I flinched, and so did she, when we felt an angry aura coming from inside the cave.

"We'll continue this later, okay?" I asked, nuzzling her. "Right now, I'm happy to be escaping with you."

She rolled her eyes with a glare, but failed to stop her smile.

I smiled, then turned to—

I gasped, stepping back, when a fast and frosty beam of ice flew pass mere inches away from my face!

Levie cried in pain. I immediately turned, and saw her pained features frozen inside a chunk of ice!

"L-Levie!" I shouted, scratching the ice in a panic. I growled and limped back when one of my nails broke from the base. I ignored my bleeding paw and took a deep breath. Fire melts ic— "Gah!"

A strong water pressure struck me from behind, slamming me towards Levie, and pinned me there for a few seconds. When it was over, I coughed and shivered as I lied on the soaked and muddy ground.

"Graaah!" Latios suddenly flew out of the cave's mouth. He stopped, flew higher, and charged a beam while glaring at me. He fired, and I immediately channeled all of my willpower to protect Levie and I.

The impact was head-splitting powerful, but I managed to block it with Protect or whatever. A loud explosion shook the ground and smoke covered my vision. My mental vision is poor for being a Flareon, yet I was too weak to change into anything else. I could barely stand up, b-but I needed to!

I gritted my teeth and stared at Levie's frozen form. I took another breath, but coughed when I inhaled some of the smoke.

A big and blue paw suddenly emerged from the smoke, and I yelped and tried to back away, but it reached me, and pinned me down on my neck!

"I take it that you're Shadow?" a deep voice asked. When the smoke finally cleared a bit more, I saw the owner of the paw that was choking me: Suicune. Despite my attempts of pulling and clawing his paw off of me, Suicune looked as if my attempts meant nothing to the damn thing!

"Let him go!" Latios shouted, floating overhead. "He's mine! He hurt my sister, so I'll make sure to give him what he deserves!"

Suicune calmly closed his eyes. "I never thought you'd be that kind of Pokémon, Latios."

"I don't know what you meant, yet I don't care!" Latios snarled, charging yet another beam, this time, in between his hands. "I'm warning you one last time. Move!"

Suicune slightly turned his head, enough to give the floating legendary a one-sided glare.

I calmly took a slow yet deep breath. I slowly turned my head, and violently let out a stream of fire towards my frozen mate. I grinned, while ignoring how painful to the lungs that was.

I was about to shout for Levie to immediately run away, but Suicune added more pressure on my neck. I could hardly breathe now.

The flames cleared, but Levie was still frozen solid! W-why?!

I...I tried looking around, but I couldn't find anyone who could be responsible for what just happened! Even Latios appeared to be surprised! No! H-how'd—

"Give. Jay. Back!" a Vulpix marched towards us from the cave, her eyes slightly glowing. Her fur had scratches and dirt all over. ...she dug her way up?!

I felt the paw on my neck slowly being lifted up. Suicune calmly stepped aside as I immediately gasped for air, ignoring my shrunken form...

A stomp on the muddy ground captured my attention, and I glared at the glaring Vulpix who now stood before me. "Give," she hissed, "Jay. Back."

I coughed when I took another attempt of a deep inhale. After that, I wheezed, yet grinned at her. "...I...I'd love to see you try."

Her glare intensified, and she opened her mouth wide, immediately charging fire, yet she hesitated.

I grinned even further. "Y-your mate's not coming back. Wanna know why?" I prepared my paws. "'C-cause I killed his spirit before I took over!"

"Lies!" She blasted me with her raging fire, burning all over, but with gritted teeth, I immediately shot my paws up and grabbed her face, and turned it towards Levie. She immediately stopped after she realized what I just did, but it was enough. I couldn't see pretty well, yet I heard Levie's lovely gasp, and the sounds of broken ice.

"Levie! Leave!" I shouted blindly. "R-Run!"

I heard a snarl, and a painful claw that swiped my paws away from the Vulpix.

I heard sounds of attacks, followed by her pained cry. "S-Shadow?!"

"Run! J-just run away!"

I heard a powerful sound of some sort of attack, and it was followed by multiple voices of pain. Suddenly, I smelled a familiar scent from the one nuzzling my neck. "I...I can't leave you behind!"

"I-idiot!" I snarled as I felt her pushing me on my stomach, then biting behind my neck to carry me. "T-they might get back up and get you!"

"Indeed I will," I blinked in time to see Darkrai appearing right before us, arms both outstretched.

I felt Levie tremble with a stifled yelp, and I saw the ground before us glowing in bright darkness.

"Goodnight," was the last thing I heard before the darkness consumed us.

Author's Note: This chapter took a lot of revising. I originally planned for Jay to be accidentally be transferred to the evolution gem, and then the gem itself creates him into a Diancie or something, and then runs after Shadow and Levie, who were currently battling the legendaries outside the cave, but meh, it felt like a severe case of "protagonitis", so I settled with this one instead. Deal with it~