Hey guys, who are you doing? I bet most don't even remember this little battle freak here. Not that I can blame you, life kept from me writing until I got a request for AshxSabrina story. Yes, this is a romance story that ships Ash with Sabrina, so if you are offended or not content with it, please read my other series about pokemon battles. There is even a MistyxSerena battle story.
Disclaimer : I don't own Pokemon, else I would be on story board team instead of Fanfiction.
Without further delay, open the curtains.
Psionic beams rained across the valley, decorating it with rifts and deformations.
"This is an archeological site for god's sake." Sabrina grunted as focused on her barrier, a stream of blood clouding her right eye.
She was at least glad that none of her 'pscions' remained. Those youngins would die from sheer distortive telepathic force, if not from the follow up physical shockwave.
'How long until backup arrives?' It has been over 20 minutes since the SOS signal was sent.
"Alak-kazam" Her partner suddenly gave out, as waves of psionic energy filled her.
"Alakazam." Sabrina shouted. The psychic pokemon almost fainted before Sabrina caught him with her telekinesis. "You fool, you should charge up to teleport us out."
Tears threatened to burst, but she wasn't going to give in. If only that giant Alakazam hadn't intervened, things would have settled by now. Alas, the clash of giants outside the barrier ticked the clock ever closer.
What was meant to be a simple overseeing operation turned into a bloody battle for survival, with rampage and chaos above her pay grade.
-o-
3 weeks ago
Professor Oak's Ranch
"Beware the giants from distortion. For this sacred city was once, the servant of eternal shadow shall not engage the prisoner of earthly seal. As the day and night ran rampage, the world itself is an anomaly. May the toll of the bell soothe the anger, the mission of guidance still remains a secret unknown to man."
"Any clues yet professor?" Sabrina questioned as she yawned. 10 more times and she might have read this translation 100 times.
"I am a professor. Not a linguistic expert…"
She couldn't care less. She simply couldn't. On the first day, she thought everyone could make mistakes. But after a month of grinding this over and over, she was ready to throttle that archaeological genius who stubbornly held onto this tablet and provided them with a wrong translation. Sweet Arceus, why not leave the translation to translation experts?
She would have left long ago, had this been an order from the League. But it was Agatha who requested her. Sabrina respected and admired Agatha, especially her control of psionic powers.
From an objective point of view, this mission was critical. The tablet might be only the record of the ancient battle between two gigantic pokemon, Alakazam and Gengar. The archeological team even reported that the pokemon resurfaced during their excavations, calmed only due to the song of a gigantic Jigglypuff.
All of that sounded like a sham. Alakazams hate their physical body, preferring pure mental prowess over any physical cage. Gengars are shadows of the once alive pokemon. Not to mention, Jigglypuff is a mid stage evolution. So why are they all gigantic in the first place?
But what was undeniable was that a battle between a powerful psychic and ghost took place here. There are enough traces on sight, adding to the fact that she and Agatha felt powerful beings fighting on the day mentioned.
'Honestly, I am not at all fit for this. Why can't they hire Morty?'
Compared to her huge psychic powers, her knowledge was lacking. Thanks to her huge reserves and rampage during teenage years, she is more of a practical genius than a theoretical one.
"Miss Sabrina?" Professor Oak called out, pulling her out of her thoughts, "Do you think it is possible to contain geographical data into psionic seals?"
Sabrina thought for a second. She could see where the professor was going with this and it might be their best guess so far.
She pulled out all the books she had on teleportation and called out Alakazam and Espeon.
After 5 or so minutes of books flying mid air and flipping pages, she finally found the answer.
"Geographical locations aren't… stable enough to qualify as reference frames. Only dimensional coordinates relative to a rift-type anomaly as an anchor can be used. Additionally, telepathic memory links of a place can also serve in creation of such anomalies. That is how teleportation spells worked."
This was the best she could find for now. She might need to look into teleportation spells.
"Hmmm…" Professor Oak had that face when he felt pieces falling into place. Maybe they finally got a good clue?
"Can we be sure… that a memory link is vital to the process? The beings could have non-earthly origins too." Professor Oak enquired.
"Are you talking about ultra beasts, professor?"
"That is indeed a possibility. Professor Kakui recently demonstrated that wormholes can be opened outside Alola. But naturally forming is impossible. Add into the fact that clairvoyance abilities can transcend barriers of time and space…"
"That would require tremendous mental prowess. What you seek isn't clairvoyance, which goes off by the causality branches, but the ability to see through rifts."
"Then what about proxies? Summoning from both sides should decrease the burden."
"I don't think that is…" Sabrina took some time, adding in all the facts she knew with the professor's guess. "Possible. It is possible, but the nature of ultra-beasts is still unknown at large."
"Well, we have a resident expert for that." Professor Oak said, referring to the pallet trainer who was feeding his pokemon out on the ranch.
The youngest champion and world monarch in the history and the self-proclaimed but unchallenged pokemon master, Ash ketchum of Pallet town.
Sabrina was personally indebted to him. In his more naive phases of life, he had helped her broken teenage personalities to merge into a whole. Anyone else would have probably reported her and Agatha would have dealt with her. But he helped her due to his naivety and kind heartedness, something she will never forget.
"Go ask him. I am going for my overdue tea." Professor waved her away as he went to his tea rack.
'That is his 23rd cup today. How huge is this old man's bladder?' Sabrina questioned before shaking herself and teleported to where Ash was.
-o-
"Hey Sabrina."
Ash is the most interesting trainer she ever saw in her lifetime, and he probably will be for the foreseeable future. He isn't shrouded in mystery, his fiery personality and open heart left little to imagination about his intentions. He was more fitting of the symbol of pokemon master than anyone, even though no one but Ash alone knows its meaning.
But what Sabrina found interesting isn't his titles or battle prowess. No, it was something… different. She couldn't put her finger on it but it was something unique to him. Ash was one of the few people Sabrina had to concentrate to read their subconscious thoughts.
"Are you sure you aren't a psychic?" Sabrina asked as he sat beside him, looking over his herd of Tauros trample across the openfields.
"My Gengar is known as the master of shadow movements, so it isn't hard to feel when someone teleports nearby." Ash replied, with that ever bright smile as he looked over his herd fondly. Someone might mistake him for a farmer with how lovely looked at them.
"How many times Ash? Ghosts and psychics teleport differently." Sabrina was a little miffed he thought her and some ghost pokemon teleported the same. Her self made teleportation spell is something she was very proud of.
"Well, both of you are amazing in my view."
She could feel her blush coming and suppressed it successfully. This was another thing with him, the air around him feels… lively? Energetic? Whatever it was, it made her more sensitive and relaxed.
Normally, feeling this relaxed was dangerous. Her psychic powers, on par with fully evolved psychic pokemon, lacked the natural restraints the said pokemon have. This caused a passive leaking, despite her efforts.
This passive power was able to infiltrate most people's minds and read their thoughts with ease. This causes a certain amount of instinctive distrust from most people, probably their survival instinct. And over time, the energy assimilates her own signature into theirs, making them succumb to her. It was a great power to have if she wanted to be a tyrannical queen, not a young adult seeking out people to talk with.
But Ash had strong barriers. She needed to put some serious effort when she wanted to read and even then, he caught on easily. She could truly feel relaxed around her, a feeling of floating in clouds accompanying. It is an addictive feeling, one she should never fall into.
"So what brings you here, Miss Natsume?"
"Nothing much, is the resident expert of ultra beasts free now?"
"Of course. So, what happened? I am sure that the pokemon I saw that day are not at all ultra beasts."
"But perception manipulation is indeed possible right? Maybe what you saw resembled them?"
Sabrina forgot that of the people on the spot where the so-called clash between giant Alakazam and Gengar took place, Ash was one of them. Honestly, she was beginning to believe there were giant Alakazam and Gengar from Ash's admission, no matter the ridiculousness.
"That is a simple possibility. Another possibility is that we don't understand their species as perfectly as we thought."
"Setting that aside, was there ever any case of Ultra beast escaping Alola?"
"No. The Tapu guardians made sure no ultra beast ever saw the light of land beyond their islands."
"How about ultra beasts leaving any offspring nearby? From what I know, you raised one such."
"Which was passed onto me by the Tapu guardians. They kept a tight leash on all such things. I don't think ultra beasts ever had any influence on this matter."
Sabrina sighed. The lead on ultra beasts was proving to be more futile. Of course, since no one knew much about them, it was easy to list them off as the cause.
"Argh, for the sake of Arceus." Sabrina pulled her knees up and balled in, "Why would anyone care about the origins? Can't we just pull them out and defeat them?"
"I never thought you would say that. There is the danger of the pokemon escaping…"
"Then call in the experts. Me, Agatha and Morty along with all other elites should be able to handle the threat. I know they are powerful but not that powerful."
"Sometimes Sabrina, it is better to mess with the unknown."
Sabrina poked her head out at that remark. Ash took on a more mature and pronounced tone, which was rare from him, not that he isn't mature, mind you.
"Information is always useful. Trying to undermine its importance, especially for a battle, is digging your own loss."
"Comes from the guy that screwed up the entire type matchup charts."
Ash simply laughed at the remark, Sabrina too giving up. Today was a failure. But the sunset was looking pretty, so it isn't such a bad thing to end the day now.
"Whenever I see such a beautiful sunset, I am always reminded of the first day I saw Ho-oh." Ash recollected fondly.
"I also wish I could have seen Ho-oh. It was supposed to be very beautiful and vibrant, so full of life."
"It is the pokemon of life and hopes after all."
They sat there, in a comfortable silence as they watched the sun set, Ash's pokemon slowly returning to their nests or behind them.
-o-
It has been a few days since they crossed ultra beasts off the list. They left it for the last resort as it was very distracting.
And they finally made an accurate prediction. The temples constructed for these artifacts had sealing abilities. Surprisingly, they sealed off some sort of spatial anchors, which made them question why the artifacts were so near in the first place.
Her routine got appended with taking a trip to the ruins to check if her pscions (her psychic apprentices) caught anything interesting.
But today they were checking a very important guess. As such Sabrina was taking the dark artifact to the location of ruins.
Normally, she would have teleported. But they are only checking if the artifacts react to the location, thus no more spatial disturbances needed.
"Sabrina!"
While she was slowly floating towards the valley, she heard a familiar voice. She stopped and waited.
Seconds later, she heard a whistle no human should be able to do, followed by a blur flying towards Ash. She started slowly floating forward and Ash caught up to her on his Pidgeot. It was seriously huge for its species, making other pidgeots look like a pidgeotto.
"Are you going to the ruin?" Ash asked.
"Are you gonna give me a lift?" Sabrina replied. She would prefer to not strain herself.
"Sure, hop on."
Sabrina flew over and sat behind Ash. It was more like she leaned her back on his, feeling him stiffen. Pikachu climbed over her head and rested in her lap.
"Don't speed. Go as slow as you can, I am testing how far we need to get before we get a response in artifact."
"Isn't it going to be more dangerous if the pokemon inside was unleashed?"
"That is why the professor built this."
Sabrina showed Ash the clamps around the dark artifact. It was originally two large hollow spheres attached on opposite ends of a dense ball, but it now resembled a short dumbbell.
"The restrictors only let signals inside and not outside. Morty finally chipped in."
She was so happy when she heard Morty would help, but for some reason, she felt even happier when he said he couldn't be here personally. She wasn't sure why.
She stretched her arms, resting her head on Ash's shoulder. She flew on Pidgeot enough times to know she would never fall. Even if she did, she could float or Pidgeot would catch her in a blink.
She felt something electric in her psychic field. It was like experiencing something dangerous and exhilarating. She wasn't sure from whom the feeling was. In her relaxed state, she could even feel how the professor was with little concentration. But it was coming from the front.
'Ash?' Sabrina pondered but thought it was impossible. Ash's mental barrier was way too high to feel him.
"Hey Sabrina." Ash called out, "Don't you think you should be more… I don't know, stationary? I mean we are in the air, so stretching on my back might not be the best action."
Sabrina simply pushed off his back before floating and turning, falling on him forward. This time Ash stiffened up considerably.
"Oh come on, pallet's heart stealer. You speak as if all those tabloids on your little dates don't exist. You played around enough to not be this innocent."
She wasn't even kidding. Either Ash's luck was damn too high or he was really charmful, because he had close relations with too many single and beautiful girls. She would prefer the latter option, only because the first one seems impossible.
Ash simply sighed in response, before something washed over her senses. A range of emotions, from excited to exhilaration to nervousness and many more to name, burst out. And this time, there was no problem with finding the source, it was Ash.
The emotions were strong and strangely exciting. She leaned further, trying to get a better reading. Nervousness, excitement, panic, embarrassment, warmth and a few others that can cause her blush were floating strongly.
But she felt something she never expected. Expectation, anxiousness, a pinch of admiration, in a flavor that she knew as romantic interest.
"Ash?" Sabrina called out and all the emotions suddenly vanished as if they were a split second illusion. Ash's face was unreadable, he was looking straight at the valley that was nearing.
She didn't have an answer yet. She didn't know what was the right answer. Heck, she wasn't sure if that was what she saw. But she can't exactly ask him to show her another time. Maybe she could try asking politely.
Pidgeot dived down suddenly, pulling her out of thought as she concentrated on psychically anchoring herself.
"We reached the valley." Ash spoke with his usual smile but there was no over bustling excitement. Not that she can blame him.
Sabrina herself just nodded and got down, Pidgeot immediately disappearing in a blink, leaving dust clouds against her barrier. As if she was going to get dust on her.
She continued walking towards the site, pondering on what her response should be. She was really worried if she misread, after all it lasted only a second. But what was really worrying was her answer if she did read correctly.
Could she give a proper reply? He might be the "Battle God", but she was the "Mistress of mind". Would this last properly? Could she afford losing his friendship as it is now?
She wanted to pull her hair out but people were watching and she treasured it too much. Unfortunately for her, life wasn't giving her time to get her thoughts in order. She felt a near ominous level of psionic energy flow towards the artifact before the clamps broke.
Sabrina immediately tossed the artifact away, summoning her entire squad of pokemon before issuing commands for the pscions to teleport away.
She teleported those who were slow, but her pokemon were unable to contain the shadows from breaking free of the artifact.
The shadows swirled around the artifact, trying to gauge something. Suddenly one of the tendrils shot towards herself and her pokemon, Sabrina easily blocking it off.
'The report about it being able to absorb life force wasn't wrong.'
The tendrill was trying to suck her life force, to manifest something. Suddenly, the tendrils expanded outwards, catching onto all wild pokemon and trees nearby.
'Shit.' Sabrina thought before she set out to teleport all pokemon away from the vicinity. Luckily, a few already started running away, causing a domino of pokemon away from the artifact.
She teleported the slower ones, while her pokemon, guarded by her psionic barrier, focused on cutting down the tendrils.
It took a lot more energy than she expected, nearly half of her reserves, to clear all pokemon from the nearby area. Alas, the artifact gained enough from absorbing the trees alone, now taking on a shape.
The huge blob of purple shadows unfurled, before tattoos burst along its body and started to take on a shape. There was no doubt, it was a gigantic Gengar.
Her current team is composed of 2 Bronzongs, Sigilyph, Exeggutor, Slowking, Espeon, Gardevior, Gallade and Gengar out. Her 'raid team' is specialized in raining chaos and destruction, rather than being skilled fighters. And given how huge their hit area is, it will be hard to miss.
Giant Gengar's eyes flashed red, before a red bolt exploded towards her team. But the move was thwarted by Sigilyph's Protect, who immediately got to setting up a light screen.
The giant Gengar roared, the tendrils exploding in numbers and directions, before each fired the same red bolts.
Both she and her team collected behind Sigilyph, who activated Protect again. Bronzongs stood directly behind Sigilyph, firing flash cannons and hyper beam to cut down the rays. Espeon and Slowking prepared for a counterattack, with Calm mind and Nasty plot respectively.
The moment the barrage ended, Espeon vanished with Agility. Gengar blew out a dense cloud of Smog, Sigilyph's Air slash spreading it far. Bronzong used metal sound, while Gallade and Gardervoir released a shadow ball and moon blast combo onto the giant Gengar.
The giant was unmoved, two claws of translucent dark energy shredded through the combo. The smog was blown away by breathing out. But Bronzong already made its way up, hitting the giant Gengar with a gyro ball.
The giant gengar was ready to tank the move when large chunks of rocks flew at it at blitzing speed, thanks to Espeon's power gem. Slowking added Avalanche to the mix, Gardevior and Sabrina accelerating them to unholy speeds.
The triple combo left a dense cloud of dust and ice. Sabrina also placed a barrier of Bronzong, thus it was relatively unharmed. Sabrina mostly issued commands via telepathy and helped her pokemon in the form of barriers, acceleration or teleportation like Espeon.
But the giant Gengar was unfazed, unbothered by the attacks and swung another massive claw at Sabrina. All of them scattered but her Gengar was unfortunately caught, yeeting it far away from the battlefield.
Exeggutor used the attacks to launch a volley of seed bombs at the giant Gengar. One of the Bronzong used Gravity, tying down Gengar, while another pelted it with Bulldoze.
Slowking used another Nasty plot, while Espeon plotted a Future sight and Sigilyph set up Reflect. Gardevoir unleashed a large Thunderbolt.
Once the Gravity and Thunderbolt ended, Gallade zoomed past Gengar, hitting it with three consecutive psycho cuts. Slowking unleashed a Hydro pump on its face, Exeguttor and Gardervoir unleashing Extrasensory and Psychic.
The shadow tendrils shot up from below Gengar, twirling around it in the form of a bulb, before those red bolts rained down from the top of it.
'This attack seems to be a mix of Night shade and Dark pulse. That claw is probably a mix of Night slash and metal claw.'
This was Sabrina's first time dealing with mixed type moves. It shouldn't be realistically possible but the psionic energy behind these bolts was questioning that possibility.
'Ash was right. Information is important when fighting against unknown and strong foes.'
Sabrina regretted not bringing more pokemon with her since her limiter was removed due to the potentially dangerous mission. But Saffron city would be defenseless with all her main pokemon on her, so she brought only the raid team.
The bulb collapsed into itself, exploding into multiple fragments.
'Double team?' Sabrina realized as she saw multiple Gengars flew around the area. Soon, all of them morphed into Shadow balls, pelting the whole team with another barrage.
The tactic was useless, Sabrina already figuring out the counter. Bronzong used his gyro ball to ward off all nearby shadow balls, who stacked 2 Iron defenses previously. Sigilyph used Protect and Sabrina casted her psychic barrier.
Once the dark energy started to coalesce, Espeon ripped off large chunks with Power gem, stacking another Calm mind and Slowking, his 3rd Nasty plot stacked, materialized a legion of icicles.
Sabrina and Gardevoir accelerated the icicles and rocks at Gengar. The giant unleashed a torrent of shadow tendrils but Gallade shot out. Like a blur, Gallade used Sacred sword and Psycho cut, albeit at less power due to dual activation which was aided by a few Air slashes from Sigilpyh, to chop off the pieces and launch at the Gengar. Another Bronzong provided support with Metal sound.
The damages were finally visible. As she expected, the Gengar called upon a weird type of psionic energy to heal itself but Exeggutor intercepted it with a Giga drain.
The wide smile on Gengar's face contorted, the pokemon itself roaring in rage as all the energy left it.
Different types of lights collected near its face in an instant, unleashing a torrent of elemental columns the next instant.
Sigilyph deployed a Protect, Gardevior helping Sabrina strengthen her barrier behind it. Surprisingly, the attacks absolutely decimated the combined barriers. Slowking, Gardevoir and Espeon, ready for such a case, clashed with Power gem, Hydro pump and Thunderbolt.
"EXEEE" Sabrina heard a loud scream as she felt intense pain explode all across Exeggutor. Slowking and Gardevoir immediately poured out Heal pulse, Sabrina confused about what happened.
But that has to wait, as Gengar unleashed its next attack. Crimson bolts, brighter, intense and stronger than previous ones, rained towards her. Gallade brought out all his psychic power into his blades, slashing away at as many bolts as he could with Psycho cuts and Sacred sword.
Espeon vanished with Agility before the bolts fell, now unleashing another Power gem against them. In the meantime, another Future sight hit Gengar straight in the face, distracting it from the fight. This was enough, Bronzong clashing with a Gyro ball while the other used Hyper beam on stray bolts approaching them.
Bronzong, surprisingly, cut through Gengar's body. Exeggutor, finally got some of the pain under control, concentrated all the energy into a Sludge bomb and launched it at the Gengar.
The Gengar immediately tried to dodge, failing at it. But instead of getting hit by the attack, the dark aura from within the bomb seeped into Gengar.
This time, Gengar compressed itself to only thrice what was normal. But the power had increased. Exeggutor fainted, the move taking out too much from it.
Gengar flew forward, a dark claw ready to swipe at them. It met with Gallade's Sacred sword, the energies clashing wildly. Suddenly, Gengar twitched and was pushed back completely.
'What is even happening?' Sabrina carefully observed the current scene. She could feel that she was sorely missing something, the pokemon was weirdly damn too strong to tank all these attacks.
That was when she saw Gengar excrete some toxins through the tattoos. Realization finally clicked.
'That freaking monster wasn't a poison type.'
It all made sense. When her Gengar deployed Smog, she thought the giant Gengar focussed on her. But its objective was to get her Gengar out of the picture.
This was why the attacks weren't hitting that badly. Normal Gengars have 4 times weakness towards her psychic types, but this one only had 2 times. Additionally, those tattoos were related to its main body. Until those tattoos materialized, Gengar was unable to attack.
She conveyed her thoughts, another Future sight hitting Gengar. But it dodged the move and looked at Espeon.
Gengar zoomed at Espeon, ready to take it out. But Espeon escaped with Agility while Gengar met Gallade's Psycho cut.
The Sacred sword's optional attack buff activated thrice and Gallade poured all his energy out. The blades this time weren't simply glowing, they were smoking. Espeon, giving up on hiding the move, called for another Future sight. But the Gengar smiled widely, Sabrina felt something was very wrong.
Just as she ordered them to retreat, waves of electricity spread in all directions from Gengar, the pokemon escaping a Thunderbolt from Gardevoir. Gallade, Espeon and Bronzong trying to get in with a Gyro ball got hit.
Sabrina nor her pokemon could feel any differences. Gallade shook his head, launching at Gengar with another Psycho cut. Or that was what was supposed to happen. Sparks lit up as Gallade skipped across the ground, convulsing and losing all its psychic energy. Slowking immediately tried Heal pulse, but it too suffered the same fate.
'The hell? Disable mixed in with Thunder wave?' Sabrina realized late, Gengar successfully landed its claws on Gallade. Before passing out, Gallade informed her of the claw's power stealing ability.
'That claw has a Sucker punch embedded in it. Argh, there is too little data on this pokemon. I should have taken this more seriously.'
But help arrived, her Alakazam teleporting onto the field. That was when she was informed of the surrounding situation.
The giant Gengar played it clever, deploying a dome that was able to fool even her Alakazam, who came to her when he couldn't feel her signature. A loud roar, followed by slight distortions in the barrier helped Alakazam piece it together. The barrier was now finally broken, Sabrina sending another SOS signal. This pokemon was certainly dangerous.
She recalled all her pokemon, except Alakazam, Gardevoir, Slowking, Bronzong and Espeon. Espeon completed stacking another Calm mind, sitting at her 4th stack. Gardevoir used Heal pulse on Espeon and Slowking.
Her pokemon scattered, Gengar compressing further to half the previous size. It had tremendous speed, was able to merge into shadows and shot out highly concentrated and accurate beams.
Slowking unleashed the most wide spread Hydro pump it could, before pelting the whole space with Avalanche, repeating the scene to create an Ice field. Alakazam closely followed Gengar, hitting it continuously with Psyshock. Espeon used itself as bait, Gengar still running after it. This meant that Disable had a time limit.
Once the field was completed and Gardevoir reported positive on Thunderbolt, Gengar was baited into the center of the field. Slowking collapsed, out of stamina and returned. It wasn't worth the risk to keep him around.
Alakazam unleashed Shockwave from behind while Gardevior spread her Thunderbolt on the Ice field.
Bronzong, who hid in the trees till now, used Gravity to strongly hold down Gengar, Espeon breaking rocks from beneath the field to pelt Gengar with.
The attacks connected one after another, Alakazam releasing another Psyshock for good measure while Espeon set up a Future sight.
Gengar, apparently, wasn't out of cards yet. The tattoos elongated like whips and struck the unsuspecting Espeon and Bronzong.
Bronzong partially resisted but Espeon fell within moments. The move was a Sucker punch, but stronger. As Bronzong focussed on defending, Gengar unleashed all its shadow tendrils and struck down the pokemon.
Sabrina returned both the fainted pokemon, Alakazam able to cut off both the elongated tattoos while Gardevior unleashed a Moonblast onto Gengar's face.
The Gengar roared in pain, mostly from losing the tattoos. Cracks appeared in its form before the tattoos glowed. But the tattoos were noticeably smaller, finally giving her the answer.
'This is a projection of its main body. The tattoos must be the anchor.' She recently read about something like this, but it was only possible to a human medium.
Gardevoir finally moved from its spot, unleashing Thunderbolt after thunderbolt on the Gengar, Alakazam followed with Psyshock.
Gengar sparked once more, getting ready to cast the Disable. Sabrina and her team were faster, evading it with ease.
But out of the corner of her vision, another purple blob shot at Gengar, straight through the sparks. Her Gengar returned and before she could warn it, it pronounced on the giant Gengar.
The giant Gengar simply smirked at her own, as if it was doing something useless. But the smirk soon turned upside down as Gengar finally connected the Destiny bond.
Sabrina absolutely hated the move, but her Gengar insisted on keeping it. She never knew she would be thankful for that.
The giant Gengar roared in anger, but simply swallowed her Gengar into itself, growing to 5 times the normal Gengar's size. Unfortunately, Espeon's Future sight landed at that moment. Alakazam and Gardevoir pushed it through the giant Gengar, her Gengar rising out.
The move connected, her Gengar fainting in front of her own eyes. She was extremely frustrated by her last move, unfitting of her title of greatest psychic. But she didn't let her guard down, as crazy as the reason sounded.
Alakazam and Gardevoir attacked the giant Gengar who was resisting against the powers of bonds of Destiny. Sabrina returned her Gengar, getting ready for the next moment.
Just like she predicted, the Gengar really broke through the bonds. But this time, it roared with laughter. It happened in a flash, literally.
Crimson lightning flashed across the field, destroying the land. Tendrils of shadow and dark aura chaotically wailed all across the field. Sabrina was the only one left unhurt thanks to Alakazam's Teleport, her Gardevoir fainted and Alakazam took a good hit.
It was just them two against this monster. Help would arrive but how fast was questionable.
No sooner, a bolt of pure psychic energy blasted at Gengar. Sabrina looked towards the side with delight, before she paled. An Alakazam, sprouting tattoos of the same kind and insanely high psychic reserves was floating. The Gengar grew to its previous size, that Alakazam too grew to match it.
'Shit.' That was all she could say before the clash started, her barrier breaking multiple times across the battle.
-o-
'There should be a limit to how many unexpected things can be thrown within a day.'
Sabrina was still enclosed in her protective battle, the battle between somehow continuing despite Gengar's obviously weakened state.
Her energy reserves are quarter way full, thus she started tending to Alakazam. Her barrier shook slightly from the shocks, which still puzzled her. Alakazam's attacks aren't purely psionic in nature, which her barrier can block perfectly. There was some other power behind them, the same that caused a spike in the giant's psionic reserves just before its attacks.
Her surroundings were even worse. The stray beams from the giants were causing rifts in reality, connecting to the distortion realm of all planes. Looking at how nothing escaped from the rifts, Giratina must be working overtime. Its first job was to keep the ones inside inside.
Alakazam finally gained enough consciousness and used Recover to get back to a presentable state.
'Now, how do I end this?'
She didn't want to test if her barrier can hold among these rifts for long or if she could sustain forever in here. She needed to escape but not before she defeated that damned Gengar.
The easy part of the job is that she needed to get a proper hit on Gengar. The giant Alakazam was a brute, struggling to hit the crafty Gengar. But the difference in their wear was making things harder for Gengar.
The hard part was how to get out of the barrier. The waves of unknown energy sent shockwaves that penetrated her barrier. She didn't want to know how strong they were outside.
"Hey, need some help?"
Sabrina turned around to face the owner of the familiar voice. Her surprise grew larger when she saw him standing outside perfectly fine.
"Pardon my invasion." Before she could invite him into the barrier, Ash simply walked through her barrier. This baffled her even more, was her barrier that weak?
"I know you have quite the questions." Ash started after her questioning looks, "But let me ask you something. That Gengar, how many hits do you need?"
"One. But I need to get the hit properly, not from this barrier and not this far."
"Hmm…" Ash thought for a second before explaining, "That right there is a vessel of the Gengar. It isn't its original body, the tattoos serve as the links. Just destroy them. I am familiar with Alakazam's power, I can give you a minute. Get it done within the time."
Sabrina nodded, despite her apprehension of the validity of the presented data. She knew those tattoos were important.
Ash whistled, louder than any human possibly could. On the cliff far enough from the battlefield, Venusaur initiated the attack.
With Sunny day set up, all the grass pokemon unleashed the strongest Solar beam they could. Hyper beams, Flash cannon, Dark pulses, Dragon pulses and many other long range attacks joined the fray, unilaterally pushing Alakazam several feet back, even managing to chop off one of its legs.
The giant Gengar smiled, concentrating its energy to release a powerful version of the crimson lightning. Unfortunately, its arms were cut off by concentrated beams of energy.
Before it could even turn to face who the attacker was, its limbs were severed. The enemy was definitely targeting its tattoos.
With her psionic reserves full, Sabrina unleashed hell upon the Gengar. Working in tandem with Alakazam, she teleported Alakazam's Psyshock attacks to attack Gengar from multiple directions. Each attack was strictly focussed on the tattoos.
But before further attacks could reach, the shadowy tendrils once again encompassed Gengar. But this time, Sabrina had most of her energy to use and only one pokemon with high speed, Teleport and Recover to concentrate on.
All around Gengar, small and concentrated points of psionic energies appeared. And the barrage began. Highly concentrated beams of Psyshocks traveled from one point to another, multiple of them moving at blitzing speeds.
The beams were strong enough to break through anything and were faster than the tendril's regeneration. Gengar couldn't do anything as it was sliced into multiple pieces. Within 20 seconds, the fight ended with the tattoos reduced to dust. The dark artifact too couldn't survive the barrage, index sized rocks were the only remnants.
A moment later, all of the psionic energy within the dark artifact followed into the rifts, all remnants of the Gengar leaving this world. The giant Alakazam stopped in its tracks, looking at the scene with bliss as it turned into golden smoke and vanished into the rift. All that was left of it was a massive body of yellow and brown metal.
Sabrina finally sighed in relief, sensing no remnants of either giants. Ash, though, had bad news.
"Things aren't looking good yet Sabrina."
Ash's comment caught her attention as some blue lines shone across the surface of the metal, the giant chunks of metal rising up again.
"No, it can't be." Sabrina commented in horror, "I can't feel any living beings from that."
Even Ghost pokemon gave off conscious thoughts, a proof of being alive. But the metallic giant in front of her was completely void of any thought. It wasn't alive in any format. The chunks were simply floating around to imitate the giant Alakazam, but she couldn't feel any sort of psychic or spectral power holding them in place.
"It isn't alive to exclude any psychic signature." Ash commented, his Pikachu hopping down and fired a Thunderbolt into the sky.
"Rather, it is moving from the will of its creators during their last moments."
There were no psychic moves being thrown around, the simple swings on the giant were enough to create shockwaves across the nearby valley. It was incomparably stronger, physically at least, than before.
"The dark artifact was the anchor that helped the giant Gengar intervene in this world. But in order to sustain a physical form to intervene, it had to charge up the life force from living beings."
Strands of light burst out from Ash connecting with a blur of orange that flew past her and another blur of blue that ran past her. Both of the blurs shone and sped up even more after it died down.
Sabrina finally recognized them as Charizard and Infernape, in their Mega Y and Rage blaze form. She also noticed a Sunny day was set up, Charizard making full use of it as it exploded into waves of fire on the torso of the giant. Charizard didn't let up, as it got back up and rained a huge column of fire on the torso again.
Infernape, in its equivalent of mega evolution, climbed the giant by bouncing to and fro between its legs. It finally gave a powerful strike to the pelvic region of the giant, an explosion of fire raining down the legs.
"In order to combat the pokemon that stole their loved ones and sucked out all of their life slowly, one of my predecessors chose an extreme solution." Ash continued his explanation, as if the eruption of fire behind wasn't happening.
The giant didn't melt down, the heat only getting it to faintly glowing. Another shadow formed above the valley, courtesy of Greninja.
What was a bright and sunny sky turned ferocious and rained buckets in an instant. All the water started condensing into the rotating water shuriken Greninja was holding. Other water pokemon too helped as they blasted the hydro pump to charge it.
Greninja, in its battle bond form called Ash Greninja, uncrossed its arms holding the shuriken. The giant rotating blade of water released multiple arches of water shots at the metallic giant, watering down its entire surface in an instant. The steam generated clouded the entire surroundings, a resounding thud confirming that the giant toppled.
"You see, every living being in this world has a power that moves to live. It is the power that holds their true potential that is rarely unleashed, as most are born with just enough to live their lives. But there are some who are born with more, those who can manipulate this power in others with the excess they possess."
The flying birds flew around the giant, dissipating the steam in time for a barrage of ice type moves that froze the giant along its surface. The age old strategy of heating and cooling down the surface of the metal multiple times and quickly to weaken it.
"This power is called Aura. And the ones gifted with the ability to control it are Aura masters. Among these Aura masters, once every few generations, there is a person born with unnatural amounts of Aura. The one born with the power to unite the worlds of people and pokemon or topple the world balance."
The sunny day was once again set up, the grass pokemon pelted the giant with Solar beams and Leaf storms. The herd of Tauros surrounded the giant from high ground, using multiple Fissures and Earthquakes to keep the giant from reacting. Amidst all these, Sceptile, mega evolved, was going around breaking the extremities of the giant.
"They are called Aura guardians and I am this generation's Aura guardians. So was the one that created this pitiful husk. In a rage against the giant Gengar, he transplanted the power of his Alakazam into this giant body of mithril, an alloy of titanium and steel. But the price was his own body, as he himself acted as the conduit between them."
Sceptile ran away from the fallen titan. The ground stopped shaking as the giant tried to get up with its beaten up body.
But before it could, another volley of Flash cannon and rocks pelted it. Lycanroc burst out huge chunks of rocks, which Tyranitar literally yeeted onto the giant, mixing in some rocks of its own.
Pikachu and Ash looked at each other, nodding before Ash threw his hat to Pikachu.
"The task of fighting against the Gengar, which was the will implanted by the guardian has ended, thus the being within perished. But the empty husk still possessed huge chunks of Aura."
Pikachu and Ash performed their Z-move dance, getting ready to deliver the final strike as Rain dance was used again while multiple Hyper beams and Draconic attacks kept the metallic undead at bay.
"What will be left within it is the last wish of Alakazam whose psychic powers were implanted in, to run away and survive from the soul shattering pain." Sabrina could feel a huge burst of energy flowing towards Pikachu as they completed their Z-move. "And it is time to break away this specter of its false life. Beyond the limits of thunder, let us go, Pikachu."
Pikachu hitched a hike towards the giant from Pidgeot reaching in an instant and charged up all the thunder from the clouds.
The power that was oozing from Pikachu was comparable to that of a legendary, no it was more than that. Even the giant started crawling away, losing all hopes to battle.
"Unleash the greatest disaster onto this world, at full charge, Pikachu, use 1 billion volt catastrophe."
Sabrina had to agree on the name. The attack, which was never publicly displayed even in the championship battles, was pure disaster. The thunder ripped apart the entire valley into dust as the metallic giant was torn apart, some parts even melting on contact. Beyond this, everything was too bright and loud for Sabrina to even concentrate, her self-preservation instincts making her erect a barrier around her.
When the bright explosion ended, the valley became a deep crater. It was as if a meteor had freshly fallen, molten metal and earth all over place while the surroundings were full of broken rocks and metal.
"May you rest in peace, O fallen one." Ash prayed, as Sabrina started processing everything that happened.
Too much was happening this day and she didn't know where to start. Ash was reclaimed as the "God of Battle", the strength of his pokemon enough to shake the stadium if they got enthusiastic. But this? This wasn't in the realms of trained pokemon, this was a power similar to legendary pokemon.
"Sabrina." Ash called out, bringing her to the present. "Like you, even I have to suppress my leaking aura. Aura enhances your inner potential, irrespective of whether the current you can handle it or not. But around you, I can relax. All my aura can do is hasten your regeneration of psionic reserves, since you have already reached the peak of your natural strength. I know this is blunt and not the reason probably, but I want to give us a try."
Sabrina could understand what Ash was getting to. Fated partners, soulmates and all that fairy tail concepts were not reality, more so to her. She knew it from more experienced people around her, you don't get a perfect partner, you and your partner become the perfect fits. That is why you date and that is what it means to love, to move further to understand and complement each other.
For her, the initial barrier itself is too high. She would be hard pressed to find a young person, at least one below 30 that can withstand her relaxed state psychic leakage. That was a part of her, separating that out was simply denying her reality. And Ash can take on all of that and more. It was more than enough reason, for she had seen people marry for far stupider reasons and live happily.
At the end, what matters is how your partner is. And Ash was perfect, as far as she can see. Objectively, not. But for her, he was and that is all it matters.
Sabrina smiled in reply, this will be an extremely new chapter in her life. She could only hope this would a prolouge for a better romantic life ahead.
Spoilers: It is. They will have a sweet sweet romantic life that fits your bill.
I debated on ending the story like this, but ultimately this felt right. I see AshXSabrina shipping as a more mature one and wanted to steer away from all the chosen partners and such fairy tail romance concepts. It might seem like it but no, Sabrina could still find some other psychic or ghost specialist and Ash another master. True, they would need to work on themselves and their relationships, but that is what love is about. It is about working out your issues since you love your partner enough to do that. If this feels any kind of wrong, take it with a grain of salt. It will just be my inexperienced opinion.
Anyways, hope you liked the story and would love to hear what you have to say on the story. But please keep it to constructive critism in case of negative remarks, my heart can't take others.
Until next time
- Junior