"Kogeki wants to find Raigeki."
Rumble groaned; he was getting to his limit, but physically and mentally with Kogeki's attitude. Having to physically restrain the larger pokémon and drag him around when he decided he wanted to go the wrong way was tiring.
"You've said that already," he snapped. "Dozens of times. This past hour! Shut up!"
Kogeki snarled at him. "Kogeki finds Pyroar's insistence aggravating."
"Well, Pyroar finds Kogeki's third-person talk maddening!" he snarled back.
"Do not badger Kogeki for his manner of speech."
"Oh shut up, shut up, shut up!"
They did not make a good team, really. Without Tempo to separate them or Indeedee's presence to keep them behaved, the two were snapping at each other every few minutes.
Really, the idea of ditching this whole psycho plot was getting more tempting every minute. Whatever had gone down, from what he'd been able to overhear before this psychotic brute lashed out, Indeedee's whole idea to shatter the backbone of the continent and break the wills of her enemies failed miserably.
As terrified and pained as those pokémon clearly were, there was no hesitation to move, no consideration to lay down and accept what was happening. They still believed they could survive this. He had to give a paw to whoever had punched the bitch across the face hard enough to make these pokémon believe in hope again.
Even if a thought so saccharine as 'believing in hope' made him want to gag.
Tempo had no fucking idea what she was doing. He'd happily bet a few poké that she'd decide that maybe there was another way out of this and blow her cover. She hadn't been suffering from Indeedee's company for long enough to realise this was a truly messed up freak.
The two of them had. He'd give a paw to Kogeki as well; to be stuck in a cage for years at her mercy would drive anyone insane, but besides his third-person speech, he seemed relatively intact.
He, of course, was as fine as always. He'd grown up under a Shadow Pokémon's tender care; he could deal with mother's mother and get through that too. Mother had ditched the freak after all.
Rumble's face twitched as he remembered.
/
He'd heard the voice. He'd seen the face. He'd felt her hand on the back of his neck. He'd known the trace of flames on his back. He knew she had drunk in his screams as he burned until he could no longer scream and consumed the rest of his pain.
He'd lived a dangerous life from the first time he'd stepped out of the egg into the cold embrace of a creature. He'd known freaks as he ran off with Father; Father really had no shame or reluctance to do anything to survive. He had to respect that much, at least, even if the morpeko was pathetic otherwise.
He'd known pain, but nothing like that. He'd known sadists, but nothing like her.
Indeedee could share emotions, subsisted on gratitude, but it was quietly known that they could take emotions as well. Share in them so deeply that it was pulled away. This was used by the kindest of them, drawing away pain and misery from victims.
He'd known a gentle healer the first time he'd felt something other than some sort of pain. He was a good guy, still young but dying. Indeedee could live forever, it was said, but none ever did. Gratitude was healthy but bland. They could take pain and misery, fear and depression, hatred and fury. They could take your pain from you, or at least they could ease it for some time.
It was toxic to them, however. Eventually, it would cut them down. Eventually, the pain would kill them, whether in a grand sacrifice or decades to centuries of passive aid.
This freak, though. This monster. She'd fed on his agony to the point he'd barely felt it anymore, or maybe that was his nerves dying to the heat. The pain she must have experienced would be unthinkable. And she shuddered in pleasure as she had done it.
An indeedee who enjoyed pain. How was something like that still alive, let alone for so long? She'd always been the mayor of Blackstone Village.
His answer came as he crawled out of an undying nightmare, monsters pressing at everything begging to be let in. He held it off for what felt like decades, centuries even of undying resistance against the monsters seeking to dominate him. He would never be small again; he would never allow Mother and Father to push him into the dirt again.
Even undying determination had a limit. He failed, and It took him. He woke up and knew immediately what she was. How she was still alive.
Yet so did she, and so she waited for him to ensure he could not reveal her corruption to the world.
What a freak. She knew what she was. What she was doing. And oh, did she revel in it. Revel in the disgust of the disgusting. The contempt from the contemptible.
She knew she likened herself to the worst of the worst. The creature even the wretched scum thought was sick, all wrapped in her veil of civility.
He knew it because she liked to talk, just to see what could turn his stomach and unsettle him even as a fellow abomination.
"I knew your mother, you know?" she had said gleefully one day. It was a week into 'working' with each other. He hated to play any of her games, but he couldn't deny he thought that was interesting.
She knew it and was amused by his unwillingness to show it, able to sense it all the same.
"Such a driven pokémon Scorch was." Indeedee loved to use others names yet never told her own. Another dominance thing, he felt. She knew who you were, but you were guessing with her. "She was a bit of a go-getter," she had chuckled at that. Those words never meant the same since Team Go-Getters. "Was a member of the Clefable Guild even. A hunter of outlaws."
He had not known that. Father did not like to speak about Mother, and he'd only known the terrifying creature that eyed him hungrily.
"If she was, then how'd she get turned into what she was?" Rumble asked, almost unwillingly, but he was curious, and he could tell Indeedee wasn't going to continue without a prompt.
She so loved people playing along.
Her grin widened a fraction as he did so. "Oh, who do you think, Rumble dear?"
"How'd you do it?" he asked, satisfied himself when she seemed taken aback for a moment. "What? I'm curious. I know you killed me."
"Not as dramatic, I'm afraid," she replied, her surprise passing into nostalgia. "Wasn't intended to be honest. I was feeling a little stressed and took myself into a dungeon for some…stress relief. We ran into each other, and I simply saw no need not to indulge. Her screams were impressive."
Even in his state, it was hard to imagine his mother as anyone besides the megalomaniacal monster she always had been. To even think of who she could have been…before.
Haunting in a sense, to imagine what his life could have been if it weren't for the creature before him, drinking in his maudlin wonderings.
"She was always impressively difficult to control, however," Indeedee added without any prompting, seemed she was lost in her own wonderings herself. "Was always a 'go-getter'. Always felt like she knew what was best. Really, I've dealt with so many power-hungry maniacs in my time that it once it was clear that she'd ultimately try and betray me at an inopportune time, it was time to let her go."
"Why wouldn't you simply kill her?" Rumble asked. "She knew about you. She could have revealed your nature to the world."
"I'm sure many would ask the same about why I allowed Soothe out as well." He didn't really know that name. "Much of the reasoning was the same. Simple curiosity. People have tried to 'drag me' in public forums before, it doesn't end as they expect it will. Regardless, she had no reason to out me beyond pettiness, something she was beyond."
"Then why were you curious?"
Indeedee smiled at him. He hated that smile. Cordial, amused, pleasant. It was not an expression her face should be able to make so convincingly. "Well, her plan was fascinating after all. It wasn't something for me, no, and that's where our disagreement manifested. Ultimately, she was a little bit too megalomaniacal and wanted to 'breed' her own army of Shadow Pokémon."
Rumble had felt chills upon hearing those words and still felt them now.
"A test, really, to see if the condition could be passed on, or if it couldn't if the children could be raised in such a way as to maintain themselves once they were turned. Her children would have children of their own; in whatever way they could, she'd breed her forces and then take over the world. Really, I was quite curious if such a thing could work. Those under our corruption tend not to find carnal needs as apparent as they may have once before."
That was true, and he hated that too.
"… that's why you released me, wasn't it?" Rumble had whispered, horrified. He'd never dared to ask why she had let him out, as, of course, it had to have been her. Why him? Why him?
Indeedee's smile dipped into a smirk for a moment, a face he was cursed to see. "Yes, Rumble. Clearly, you weren't already Shadow, so I had to test her theory. So far, she's had a one hundred percent success rate."
"So far?"
"So far."
"You're going to go for Mane, then?"
"Does that bother you?"
It didn't, actually, and he bared a nasty smirk. "He's a fragile little kitten. You'll get nothing more than another one of those animals you lock up from him."
Indeedee's smile didn't fade. "Only one way to find out," she trilled. "Just one way, Rumble."
He knew what mistakes his mother had made. She was too power-hungry, too obvious. He didn't need to rule the world, but he could sure survive in whatever hellscape Indeedee was going to turn it into later. He'd even be one of the greats. He could have his choice of the women and the men if he felt spicy.
Mother had willed it after all; take what you want, regardless of anything.
His mother had ditched the psycho indeedee.
Surely he could too?
Find a place to hold out against the coming storm.
Surely….
"Are you for real?" Nelia asked, raising an eyebrow at the pyroar before her.
"Dead serious," Scorch shot back, smoke billowing from her mouth as she worked herself up to strike at any moment.
Nelia continued looking at her dubiously, raising the eyebrow even further until the rest of her face began to get affected by the pull.
Scorch was tensed like a wound spring in a garage, ready to snap and split a stupid kid in half at a moment's notice.
Nelia let the tension rise to that snapping point; she could feel the ambient heat of the room raise and decided she didn't want to pay for repairs and shrugged. "Alright."
Scorch almost deflated. "What?"
"I said alright," she replied. "Clearly, you need some space in this relationship; I'm not clingy. I'll let you go."
Scorch took a step back, still painfully wary. "You're going to just let me go?"
"As long as you promise not to spill any beans," Nelia replied soothingly. "And considering your own plans, I don't think you even need to promise. I trust you."
No, you don't, was written all over Scorch's face. She didn't know what to say to that, however. She took another step back. Then another.
"Keep me posted, Scorch. Maybe a postcard of wherever you end up."
Scorch backed to the door, pushed it open, and then bolted.
Flashback Nelia looked at the closing door with a half-smile before moving on to the next flashback.
/
Nelia sat at a desk lit by a torch, poking a little plastic pen at a greying piece of paper. She'd found the pen when delving deeper into a local dungeon and rather enjoyed the utility it brought. Dungeons so rarely divulged their deeper treasures, even to her, but the objects were always interesting.
She wondered what other things humanity had crafted in the timeline where she had failed at the apex and was struck down for her efforts. She had some ideas, but it was rarely worth the effort to find ways to look and learn.
She listed notes in a modified, lesser form of unown script that her closest companion had taught her. Called it English, such a funny word.
She'd burn the notes later anyway. The number of people able to read unown was few, and fewer still probably would determine quite what these words were. The chance was not worth the risk, and she knew as by the words listed upon this paper why chance tended to not favour her.
Division – Pokémon is too separated to accomplish in any actual amount of time.
Betrayal – Countless times. Someone always thinks they can lead better.
Ability – I wasn't strong enough on many occasions.
Legendary Pokémon – They just had to empower the world, didn't they?
Means – I can't contain enough Shadow in an object without a dungeon forming.
Means Again – I can't acquire enough Shadow in the first place.
Arceus – Holds The Shadow back.
Unity – Alone, I haven't been able to defeat a united front.
Betrayal Again – The larger my forces become, the quicker this happens.
'Legendary' Lucario – Fuck her. Thank Soothe for the sarcastic quotation marks; note: do it sarcastically.
Psychic Network – Changes my terror tactics, could still be abused if they grow reliant on it.
Unity Again – Violent Shadows have proven to be uncontrollable in large-enough numbers.
Apocalypses – Fuck you, Dark Matter, turning my forces to stone.
Betrayal Yet Again – Someone always has to be 'noble' even as a Shadow.
Means Again – I don't have the pieces to succeed.
She reviewed it one last time; she could start listing specific failures during the millennia but chose not to. Scrunching the paper up before burning it in her hands, she dusted the ash away and stepped out to visit her favourite.
Violent beasts and simpering traitors were abundant in her line of work, but there was one person she knew she could count on.
Because she was fully aware of the sides they stood on, but the not-so-audino was a valued source of information the likes of which she couldn't have dreamed of. Someone not merely from the future, but possessing information beyond the scope of their worlds?
Sure, with enough effort, magic, or just the right location, one could peer into mirror dimensions or the timeline splits, but whatever 'Soothe' carried was far more than that. She could barely fathom what she knew and could barely get a glimpse of it either.
Soothe was terrifically tight-lipped about the conditions of her knowledge, and Nelia knew she only released the tiniest little slivers of non-importance to gain a modicum of relief. Still, scraps of shards of an idea of what might be beyond were more than Nelia had ever imagined, and she was eager for more, more, anything more.
Interestingly enough, she even asked about things she had no use for. It was a handy distraction than pouting over her failures and wondering what could be done about them.
She was curious about so many things. Who this audino was. Who they had been to each other in a time beyond here. She knew Soothe despised her beyond words, which was impressive considering how many words Nelia had heard over her millennia of living.
She'd been called some pretty nasty things, but even she couldn't quite decide on a word for the malevolent storm of sheer hatred Soothe carried within her at the sight of the indeedee.
I mean, yes, maybe she tortured her a considerable amount, but that usually bred fear and submission than more defiance.
She'd let Soothe out a few times, out of the tiny cramped cage she was imprisoned in. It was best to give a taste of freedom to remind your prisoner of what they could have before stuffing them back into the cold and the dank.
She let her run one day. Ignored her stealing something thin and sharp as to open her cage. Run so far. She engineered a brave pokémon, a zangoose, to go after her, speaking of this terrible escaped prisoner who had attempted to steal a time gear. She made sure they had enough time together for pathetic little Soothe's sad story to sway him into realising she was a victim and not the enemy.
Soothe had a brief glimmer of hope that she might get out of this. However, when it came to running farther, she hesitated. To leave was to leave Indeedee to carry on. Despite Spire's insistence that living was better than revenge, she ignored him.
Nelia made sure to kill Spire in front of her because he didn't run either; he wanted to save her.
It was very cute, all things considered. Then, back to the cage.
For most, that would have been enough. To realise that their hatred had shattered their chance, however fake that chance was, to live again and end the life of another.
Just for an extra kick to the wound, after he revived as a screeching animal, his cage was near hers, so she could see what reward her choice had warranted.
At least he was useful now. Soothe would give her information if just to ease what was left of Spire into a lulled silence. She didn't actually take away the Hunger. Rather she merely set him to sleep with a powerful Hypnosis. Soothe didn't need to know that, however.
It was heartening to see how much she held onto care, love even, in her proverbial heart. Even as yet another of the monsters around her, she pretended otherwise. Trying to become her own mask. She'd tried that with Rhythm and Trill, and now she was here.
Some people never learn~
"Good afternoon, Soothe," Nelia trilled as she stepped into the jailed area. Screaming and shouting all began to fall silent upon seeing her; Nelia was a terrible sight to behold even for the broken remains of the animals around her.
Even as immortal berserking shadows, they knew who held the reigns here.
It wasn't all silent; they sadly weren't that controlled. Even these ones, her newest pet project, to see if she could complete her plan. It was taking a few decades, but after the last plan was fucked by Lucario, she had to do it slowly, quietly. See if she could control them before she did anything overt.
Results were relatively disappointing so far. They feared her, but most still took the chance to run if the opportunity was offered. The Shadow Regeneration is almost working against her in this regard.
Still, she wasn't here to test them. Just for a chat.
As a reward for a bigger piece Soothe had divulged, this time about the nature of Victini and the V-Wheel, she'd moved her from a cage sized for two dedenne to one that she could actually stretch her legs in.
Small sacrifices, she would still be eager to see the outside at any time. She now could actually enjoy it without her legs being too weak to enjoy it. More reason to do as she was told and be rewarded in such a fashion.
It wasn't her usual style, but if torture didn't work, she could be the hand that fed rather than the hand that hit.
Soothe's eyes were so green, darkened with years of pain and imprisonment. She'd wandered for over four years before she wound up in Blackstone Village. In all of her time, Nelia had never encountered someone who had restrained the Hunger for so long. She almost refused to believe it.
Someone like that had to be studied, and from there, she'd learned so many wonderful things.
And she wanted to know so much more.
Soothe languished in Nelia's company for over six years. Over six years of rickets, torment, imprisonment underground with screaming nightmares begging for death, to inflict or receive it.
Six years as she slowly dragged out what she knew. She learned of the names of the games, what they were, the general plot. Deeper, the characters, the events, even personal and impersonal theories of the game.
"Tell me again, what's the difference between the three versions? Why three, why just for that game?"
"I've told you already. Time and Darkness just had different pokémon in some dungeons, no characters or events or anything."
"But 'Sky' was different?"
"It had…changes, yes."
"The Shaymin Village, Destiny Tower, and the Zero Isle Centre."
"Yes."
"Hm. Nothing else was different? Nothing in the story, the set-up, anything at all?"
"…one thing, I guess."
"Oh?" Nelia leaned in, intrigued. Soothe's eyes flicked to an animal imprisoned a few cells down from her, a manectric who shouted broken words frequently. "In Amp Plains, there wasn't a Luxray group, but a Manectric and Electrike horde. I don't know why they changed it, I guess because you could have a shinx as a partner in Sky."
How interesting.
As far as she could tell, Sky appeared to be the true version of events, as close as that had to their situation at least.
Word had it that Electric-type pokémon liked to run through Amp Plains, a fascinatingly unchained dungeon that simply continued to spread. She'd been there numerous times out of simple curiosity; there was a shinx-line family who claimed much of it as territory.
That was incorrect in this world now, wasn't it?
Soothe had no idea what to think when Nelia took the next berserkers out for a test and returned with one missing. If she had put thought into it, she might have assumed that the manectric simply failed whatever test and had to be put down. It happened on occasion.
She had no idea that he had been released instead, with a burning thought implanted into his head.
Amp Plains.
Years later, when listening to Scout talk about his partners, she'd remember that conversation and hate herself just a little bit more.
Manectric had run swift and relentless, tore through an unassuming chimecho on the road before continuing, needing to relieve the burning requirement to take the dungeon. It attacked during a thunderstorm and destroyed a family.
Sometime later, after contact with Chimecho had been made, she'd learn about the survivors of the tragedy and be pleased that the plan had worked. After all, the world was in danger, and the story had to play out appropriately.
Soothe did not tell her about the Relic Fragment.
She knew anyway.
People don't keep secrets from Her.
Rumble was getting really tired of stumbling around a forest, doing bumfuck, all nothing. He expected some sort of word, signal or something to confirm there was a plan running and that it wasn't just panic and run around.
He'd feel a little less jilted by everything that Indeedee was if she at least had some sort of idea what she was doing, but he had a bad feeling that she made a lot of it up as she went.
Largely because then she was so much harder to stop….
No, he couldn't risk thinking these kinds of thoughts. Even desertion was risky; he knew that she knew he knew she knew he knew that she knew that he wanted out. That was terrifying.
The only distraction to them was Kogeki's inspired commentary.
"Kogeki hates these trees." He kicked at one, and it fell over.
"Kogeki loathes the grass stabbing into his paws!" He discharged a blast of electricity and probably would cause a fire from the smouldering remains of the grass.
"Kogeki loathes the bald!" He attacked what he thought was a machamp but was actually a very nicely carved sculpture of one. "Kogeki HATES being tricked!"
"Kogeki is a little bitch," Rumble muttered under his breath.
"Kogeki hates whispers; what was that?"
"I said look at that!" Rumble pointed left, Kogeki looked, when he looked back, Rumble was gone.
He growled. "Kogeki enjoys hide and seek."
Rumble appeared with a grimace. "Great, you made it worse." Freaks, so many of them around him.
Kogeki moved to say something else before a strong wind picked up, and he froze, his nose twitching as he sucked in a breath. He seemed to savour it for a moment, deliberating before another breath.
Then he snapped his head to the right. "Raigeki. Arashi." And then bolted off at a full sprint.
Rumble cursed and sprinted after him, calling the name he liked to say himself so often. "Kogeki! Kogeki! Slow the fuck down!"
"RAIGEKI! ARASHI! RAIGEKI! ARASHI!"
Rumble felt almost pity for whatever shinx-adjacent Kogeki had mistaken for his children and the grisly fate that Kogeki would inflict when he reached them. He'd seen the luxray in the massacre of Blackstone Village, and quite frankly, despite being locked in a cell for years, he didn't fancy his chances against something that savage.
He almost didn't want to run after him, but he was an ally at the moment, and he was loathed to lose the only one he had. Kogeki hated Indeedee just as much after all.
Rai, Ara, and Mane walked along under heavy clouds. Since leaving to return to Treasure Town, there had been constant clouds but little rainfall. Crackles of thunder boomed overhead, Rai pressing closer to Mane to calm himself even as Arashi beamed at the sky for its cry.
It had been nearly two weeks; they had to be getting close now. They weren't going straight to the escape point; the pokémon would move. Rather they hoped to cut across them and join up with the group; wherever that was, they'd find out.
It was day, but the heaviness of the clouds cast a shadow across everything. Arashi was more heightened than ever, the buzz of electricity in the air livening her joints, and she grinned more than once at the savage sky. She loved thunderstorms brought back good memories.
The air was thick with the smell of oncoming rain, the charge of lightning, and the stink of the forest. She breathed in deeply as the wind changed.
And caught something strangely familiar. She didn't pause or come to a stop, but her paws did lead them slightly across from the path they were making, neither of the kitties behind her even noticing. She didn't even notice entirely; the nose knows.
This was a mistake, as all defiance is.
They didn't find the townsfolk before someone else found them.
Rumble had managed to drag Kogeki to slow down enough to demand an explanation. "Raigeki. Arashi. And…someone else, smells like you."
And a hateful little idea spawned.
Then they were running together.
Rumble couldn't believe it; could it really be?
It was.
Kogeki leapt out with a roar that sounded like a thunder crash, startling all three. He was a massive luxray, and the luxio and shinx were so much smaller. He barrelled into Arashi, stunning her before his jaws lashed at Rai.
Mane, who was quick and sharp enough to react to the attack, formed a Fire Blast in his mouth.
Only to have the smoke beaten out of him as he too was smashed into, separated from Rai as their tails yanked on each other and tossed Rai to the ground.
Arashi was squirming, sending out jolts of electricity as a bestial paw pressed her into the ground as Kogeki's tail lashed around Rai's midsection and picked him up like a welp.
Rai immediately began to shock him as well, but it did nothing to the monster attacking them. He snatched up Arashi in his jaws and began sprinting off, Mane and Rai howling after each other as Rumble knocked Mane down.
Mane backed against a tree, searching for a way out while watching Rumble for any movements, flames licking at both of their mouths ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice.
Rumble spoke first. "It's been some time, brother."
Mane couldn't focus on the shock of seeing him alive nor the terror at being backed into a corner by a pyroar, bringing back all the worst of memories he had suffered in his youth.
No, all he could focus on was Rai being taken away from him, and his face fell into a deep snarl. "You really should have stayed dead."
Rumble's maniacal grin didn't fade as the brothers faced off.
"Get OFF HIM!"
Lightning crackled, and trees split as Arashi blasted Kogeki off Raigeki. The larger luxray crashed against the ground, gouging a deep wound into the ground with his claws as Rai scrambled towards Ara.
They'd managed to separate before the attacker pinned Rai. Still, Ara was not allowing anyone to hurt her little brother at all. Not again.
It strained in place, his mane shaggy and eyes maddened, yet fixed with an eerie clarity on the luxio and shinx.
It then spoke, shaking them to their cores. "Arashi. Raigeki. It's me. Your father. Kogeki."
Rai's eyes went wide as Ara lost her breath for a moment. His face pinched slightly in confusion; he did not know…a memory resurfaced of Ara telling him their parents names. "What?" he said weakly.
"No," Ara replied, shaking her head firmly, desperately. "No. No, no, no. Absolutely not. You're dead! No! HE'S dead!"
"The Manectric," Kogeki began, but she shouted across him.
"ABSOLUTELY NOT! You're ALL dead! THEY'RE ALL DEAD! I'll kill you for pretending to be my father!"
Her body thundered and then clapped the air as she unleashed a killing bolt of lightning at the pretender. It struck Kogeki dead between the eyes, violently electrocuting his brain. What happened to his eyes was best left undescribed.
The luxray dropped like a discarded treasure bag, smoke billowing out of his nose, mouth, and eyes.
Rai shrunk back in horror as Arashi panted from the overclocked attack. "A-Arashi."
She was gasping. "Had…to…be…done," she wheezed.
"No, look." Rai pointed. The body twitched once; they both flinched back. Then again, as rotting darkness swam over his obliterated face and the body stood again, darkness melting down his face as his eyes regenerated without eyelids, staring blankly at them.
"Raiton always said your Thunderbolt would be impressive," he rasped through a scorched tongue; Ara made a weak sound in response. "Daughter, son, it's me."
The shadows made his face look monstrous, even worse than what Ara's attack had left it as.
"No," Ara whispered, eyes filling with tears. She blinked, and a few fell, her tail curled protectively around Rai. "No, you're not. You're not."
"I am!"
"You're NOT!" Arashi screamed. "Father is dead; all you are is a mockery!"
Kogeki growled, the pain of her words hitting harder than her lightning had. "Your mother told you to fetch Raigeki shortly before the attack. Had she not, perhaps I would have lost you as well."
Ara flinched with her whole body and trembled against Rai.
He hadn't really known his parents. He knew he had them, could almost remember their voices. The gruff but kindly rumble that he felt belonged to his father was simultaneously exactly and nothing like he remembered it.
This creature spoke with a rasp of years of desperation. His fur was mangey and not full with pride, his eyes flickered with anguish, and his maw dribbled drool. Hunger was all he knew anymore.
Rai did not know this creature, but Ara did.
"No," she said once again, raising her head. "For years, I thought this might have been the case. That someone was cursed with that filthy bastard's taint. I knew then, and I know now that the only answer to something like you is the peace you didn't get. Stand down, Shadow Pokémon, let me give you rest."
Kogeki froze in place, the wind stirring his fur as nothing else moved. His heart thundered in his chest as the rest of his face fell out of rotting shadow and into a deeper, harsher one. He was so desperate to feel again. He had survived near-six years of torment under Indeedee, knowing that some of his children had survived, that he could be with them again.
This blunt rejection snapped what little was left of Kogeki the Luxray, father of Arashi the Traveller and Raigeki, Hero of Time.
The growl built low and quiet but began to build and build and build into a screaming crescendo.
Lightning fell, and then Kogeki attacked.
Electricity surged across the battlefield, being drawn into their paws and charging their bodies. Kogeki roared once, a bestial, agonised cry before leaping up and then landing with a crunch, a shockwave cresting across the charged battlefield instantaneously to stagger them.
As the deadlier foe, Kogeki targeted Arashi first. Right as her legs buckled and jerked from the jolt, he was upon her with fangs dripping with, thankfully non-rotting, darkness. The Crunch nearly broke her neck, however.
Rai's tail snared his back leg just in time, hardening in a flash and yanking with full force. He would have winced at bone-crunching if he hadn't gotten used to it in a previous battle. Kogeki's jaws released Ara as his leg snapped, and he spun on Rai, leaving him open for Ara's discharge to thunder through his chest.
Rai piled on and discharged against his broken bone, directing his electricity to strike his open jaw as well. Kogeki hadn't made a sound since his roar, even as his leg snapped and the body was jolted and burned with electricity.
Pain was beyond him now.
His shadow roiled in place even as he pounced upon Rai, taking shape to lash out in spiky darkness against Arashi trying to scramble to her feet.
Rai was so much smaller than Kogeki that his Crunch missed him, one paw being enough to go across Rai's whole chest. He tasted dirt instead.
Still, with Ara tangled in Kogeki's shadow, Rai was pinned underneath him. He unleashed all the stored electricity he could muster, but besides setting his fur on fire, it didn't knock him off.
"Geet oFF ME!" Rai yelled, struggling as hard as he could. Electricity pulsed down and through his chest, giving him a staggering shock as his whole body jerked like he was being defibrillated.
Which, for someone perfectly conscious, was incredibly painful.
He seized and jerked on the ground, crushed under the paw of his sire before he opened his mouth with a yowl and bit down on the appendage restraining him.
His Bite fuelled by desperation was an emotion more than enough, and the Dark energy sheared through, matched by Kogeki's internal roiling storm of Power. A natural recoil overrode the unnatural influence of The Shadow and freed Rai enough for him to raise a paw.
He pointed it and discharged with his famed accuracy, striking Kogeki in the eye with a bolt of electricity.
That was enough to disrupt the shadow attacking Arashi, and she tore through it, bolting forth with power-amplified speed to crash into Kogeki's ribs, something snapping as she knocked her evolved form off her unevolved form.
She attacked her father to save her brother.
"This just confirms it," she gasped, sending volt after volt at Kogeki, blasting him back step by step. "Whatever you are, you are not our father anymore."
A soft, broken whimper crackled out of his chest at her words. Something was still there, or perhaps as Rai remembered Guardian's lesson from what felt like so long ago, maybe it was just trying to make it seem like there was.
Rai pulled himself to his feet, heart racing as he faced something he had never imagined would ever happen. As a young cub, he'd dreamed of his parents showing up again one day out of nowhere, never did he really expect that to actually happen.
And in such a way.
Kogeki roared at them, and they both heard the sounds Manectric made as it killed their family.
Rai heard it again; he had fought Manectric and failed to win. And then a dreamlike version of it. The sounds stung his chest worse than the cascading flickers of electricity did.
Now with Kogeki pushed back and some time to breathe, Rai began to think of a plan as Arashi began to brawl with her father. He was strong, way stronger than them. However, as a first-stage pokémon, Rai was more than used to being outclassed in weight and strength.
He carried the Treasure Bag, and Kogeki had only torn it off him after most of the trip to this zone. He shot an understanding look between Ara and him and bolted off to find it.
Kogeki howled at him as he ran. "SON! RAIGEKI! PLEASE!"
He ignored it and the ache and ran the path of destruction. His ears swivelled, carefully listening to the battle as it faded. If Ara was pinned, she would be in immediately peril like he had been.
The bag had been torn free by a branch, and he snatched it up in his jaws and began to spring back the way he'd come. They were enclosed, thankfully, and the hole the branch left wasn't too severe.
He rushed back as Kogeki tried to snare Arashi with a prehensile lasso of purplish electricity. An executed bolt directed it into the ground instead, and Kogeki turned on him next.
Rai dashed forwards sharply, dipping into a Quick Attack for the boost before leaping between his legs, tail lashing up. He nearly flew between Kogeki's legs, his tail raising to snare Kogeki's star-tipped tail before curling around it and hardening in steel-like strength.
Rai tugged and tried to swing Kogeki, but his father caught on immediately, and his claws tilled the earth as the far-smaller shinx tried to throw a luxray.
Kogeki's tail lashed, and Rai yelped as he was flung off the ground. He undid his Iron Tail and released, getting flung into the air. He was struck from the sky by crashing lightning called by Kogeki.
Arashi struck in and was repelled as Rai landed on all fours. They couldn't take turns here, and he never fought alone either. Scout with the bag, Mane with the firepower, Rai with the accuracy. That was their thing, a combination that could even 'draw' with the likes of the Legendary Lucario.
Arashi and him hadn't fought alongside each other; he didn't know how to fall into the chorus of battle alongside her.
Rai's mind raced; he was smarter with facts and knowledge than Arashi's wilderness-learned cunning. He knew you couldn't beat a Shadow Pokémon in a battle of endurance; they'd regenerate from anything not immediately fatal.
Were they fighting to kill here? This was their father? And…Sean and Saniya, maybe.
Or whatever Scout did to apparently save Trill. There were options!
So, they had to do what Keira voiced should never be done. They had to knock him out. That had to be easier than killing him, an ironic twist of how battles usually went. Arashi had shown herself that putting aside all restraint could strike someone dead in a single strike, while safely defeating someone often took a struggle.
However, the power required for Ara's deadly strike had winded her immediately, and she was lagging in the fight against their corrupted father. Even with the electrified terrain below their paws, she couldn't quite muster her usual spark.
He had the makings of an idea. You couldn't win a battle of attrition normally, but even Shadows could be worn down, their regeneration turned sluggish, and their wounds are catching up to them. They couldn't take hits in return here, difficult with his speed and range, but it was their best shot here.
"Ara!" Rai called, sending a bolt along the terrain to stagger Kogeki's legs. He'd been training with the Electric Terrain he had unlocked in a rage. Despite being a shinx, Rai's sheer control over his electricity was incredible. He could turn an entire battleground against his opponents with the right level of focus. "I have a plan!"
"Good because I got nothing!" she shouted, unleashing a blast of electricity to crash against Kogeki's in a furious battle she couldn't win. Purple smog dipped into his discharge and began to splinter hers like a pickaxe shattering ice.
Rai tackled her out of the way of the attack, and they rolled to their feet as Kogeki bum-rushed them. Rai called for the terrain to raise and trip Kogeki, the semi-corporeal nature of some pokémon's electricity working against him here. Nothing had set this terrain but the elements itself.
Kogeki's savage paw clubbed Rai to the side as he tried to bite down on Arashi and clamped on her tail instead as she swung herself around. Teeth were knocked out and shattered from her tail's steely strike, but he caught her and didn't release.
Kogeki bit down, and Ara screamed as something darker than dark pierced her body and into her blood and bone.
Rai charged up with electricity, no his plan couldn't fail before it began! "Ara, don't move!" he yelled, but it didn't matter. Kogeki moved instead.
He wrenched his head with a savage swing, biting through Arashi tail and chomping it in half. Kogeki shook his head in disgust as he tasted his daughter's blood, her tail hanging limply in his mouth before he shook it free, the star end falling to the side as Arashi screamed in pain.
Rai saw red.
He took a single step and cleared the distance faster than the eye could see, the electricity of the terrain wrapping around his body as his body glinted white and then violently pastel yellow, slamming forth wreathed in burning voltage.
The spiky bomb of a shinx slammed into Kogeki's injured chest, smashing his ribs again before the charge detonated violently and his own blood was spilled on the sizzling ground.
Arashi whimpered in pain, pain and anger, tears streaming down her face as she crouched, injured, over her decapitated tail, stump oozing blood. Rai blazed with electricity, almost golden as he stood between his father and his older sister.
Ara found a snarl pulling across her lips. No younger sibling should ever stand between their parent and their older sibling, that was her role to bear, and she stepped up before Rai, walking forth as her blood painted the ground red.
"I have a plan," Raigeki said, voice tremoring with the surge of power he was experiencing.
"Good," Arashi said. "Because I'm going to need it in a moment."
She winked at him with a teary eye, and he wondered how she knew what his idea was. Kogeki staggered back up, coughing out coppery fumes, his eyes were almost completely gone into shadows now, and a dark aura stunk around him.
Ara stared at him in disgust, in pity, and shook her head in one brief show of sadness. Her claws bared along with her teeth, and she roared.
Kogeki roared back, and they leapt upon each other. Luxray were far bigger than luxio, but the females were built for hunting, and Ara hadn't spent years locked in a cage. He was mangey, strong, wiry, and sapped.
And she was a travelling mercenary who wrangled outlaws and deadly dungeons for some cash.
She latched onto an ear and bit down, drawing blood, sending staggering bolts of electricity through him. Her bleeding tail lashed his face, blinding him with her blood before she dug down his back.
Rai stood where he was, drawing in all the electricity from the terrain, so much so that it began to dim and fade, all drawing into Rai, and he summoned his Power and cast his own terrain and recalled it, taking control of the ground of the field of battle.
He sucked it all up into his tiny shinx body, shuddering as he was overcharged to a vibrating point. "Ara!" Rai raced forwards, muscles burning with overstimulation. He lashed around Kogeki again, gliding between his legs before latching onto his tail with his own shimmering one.
He hooked firm and yanked, Arashi beat off and bounced him, and Rai leapt up as well. He twisted his body, forcing Kogeki to move as well, swinging him faster and harder, yanking him around by his tail before slamming him headfirst into the ground.
She leapt off Kogeki and brought a Thunder down, lancing him through the belly and dropping him to his back as he crashed to the ground, racing back to Rai. Her tail was decapitated, but they weren't pikachu.
They shared electricity through their whole body than just cheek and tail.
Her paw pressed down on her severed tail laying on the ground as Rai pressed it into Ara, overclocking her. There was too much power for him to use effectively, he needed control to properly function his abilities, and a power surge of that degree took all of his control just to hold onto.
Arashi, however, was a luxio. Slightly better suited.
Kogeki rose up with one final roar as lightning began to crackle in the sky, unrelenting, forked lightning lighting the sky in a dazzling array of nature's fury.
He unleashed a Thunderbolt of pure white energy enchained in nightmarish darkness, too dark to be purple. Too dark to be black. Pure shadow entrapping the light.
Overlocked, Arashi unleashed her own Thunder, brilliantly yellow and pulsing with furious life as she roared against the lagging rotting lightning Kogeki spewed forth.
He didn't part with it all, however, and Rai roared as well. The family all crying in the same language for one moment as lightning clashed with lightning, burning the remains of the grass to cinders and causing trees to shake and tremble.
The clouds were thick and dark overhead, but the battlefield was lit in a brilliant radiance as shinx and luxio fought luxray in a battle of power, shadows eating at their expression of defiance as Kogeki's last glimmering bits of life sparked forth, spearing through the thinning shadows to touch the electricity wielded by his children.
Rai's latched onto it and pulled. He couldn't pull it free; he simply couldn't. There were some things that were impossible, no matter how badly you pulled and fought and tried.
So, he pulled it into them instead as they were both lit up in blinding light. The power of the Shadow was overpowering them. Kogeki's whole body swam like a storming sea, only the waves were darkness, and only his eyes were left, bloodied with his daughter's lifeblood.
He could feel his plan waning; it was too much. Too much. Too much.
The light was getting bright.
Ara was glowing, so was he.
Rai realised what was happening as he felt what appeared to be an unlocking within him, flooding his body with endorphins to mask the discomfort of a rapid metamorphosis.
Arashi's roar began to get deeper as she began to grow taller, muscles thickening out, fur growing thicker and shaggier, tail rebonding with her body and lashing out longer and anew.
Raigeki…thought of Scout.
He thought of Mane.
"I don't think I want to evolve; I like the dexterity of my paws too much. And, hey, meowth is plenty cool!"
"…to be honest, the only experiences I've had with my evolved form are my mother and father, ugh."
Rai had no feelings one way or the other, but they did. And he didn't want to tower over them.
As the evolution struck his body in blinding light, he remastered his control over his precision and technique and then funnelled the blinding surge like the stories he'd heard. Of Piplup using bide to restrain evolution, clefairy carrying moon stones, and people saying B to evolution.
He funnelled it into his storm of lightning, and as Arashi's glow began to fade, he did as well. She was tall, so much taller than him now it would almost be embarrassing. Rai's lightning surged with unbidden relentless power, merging with a luxray's and thieving another's.
Kogeki's bloodied eyes widened as he saw his children again. For a moment, he wondered why. Then he remembered, understood, and let go.
In a final flash of light, the battle ended.
Arashi staggered to her knees as Rai slumped over, the scorching form of Kogeki lying motionless on the ground before them, their clash of lightning having obliterated the area around them, carving a molten hole between them and their father.
"We," Ara panted, "have to…having to finish it." She staggered up again, but Rai did as well.
"Wait!" he shouted; she did stop at the sound of his voice. "We! We have a way to purify pokémon! Sean, and Saniya, they can do it!"
Ara turned to him, face clouded in doubt.
"I swear," Rai said, still gasping for breath.
Her expression wavered before turning to one of pain. "And where are they?" she asked. "Not here. We can't just leave him; he'll disappear on us and wind up hurting someone." Her voice was level, but a stricken pain was shooting through her heart at the idea of hope they couldn't risk.
Rai was stricken as well. Where were they? Close probably, but how close? He scrambled for ideas, someone guarding him, taking him with them, using items, a dungeon, something!
He looked to the Treasure Bag, Scout's loyal companion, their fourth member of Team Ion. He'd thrown it to the ground, items tumbling out, including…an odd red and white sphere.
A jolt went up Rai's spine that had nothing to do with the battle, and he ran over to it. "THIS!" he said. "Lucario gave it to Scout! It's called a pokéball, it can capture pokémon, and they can't get out if we shrink it down! We can keep him in this until we find them!"
Ara's mouth fell open, staring at the ball like it was from the moon and promised to give her one wish.
Rai picked it up with no hesitation and began to trot to Kogeki's smouldering form. "Rai!" Ara called, he didn't stop. "Careful, what if it doesn't…"
"Only one way to find out," Rai said, spitting the ball out near Kogeki. He gazed at the Shadow Pokémon in concern; there was a shuddering breath. He was alive; that was…a good thing.
He wasn't sure how to activate the pokéball and realised he might capture himself accidentally. Scout had shown it off to them with an idea of how it worked, but he'd admitted that he didn't perfectly know how it worked either.
He pressed the button in the middle, and it expanded, startling him. He carefully brushed it over with a claw, didn't activate. He took a breath and wrapped it up in his tail.
"Okay," he said; the idea was to press the button and then hit someone with the ball, right?
He had to do this quick just in case.
His tail slithered around until he could poke the button while flinging it. He stared at his father for a moment, wondering who this was.
Another breath. He twisted his tail, hearing a metallic zing as he primed the pokéball, flinging it at Kogeki.
It struck him on the side that they'd broken his ribs once, twice, and bounced off. His breath caught in his throat.
The ball somehow levitated up, spinning around until it was facing Kogeki and opened with a sound Rai couldn't describe, striking Kogeki with a red beam that melted his body into the same red light and then sucked it in, clasping shut and falling to the ground.
It rocked once. His heart hammered.
It rocked twice. His breath stuttered.
It rocked thrice. What was going to happen?
It stilled, light flashing urgently for a moment far too long.
Then with a satisfying click, the pokéball jinked once and then settled, light finishing and returning to the normal button look. Rai carefully took a step forward; that sounded to be done, right?
Another step.
He pressed the button in for a few seconds, and then it shrunk. He sighed in relief. "We got him!"
Arashi's expression was one who didn't know how to feel, a luxray now just like the defeated foe they had fought, only not as mangey and thin.
Rai beamed at her, and she managed a hesitant smile before Rai gasped. "Mane's in danger too!"
She cursed, and they both spun to the way they had been dragged. "Come on!" she shouted, taking off. Her longer legs and greater mass caused her to stumble for a moment before she adjusted, Rai keeping pace easily.
"We're going to talk about you resisting the evolution," she commented as they sprinted.
"Save it for later!" Rai replied, they had a litleo to save.
Neither Rai nor Arashi have that much emotional attachment to Kogeki. Rai has nothing; Ara has a bit more since she can actually remember him. Still, though, it's their father returned from the dead. That means something.
Also, some more detail on Nelia's atrocities against everything ever. That's right, she's responsible for Rai and Mane's painful lives as well. I've had this in mind for a while, a dark reprise of Scout's own need to keep the 'story' on track early on in a way too.
Discord for this story, as well as just general fun. We played Cards Against Humanity with custom Warped Skies cards, and it was even worse than we imagined! If you want: discord gg/JueKrNAF