The boys were in sight of Veilstone when a terrible groaning rent the air, as though the Earth itself felt pain. Flying nearer, the deep groan was replaced by a rumbling so intense that the sky vibrated with it. Their flying mounts were forced to land without the city gates. The boys fell flat on their backs the moment they touched ground.
"Earthquake! BIG earthquake! What the heck is happening?" Mint yelled, but the Earth's voice was louder.
With their faces to the sky, they saw the horizon move upward: they stared in pristine wonder as one of the mountains floated into the sky beside Arceus and his rider. Clumps of earth and rocks the size of houses crashed into the hole from which it had been uprooted. It was but one of the mountains of the range bordering Veilstone to the southwest, but its base was the size of the entire city. For a sickening moment, Manny thought Hanny would drop the mountain on the city, burying its buildings, people and Pokémon forever, but Hannah had other plans: the mountain began floating ever higher to the east.
"At least it will be easier to see where they're going," Manny quipped, but Mint smacked him in the shoulder.
"Think of the Pokémon on that mountain, Manny! We have to save them!"
So the boys went airborne again. The mountain paused midway over the oceanic Route 223. Mint wanted to confront Arceus, but Manny got a call on his cell phone.
"Mom?"
"Manny! Your father and I are on Sunyshore's northern beach looking at a floating mountain!"
"I'm on my way! Come on, Mint!"
"But the Pokémon...!"
"They're not going anywhere, Mint! I have to talk to my parents about this!"
They landed a minute later. From their vantage point, the mountain was no bigger than a full moon would be. It had blotted out the sun, so high it was in the atmosphere.
"Mom!" Manny shouted, pushing through the crowd to her. She was dressed in a one-piece bathing suit, her arms dangling limp at her sides as she, Persian and several hundred Sunyshore folk stared at the impossible spectacle.
"Did you do this, honey?" she said in a very frightened voice.
Manny shook his head. "Hannah! She captured Arceus, the god of all Pokémon. Then they just plucked one of Veilstone's mountains and brought it here!"
"Here they come," Manny's father observed. Taking a sip from his Dr. Pepper, he summoned all six of his Pokémon. Arceus landed on the shore.
There was a malevolent gleam in Hannah's eyes. "You!" she said, pointing a finger at Manny's father. "You are a prime example of this world's corruption. You abandoned your wife and unborn son to go adventuring. You gathered great power, you saw the world, but when you returned? You were a jerk! You made the only people who love you, burst into tears!"
The man sipped his drink, saying nothing.
"Today I will demonstrate how powerless you are, you great big jerk. I'm going to throw that mountain into the sea, wiping out Sunyshore with the tidal wave!"
As she said this, the crowd screamed, broke apart and ran, leaving Manny, his family and Mint to their fate. Tori escaped from her Pokéball, took one look at the wild gleam in Hannah's eyes, then flew to Manny's mother. The woman took her in, holding the terrified Flygon close.
"You can run from this, little man, but know YOU were the cause of it, and that you could NOT stop it!"
The man took another sip, cleared his throat. He spoke in the deliberate, forceful way of an adult scolding a naughty child. "I was just lying on that sun chair, enjoying the beach with my wife. You barge in here to frighten lots of people and block our sunshine. You have ruined our vacation. Go home, little girl, and take your glorified Ponyta with you. You are no threat to me."
Hannah's face warped with disgust as she stared into the man's forbidding dark eyes. He was unmoved.
"Famous last words," she spat. Arceus jumped, flying high.
The mountain began falling through the clouds to the sea!
"Run away, coward! We will chase you everywhere you go!"
Manny's father was on the verge of turning to Pidgeot when something on the horizon caught his eye. He gasped, but it was not the mountain that had so transfixed him: he traced his gaze from the horizon to the zenith high above the mountain, tracing with his finger something only he could see.
In the face of annihilation, he cracked a smile. "Then I will stay here," he replied.
He turned to his wife while Manny and Mint stared in shocked silence at the mountain's rapid descent.
"Johanna," he said, tracing the large white letter 'Q' emblazoned on his tee shirt, "I put on this jersey when I began my Pokémon journey because I had questions no-one could answer. Even when I met you and got you pregnant, I still had questions."
With both hands he grabbed the centre of his teeshirt and tore the "Q" in twain with a mighty shout! The boys turned to witness this manly display.
"I HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER! Farfetch'd, hand me your leek!"
The small brown bird quacked with confusion, but obeyed her master. The mountain landed, snatching the surf from the shore as it gathered the ocean to itself. Manny's father began striding forward, his eyes clear and bright, leek in hand. His team followed, loyal to the end.
"Do you see it, Farfetch'd?"
The bird shook her head in deeper confusion. The boys and Johanna were also following him because they had nowhere to go.
"I laughed at Master Koga. He told me that there are universal lines of force running through the fabric of space-time that intersect our small planet. People and Pokémon who can see or feel those creases in the fabric of reality can manipulate them however they wish: teleportation, time travel, interdimensional travel... but masters of the Chaos Star Style can focus their will and energy into those lines of force, causing their normal attacks to achieve a cosmic level of power!"
He turned to face his followers. In one of his eyes they saw the image of an eight-pointed star. His voice - nay, his very soul trembled with anticipation and awe.
"I can see one line."
The tidal wave was rising over a hundred feet high, backed by the force of an ocean straining for release. Its roar heralded death. Manny's father held the leek at his left hip in an imaginary scabbard, leading with his left foot.
"Master Koga, wherever you are, forgive your slowest student for laughing at you. This technique is beyond forbidden: CHAOS EPIPHANY SLASH!"
The leek arced in a perfect line. Nothing happened for a beat.
"What is..." Manny whispered, but his voice and the ocean's voice were drowned by a mightier sound. The sand at his father's feet split in a clean line down the middle. The line traveled at supersonic speed through the ocean, carving a clear gash through the startled waters that leaped out of its path! The implacable wave encountered the irresistible force and with a colossal aquatic explosion was cloven in twain, becoming two much weaker waves.
Finally, miles away from the shore, the mountain split in two neat halves, the titanic walls of stone and dirt forced away from each other by a stronger force of Nature.
"I have seen everything," Manny uttered, sinking to his knees.
"VAPOREON! ALAKAZAM!" his father thundered, "SURF! PSYCHIC!"
Though smaller, the two waves were still tidal waves, capable of wreaking havoc on Sunyshore. Alakazam focused his potent mind on the left wave, forcing it to back down while Vaporean did the same with her supreme aquamancy. They were straining, however, as this was an ocean they were fighting.
"Oh!" Manny remembered, summoning his own, much younger Vaporeon and Alakazam. "Help them out!"
The four Pokémon fought with all their psionic and magical might against the oncoming watery doom.
"Go, Espeon and Togekiss!" Mint commanded, lending their mental powers to the mix, but the waves kept coming. At last, Johanna showed her hand.
"Persian, use Power Gem!"
The elder feline lifted her beautiful head, blazing viridian light issuing from her crimson jewel. From the shore to the ocean, dense earthen walls erupted from the sand at regular intervals, checking the progress of the waves. They busted through the first few walls but thanks to both generations of Pokémon their fury subsided enough for the walls to do their work.
They all collapsed from exhaustion when the ocean, defeated at last, retreated with an angry murmur of rolling waves.
"WHAT?" Hannah screeched as she descended with Arceus. "What was THAT?"
Manny's father walked toward her, tossing Farfetch'd her leek. The bird regarded her precious vegetable with awe and wonder, looking between it and the broken mountain at sea.
"That was the spirit of humans and Pokémons united against a common foe. I may be a jerk, Hannah, but you see only me and not the people surrounding me. My wife is the answer I long sought for, and I am sorry it took me ten years to realise that."
"It's okay, love," Johanna replied, tears in her eyes.
Her husband nodded, resuming his dialogue. "Truth is not a riddle, it is not an object to be held; truth is a person. I have found my truth in Johanna. Have you found your truth, little girl?"
Hannah's face contorted with rage. "I will find my truth in the new world. Arceus?"
The golden-hooved god leaped skyward, his body crackling with arcane energy.
"I possess the sixteen Creeds. I will end this universe. I will end YOU."
"Farrrrrr-FETCH'D!"
Everyone turned their attention to the little brown duck. She was tracing not one, not two, but eight lines in midair with her leek. Both of her eyes held the image of an eight-pointed star!
"You can see the lines of force!" her Trainer laughed. "Are they not beautiful?"
"FARRRRRR!" she quacked with fervent agreement, flapping after Arceus with leek held in beak. Her Trainer pointed one finger at her quarry with a flourish.
"Everyone, GO! Help her get there!"
Espeon and both Alakazam, of father and son, used triple Light Screen to deflect the initial Judgement attack away from Farfetch'd. Togekiss, Keira and Pidgeot used a triple Aerial Ace to counter Arceus's Extremespeed tackle. Finally, Garchomp, Luxray and Gyarados used a triune Hyper Beam to counter the same blast from Arceus. Farfetch'd used the recovery period from that all-out assault to perform her ultimate move!
"NOW, Farfetch'd!" her Trainer roared. "DIVINE TECHNIQUE: CHAOS CORE EPIPHANY STRIKE!"
Not just Arceus, but the clouds were sliced by the first slash, then the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh slashes came in rapid succession, tearing into Arceus and sky. The eighth blow struck the god, who fell earthward with Hannah. In geostationary orbit 35,786 kilometres above, the Jubilife TV satellite was neatly carved into many pieces that later fell earthward as shooting stars.
Her work done, Farfetch'd descended, leaving the mark of the Chaos Star in the cloudy firmanent... but the image was not quite complete.
"The eighth line is missing," Manny's father noted. Indeed, seven lines branded the sky, but the final slash had not touched the clouds like the others, leaving the Chaos Star incomplete.
Indomitable Arceus was on his hooves once again.
Manny and Mint ran to Hannah, who was unconscious, while the man shook his head. "God or monster though you may be, that should have killed you outright!"
"It would have," Arceus conceded. "But before I arrived on this planet to challenge Hannah, I destroyed the Chaos Star cluster!"
"What? The Chaos Star is real, and not just a vanity phrase Master Koga used to describe the lines of force?"
"It was real. The Chaos Star cluster regulated the flow of mental and spiritual energy in this galaxy, allowing Pokémon to evolve and human beings to achieve great feats. The flow of energy was interrupted just at the moment Farfetch'd landed the eighth blow. Had I arrived one moment sooner on this planet, my essence would have been undone by that final strike. Had I waited a little longer for the Chaos Star energies to dissipate, Hannah would not have been in the precise frame of mind to defeat me. I would have bested her in battle, and all my effort been for naught."
"You schemer! You planned all of this, everything, including our battle?" the man shouted.
"As I said, I am not God. I am, however, the master of manipulation; I can set small things in motion to great effect. Take Hannah, for example. The dreams I showed her, the mental and spiritual torture I inflicted upon her were designed to cultivate her desire to punish people she perceived to be inferior."
Hannah regained consciousness, shoving the boys away from her as she ran to Arceus. She had not heard his confession.
Her small hands were tender upon his pillar-like legs. "Are you hurt?"
Arceus bent his head, speaking with uncommon gentleness. "No, Hannah, that man and his Pokémon are no threat to me."
"Then let us end this."
Mounting Arceus once more, she and her pet hovered upward.
"Come back to us, Hanny!" Mint pleaded.
"Don't do this!" Manny joined in.
Hannah shook her head. Her words held an almost holy conviction: "We will create a new world, a new kind of life. A world where stupidity is punished, not rewarded. A world where cruelty is abhorred, not respected. A world of peace. A world of true life!"
Tears welled in her eyes at the poetry of her newfound power.
"A world where NO-ONE HAS TO DIE!"
She and her pet deity winked out of existence.