nightmare, smashing him up ahead another boulder.
The impact shook him back to his senses. He bared his teeth, feeling his body shift with anger. "CIPHER!" His Chesnaught form ruptured and exploded out into a dark, inky liquid.
Ella was swallowed up into the shadows for a brief moment before bursting out and taking refuge in the air. She sputtered and spat out remnant shadow, wiping her tongue across her sleeve. "Gross!"
"CIIIIIIIIIPHER!" Nightmare's liquid shadow state meshed and molded itself together, growing several dozen times his normal size. He shaped back into a more monstrous form of a Chesnaught, complete with a dozen red eyes, serrated claws, and menacing spikes protruding from his shell. He had grown so large, he needed two boulders to balance on. He held onto another boulder higher up and roared out at Ella.
Ella, however, was not afraid. She glared and roared back at the monster. "Come on, you undead relic of nihilism! Hit me with your best shot!"
"WITH PLEASURE!" Nightmare unloaded a greater number of missiles from his back, several times the length of his previous ones.
Ella merely stared them down and let loose a psychic scream. They exploded like all the others before it, but the blast was far stronger than she expected. It threw her back in the explosion, flying to the edge of her domain. The tornado-like airwall cushioned her impact, and she bounced back with little effort.
Her eyes widened as Nightmare's giant clawed hand thrusted out from the dust with little warning and nearly crushed her in his grip. She teleported away in the nick of time and flew back toward the monstrous shadow.
"CIIIIIIPHER!" Nightmare screamed out a beam-like version of his Terror Chord.
She weaved around it, barely grazing its surface, and increased her speed. She called back Daybreak into its staff form and began to spin it. As she circled around Nightmare, she channeled ESP Piercing Rend through the ends of her staff and delivered coordinated strikes across his body. Each one pierced out the other side and ripped him apart.
Nightmare retaliating, sweeping his arm across the air and backhanding the Espeon down. She immediately recovered and arched back up before he could throw another punch. She split Daybreak again and had it fire psychic beams into his face. He recoiled, but threw his hands together and blew her back with a thunderous clap.
Ella flailed through the air before recovering. She shook off the dizziness and growled. "Alright, I guess we're doing this the hard way!" She whistled for Daybreak to fly up into the air, then she closed her eyes and pressed her paws together. "I call upon my astral form. Let my spirit take shape and eclipse the monster before me!"
Her psychic energy flared up and spread from her body. A beastly, yet still elegant shape of an Espeon composed of psychic energy towered over Ella with its tail connected to her aura. Her astral projection roared out against Nightmare and ran across the air.
Both beasts collided halfway and struck claws. Right as they connected, Ella's domain finally dropped. The dust blew away from the resulting shockwave, and the air-locked boulders began to fall…upwards. It was revealed that they were both upside-down, and gravity once more took hold of them as normal.
Nightmare fell out of the air for a moment, but took flight and rushed back up. Ella's astral form, unaffected by gravity, retaliated faster and clawed into Nightmare's face. They locked claws together and thrashed about, biting and tearing into each other. Ella tore out some of his shadowy hide with her teeth while Nightmare punched a hole through the projection's stomach.
Ella's power began to wane, a sign of her lack of experiencing using her Third Eye's power. Her astral form flickered in and out of solidity, but kept up the offensive and clamped its teeth around Nightmare's neck. She dared to open one eye, peering up at the psychic storm brewing above.
I want to prove that Pokémon like me aren't lagging behind with each generation. We don't need magic to stand atop the mountains with our gifted peers. All we need…is the determination to keep on fighting for what we want!
Feeling her form about to break, Ella pumped the last of her Third Eye's power into the astral projection. It dug its claws and teeth into Nightmare at their maximum and tore the monstrous Chesnaught apart. Ella felt the recoil through her mind and yelped as she reverted to normal.
Nightmare roared out in fury, mashing his shadowy body back together. During the regeneration, Ella climbed high up into the air and steadied herself under the psychic storm being brewed. All seven of Daybreak's batons were generating spare power syphoned off from her Third Eye. It all collected into a crackling orb of pure psionic power.
"Hey Nightmare!" she shouted.
The monstrous shadow turned his eyes up to the sky, roared, and started flying up after her.
"You want to see what the weak link is capable of?!"
"CIIIIIIIPHER!"
She clenched her teeth and roared, "GET WRECKED!"
She swung her paws and fired an eclipsing beam of psychic energy. It struck down like a thunderbolt, instantly overtaking Nightmare and blasting him straight down to the ground below. It impacted and tore the earth apart in a brilliant blaze of teal that stretched wide across the crater's battlefield.
Ella kept up the output, draining all of the store psionic energy from her batons as she could. She felt blood bursting from her nose and her gemstone growing unbearably hot, but she kept up the pressure beyond her limits. Unlike before, she refused to succumb to psychic burnout.
She was well past her old self's shortcomings.
The thunderous beacon of light hammered into the ground for several seconds until the last of the stored energy was syphoned from her batons. A deafening rumble echoed out across the Sky Zone the moment the beam faded, and in its memory was the smoldering crater left behind by a single Espeon.
Ella hovered in the air, gently floating down to the ground level as she caught her breath. Daybreak, smoking from the attack, fell unceremoniously from the sky and crashed just outside the beam's impact point. She descended like a feather onto her paws.
Her legs shook once she felt gravity pushing down on her. She staggered, barely keeping herself up on one paw. She patted softly for another minute, giving time for her gemstone to cool off. She hiccupped from a deep yawn building inside her lungs. Her trembling worsened as she began to laugh.
"H-Hey. I'm not dead. C-Cool. O-Oh boy…"
Before she could think of passing out from exhaustion, she heard a cough coming from within the impact point. She limped herself over to the edge and gazed down to see the aftermath of her attack.
Laying out in deep within the crater, his body sizzling with darkness, Nightmare stared up at the open sky with a blank expression. His shadowy form, little by little, was breaking apart and fading into the aether. As he came to, his expression changed upon seeing Ella peering down at him. Not one of rage or defiance, but of…relief.
"The Shadow King separated so many shadows from their hosts. I was one of them," he said somberly. "I was the shadow of a brave warrior willing to fight to the last stand for his comrades, but even I couldn't match up to his heralds in the end. With no other purpose, he killed me and separated me from my body. I am the darkness of that warrior's defiance and grief in that bloody battle. I, who dared to stand against the shadows, became their general. Funny how life works out."
Ella sat on her haunches and frowned. "Yet they still acknowledged you. A Pokémon with no magic dared to fight back, and he proved his worth no matter the danger."
"…" Nightmare smiled softly. "We were wrong about you, Ella Cipher. You…You remind me of who I once was. Whoever I really was. It's all a haze, but I still remember what I fought for. You kept fighting despite the odds, and now you stand as a giant alongside your friends."
He leaned his head back and sighed. His body crumbled away faster, his limbs dissipating and torso fading up to his neck.
"Light and darkness are needed to balance each other out. I have hope that you and your friends…may find the light my king had lost. Godspeed, Ella Cipher. Godspeed."
The last of Nightmare's form faded into the aether. Ella watched as the shadowy wisps of his remnants floated up high above, vanishing into the crackling sky. Even under the sounds of warfare in the distance, a moment of silence rang out around her.
She sighed, closed her eyes, and bowed her head. "Rest easy, warrior of the past. The dawn will soon come."