PMD: Warped Skies

by Team Ion

Playing the part of the hero sounded fun at first, until he took a meaty punch to the face. Stranded in a world reminiscent of a game he once knew, a human-turned-Meowth struggles to retain his humanity while filling the shoes of the game's protagonists. However, this is not a game. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers, SI-OC/Isekai. Cover by Bograbbit!

100. Warped Skies

One Hundred Chapters.

What a ride, huh? Thanks for coming along it with me.

As a note, the Archive of Our Own version of this chapter comes with images in it, if you'd like to see certain parts of this chapter illustrated!

---

Warped Skies.

That was what the Creation Trio rose into as the world itself keened to one side, feeling to try and shake the monstrous tick burrowing deep into it.

The world itself had been punctured, a cruel hole speared through to unleash something that could be considered only as a foul parasite that would feed and feed until there was nothing left.

Floating like a clot in the bloody wound that was the sky, was that tiny purple piece of poison. Nelia, the First Fallen, was descending towards the ground, below her, the sandstone ground rippled, the darkness left by Eternatus' shadow was sinking into something darker, deeper, and as Nelia crashed into the haze it erupted.

Another shockwave. Less powerful than the reformation of Eternatus, but still intense enough to blunt their charge.

"You've come so far," Nelia's voice cascaded from the miasma, a sickeningly sweet coo to the pokémon who defied the Fallen.

Amid the dark and the damned, shapes began to shift. Eternatus above roared and screamed as its fetid shadow twisted things that weren't there, that were no longer there, back into being.

"Let us not forget the morning cheers," Trill said imperiously, the Guild was gathered, even Wigglytuff stood facing them and not the monstrousness behind them. "All together now, chop-chop."

Better to not give the devil her audience.

"A ONE!" the Guild roared. "A TWO! A ONE-TWO-THREE!"

"ONE: DON'T SHIRK WORK!" No one was backing down from this.

"TWO: RUN AWAY AND PAY!" That went for the Fallen.

"THREE: SMILES GO FOR MILES!" Wigglytuff was beaming.

"Ok, pokémon," Trill said rigidly, but a smile was cracking through. "Time to get to work. First order of the day, save the world."

"HOORAY!"

"GO!" Chitin roared, and they began to charge.

The Lake Trio swam through the air above, eyes on the Creation Trio and the miasma below. Past the surge that Nelia directed was a pit into the depths of the world where a trapinch lay, hungering for all above it.

Team Ion and Team Sunrise ran together on two legs, on four, even on no legs. They headed the charge.

The Wigglytuff Guild, united and rebuilt.

Trill and Rhythm, above and below.

Killer the krokorok, Dandy the totodile, and Cobalt formerly of Team Gazer rode the metang as they closed the gap.

Team Voyage revived and reunited, a sun stone having rebirthed Blossom back into a sunflora.

Team Tasty, Team Poochy, twin luxray, the father and daughter. More teams. Treasure Town and citizens from Blackstone Village.

Amid crossing blades, Carapace the scizor, student of the Legendary Lucario alongside the brave pokémon from the Federation, Marowak and Espurr, Kangaskhan and Machoke and Charmeleon and more.

Nelia gazed upon a united front and laughed.

"This time," her voice hissed and bubbled, forming physical things in the worst of ways. "I am not alone."

And the miasma exploded into a poisonous wave. Sludge-like yet misty, distant yet close, alive yet dead.

"BY ETERNATUS' GRACE!" Nelia screamed in rapturous applause, the one and only voice that cried yes but it was an echoing cry indeed. "YOU WILL ALL DIE SCREAMING!"

By the hands of your own history.

By the hands of your own friends.

As a sunflora formed alongside a chimecho, Nelia smiled. "By the hands of yourselves."

The miasma weighted into the ground, sending a cascading stream of purplish corruption to paint the very earth itself in Shadow.

The sandstone began to crack and crumble and regenerate as The Shadow dug Its twisted claws into the world itself and remembered.

A corruption of space in the sky, and now a corruption of time as figures who had ever once been Shadow began to form.

Nelia flew forth ahead as she called a mirror-image of an army using her own vitality, pieces being stripped off herself at a rapid rate to spawn fragile bodies.

Fragile, but deadly.

In the shadow of Eternatus, her body reformed faster than it could be harmed by this offering and her grin never faded even as her life force was chewed and stripped from her little by little.

She sent Blackstone Village first and the battlefield turned to anarchy.

---

Fly.

It was something Wurmple had always dreamed of doing, one day that possibility may even be reached without needing to sit upon Swellow's back.

It was a dream that Wurmple believed could be had.

The future was theirs to build.

The past was theirs to remember.

The present was theirs to protect.

It could not be fathomed the number of Shadow Pokémon that had existed, nor by what enigmatic reasons Nelia created these ones here and now.

Wurmple knew Swellow had never been Shadow himself, but they still found themselves locked in furious combat with another swellow.

A corrupted mimicry of one, at least. One that born into flight with blood-red talons, tearing into Swellow as they clashed in the air, Wurmple swinging along with strings connected to Swellow at sharp moments, spitting barbs and threads at the falsified creature that tried to own the skies.

The skies were not it to wield, they would not stand for it, even as frost and biting snow whipped through the air, cutting into Swellow like a shower of tiny biting mouths.

Swellow screeched a piercing cry as a strike from the old and lost one slashed a brutal cut into his chest, he began to fall.

Wurmple cried out, a thread struck him in the breast and Wurmple wrapped him up in a quick bandage, stemming the bleeding before going into the air to battle Swellow alone.

Attempts at String Shots failed as the swellow was agile, even more so than Swellow had ever been. It was not him, Wurmple knew this. Not even a copy of him, just someone else.

Yet, the craven Hunger that burned in its eyes, it brought to mind every stubborn biological fear ever had about Swellow. Its beak opened wind in a piercing. "KIIYRA!" And swooped, beat sharp and talons bared.

Wurmple was not afraid.

More accurate, fear was present and bubbling away, but it was not overpowering. Wurmple did not allow the fear to overtake the senses and push them into a clumsy reaction. They were Wurmple of Team Tasty, a pair of 'casual' teammates that nevertheless excelled in two things.

Search and Rescue, on Swellow's side.

And the defeat of outlaws on Wurmple's.

Wurmple had stuck to singular strands with String Shot, but this time spat a wide net of them, overlaying into a thick webbing that the creature would either have to hit to break through or evade and lose the chance for the kill.

As expected, it went straight for Wurmple, and the net snapped shut.

Swellow was hardly out for the count, once he'd been struck down all attention had shifted to Wurmple, allowing him to Roost on the way down and restore his energy, fixing up some vitality.

Wurmple's net was difficult to break through, hardly impossible given a few good slashes but it slowed the creature for just long enough, a distraction as bug and bird matched each other in the sky.

Quick as a bolt of lightning, striking twice as hard, Swellow flew up and slammed right into the shadow clone, feathers breaking off into dust as it was torn up and through the webbing.

Wurmple snared onto Swellow and began to swing around, building up momentum as Swellow shifted the sticky point from himself to the ensnared target. "WURMPLE!" he cried, his meaning clear as day to them both.

With all the built-up momentum, Wurmple began to swing up and down, Swellow swooping in from below, beak shining white and talons trailing sharply.

Once, a primal fear.

Now? Their finishing combo.

As Wurmple crested and swung the trapped creature downwards, Swellow swooped up with a devastating strike and impacted the clone with incredible force. He split straight through it, the unstable copy melting into dust in moments, the webs untangling and beginning to fall.

Swellow swooped in and snatched Wurmple before they could begin to fall and began heading back down.

"Good job partner," Swellow said as he eyed the next target.

Wurmple just smiled, the battle wasn't over.

The dream would not die.

---

Croagunk, like many, had been a wanderer unsure of his path in life.

Raised in the Bubbling Swamp, a little marsh village not exactly known for its tourists, he'd left to find what mattered most to him in life. Whatever that was, he wasn't sure.

It wasn't the Swap Cauldron, no, although he had worked out an idea of what it was that required the cauldron to do it.

He simply liked to be around people and to help them in unorthodox ways. A word of 'wisdom' here, or an odd gift there.

The Swap Cauldron was a facilitator of that. It gave him a home, for it hadn't been able to be removed from the guild until the guild was destroyed. Yet even after that, there hadn't been anywhere he'd rather be.

He'd been with them for some time, he'd seen many things, met many people.

One of those was striking at him with telekinetic bolts. It wasn't her, that he understood. The silent chimecho was a murky reflection of the strong spirit that Melody was.

And it was dangerous. Not only to him but to Melody and more.

Everyone had their fight to make, that was something Croagunk understood. From Timber needing to stand up to the future Team Voyage, and Team Ion with all their little and not-so-little traumas.

He took things as they come, and this was something that had come for him. Why the chimecho targeted him specifically, he didn't know and wouldn't know. Part of him wondered if it was because he meant something to what the clone reflected, something the Fallen had seen and in her infinite petty sadisms had turned it upon him.

Or if it was simply random, simply a fact caused by their types.

He was tremendously vulnerable to any psychic attack, more so even than a Shadow one.

For that exact reason, however, he knew how to fight one.

Ducking under a hazy bolt and pounding the sandstone ground to knock up a thick plate of it, he grabbed onto the hefty object and used it as a shield, soaking up multiple strikes before it grew wise and split it with a shadowy bolt.

He smashed the two clumps he still held together and gave a mighty breath, blowing a cloud of dust into the chimecho's face as he crossed the last of the distance between them.

Oh yes, some psychics grew wise to this weakness or didn't have it in the first place, but he knew Melody in and out. She couldn't handle an opponent close up.

A swift strike with a poisonous hand caused the whole thing to refract like a crystal that had a light shone on it. With no hesitation, he knew who Melody was, Croagunk's second strike shattered the fake and rendered it dust and echoes.

Echoes of pain, perhaps?

He supposed it didn't really matter. One creature down, more to go.

The world would not die.

---

The children always seemed to be the ones who had to be brave.

Kogeki had died, failing to save so much, but saving something at least.

Arashi had not been able to live until she left Treasure Town, returned to the ways she understood. There would always be a seed of regretful guilt that she left Rai, that she couldn't handle the rigours of town life as he could.

She was still just a child herself at the time, having to be brave for an even younger one.

The past hurt, and it always would, but it was no excuse to refuse to see how things were now.

Two luxray called thunder and lightning, striking everything around them as they leapt into the thick of things. Arashi laughed, she was unable to help herself, as she fought alongside her old man.

Really, in some ways, he wasn't all too much older than she was now. Her body was fuller and stronger, but his determined tenacity and shining eyes bore secrets she could only guess to in the field of lightning.

Electricity crackled at their feet, in the air sending nose-piercing ozone to block out the stink of the shadows around them. Together, they burned it away. The melting ground fought with living lightning as father and daughter fought side by side.

Many times it had been fought.

The spectre of tragedy.

Shadow Manectric. It killed their family. It was killed by Guardian. Its shadow hung over Rai in the realm of dreams.

Yet, once again, it walked the world screaming furiously to the world.

Kogeki and Arashi were joined by Houndoom and Manectric as electrike began to spawn from the battle of shadow and electricity at their feet, parasitically latching onto their defiance and spawning more nightmares from the struggle.

Houndoom leapt into the fray first, joined moments later by Manectric and they called. "We'll stop these ones!"

Fire and darkness launched in equal measures as lightning fell and the air burned with the force of plasma.

Arashi leaped over the fighting group and tackled Manectric with a furious roar. She was not Raiton, and even if she was her mother would have done the same had she not had Sa and Ji to protect.

She tore into Manectric's throat, the same place it had died before, died twice perhaps. It broke into nothing, leaving her roaring at dust.

A lance of lightning nearly struck her in the head, but it was blocked by another as Kogeki snarled a sound Arashi had only ever heard once. "Get away from Kogeki's daughter," he said softly before roaring so loudly it eclipsed the clash of gods above.

A keening wine caused metal pokémon to flinch as their bodies jolted before Kogeki unleashed a Thunder of such force it shattered the darkness clouding the ground they were own, a starburst of pure land amid the encroaching chaos, purging the Shadow and preventing anything false from stepping upon it.

A safe place to bring the wounded.

It was a parents job to protect, he had failed that as much as he had succeeded. His children didn't need his protection anymore.

They had been so brave.

That did not mean that they could not be brave too.

---

A healers job was to help, not hurt.

Yet, ironically, Melody had such a thing in common with Soothe. Two people who had sworn to heal, yet had caused so much hurt.

She now had the chance to do something different.

Do something she had said she would be and truly be it.

With psychic impulses she deflected nasty projectile attacks and with barriers and shields she defended them from the worst of the indirect attacks.

She had done the same in Treasure Town, a thought that was hardly lost on her as mimics of the Blackstone Villagers came roaring at them from the darkness. Still, by Samurott and Piplup, Swampert and Charmeleon, Machoke and Krokorok, by all of them the beasts were being diverted, halted, and sent back into the oblivion they had been pulled out of.

Blackstone Village had died, but the villagers yet lived and fought back.

She admired the strength, but the forces were innumerable, and they were being pushed back.

"Chimecho, LEFT!" A heavy voice barked, and she darted to the left, following the order implicitly and spotting an attacker. A swift Psychic threw it into the range of a stone to spear it and give it peace.

She was back-to-back with Guildmaster Armaldo, as much as he hated the title like she hated the idea of having power in the guild she could abuse.

"You want to help?" Chitin had asked as the horde surged. "Then do something rather than just wish for it."

She took that to heart and did something indeed. Psychic blasts, diverting pulses, healing flashes and protective barriers. She was not only a pillar of the guild with her jobs and roles, but on the battlefield, she could slip into whatever role was needed to support those around her.

Truly, the most powerful of Nelia's lost followers. Someone who understood the value of not being the big hero and expert fighter, the person who aided from behind to ensure everything went the way it was supposed to.

Now, that mind was turned against the Fallen and turned well indeed. She tripped the false clones, sensed more coming, flung them into harms way before diving into protection, aiding her fellows, healing them where they needed, boosting their strength while lowering the enemy.

They were a united front, and they would not break. Not to this. Never to this.

She was a healer and healers helped.

---

Bravery wasn't something only legends, heroes, and villains could show.

Everyone who stood here, despite their fear, despite knowing that this was the end one way or the other, everyone who stood here was brave.

Upon Fortune's back, Marowak and Espurr were carried, smashing creatures under the ponyta's hooves as Espurr flung them into his way, tracks of fire bursting into eruptions as Marowak aimed backwards to torch the hollow monsters that tried to come for their backs.

"This is hardly a challenge," Marowak boasted. "Nothing to my bone!"

He flung it at a hollow and it popped like a bubble from the force of the heavy blunt bone, mystically flying straight back to Marowak even as Fortune continued to gallop.

"Fear-filled fools," a voice hissed through Espurr, causing them to shriek as a multi-slash of stony keratin and water slashed all four of Fortune's legs, causing him to barrel over and crash, knocking Espurr and Marowak sprawling.

Slinking through the fires was a stone-headed monster with cruelly curved scythes as excuses for arms. Marowak groaned, grabbing his bearings as Espurr tried to hold Kabutops back.

He could barely even touch the creature as he melted through shadows and blinks of their eyes, snapping in close in a duo of instants.

Marowak's bone deflected one slash, but Espurr was struck by the other and cut with a squeal.

"You'll PAY!" Marowak bellowed, forcing the creature back, bone erupting into cold flames as he thrust it like a spear through Kabutops' middle.

It missed, the wraith-like form of this shadow harder to manage than the rest of them. He had spoken once and, if rumour was to be believed, had been one of those few sapient Shadows.

Perhaps something still persisted in this hollow copy?

Or perhaps Chatot had failed to kill him the first time?

It was no time to ponder, he was in the middle of a fight!

Marowak tried to charge after Kabutops, but the hefty fossil was faster than it looked and weaved through the shadows around them, hissing laughter mocking his every swing and enraging him into a fiery frenzy.

Kabutops alliterative comments continued until he took a swing at Marowak from close up.

Not as enraged as he appeared, Marowak jumped back, leaving his bone where he was standing and Kabutops stomped a foot on it to pin it.

"Brave bet this bone be not broken?"

Marowak smirked behind his mask and didn't say anything. He didn't need to talk to a thing like this.

He was unique in this world, he couldn't fault the creature for not knowing what he did. The bone erupted into a spiral flame, snaring Kabutops as it suddenly recoiled, hiss rising into a roar as it tried to sneak into a shadow again and found the light impossible to slip through.

"GOTCHA!" Marowak yelled, racing forth to snatch up his bone and it burned with eldritch fire as he smashed it through Kabutops' chest and right through.

His elation faded as he was kicked and knocked back. Kabutops had glittered like a cracking glass window but hadn't broken even with his bone sticking out of him. Still, even on fire, the beast charged him blindly and this time he didn't have a trick up his sleeve.

Yet Espurr did.

Not down for the count by far, he snatched a paw out, clenched and pulled, yanking Kabutops' right leg as he ran, immediately causing him to crash to the ground as Fortune managed to stand on bleeding legs.

He thundered over and slammed his famed manicured hooves right into the back of the beast and lit them on fire in a furious neigh.

"For Chatot!" Fortune snarled as Kabutops shattered into shards and then into dust, yet another copy down, however a more dangerous one.

"Swiftly," he said, kneeling down for Marowak and Espurr to get back onto him. Neither of these two were guild graduates like he was, nor even a proper team in the first place.

It didn't matter, not here and never.

They had Team Flame to find in this carnage.

Anyone could be a hero.

---

Teachers taught. They taught many things, but never all that they knew.

Knocked apart from others in the carnage, Chitin pushed forth into the horde and doled out strikes that had wounded a rampaging god with impunity, rending many attackers into dust.

His heavy frame, unable to evade like many of the others, took a severe beating from the sheer amount of piercing Shadow Moves that were being thrown around like water in a storm. He had weathered worse during the attack on the town, but that hadn't been so long ago, and he could feel the pain rearing its ugly head.

From up above, Team Tasty descended to pull a group of bugs off him, scattering them into the mists around them before Wurmple leaped from Swellow into the air to shoot a spray of string at a particularly large problem.

In sheer size; it was an onix.

He saw the idea and added his own string, snaring the massive creature as Swellow fought to stop the clones around them from breaking their web. He threw Wurmple to Chitin and he snatched Wurmple's added string into his own claws.

Wrapped tightly, he heaved with all the strength he possessed and pulled the onix from the ground and began to swing it around, splattering clones by the dozen from the sheer weight of the beast.

A fireball suddenly struck it and blasted it into nothing, from a distance the Fallen was parting the air and land as she narrowed her eyes on the leader of the Wigglytuff Guild. Into the carnage, Wigglytuff himself had disappeared nearly immediately, a sizeable presence of her animated forces swarming purely around him to contain the wrath of the former Guildmaster.

No one could get to him, as the Fallen herself guarded that group but she had chosen to stop floating around and join the battle herself, aimed right at Armaldo the Explorer, Guildmaster of the Wigglytuff Guild.

He narrowed his own eyes in response and silently told her to bring it.

Before she could, a shimmering sword struck right through her chest and threw her back, Cara racing through with a lashing shield of swords, being able to carve through these reflections as if they were real swords.

He reached Chitin with a smile, and they shared a nod, Chitin directing Team Tasty to leave as they readied for battle.

It was not Nelia who approached them.

It was a sight that caused the stomach to drop out of Chitin and Cara to give a soft, pained, gasp.

Because there was no mistaking that smirk, even on a lifeless face.

Keira was approaching them, bone tipped into a spear in her grip.

Eyes firmer, they braced for the attack.

Students learned things teachers did not teach.

---

Unity had stopped the Shadows at every turn, even in timelines that did not exist anymore.

"HiiiYAAA!" Marowak yelled, swung through the air by vines as he smashed his bone as hard as possible on the shadow before him, dissolving it back into the stinking purple ground where it belonged.

Bellsprout tugged him back before reprisal could really hurt, Camerupt and Ponyta unleashed a firestorm that Marowak added to, Espurr's Helping Hand amplifying his own fire to envelop a small horde in purifying flames.

They had managed to clear their own little part of the battlefield, teaming up with Team Flame as well as the Team Guide, Timber's team.

Having been on fire, covered in ice, and deflecting a LOT of spikes, Metang had crashed in with a dancing totodile and smirking krokorok as well and the eleven of them grouped together.

The battle was both going well and was not going well at the same time.

The parade of Shadows stung and burned as strikes scattered across their defences, burrowing deeply into everything that it could burrow into. Aches and pains were becoming omnipresent and pokémon were beginning to be worn down.

The shadows themselves were pathetically fragile compared to true Shadow Pokémon, having a constitution more similar to a Substitute over a regenerating undying beast.

Yet, they would not stop coming.

Each broken illusion of a Shadow Pokémon brought two more to replace it before it yet crawled back as well. They did not seem to learn or even think in the first place

A ceaseless horde.

Parts of the Shadow Ground had been broken. From where massive displays had been made and where Sean ran and fought bits and pieces were fading wherever his feet landed.

There was just so many.

"Defiance: Come at us, craven beasts!" Metang bellowed, voice reverberating through the horde as a piercing metallic shrill. Krokorok leapt out from the safety of Metang's body and slammed the ground, sending a shockwave to break and trip a group charging.

They faded, but he was not prepared for what was behind them.

A bestial luxray, roaring the world down around it. It was massive with lamed legs, yet its pounce was powerful and unstoppable, slamming into Krokorok and crunching something in his tail upon landing awkwardly.

It immediately went for his throat, Krokorok barely catching it by the neck, teeth scraping his snout. Its breath was heavy and stunk in his face, blackish drool dripping onto his face and going up his nose and causing him to gag.

With his feet he was kicking furiously, sharp claws digging into its soft underbelly, but this thing wasn't breaking like the rest. He needed purchase but didn't have the time to-

"GYAAH!"

The luxray shifted as something slammed into its side and a gruff grunt was pulled from it before a second blow forced it off Krokorok. He immediately scrambled back as Marowak and Totodile went for the face.

Bone boosted by pressurised water crunched bone and cartilage, or whatever passed for that with these things.

"DEMAND: GET HERE!" Metang cried, snatching up Krokorok in one of their arms and threw him onto its back with Espurr before spinning to shield them both from a falling barrage of needles.

They then flipped and tossed Krokorok back into the air, flung with Espurr in his arms. With a waggled finger was a soulless clefable, still holding the form of a powerful master of random chance. Another finger wag, and the air began to explode around them.

Krokorok shielded Espurr with his body as they began to flip from the explosions, flying through the eruptions with an ingenious trick to play.

Krokorok had a manic grin on his face as he yanked Espurr's ears up.

"I'm immune to this, right?" he asked.

"Sure," Espurr said brightly before he went supernova, Krokorok tossing him at the gathered dangers. The rest had set up the stakes, they just had to knock them down in one strike.

Team Guide had hardly been slack, charging ahead with Team Flame they kept together to match individuals with the strength of their teamwork.

Paras expelled spores that Camerupt ignited, creating trails of fire in the air as Ponyta charged through to smash them under hoof, alongside Marill enwrapped in surging water.

Marill slammed into a large foe, knocking them unsteady and giving Bellsprout an opportunity to snare their legs and throw them up into the air, releasing them to take the full brunt of Flaaffy's Thunderbolt.

Marowak cracked one of Luxray's legs, but it didn't even twitch from the strike, going for an electrifying bite that was caught by his bone.

Luxray crunched down, nearly breaking the thick club before its ribs were met by Totodile coming from behind.

Marowak ripped his bone free, taking several teeth in the process, and erupted both ends into flames and threw up like a boomerang, cracking across Luxray twice before jumping into shadows and emerging from Luxray's own to grab onto its tail and plant himself.

Marowak began to heave as Totodile did a complicated dancelike manoeuvre and formed a series of water bullets and began to pelt Luxray over and over. Luxray roared and discharged electricity into Marowak, he groaned as he was thundered but didn't release his hold.

Totodile shouted for help as Metang began to ready Krokorok and Espurr and Marill and Ponyta wrapped around to them, Flame Charge and Aqua Jet boosting their speed considerably.

The three of them matched water with fire and the eruption of steam and Marowak's pulling threw Luxray over his shoulder and at Clefable.

"Duck and cover!" Marowak yelled, dashing into a shadow as the rest ran for Metang.

Espurr's ears flicked up as he landed on Clefable's face. "Bang," he said brightly, viciously.

And it was one hell of a bang.

Unity would stop Her again.

---

Old wounds might ache, but scars were a sign of healing.

Cara was perhaps the most dangerous person on the battlefield that wasn't the Fallen herself.

His generated swords, normally close to harmless without extreme numbers, struck the shadow clones as if they were made of steel. A fan of blades swung around him at all times, striking the shadows back into oblivion with every step and turn.

She thought that was fitting, her greatest enemy was the Legendary Lucario, and he was her student. As Nelia held Keira's remains in her hands, she could almost feel hatred bubbling within the silver surface of the mithril weapon.

It was also fitting in her mind to send the harshest she could muster.

From any and all who had ever been truly touched by the grace of the Shadow, she could call that eternal memory to bear arms. It was a song around her, one that laid any off-putting thoughts to rest, her confidence confirmed.

Keira had been Shadow once. Perhaps not in this world, no, but there was no place too far for The Shadow to reach.

Thus, she had raised Its hands and pulled two.

Keira and another.

"Breathe," Chitin urged Cara, for he had seen the scizor freeze up entirely. "That's not her."

"It is," Cara muttered, blinking rapidly as he felt too much to digest in the middle of a battlefield. He had frozen up for a moment too long, Chitin's own attention diverted.

No sign from behind them gave them any warning, and Chitin roared as something attacked him in the back.

It seemed to be a popular target for Shadows.

As he fell to a knee and Cara spun on him, Keira moved.

Her staff, sharpened into a spear at the end, gouged a hole in Cara's armour, his blood splashing onto the ground as he recoiled from the sundering blow. He reacted, a flash of white sending a dozen blades at Keira all at once.

It sliced into her as they did and he nearly froze up again, his swords had never done so much damage to her when they trained-

He blinked, shaking it off and blocking another spear-strike with a Protect. This wasn't Keira, she'd have insulted him three times by now if it was.

Chitin's weight nearly flattened him, however, as the larger bug was thrown forth again.

"Dammit," Chitin growled, rolling off Cara and stomping a ring of stones around them to buy them at least a few seconds.

As rocks began to crumble he knew it would only be seconds.

Cara stood and pulled Chitin up as the rocks were destroyed, standing side-by-side as their opponents were revealed.

"What a day," the other lucario, a red-eyed male said softly. He spoke just like Nelia did, only even softer than she did. Where Nelia at least could rise into a manic crescendo and impart a few jokes, this lucario's tone was frigid and level completely, utterly in control.

"I thought you were dead," Keira said, her lifeless eyes raised to the other. "I killed you."

Cara and Chitin pressed in closer at the 'mindless' clones began to converse with each other.

"You've died as well," he said, still softly but almost a touch of smugness there. "Like father like daughter I suppose."

Cara's eyes went wide, and he hissed lowly. The male chuckled. "She speak of me, did she?"

The lucario's eyes flashed lavender and both bugs were tossed aside, splitting them apart, throwing Cara towards Keira and Chitin towards himself with a powerful Psychic.

"Whatever you are," Chitin muttered gruffly, forcing himself out of the grip of the Psychic. "It does not matter. Scizor, FIGHT!"

Cara nodded.

Lucario chuckled. "I'm aware of what I am, in ways the rest of them aren't."

He moved, he was very fast, Chitin wasn't impressed.

"You'll remember my name, Chitin the Explorer. It is Sirius."

"Was Sirius," Chitin retorted, claw lashing out sharply as a stone shifted, catching Sirius' foot and causing him to stumble right into his claw.

Shining white.

Chitin decapitated him in a single strike, the body fading into ashes. He snorted contemptuously and turned to Cara as he battled the corrupted mirror of his teacher.

Cara danced on the battlefield slowly. As a scizor, he wasn't gifted with agility or speed to any notable degree.

However, as Keira's student, he had to learn how to fight someone who could move at ridiculous paces and whose very being was built around combat.

She came at him with a single spear and Cara wondered what the trick was.

He matched her staff in direct clashes with his blades, striking at her arms and legs upon each blow they shared.

She slammed into his defence and then her spear disappeared, Keira reaching through the crisscrossed blades to strike his chest directly.

A kinetic shockwave blew him back, but his swords clamped in a scissor strike and sliced her left paw off.

She did not respond, simply pursued relentlessly, forming that spear again and striking for his dented armour.

It met a Protect and he was caught by Chitin, who held him firmly, stomping the ground and launching Keira with a stone from below her.

"GO!" Chitin called, pointing Cara and then throwing him at the trajectory Keira was falling. Cara's pincer shone blinding white as he pushed his Power into a Brick Break and aimed it forwards, believing Chitin's aim to be true.

It was.

When he landed, there was no Keira.

"That was… too easy," Cara said, concerned.

"You're right," Sirius said, dark paw striking Cara in the back and causing him to scream as something struck right through him.

Chitin roared and began to charge, but he was caught with a spear to the throat. It broke before puncturing him but made itself known either way.

Keira was in the way, a shadow of a smile on her blank face.

"We may not be real… yet," Sirius said, as Cara spun around and shattered his skull. Chitin raised the earth around them, forcing Keira's feet out from under her before forcing the land up to swallow her completely.

They were both panting, before being blown together by matching Dark Pulse's.

"Realness is overrated in this battle," Sirius concluded, stepping forth with the vassal that was Keira, reminiscent of herself from hundreds of years ago, not as the Legendary Lucario. "For you cannot kill us in a way that matters."

Cara pushed himself to his feet, guarding Chitin from them as he began to stand up himself. He grimly realised Sirius was right. No matter how many Shadows he had destroyed, more just kept coming.

And with Nelia controlling this madness, he bet she could simply recreate the ones they defeated if she wanted to.

Still, he would not give in, never would give in, if it lightened the load on the rest of the pokémon until they were able to fight their way to Nelia, then he'd take on a hundred armies of Shadow Clones by himself.

Chitin managed to stand, and they shared a nod, they were not going down.

Regardless of their scars, neither would give in.

---

Scout raced ahead with Trill sharply overhead. They dove and slashed with claws and talons, striking down shadows wherever they stood.

They encountered the worst that they could. A faded audino with lifeless eyes.

They did not hesitate.

---

Wigglytuff howled in fury as he was dogpiled by dozens of Shadows. Shouts and punches shattered them all, but more and more were coming, he was literally buried under squirming, forceful, bodies. He felt a deeper rage building slowly, but surely, within his mind and he clung to that as the Power began to build and build.

---

Electricity fell as Flaaffy joined with two luxray's, Electivire, and a Shinx, delivering electrical armageddon upon the nightmares around them.

---

Fortune remembered his fathers spirit as he, Camerupt, and Charmeleon combined firepower to unleash a blazing storm on all things around them.

---

Machoke threw a banette into Banette and she struck it down with twisting claws, making a clever comment about cutting someone off from alcohol.

---

Spinda danced, luring several clones into a hazy dance and Octillery and Beedrill popped them one by one.

---

Espurr was pulled out of a crater by Marowak, he gave a thumbs up.

---

Arcanine bashed into an arcanine with a lamed leg.

---

Piplup formed a massive whirlpool that Samurott rode, slashing out blades of water that cut through rock and metal.

---

Mawile and Arbok and Serperior smashed into a group and saved Guardian, taking the load off him.

---

Striker leapt ahead, bouncing off a head and striking another off.

---

Mane exploded something.

---

Life fought back.

A twisted wraith floated overhead. It wasn't Nelia, she was wisely staying back and allowing her opponents to exhaust themselves on her mirror army.

It took more effort to create this one than any of the others, even more so than Sirius, the so-called Second Fallen, had he lived long enough to even have the ability to think to claim such a title.

It was even harder to banish it from obtaining any will like Sirius, unfortunately, seemed to have. Nelia could already feel the seeds of megalomania bubbling in the reflection of the damned lucario. She wondered how someone like him could have led to someone like Keira.

It did not matter, things were getting concerningly close to turning and she had no desire to fight before they were well and truly drained.

Thus, she called Darkrai back from oblivion.

He had one brief thought in his mouth before he became an it. "How…?" Then it was all destruction.

He floated above, a spectre of death looking to feed on the misery below. His presence darkening minds and dropping weaker pokémon into tortured visions before unveiling his arms like a grand reveal and unleashing darkness upon the land.

It was a pathetic reflection of the magnitude of Darkrai, its nightmares feeble and attacks avoidable. The image of the spectre of nightmares, however, quailed weaker hearts and people finally began to drop.

Team Sunrise, minus Saniya, were caught in a violent clash and no one else was able to stand with them.

Still, Rai and Mane had no hesitation about leaping into the fray, aloft with Saniya's power they flew up to take Darkrai down.

The darkness of the sky was lit brightly for a brief second upon the advent of a lightning firestorm.

Darkness was sent fleeing, but pooling, into one place – Darkrai's hands. It unleashed a pulse of wrath and rage, screams begging for forgiveness of the necessary evils, of loss of a dark world where at least he finally knew the light.

Darkrai descended to the ground after them in a rage, eyes burning on Mane specifically as something within it remembered what they had done. What Mane had done.

Mane had broken the Dream.

More rage and wrath pooled into a diabolical energy blast, but Mane was not helpless, he roared out loud, a pulse of flame meeting the pulse of darkness and clashing in the midst of the shadow lands.

Darkrai was unstoppable, an engine of destruction formed by the despair of existence around them.

He was overpowering Mane swiftly, the flames burning closer and closer to Mane himself, playing with fire brought only burns and he was-

Darkrai cried out in pain as a rock struck it through the middle, its power stuttering as it half-turned to spot the interloper.

Diglett glared. That was for his father.

Darkrai found another pair of words reaching his mouth as the fire began to burn bright. "Oh shit."

Mane's Flamethrower melded with Hyper Voice into an annihilating shockwave of plasmatic fire and incinerated Darkrai in a single sundering blow.

As well as a sizeable portion of the battlefields corruption.

Rai reached Mane and they shared a brief nuzzle before taking stock of the hole in the line Mane had blown and knew they had to act before it closed.

It was a straight shot to Nelia from here, the Fallen staggering in shock as fire melted the shadows before her.

"GO!" Sean roared, Saniya racing in with him as they spotted Striker and Guardian, having fought the farthest in before being bogged down. She yanked everyone forth and they went for the hole while it remained, already the ground was bubbling as it leached more to twist more things into existence.

Scout raced in with Trill, leaping into Trill's claws and being thrown to Striker before Trill had to pull out and assist Paras.

Guardian and Striker had been back-to-back, sableye and worse surrounding them as they battled off the Shadows who had crowed them to stop their advance to Nelia, the fiery shockwave blew them off and Scout yelped as he threw over, Striker catching him before he faceplanted most unlike a cat.

"KILL HER!" Chitin's deep voice bellowed across the field as Cara too was thrown over the reforming army to where the Fallen had finally taken foot and was coming for Striker, Scout, and Guardian.

Guardian threw Scout back and raised his hands, snatching Cara and planting him down as the three of them braced for Nelia.

The Fallen struck like a whip, sharp and swift, every blow designed to hurt as much as it hindered.

She wielded the silver sword, it met Cara's own blades and sliced through them like air, forcing the scizor to duck and he was pulled down by Guardian's shadow tendrils before anything lethal occurred.

Guardian overreached and she slashed out, merely nicking his arm with the tip of the blade but his greyish ooze began to leak nevertheless as Guardian hissed in pain, his tendrils vanishing as his very Power was suckled by the mithril.

Striker cast a volley of green blades that struck through the indeedee's soft fur and caused her blood to flash, but then the wounds were gone, and she was slinging fire around.

Psychic impulses threw Striker and Cara around as fire bathed then, Cara's Protect barely holding it off from consuming him but Striker had no such defence.

He tried to ignore the pain and thrashed, breaking her hold and slashing through the fire at her neck.

Guardian reached through a shadow and snared the Fallen by the abdomen and held her in place as Striker cut her arm off.

The arm holding the blade.

It refused her Psychic, but she could still control her own arm and it continued to grip the sword firmly, Nelia laughing as she swung out with her own decapitated arm, body regenerating swiftly in the grace of Eternatus until she had a new arm and a third one floating around.

She stabbed at Striker, but he was thrown back as Saniya finally got through and yanked him, stalwartly silent as she zoomed in, hands glowing.

At a point-blank range, she slammed Ancient Power into Nelia's chest, and she skid across the ground as her ribs snapped from the force. Guardian punched out rapidly, hands cycling between different elements as he bashed the dark one in her wounded abdomen.

It did nothing.

YOU DO NOTHING!

Sean's Bone Rush clashed Nelia's wrist as she flicked the sword up, all their focus on avoiding that deadly blade. Guardian's arm was already drenched from his own wound that refused to close.

Sean did noth-

Sean cracked Nelia's arm and her jaw before Rai electrocuted her, bringing her to her knees and they-

Failed to harm her, a Psychic shockwave knocking them-

Feet back, unflinching on the assault, she was still weakened from fighting everyone up to this poi-

Blossom failed to do anything, under the grace of The Shadow, The First Fallen was filled with unending vitali-

She was weakening under the assault, she could never beat a united-

They are BREAKING!

"NO!" Scout yelled, striking past and tackling Rai out of the way of a deadly blow.

A forceful palm strike knocked Nelia, Saniya bounced her back with a pulse, into Guardian's fist, back into Sean, into Striker. They did to her what they had done to Keira in a time that felt ages ago now, and just like that fight, Nelia knocked them apart.

She received a sword to the throat from Cara, and his abdomen met Keira.

As always, she sliced right through him.

Cara groaned as a long cut was sliced in his armour and he sagged.

Leaning in.

He butted his head against Nelia's far-softer one and snipped her arm off.

She pressed a flaming hand into his chest, and it all burned.

Keira was screa-

KEIRA IS DEAD!

Nelia's spine cracked as Sean's staff impacted with it, causing her body to seize backwards. She spun her head back like some exorcist rip-off and grinned. "Hai."

Cara's pincer crushed an awakening. He already had a hole in his body, so he wouldn't overheat now.

Saniya and Sean matched wits, she wielded Psychic, and he copied it, both of them aimed for Nelia's snipped arm and latched onto the blade.

It twisted around Saniya, but something seemed to draw Sean in further and they both tugged with all their strength, tearing the silver sword free.

"FUCK!" Nelia cried, scrabbling for it. She was caught in a prison cell of blades and had her middle split open as Cara finished mega evolving.

"Your fight is with me," Cara declared, blades shining around his wings as he doubled the number of blades he could control. He sent them back to assist guard the group against the encroaching darkness and then began to duel The First Fallen.

He couldn't help but notice the similarities between her and Keira in their battle.

Both were swift, overwhelming, enemies with far too many tricks.

Nelia brought fire to bear, bouncing off his Protect only to flip him upside down and summon lightning on his legs. As he deflected that with his heavy pincers, she empowered herself and then exploded in pulses of Shadow-infused Psychic barrages, combining the piercing effect of a Shadow move with the adaptability of a true pokémon's abilities.

She floated, spinning stones and rocks to beat against his blades, her own shimmering Protect's blocking body-splitting strikes and dancing embers erupting everywhere, each tiny pop doing nearly nothing to him, but the build-up of damage was beginning to stack.

He pierced both her legs with blades and charged, perhaps recklessly, bracing with a Protect through the flames and opening both pincers, melting into darkness.

He clipped them together, smashing them at once doused in Dark Energy of all his hatred for her and her actions. His pincers met a Protect but Keira had always taught him a little too well.

It was smashed in upon the teeth-blades on his pincers all at once, popping like a bubble as he smashed her head between his pincers and crunched.

The world's deadliest clap smashed Nelia's skull in completely, her body falling limp under his pincers.

He panted for breath, harshly.

He was not a fool.

He just barely managed to block a spear of darkness from her supposedly limp body, the impact still throwing him back as the Fallen's skull regenerated swiftly from a bloody mess to her depraved normal.

"How could you ever think to defeat me?" Nelia asked, crooning mockingly as she approached Cara on his back. "Here and now? You could tear my very heart out and it'd do nothing. You took too long, Keira decided the world was safe, Arceus believed things to be okay. You were all wrong. And it's too late now."

Sean held the silver sword, he could feel it sapping his bursting aura, drinking from him eagerly. He tried to pull back, but it had latched on like a leach and was drawing from him regardless.

He aimed it at Nelia, he'd take a little draining if it meant he could end this.

On silent feet, he was levitated by Saniya, but they had forgotten an indeedee can sense around them. She felt his anticipation and let him draw close before lashing out suddenly, barbs of darkness everywhere.

The barbs melted completely upon touching the silver sword, but there were still far too many of them to deflect. Cara sent his blades to defend, Saniya erupted, Guardian blasted darkness of his own.

They exchanged Sean's vulnerability for their own.

A single flame struck Cara threw the chest and burned straight through him and he collapsed with a gasp. Guardian found the barbs shifting and spinning from Sean to himself and could only brace.

And Nelia turned to Saniya, to the pokémon who had held time together as Dialga killed Dialga, and met her eyes.

Saniya began to scream.

"NO!" Sean yelled, slashing out at Nelia again, the blade itself guiding his paw like Keira had in their training sessions and managed to strike Nelia through the chest.

She disappeared into mist and she laughed from behind his ear. He spun and slashed, cutting down Nelia's that were surrounding him.

All illusions.

He lashed and slashed wildly, furiously, aura being drawn into the sword and disarming his senses, he slashed and slashed and slashed until-

Guardian fell, the brightness of shock in his eye as Sean carved straight through him.

Sean screamed, recoiling back. Guardian weakly moaned and then went still.

"No-no-no," Sean repeated, hands slipping on the slick guard of the sword. Around him were bodied, nothing but bodies and the laughter of a thirsting monster.

Sean dropped the sword, falling to his knees. As he released the blade, his senses slammed back to him and the illusions of bodies disappeared, disorientating him as reality set back in.

Realising what had happened, he scrambled for the sword.

Above them all, another battle raged.

---

As one, the Creation Trio matched the despoiler of reality.

Backing them up was the Lake Trio, ready to assist anyone in need of urgency as this battle in the skies raged.

Dialga unleashed a time-splitting roar, the breath of annihilation turning the clock forwards and back, left and right before throwing it off the wall and smashing it with a hammer. It didn't even leave a mark, but it drew Eternatus' attention.

The monster wavered in the air, swaying back and forth languidly, Its mere presence empowering the mad one beneath and spawning a forever-reviving horde of fallen creatures.

Palkia screeched, pearls blazing with eternal light reminiscent of the blast that split the worlds. His gesture split not the sky, but the very being of space that it resided in, carving through any and all matter that existed. It failed to scratch Eternatus', but drew the beast's attention away from Dialga.

Dying lights glimmered on Eternatus' 'fingers', splitting open and flapping in the wind like fabric that had tongues. It was tasting the world, carefully, curiously, it did not seem violent, yet at any moment….

Giratina alone held a glimmer of understanding here. Eternatus would destroy the world itself in Its mere presence, yet there was not the gesture of malice in the warping skies intrusion, merely a faint sense of curiosity.

Eternatus was guided by Nelia, had been since so very long ago. The incarnation of corruption, and the very concept of survival of the fittest, Eternatus was not inherently malevolent, but a relentless force that twisted and destroyed wherever it was for no reason.

It was no more evil than a hurricane, yet destructive unlike anything could ever be.

It had to be destroyed and the breach sealed and Giratina did not know if they had the power to do it.

The longer it existed, the wider the gap would form, more splits would occur, the sky would literally fall as the heavens and the earth merged into nothingness.

Perhaps they did not have the power to destroy it, but Eternamax Eternatus was a digit, an arm or perhaps merely a finger extended into Arceus' realm. If they could force it out and then close the hole….

"Focus on force!" Giratina bellowed, ramming into Eternatus before slipping into sub realms before it could grip onto them. "Knock Eternatus back!"

Dialga and Palkia struck as one, roaring a rend in space as Giratina unleashed true shadows force upon the corruption incarnate.

It pushed, and pushed, and began to push further.

Then, Eternatus grabbed Giratina.

For a moment, all Giratina felt with crushing force, overwhelming presence slamming into everything Giratina ever was. For a moment, Giratina felt death approach for the first time.

Giratina slipped out of Eternatus' hold, the griseous orb flashing in their mouth as they darted from the hold of death, slippery as a serpent.

"I have an idea!" Palkia called loudly, because in the sky there was a lot of distance between them.

"Say it then!" Dialga roared, darting through the air like a majestic rapidash. Eternatus was acting faster now, the lights were shining baleful and Dialga had been doused in it and experienced the sensation of melting organs.

Palkia raised his arms and eyed Eternatus, or, rather, the portal above it. The gash in reality. A split in space itself. The Shadow reached through more than just space to get there, but it was most closely a part of Palkia's domain.

Palkia was young, weakened, and the Creation Trio had given more than any other to hold The Shadow back. However, as he pulled onto ancient powers, it also meant that that very gift of Power was designed to bar Its way most specifically.

Arceus had created them first.

Palkia brought his hands together in a thunderous clap that echoed across worlds, calling upon space itself to shear close and slice anything apart.

In another timeline, Palkia would bend space to restrain, however temporally, a raging Arceus Itself. Palkia knew he could do this.

A pinkish barrier appeared in the sky split and then closed in swiftly, striking through Eternatus where nothing else had and severed the armlike entity.

Eternatus gave off a terrible roar as upon the battlefield, a litleo roared out himself and blasted a hole in the defences leading to the Fallen.

The darkness stuttered, cut off from the source, as Eternatus began to fall, its body changing from a monstrous arm back into a skeletal dragon.

"GOOD JOB, PALKIA!" Dialga called in excitement, surging after Eternatus as it began to writhe and roar in the air. From the battlefield below, a cheer built up through the fighters as they saw the Creation Trio make grounds on their own battle.

Eternamax Eternatus was a curious creature, sheer destruction in form but nothing malevolent in intent.

Eternatus regular was corrupted by The First Fallen herself, and it immediately attacked everything around it in hungering fury.

Giratina phased in and out of reality and collided with Eternatus, forcing it down and pushing it towards the ground, away from the battlefield. It twisted and bit at Giratina, but they were unstoppable and smashed Eternatus into the earth itself.

The world resisted the very nature of Eternatus, space warping around it as the world itself tried to latch onto the full being and shatter it across an ultimate dungeon.

It might have worked, it may actually have worked.

Palkia had miscalculated.

The Shadow had touched the world, and It was not content to be kept out.

Something began to knock on the barrier that Palkia had erected, the gash in the world trying to knit itself closed as he held The Shadow out.

With each tap, Palkia felt the air get knocked out of his lungs and his heart stuttered in place, slowing from the sheer effort of what he was doing. Sweat poured from the dragon who guided space, his levitation was knocked out of him by the third tap, and he began to fall, throat closing up, heart slowing, all from the simple effort of holding on.

Dialga hesitated as he saw Palkia begin to fall, stopping from where he was racing after Giratina and Eternatus. This hesitation lasted exactly three seconds and seventy-six milliseconds, by the timekeeping of people.

It might have worked.

Palkia could not hold and the barrier that could restrain Arceus splintered like a tree knocked off as The Shadow reached into the world again, the split in the sky erupting wider from the force and a second Eternamax Eternatus emerged.

Giratina roared in horror as the second emerged, Dialga's hesitation gave Eternatus the opening to strike Giratina off it and rise from the hold of the earth and in thanks it sped straight for Dialga, unleashing a corrosive beam from its chest that blew Dialga out of the sky as well.

From below, Nelia laughed mockingly as Palkia's attempt only increased the problem. Eternatus roamed the skies violently attacking everything below, the Creation Trio were all dazed and wounded with only Giratina able to immediately go after the regular Eternatus.

All the while the full Eternatus wavered in the air, growing more and more firm in the sky and beginning to light up again. It was gaining a type of conscience swifter, and the light was beginning to burn the sky.

Palkia groaned and even whimpered as he pulled himself to his feet, rising into the air again with a bowed neck, head pounding.

Giratina roared something, ignoring Palkia's shame. "Hold the bigger off, I'll destroy the smaller one."

Dialga had also risen and shared a grim nod with Palkia as they raced for Eternamax Eternatus, Giratina solely going for the weaker one.

Weaker did not mean weak, however, and Eternatus was swift, slippery, and malevolent. Arcs of lightning and corrupted energy danced around it as Giratina swam through boundaries to strike at any point that could be found.

In its state, Giratina knew it could not defeat Eternatus head-on. Thus, it slipped into sub-realms whenever it could, avoiding reprisal from Eternatus and striking in scalpel strikes.

This approach, however, was predictable and Eternatus was smarter than the one above, it began to go for Dialga and Palkia, knowing such an action would force Giratina to emerge more frequently until a mistake was made.

Below their battle, Nelia's power waxed once again as Eternatus became two and she rose a new horde below her opponent's feet.

Cara threw Team Ion forth as Saniya teleported Team Sunrise ahead of the murky storm and Nelia called a ring of fire around the eight of them, leaving Cara behind to fight a full horde alone.

It was seven on one.

And all of them combined only barely matched Nelia's output.

Team Ion landed on their feet after Cara threw them while Team Sunrise had already leapt into combat.

Sean used the silver sword more as a shield than a sword as he deflected fiery blasts from Nelia with it, the blade sucking the flames in eagerly and consuming any attempt to wrench it from Sean either. The lucario's reach and speed made him a good fit to stop her ranged assault.

As Rai lit up with electricity and electrocuted Nelia, everyone fanned out around him to ensure they had her boxed in and couldn't run. The indeedee could fly under her own power, but they weren't going to let her.

Bizarrely, Nelia took the time to greet them.

"Dearest Scout," she said with a smile. "So good of you to join us. Raigeki, Mane, Striker, Guardian, Saniya."

She turned to Sean and her smile faded as it was never really there. "Sean," she spat, voice dripping with contempt. She didn't like him. Of all people, it was the furry she didn't like.

Sean narrowed his eyes but then smirked. "What's up?" Then, they attacked.

Twin saviour teams that had saved the world twice. The strength of Team Sunrise and the teamwork of Team Ion together.

Scout dissolved a stun seed in Mane's fire and the litleo breathed a staggering stream of flame as Rai stunned her with a full-force lightning strike.

Guardian grappled Nelia, holding her from using Protect and endured the shock as well with Saniya healing him from behind.

The stun flame locked her in place and gave Sean his opening to go in with the silver sword to end the Fallen in a single strike.

Lightning fell, but it was not Rai's electricity.

Sean was thrown aside by Striker who snatched up the sword in his place, yet the blast had been aimed for Nelia, shattering the stun look and allowing her to move.

She ensured not to reveal that until he was already within range of her.

A swift kick to the chest would have ensued but keen-eyed Rai had spotted the trajectory of the lightning where the flash had blinded the rest and he was running with a shouted warning.

Striker, trusting Rai, evaded instead of attacked and Rai leapt up with a Bite at the ready.

He smacked into a shield and was caught in her embrace.

Guardian punched a shadowy punch through the corrupted Normal-type, phasing through her completely to knock Rai free at considerable cost.

The fire gripped him instead and this time Nelia did not allow an opportunity to slip through her fingers.

Fire crunched Guardian as she grabbed him by the mouth of his belly, laughing. "Say AHH!"

And forced it open.

She erupted in a psychic impulse right into Guardian's belly mouth and nearly split him in half. Rai shouted in horror, Saniya was screaming, and the fires were rushing along Nelia's ears as she felt Guardian's agony as if it was her own.

And she loved the pain.

Thunder boomed above, a shockwave from above knocked everyone besides Nelia, and she continued to laugh.

Guardian groaned, still bleeding from the nick to his arm from earlier, belly mouth agape, he shifted weakly, but was not getting up. He was their toughest, how could he have been felled in a single strike?

"He's so strong," Nelia crooned as the six remaining bunched up on him to protect him. "He had to go first." She panted softly, slightly winded from the energy needed to drop Guardian in a single hit.

Rai snarled and slammed his paws into the ground. Overlaying the tainted ground Nelia had caused was a spreading terrain of lightning. Mane positively Leered at Nelia before building a roar of his own, noble in the face of her evil but another pulse from Eternatus above stripped the modulating effects he was attempting.

Nelia grinned, raised her hand and clenched. Mane yelped before wheezing as he was clenched from all around and thrown high into the air. He cried out, he hated heights and Nelia fed on his terror.

"How much do you think it takes to burn a Fire-type?" Nelia questioned, looking up with a smile. "Based on how much it took for Rumble, I think I can adapt that to him."

Rai and Scout both saw red and came for her, as she knew they would.

Her hand, raised to where Mane was flailing, was thrown down and Mane fell at a rapid guided pace, slamming right onto Scout and knocking Rai sprawling.

Saniya was busy trying to treat Guardian and Striker and Sean had been standing between him and her, along with the cats. As Team Ion all got knocked about at once, Sean also stepped forwards, having taken the blade back from Striker.

"This is going on long enough," he growled as Nelia's eyes turned to him, and the sword he carried. "Guardian was desperate and Darkrai at least noble in his goals. You are going to die, and no one will remember you."

Something about the last thing he said finally twinged a nerve in Nelia and her smirk dropped from her face.

"You know, many people have said something like that," she said imperiously, amusement dancing in her eyes again. "Want to know how many people remember them?"

She moved.

Sean was ready.

Her fist of flame would have punched a hole in him had he not braced with an Endure, body cycling from white to red as he Countered.

The reprisal did not do as he hoped it would.

Far from the recoil that would knock the senses out of Nelia, she had held back, sensing his anticipation and barely taking a knock in return.

He gasped as she grabbed his wrist with one hand and his throat with another.

Then screamed as fire enveloped them both, kanji-shaped fire that exploded upon impact. Nelia pulled him delighted as Mane attacked them both, trying to separate them, flinging him over her and then headfirst into the ground.

The silver sword went flying.

She threw Sean up again and forwards, spikes aimed at Mane. He barely avoided, winded from slamming onto Scout. He was tugged up himself, flailing again in the air as Striker finally responded as well. the battle resumed fully.

She bounced Mane harshly off the ground and then into Rai as Striker pulled Sean up, and she forced their heads together in a resounding crack.

And then duplicated Mane's attack on them, a fiery explosion blowing them apart.

"This is the best of the best?" Nelia asked flatly, pausing for a moment to mock them. She pulled Rai up, floating him around tauntingly. "He who walked through frozen time."

And also Mane. "The one who destroyed the Dream."

She brought them together gently, noses bopping off each other. "Now kiss."

Before either could respond, they were violently thrown aside and into the horde of shadows around them as Nelia manipulated the air itself and grabbed Scout. "For appropriate bookends, are you the one who has to finish me off?" she cried, staring straight into Scout's eyes. "HAVE IT IN YOU, BABY BOY?"

Scout stabbed her in the chest.

It didn't work.

"Tch." She pulled his bloodied claws out of her chest and then used him as a shield as Saniya tried to snipe her from behind. At her horrified look she giggled. "All according to keikaku."

She punted Scout to the side. "Keikaku means plan."

Both hands lit in flames as the storm above them grew heavier, ice and lightning falling as a dangerous wind crept up.

"And every good plan has a climactic ending."

She raised both hands, sinking into burning darkness and then sent a pulse towards the sky, away from Eternatus. Striker attempted to interfere with an Energy Ball, but he missed.

The darkness sunk into the red clouds above them, and the sky rippled even further. Scout feared another Eternatus, but it was not something as arcane as that.

Instead, it began to rain.

Each raindrop was oily and blackened, stagnant water brewing for millennia.

Each drop stung like a small biting insect. A single drop was nothing.

A rainstorm of it?

The Shadow Sky began to injure every non-Shadow Pokémon in the area as the heavens threw up its poisonous sludge upon them all.

All the while, Nelia enjoyed a shower that refilled her vitality and sped up her regeneration further.

"You cannot win," she said, looking at the six injured pokémon trying to get the energy to continue under the assault of the sky. "You actually realise that, right?"

Sean had retrieved the silver sword and held it in shaking hands, the water was absorbed into its surface as was everything else. "We will never give up."

"Yawn."

"Pokémon have never failed!" Rai cried.

"Trite."

"Your evil stops NOW!" Saniya declared.

"Lame."

"You're a stain on everything pokémon ever was," Scout said lowly. "Whatever you are, however you came to be, you'll lose. You and everything like you always has."

Nelia didn't give a pithy comment to that one, instead, her face twisted into a macabre grin. "You're right," she said softly. "It's the way of the game, isn't it? A villain rises, heroes form to stop them. Because evil only needs to win once, thus it never can. The heroes always win, that's just the way."

She looked up to Eternatus with rapture. "You have not gazed as deeply as I, ironic for the host of my master and Soothe's knowledge. In your story, evil always loses. But the story has turned against you now, you are in mine now and I am the author of it all. When it's over here, it's over for everyone. The damage of a destroyed reality will be a reverberating wound unlike anything ever seen. Arceus' creation will splinter, Its long vigil finally ended as The Shadow emerged to consume all. It's almost over, Scout."

Her face was one of nightmares.

"Because everything ends now."

They all shuddered as one, breaths knocked out of them as The First Fallen finally revealed her true end goal.

Destruction.

Annihilation.

Of everything.

Saniya's eyes filled with tears unbidden. "What could ever have happened to you?" she whispered, feeling tremendous pity for the monster before her. "To make you like this?"

Nelia's grin was all the answer she'd give.

"It is a pity though, I have enjoyed playing, but it's time to stop now. Pack up. Put the chairs up and lock the door. Bedtime. It's over."

She lashed, Sean was thrown up and impacted with a fireball. He joined Guardian.

Striker roared, Saniya screaming again, Rai overcharging himself with the lightning around them.

He lashed out, dictating the flow of the current on the ground beneath them, pulling plasma from the ground as linking chains to snare Nelia and absolutely fry her regeneration. Overclocking himself to perform the needed voltage to obliterate.

The sheer effort locked him into place and concept's corruption latched onto his lightning chains and began to subvert them to her will, sneaking through his own attack to lash his mind in blazing whips of agony.

Scout, faster than anything here, reached forth and climbed onto the body of Mother Dearest, charm shining as he attempted a Hypnosis to split her focus.

But the Electric Terrain was still in effect, disabling his hasty attempt and Saniya teleported in rapidly as Nelia's spikes came to rip into him.

She took a hit for him, and they teleported just a few feet, being blown apart from each other and Saniya crashing onto Sean, bleeding and not moving.

Rai unprotected from the barrage began to keen. Mane tried next, adding his Flamethrower to Rai's electricity attacking the Fallen's regeneration, but he was stuttering out and Nelia slammed their heads together and both dropped.

In a few moments, they'd gone from six to two.

Scout and Striker's eyes met, they were all that remained to protect them and take out the Fallen.

They shared a nod.

With numbers significantly lowered, the one advantage they gained was able to freely swing their items about with impunity, fearing the risk of hitting an ally far reduced.

Scout's seeds and Striker's orbs delivered a one-two-three repeated punch that continuously staggered Nelia. A paralyse orb into a blast seed, an iron thorn into a slumber orb, an x-eye seed into a mug orb.

Scout slashed with hateful blades as Striker tore into Nelia with his own.

Scout's agility and Striker's speed combined was a brutal force of crossing blades and endless slashes.

Striker dove underground as Psychic impulses or fiery waves descended, Scout immune and diving in with him. They gave no quarter or hesitation, ignored sound and sights that spoke of untrue things as best as they could, and forced her step by step away from attacking the others.

Fire lashed across Scout, and he bit down on a heal seed and an oran, Striker snared Nelia with a draining move but groaned in disgust as her vitality poisoned him, requiring a heal of his own.

Nelia shrieked something terrible and managed to snare Striker and force him backwards, calling forth a rampant hungering firestorm upon Scout, the flames around them snapping in like a monster's jaws all at once to consume him.

Scout leapt through the fire, his paw descending into darkness as he pulled upon every ounce of emotion he could muster and split his vitality several times.

He kicked off from himself and split through Nelia faster than the eye could track.

Then again and again as numerous Substitutes emerged as well, each one glaring in hatred and slashing out as wildly as they could muster, claws soaking in the dying light as they cut Nelia apart in a barrage of strikes.

Striker emerged from underground, body burning in green flames extending into massive sabred as he lanced Nelia through the chest, neck, and legs, Scout's barrage being joined by his in a cavalcade of strikes so intense the corruption of the battlefield was annihilated by the intensity.

Together they split her into pieces and those pieces into fractions.

"GO!" Striker bellowed, throwing Scout at her head to separate it before she could reform.

Yet he was too slow, a Psychic could act for as long as their mind was intact, even after death for a short time. Her chunks warped away before Scout could catch and she rapidly reformed in the haze of monsters beyond the fire and emerged with a vicious shriek of hate.

They raised their items.

Striker's orb slipped out of his hands, claws suddenly unable to even hold onto it. Striker grabbed at it, but it always slipped out of his grip.

A strange symbol was rotating around them as Nelia cracked her head disturbingly. "Embargo," she hissed, eyes in the wrong places and travelling across her face to re-join. She was more Shadow than pokémon at this point, body dripping with infective corruption, taking on an almost audino-like mockery as her fur filled in and warred with the oily corruption.

The haze of battle fogged Scout's vision and he blinked.

Striker's dying shriek nearly killed him from fright.

He blinked, Striker was grappling.

He blinked, a hand through Striker's chest, crushing his heart.

He blinked, Striker throwing Nelia aside.

Reality seemed to jump around them as Scout blinked, his mind-bending under an emphatic fragging, the deadliest attack a Psychic could make on a Dark-type. He was staggered, fearing to even blink as Striker was left to fight Nelia alone.

He yelled out as her hands burned the scales off his chest before erupting into even brighter green flames, Overgrow going max intensity and destroying her manipulation of Scout in a single surge.

Nelia brought hands together, a colossal indeedee the size of/nothing she was smaller and normal/behemoth sized she towered over them/none, Indeedee were short, and she used Max/Flare a dynamax-

Striker's Energy Ball matched Max Flare in a contest of giants, sheer burning Overgrow in a saviour matching a demons monstrous fire.

He could match her, he could match her! He could MATCH HE-

Nelia jinked, suddenly twisting the world around them and throwing Striker's attack into-

"AAH!" Scout's scream echoed across the whole battlefield and Striker's arms fell limp as he realised what he had done.

There was no glorious contest of fire vs grass, only another manipulation over his vision making him think he was targeting her when in reality.

He had attacked Scout.

Nelia's soft laughter failed to shift him as a circle of flame built around him, the heat curling his torn leaves and making his body ache in ways he didn't feel, his eyes trained unblinkingly on the unmoving meowth.

"I wish I could say that was easy," Nelia crooned into his ear. "But it wasn't. My gosh, you must have hated him to so easily believe he was me."

No, that's not what he felt. He didn't, he didn't….

"You had always known there was something wrong with him," Nelia whispered as Striker's eyes saw the unmoving forms of everyone else, his teammates, friends, family. "Always knew that deep inside. It must feel so good to finally act, to finally do what you knew was right."

The fire was getting closer, he couldn't move, he didn't know if he would.

I'm so sorry Sc-

The fire rushed in, filling every space and devouring all air and everything else between it as it incinera-

Striker was blasted through the flames in a dazzling display of light.

Nelia blinked, something whistled in the air.

She spun, caught the iron thorn in her Psychic, a sneer building before something big, brown, and heavy slammed into the side of her head.

Soothe stormed through the haze, every step she took dissolving the madness around them, Timber landed, having slammed into Nelia and knocked her flying.

Her iron thorn flew up, aimed fatally deadly at Timber's soft flesh.

It struck a Protect that formed in front of Timber, stopping it halfway as he flinched. "Get them!" Soothe cried, rushing into place to defend him as Timber withdrew a rollcall orb and began to key everyone to it.

Soothe's Protect's danced in the air as she deflected attacks coming for them both, bracing just barely as the darkness of the land disappeared at her presence, the sandstone architecture returning, the 'fire' containing the battlefield fading into what it really was.

An old coliseum, pillars stood old but firm amid the landscape, a thick sandstone wall ringed the entire area. Farther back, as more of the taint was forced to recede, a tide of Shadow Clones disappeared to reveal themselves to merely be a ruined structure built into a hill, one that was being climbed swiftly.

For as soon as Chitin had thrown Cara forth, he'd summoned the rest of the guild and they all began to push forwards.

They assailed the hill and stared down at the fight that remained, the clones fading and the lies around them revealing themselves for what they were.

Far back, Wigglytuff stumbled as the horde burrowing him just became a set of buildings that had been collapsed upon him.

Cara still danced with blades, cutting down the lies that still spawned around him.

Chitin stared calculatingly down at the battlefield, finding Soothe just barely holding back a barrage from the Fallen herself as Timber tried to rescue the defeated teams.

"What do we do?" Blossom cried.

Chitin pointed towards Timber. "Give him covering FIRE!"

"With WHAT?" someone asked, they were all terrible beaten and exhausted and running on fumes.

Chitin's response was all they needed to hear. "EVERYTHING!"

And the Wigglytuff Guild unleashed it all.

"No… No. NO!" Nelia screamed as pokémon stood and fought her without hesitation. As Soothe herself stood again, bright eyed and capable. "I will not stand for this stupid 'Heroic Second Wind' bullshit AGAIN!"

She disappeared under the volley, but her voice remained. "Every time. Every time I have you pathetic pokémon finished and beaten over THOUSANDS of years, you find reservoirs of strength that were not there before, and you quench the unstoppable flame."

With a shockwave, she fought back, she aimed at Soothe but the guild was giving her no inch or quarter to act. "Every Time. First, it was Sean, giving Violet the ability to resist me and he ESCAPED! Then it was Rhythm. I killed him. I slaughtered him in front of your entire town and yet that BOLSTERED your will to fight? That led to Blossom, fucking SUNFLORA, who I had dead to rights before while she even had backup. Yet she, on her own, was able to BREAK MY PROTECT, take on an entire army's worth of Shadow Pokémon and strike MY Master?"

Blossom still fought as well, every part of her fought as it had on that day. Eternatus itself might have shivered to meet her eyes. "That is not possible. That. Is. NOT. Possible. And yet it happened. Every time you feeble bodied, weak-willed, spineless wastes of matter stand against and press your breaking limbs against an entire ocean's worth of POWER you somehow hold the line."

Her voice began to warp, twist, and scream and whisper. "Well, yoU kNOw wHaT? You haven't stopped the tide! You cannot stop what cannot be stopped! No matter how large of a bastion, no matter how tall and strong you build your walls, the ocean breaks it eventually and FIRE CONSUMES ALL. You will not stop me again! I have pierced the Aternum and Arceus will not help you now. God has abandoned you and it is just me now. NOW JUST FUCKING DIE!"

Nelia, snarling at the sudden emergence of Soothe was unable to force her way through rocks, beams, water, sound blasts, electricity, leaves, poison, psychic impulses, and earthy eruptions all raining upon her, splitting the Shadow Sky as Blossom and Melody called a Sunny Day and creating an insurmountable wall of attacks.

She was forced back, holes being blown in the sandstone barrier around the battlefield, and she darted through one of them, sheltering behind the sandstone to try and heal.

She could not heal effectively when suffering an onslaught and she was freaking out.

"Why her?" Nelia cursed, feeling the wall tremble as the attacks continued anyway. "Why now?"

She was peering through a smaller hole, sensing out with her empathy sense, readying for the moment she need to strike.

A flash of blue on the edges of her vision caught her attention where a serenity that was one with the sky failed to touch her senses.

She turned, looking behind her. Her eyes met a flying pokémon wrapped in burning blue flames.

Trill's eyes narrowed minutely in the split second there was before the Brave Bird struck The First Fallen dead centre and smashed her back through the sandstone and onto the battlefield.

Soothe turned her head sharply and pursued as Timber darted back, being pulled up by Melody and activating the orb to teleport Team Ion and Sunrise away. They were lain on Blossom's Grassy Terrain to begin to heal, Melody floating over them.

The guild grouped together, ready to act.

Nelia rolled to a stop and got to her feet as Trill flapped to a landing next to Soothe, both of their eyes narrowed on her. She scoffed.

"So, this is who's left to fight me," she spat. "A pair of discarded tools. Well, go on." She opened her arms and gestured. "If you think you can take me where creation itself has failed then I welcome you to try. Do you understand? I do not FEAR Y-"

Her rant was cut at the source with a cracking sound as paw met head and once again the Fallen received a blow to the side of the head that knocked her flying.

Wigglytuff the Prodigy was here.

"RHYTHM!" Soothe and Trill called in delight.

Rhythm's expression, twisted into a hateful glare, shifted into uncertainty as he heard them. He turned his head away, unsure if he could really lay claim to that name anymore.

A paw touched his shoulder and he turned with a lost expression, meeting Soothe's trembling smile. "Hey," she said, eyes telling a very long story of pain and hopelessness, ending in gratitude of one person who never had given up on her.

Rhythm's mouth parted slightly as he took that in, Trill fluttered in too with a bright look in his eyes.

Rhythm smiled before his mouth trembled and he pulled both of them into a firm hug.

"Tch," Nelia scoffed, and they all looked at her with a glare. She wiped her bloodied mouth, panting deeply but not heavily, scrapes and marks were finally being left on the flawless body of the fallen one. Was she reaching some sort of limit? "Do you think you have me trapped in some sort of corner?"

A smile overtook her fetid face. "You are only as strong as your weakest."

She gestured and tossed Rhythm and Soothe aside with the barest touch of her Power, both of them shouting out and reaching for Trill. She had launched at him, a monstrous expression on her twisted face.

He narrowed his eyes, remaining calm, focused on the powers of reflection, tapped into Mirror Move and repeated the Psychic she had just used. The pulse threw Nelia back with incredible force.

As they had been thrown, Rhythm had immediately determined what Trill was about to do and his paw gripped Soothe. She too realised and, without hesitation, took his paw, allowing him to throw her with perfect accuracy into the sky.

Why it was perfect?

As Nelia slammed into the sandstone, her whole senses knocked into pain for just a split moment, Rhythm had leapt forth himself.

She only had the time to open her eyes, vision blurring before she gasped, sheer wigglytuff fist striking her in the stomach and smashing her through the sandstone and launching her into the sky.

Right into the trajectory Soothe had been thrown.

Soothe, charging a Dazzling Gleam, swept her arm down sharply as Nelia flew up and struck her out of the sky and into the unveiling ruins below. She glided on a Protect disc, pulling herself to a stationary point in the sky.

She gripped an orb and began to draw on its power as Nelia landed, cracked the earth, and launched herself right back up.

The foe-hold orb stunned Nelia in space and kept her frozen as her other arm swung around, forming a sphere glowing with baleful light.

Soothe unleashed a Hyper Beam point-blank into Nelia.

And the fallen fell again.

The earth cracked as she landed back-first, bouncing up from the impact with an echoing cry of painful fury reaching to Eternatus itself.

She flipped herself back onto two feet, mind scrambling to orientate and banish the wobbliness in her vision as blood had flowed up and down and all about rampantly.

Soothe began to slide down the sky on her Protect discs as Trill swooped in, wings shining brilliantly silver. He clashed with Nelia twice, blades wings striking a horn and her bags straps. She raised her hand to clench and the other to grab her bag, trying to snatch Trill as he flew for cover.

Before her hold could even begin to snare him, Rhythm was before her. Her senses going haywire barely registered him in time, flinching back and avoiding a punch that burst the air next to her.

Flames crackled as she slashed out, striking a burning whip into Rhythm's flesh, utterly failing to slow him as his other fist raised. He grabbed her bag as he delivered the blow.

A staggering uppercut might have snapped her spine from the impact to her chin, Nelia's bag being tossed to the ground.

Rhythm struck with enough force to absolutely launch her flying into the air. He took a breath and blew down, shooting himself after her.

She was screaming out, flipping in the air. Rhythm struck her again. And again. And again.

Her horns snapped again, blood and spittle was left behind, bruises beaten into the body of the fallen as she was thrown so far into the sky she might re-join her master quite literally.

The wind swirled around Trill as he boosted his speed, flying up swiftly enough he caught Rhythm and flew right through Nelia in between a punch. He struck her right arm off as Rhythm struck again, leaving it behind to fall.

Soothe rapidly inclined, leaping from platform to platform and boosting herself with Pounce Orbs and Dazzling Gleam boosts.

Rhythm struck Nelia twelve times before taking a deep breath.

"TAAAH!" he bellowed, a shockwave knocking Trill back and forcing Soothe to brace as the shout blew the fur off Nelia.

And threw her into the zone of the Creation Trio.

The Team With No Name ascended as Nelia and Eternatus descended, Trill's manipulation of the air boosting Soothe enough to reach them as well.

She stood firmly on the platform of shimmering energy, one thorn in hand and the other holding a wand. Trill flapped rapidly, maintaining position as he scanned the battle zone for advantages and dangers.

Rhythm had not paused to stand with them and as the smaller Eternatus whipped up from behind Trill and Soothe perhaps he was right to.

Soothe threw Trill aside and braced with a double-layered hexacomb Protect as Eternatus smashed into her. It's merciless eyes bored into her snarled expression, mouth raised in an attempt to consume her outright.

Its jaws snapped wide, even wider, so suddenly that they extended over her barrier and snapped down.

"FUCK!" Soothe cursed, shoving her barrier into its mouth to hold its jaws open. She growled and pushed more control into the barrier, pulling away at the middle and strengthening the rim holding its jaws open.

Before it could even consider striking through the hole formed, she did first.

A Hyper Beam directly into its mouth.

Eternatus screamed as pure Power struck right through it, shaking its jaws free and snapping them shut, diverting its path as Soothe was flown into free fall. She slashed out with her blade as it fle by her, slicing into its rocky body.

Dialga flew in and tackled Eternatus with all the force he could muster, trying to snap its lapis lazuli spine with pure weight. Palkia's rending of space curved a bloody hole in the air as it impacted Eternatus as well, right in the side of its head.

Smoke and fragments of Eternatus littered the air and Soothe blasted them into dust, Trill swooping through the chaos with talons extended.

She raised a hand and was caught by him, Trill flying her out of the scrimmage zone as Dialga and Palkia grappled with Eternatus.

As Soothe was pulled into Eternatus' jaws, Rhythm had pushed ahead, eyes focused on one thing and one thing only. Nelia's right arm had twisted back into existence, a thin and bony shadow extension flexing in place as it tried to reassemble her flesh, bones, and nerves.

He knew why he'd lost before, and would not give her an inch to stand. He'd tear her apart piece by piece until she could not regenerate anymore.

"DIE!" Rhythm called, infusing Sing into his hateful words to disorientate her.

It didn't seem to work, however, and with the distance between them, she was able to knock him back with Psychic before ravaging his body with pinpointed blasts of telekinetic savagery.

Rhythm's own body, in the grace of Eternatus, repaired itself quickly and hew knew his plan would work. He simply had to reach her.

The air flicked throughout the rampant battlefield as Dialga and Palkia split off from Eternamax Eternatus to take a shot at Eternatus, Giratina having disappeared for a swiftly decided idea.

Nelia was so focused on what she could see and feel that she failed to detect what she couldn't.

Giratina emerged from a sub realm right behind the Fallen and their mask opened to reveal Giratina's mouth.

It enveloped Nelia in a shadowy hold, things collapsing into a corruption of space not unlike the distortion in the Reverse Distortion as Giratina restrained Nelia, mouth snatching forth to bite her head off.

Rhythm flew forth, almost flying under his own direction, as the distortion around Giratina erupted as Eternamax Eternatus acted.

Its fingers all lit up in baleful light before unleashing a five-pronged beam that merged into a blindingly dark radiance, striking right through Giratina and pulling an agonised shriek from them.

Giratina's flexed back, serpentine body bending towards the point of impact as Nelia freed herself, arms raised to Eternamax Eternaus as she directed its devastating beam upon Giratina.

Rhythm had nothing as mystically impressive as Giratina, but a solid punch was still enough to break her focus and render Eternamax Eternatus relatively docile again.

Giratina was falling and Eternatus took its chance, rolling in the air rapidly to throw Dialga and Palkia off it and then surging forth, space whipping around it.

Trill boosted Soothe and she sprinted along her platforms, gaining speed on Eternatus and managing to throw a barrier in front of its face.

It shattered it with ease, but she formed another and another until it was hitting a barrage of glass-like barriers, denting its face and slowly, but surely, slowing its advance.

Giratina shook off whatever had speared a hole through it and righted, twisting serpentine in the air and evading Eternatus' charge.

Soothe slid down further as Rhythm grappled Nelia and threw her downwards, sending a dazzling blast to spray Nelia with energy.

Giratina swept down in the air, fading into nothing again before warping forwards, behind Nelia. Giratina also wielded fire and shadows and wielded them with the might of the oldest mind in existence.

A conjoined blast incinerated her excuse for fur and flesh, the Team With No Name descending rapidly all at different points to pile on.

Soothe unleashed another Hyper Beam, allowing herself to just fall afterwards as it temporarily tapped her, Rhythm's Hyper Voice and Trill mimicking Giratina's own fire attack to envelop Nelia in a technicoloured rainbow of destructive force.

Giratina smashed into Nelia as a final blow, launching her up and into Rhythm's fist. He punched her with a sound reminiscent of a thunderclap, a sonic boom forming in a visible pulse before the ground exploded from her impact.

Trill was speed – flying after Nelia before she could recover, Soothe and Rhythm falling after him.

As the smoke from their attack above cleared, Eternatus struck. Advantaged by Giratina's overtaxed attack, it breathed poison in the cloud to stagger Giratina before latching on, bony protrusion, its ribs, and its tail all cutting into and curling around Giratina, latching on like the world's most wretched parasite.

Giratina shrieked in furious pain, writhing and twisting and attempting to throw Eternatus off, Giratina's blood falling like rain as Eternatus tore into the Renegade Pokémon over and over.

Dialga and Palkia abandoned Eternamax Eternatus as Giratina began to howl and the sky began to pulse again, firmer and firmer as energy could be placed into extension rather than reparation, the sky was cracking again as more of Eternamax Eternatus began to emerge.

Giratina managed to flex enough to force Eternatus' right armpiece into range and bit down, snapping through the rocky object like nothing.

Eternatus didn't react at first, but then blasts ripped across its back as Dialga and Palkia charged to protect their parental figure.

"BACK!" Giratina bellowed. "GO BACK!"

"NO!" Dialga roared back, unleashing his time-manipulating cry with that declaring.

Eternatus and Giratina continued to grapple, trying to twist the other one into range. Eternatus had a better grip, but Giratina was far heavier, and it was able to hold Eternatus in place, taking the full brunt of the Roar of Time.

As damage rippled across Eternatus, causing stone to break apart and vanish into dust, Giratina struck. It vanished into nothingness again but pulled Eternatus with it.

All at once, the full force of reality slammed into Eternatus as Giratina shoved it through sub realms designed only for them. It emerged, having curled around and tore Eternatus' other arm off, head slammed into Eternatus' core.

At once, Giratina bellowed. "ATTACK!"

It emerged right into the trajectory of Dialga and Palkia.

Diamonds and pearls glowed with arcane might as Dialga unleashed another Roar of Time. Giratina's Shadow Force curling into the embodiment of The Shadow and fighting for superiority. Eternatus' forced to struggle back against the eternal force of Giratina, could not even begin to brace for the Roar of Time.

Its body began to break and splinter, curling in and abandoning the rest of its body to protect its vital core.

Palkia slashed out, splitting space and time as a Spacial Rend Flew through the Roar of Time, striking home and cutting Eternatus' spine open, revealing its core.

Giratina pushed with every bit of strength it had and sent them both through the Roar of Time, Eternatus' body splitting into shards and then into fragments that were beaten into dust as the Creation Trio all acted as one.

Its shadows latched onto Eternatus' core and cracked it as well, breaking the last of the shell it wore and laying it bare to their fury.

Eternatus' final cry echoed across the world as they annihilated it.

Giratina slammed into Dialga, dust falling around them and slumping, the far-larger dragon unable to be held just by Dialga.

"Help!" Dialga yelped, Palkia flying in to grab Giratina's body. They held their parental figure in the air, taking just a moment to breath in their victory.

"Good… job," Giratina coughed, breathing in Eternatus and being disgusted by that. "Not over yet." It squirmed and reclaimed the ability to float, as the three turned to Eternamax Eternatus, the sky splintering and bulging out even more. "Not even close."

The world blurred around Trill as he went beak-first as fast as he could. The wind whipped at his feathers and roared in his ears as the sounds of battle and carnage were all blended together in the rushing of tooth and claw.

Nelia's descent had caved up the earth, smashing monuments and buildings, collapsing the one she had hit first before digging a tunnel into the earth.

It'd be a fine grave if she deserved even that much.

He'd taken a radar orb that Soothe had flicked to him and could sense her.

Just barely, it was rather impressive how many tricks this indeedee had gathered after millennia. It was only a tragedy that she used her intelligence for evil, her determination for destruction, and her passion for the end of all things.

He beat his wings and beat a blast of air through an old building she was crouching in, masking her mind with meditation, her soul with shadows, and her body with illusions.

She was far too injured to do it perfectly, however, and the enhanced senses of the radar orb allowed him to find her.

Pressurised bursts of air sharp enough to cut stone struck through the building and he heard her soft gasp as she was cut.

A growl built and he felt a wave of vertigo, of all consuming hatred towards everything nearly blind him in how much he wanted to harm those behind him.

Yet, he was the most cool-headed of the Team With No Name, and it distracted him only for a moment.

He dove out of the way of a hidden fireball masked as a single spark, feathers scorching before he flipped and dove in faster than sight, metallic wings striking the Fallen.

She caught him, however.

She caught his wing and her fingers crackled with lightning. Trill tried to pull, but she had him.

A surge of electricity staggered him worse than any empathy trick would, and she almost had his neck before Rhythm landed.

He hit the ground and stepped all in one motion, fist going through Nelia's chest before his other paw grabbed her by the face.

She released Trill, grappling at him as he pushed, slamming her against a wall and crushing her head through. He pulled her back, and hit again.

As Soothe landed as well she was taken aback by Rhythm slamming Nelia's head into the wall over and over, it was akin to Nelia slamming her head against a rock just a few days ago.

She reassured herself that Nelia deserved everything she'd done to others, however.

It was just… Rhythm doing it.

Kind-hearted, hopeful, happy Rhythm, a snarl of hate on his face and no thought of mercy or restraint in his eyes.

She grabbed Trill and healed him rapidly, the chatot wincing at the sharp ache of healing.

Rhythm smashed her head in until her hand went through his chest.

Rhythm gagged as she grabbed his lungs and squeezed them.

A fireball knocked him back, insides burning just like she'd killed him. Soothe shouted out and rushed to Rhythm as Trill swooped in and yanked Nelia by the shoulders and threw her.

Soothe's paws were bloodied in seconds as she reached into his chest and pumped him full of healing, working with the Shadow Regeneration as Rhythm scowled in pain.

"That's enough," he said, grabbing her paw and pulling her aside to stand. "Trill cannot fight her alone, I am fine!"

He rushed after them, Soothe wearing a face of weary concern until she sighed and swallowed it and ran after them.

She followed the sounds of explosions and shouting, climbing a building by its fence and pillars to find the two brawling with Nelia.

As Rhythm's strikes were haymakers, lethal to any other fighter, Trill backed him up at every turn and ensured Nelia was cut down piece by piece.

When Rhythm struck, knocking her back with severe damage, Trill swooped in for a lighter one to disorientate her healing factor, progressively chipping her down as blood and shadows ran like sweat did.

Nelia, however, was not going down easy.

Rhythm was taking just as much damage in return, taking strikes aimed at Trill and Nelia knew it. Aiming for the far more fragile chatot and forcing Rhythm to take the hit for him, also becoming unable to heal easily.

And unlike the Fallen, his healing factor had a far more stringent limit to it. His lungs could no longer be seen, but blood was still running from cuts and scratches, burns that then were targeted to enhance the pain to agonising levels.

Nelia was taking control, dancing around with psychic impulses pushing them around, even with Trill returning the favour, forcing Rhythm to take more and more damage to protect him and feeding on the pain Rhythm was in and the stress running through Trill's mind as his partner was getting torn apart.

This was not a two-on-one fight.

Soothe leapt down from the roof, Protect gauntlets formed from her wrists to her elbows and fingers sizzling with Fairy magic. Nelia's manic grin turned to her and shifted into something a little more fake as the Shadows sludging around the battlefield began to be drawn away into the chosen vessel human.

"I always knew you'd come back to me," Nelia tittered, her face half split open and horrific to look upon. "You've never been able to stay away."

Soothe did not respond, aiming her hands and sending a blast of glittering light. It bounced off a Protect of her own and was returned with a lick of flame.

Soothe blocked one with a gauntlet before a new one flickered into life behind her, blocking a sneaky attack.

She met the Fallen's eyes, and the battle returned to three-on-one.

They fought in the clearing for some time.

Soothe's gauntlets, bladed on the edges, slashed deep lines into Nelia's flesh, the proximity of another human inflicting so much damage drawing Nelia's corruption from her twisted body and interfering further with her regeneration.

To anyone else, a creature in her state would be dead. Abdomen split open and organs ravaged, limbs cut off multiple times even as they regenerated or were floated back on to reseal in that bubbling miasma that permeated Nelia's entire existence.

Rhythm's blows caused shockwaves that blew Soothe's fur just from the proximity, almost akin to gale-force winds blowing with each movement the powerful wigglytuff inflicted.

Nelia stuck back, Psychic blows and licks of flame, falling lightning and biting ice. Empathy tricks, double team illusions, shadow tendrils and so much more. She managed to steal Soothe's bag with a sharp blow, cutting it with a levitated thorn.

Soothe cut the bag in half and items scattered on the battlefield, giving Nelia a selection to use at any time.

She grabbed a wand and shot it out, Soothe deflected the laser aimed at Rhythm with her barriers. Nelia dodged a punch from Rhythm, her own mottled claws spearing up to puncture him as well, but feathers smacked her, and she found much of her strength lost for just a moment.

Punching Rhythm in the chest like a child would pound on a table.

Rhythm took her arm and broke it.

Trill circled around constantly, taking pot shots with wind blades and duplicating Nelia's psychic attacks to interfere, raining down dancing feathers to disable her strength as she tried to strike Soothe or Rhythm directly.

They were tearing her apart. It was slow, very slow, but she was being pushed back, her smirk becoming fixed, her eyes flicking around rampantly, her mocking comments falling flat before she finally began to fall silent.

As Rhythm broke both arms and Soothe stabbed her in the chest, ripping out corruption before light flashed and Nelia was blown back, smoking and staggering, Trill's air barrage raining down upon her Protect, her smile finally dropped entirely.

Gritting her teeth in trembling fury, Nelia looked up, beyond them, past Trill. To the spire who's shadow, they fought in.

Her smile returned and she sent a series of fireballs at it, ducking back and dancing back entirely, evading the battle as the tower began to fall.

She raised a hand and pulled.

Trill squawked a shrieking warning as she collapsed the tower and brought the pieces careening down upon them.

Soothe raced to Rhythm's side and formed a powerful Protect over them both, waiting for Trill to join them as Rhythm tried to catch his breath enough to form a Yoom-TAH to blow the carnage back.

Trill did not join them.

His eyes narrowed on Nelia as she ran away and took flight, ignoring their cries. He swooped, darted, and spiralled his way through the falling carnage. Splinters of stone burst up from the ground as pieces cracked and shattered, shards biting into his belly and wings.

He did not stop, he sped up as he reached the greatest part of the falling death and his body flashed blue, bluer, until he was blazing with cerulean skyfire.

On top of that, his wings flashed a cobalt silver, and he began to spin, picking up speed even more as he combined three moves in one.

Trill drilled through the falling building, not slowing down for even a second and refusing to allow Nelia to get away and heal.

As the brave ace bird burst through the building, he spotted Nelia immediately and zoomed, the air slicing around his talons as he swooped for a single, piercing, strike.

She darted and he didn't split her in half, just through her abdomen. He raised his beak, flew up, spun around, and released the Power.

Blue energy crackled around him as his Brave Bird took its due on his body, but he was between her and her exit path.

Nelia's eyes narrowed, fire melted the blackening corruption along her body before forming a form of sickle. Trill clenched his beak as she came for him.

He darted in the air, evading her strikes left and right before her other hand clenched and snared him in a sudden Psychic.

He was too slow to push back with Mirror Move and her flaming limb hit him straight in the chest, an eruption of fiery force knocking him flying until he slammed into a brick wall and fell down.

She began to advance and then stopped as she realised she was surrounded again.

Soothe and Rhythm had advanced once Trill had begun to move, under the cover of Soothe's Protect weathering the surge and almost breaking her energy reserves to do so.

Rhythm had built up a shout as they ran and between both of Soothe's paws blazed raw energy. Nelia swore and threw her hands out, forming a Protect as they unleashed upon her.

The Yoom-TAH and Hyper Beam struck on either side of her barrier as Nelia fell to one knee, straining desperately against the furious assault. Shadow was pouring from her ruined face as she forced out an enraged scream, her Protect beginning to give in.

It broke as she unleashed darkness, slamming into both attacks and consuming them at once, sickle-blades striking both of them and knocking them flying as Nelia fell to both knees.

She was gasping for breath, surrounding, drained, falling apart. Her eyes scrambled around for an out, anything, it had to be-

There.

"STOP right there."

Soothe and Rhythm looked up sharply, Nelia was standing with Trill floating before her, trapped in a painful Psychic impulse. Her body was slowly regenerating as she fed on pain and horror, and she smirked as neither of them moved.

Her body was shuddering, seizing in pain, voices were roaring in her ears, she had the weakest link by the throat and all she had to do to snap him was….

Trill began to cluck softly, gagging as his whole body was squeezed. His bones began to bend, risking snapping. He couldn't move, he couldn't even struggle. Things were going dark.

Nelia's smirk remained, a crooked grin on her half-reformed face as Rhythm disappeared from sight, sound, and senses.

Her expression shifted briefly as he appeared behind her, eyes having disappeared.

A single blow to the head knocked her sprawling and Trill was dropped, falling like a marionette with its strings cut.

Soothe raced to his side as Rhythm the wigglytuff stood shuddering. "Trill!?" she called, kneeling by his side and pressing her trembling hands to him. "Can you hear me? Trill!?"

He stirred weakly, groaning out in pain as her healing was remorseless in its assistance, just like the day they had met. He coughed and gagged, squirming as strength returned but with it only more and more pain going through his body.

Nelia groaned as she pulled herself out of the collapsed brick wall she'd been knocked into, bracing herself just on her arms as Rhythm spoke.

"I've had enough." A grin began to stretch its way across his face, stretching farther and farther as he began to walk. "Oh, Nelia," he sang, voice cracking and warping. "I'm tired of you, we're tired of yoouu, even you must be tired of you."

He came to a stop before he, he was not smiling but his face had been stretched wide, teeth showing and pupils all that was left of his eyes. "So, just die right here, okay?"

He took a breath as a tremendous cry began to build.

Nelia had frozen, a deerling in the headlights of a car.

Rhythm's kept breathing in beyond what was natural, beyond what was possible, as the world around them began to shake. His cry had risen into a wretched scream that only grew louder and louder until it blotted out the Creation Trio fighting Eternamax Eternatus.

Until he blotted out the sound of the sky shattering.

Until it blotted out everything.

Nelia tried to take a step back, but her whole body had completely locked up. An ancient fear response she believed her body had long since abandoned due to the power of the Shadows.

It was the little voice that made you lock your door at night.

The thought that made you want to ensure dark corners had no hidden threats.

It was the spectre that hovered over natural life.

She had left it behind and never looked back, forever confident in the strength of The Shadow, knowing she was Its First. Knowing that She was immune to natural law.

And now Nelia felt it again.

Mortality creeping up her spine.

The feeling of looking death in the eyes and knowing you couldn't escape.

She'd frozen, unable to move, as the world itself began to keen under the pressure of building wrath.

Shadow lightning stormed. The unstable airspace caused by Eternatus was cracking.

Re lity

w s

beg nn ng

t

cr k

un er

t

strain of the Guildmaster's wrath.

Rhythm has abandoned us.

Wigglytuff was screaming as the world was shaking apart upon the force of his cry.

Nelia's mind raced where her body did not, space was splitting around the source of the cry, Shadows was causing the world to collapse it had to be that and not him he could not possibly-

She gasped and saw Eternamax Eternatus behind her in her minds eye. She remembered three thousand years ago as Zacian and Zamazentra shattered it into pieces, splitting it apart with a combined thunderous assault.

They had not the power to slay It, but they didn't need to destroy It to contain It.

She realised that if Rhythm unleashed his attack, it might repeat the sundering.

He might shatter Eternamax Eternatus!

She had to do something, had to stop him.

BUT SHE COULN'T MOVE!

Horror had gripped her, mortalities hold had gripped her mind thousands of years out of practice in ignoring it.

She could do nothing against this kind of power! She had made him stronger, so much stronger, with the corruption.

A rage-boosted Shadow Yoom-TAH would destroy everything!

He was blind to any reason!

She could not touch his mind with empathy there was nothing there!

There was nothing… wait.

Soothe, braced over Trill as the storm whipped up by Rhythm's cry tore at the ground around them, barely able to hold on. She looked up, trying to see it happen, see Rhythm obliterate Nelia in a single strike.

He was crackling with energy, so much it almost obscured his-

Her heart stopped, her stomach dropped, as a feeble, desperate, grin crossed Nelia's face as they both came to the same conclusion of Wigglytuff's state.

"Wait!" Soothe cried into the storm. "Rhythm! STOOOP!"

She was too late.

Nelia's stolen power reared its head.

Scout's stolen shadowy core.

The ability to control Shadow Pokémon in Reverse Mode.

Her will struck the mindless Rhythm and all fell silent.

Soothe's cry echoed in the absence of his scream. Her paw outstretched flutily to him.

Sharply, Rhythm's head turned around. Face still screwed up in a silent scream of absolute fury. Directed straight at her.

And in an instant, Soothe was in Treeshroud Forest again. She was at his mercy as a thunderous cry built, a bellow so great it could sunder the skies and erase the darkness the fell.

She was back there, blood on her paws, lies on her lips, traitorous actions laid bare. She should have died, he should have killed her, he did not kill he-

He was about to kill her.

The eye of the hurricane had opened and focused on her.

He was about to kill her, and she deserved it.

She deserved to die for all the lies she had said.

All the people she had hurt.

Timber's whimpers echoed in her mind as the blood of Darkrai soaked her skin. Rhythm bleeding, and Trill unconscious on the ground.

She deserved to die.

And he would kill her.

A yawning deepness rumbled through what might have been the whole world, the air was tightening as the restrained cry began to shift forth.

A silent pillar pulled the air taught as something that could destroy anything was focused on Victoria.

Trill whispered something below her. "Soothe," he whispered, terrified. She blinked, returned to life. In Trill's wing was a stolen awakening, she snatched it as she grit her teeth together.

The fur on her whole body began to stand, Nelia's body, anything that had any sort of hair on the battlefield all felt a shiver run through them as Soothe's formed two mottled Protect's in her hands, bringing them together as Rhythm unleashed it all.

Pushing every ounce of energy and Power she had, the awakening spinning in the air before her as she drew so much power from it and funnelled it from her body into her hands and into the Protect. Barriers upon barriers appeared, a mottled, nested, hexacomb Protect. A dozen, dozen, dozen barriers all woven into each other to create the ultimate barrier. One that would need to be broken a thousand times to possible strike through.

Empowered by the awakening and braced on one knee in front of Trill, Soothe defended as Rhythm unleashed the most powerful attack the world had seen in thousands of years on her.

Immediately, Soothe buckled as what felt like the sky itself slammed onto her shoulders. Barriers shattered upon impact into nothing, obliterated by the hateful cry of annihilation.

From the point of impact, a shockwave emerged, the buildings evaporated from just the proximity of the attack, the battlefields they had fought upon vanished entirely as space itself just collapsed from the after-impact of the Yoom-TAH.

Soothe began to scream, fingers feeling like they were bleeding from the tips as energy poured from her. Her agony was swallowed entirely by the force of Rhythm's own shout, beyond them the guild had moved, pushing everyone to be as far from the targeted zone of impact as possible.

The world shook as pokémon ran for cover, what was left of the spire collapsed, the ancient town shaking itself into nothing as the splits in space deepened until they collapsed upon their own weight, destroying everything contained within.

Eternamax Eternatus Itself shrunk away from the sound, the shockwaves, as the Creation Trio were pushed back from the force of the cry, unable to even approach the ground and fighting just to remain in position to restrain Eternatus.

Upon the ground, only seconds had passed, but Soothe was still holding on. Her barriers were dissolving, the force pushing her and Trill back and scraping her legs, they had dissolved at the edges, shrinking more and more until the whipping air was tearing just at the tips of Soothe's fur and pulling them out by the roots.

Yet she was holding on. The awakening buzzed, burning, chipping away and dissolving as she did not mega evolve, pushing the sheer Power it afforded the transformation purely into the barrier between her and erasure.

The barrier was creating a cone of annihilation around her, the earth itself being torn apart and obliterated, only the barrier anchored into the ground preventing her own footing from disappearing beneath her.

Soothe continued to scream, but no one could hear. In her mind, she could feel herself breaking further.

She remembered drinking with Rhythm, Nelia was there now. The memory was burning, the Fallen laughed.

Rhythm and Trill singing Soothe's own song to her, only the song was getting louder until the cry shattered Trill like glass and Soothe soon following.

They were travelling down a dungeon, the walls were shaking themselves to pieces.

Her memories were burning up as she pushed everything he could muster into blocking this. Only seconds had passed, and already the shout was eroding her very being. The space around them continued to collapse, air was disappearing into nothingness, she was choking from it.

Or was it just from her ceaseless, soundless, scream?

She didn't know. There was nothing left to know. Her fingers twitched, bleeding blood and energy, her barrier held but it was breaking yet, each tiny hexacomb popping into nothingness as she pushed everything and more into it.

The cry was relentless, everything was burning, the light was dying, and things were not going dark. Dark was normal and safe, this was the absolute absence, light was dying and the dark always followed the light.

She fell to both knees, still holding on for reasons she couldn't remember anymore.

Rhythm was held in darkness.

Silent, head resting comfortably on a bed somewhere. Someone stroked his next gently, it was feathered, was it Trill?

He tried to rise up, there was a sound far away, just on the edges of his perception. It sounded like a friendly friend, and he'd love to greet them!

No, his throat was constricted, arms shackled to the ground, back bent with chest thrust forth. Bloody darkness dripped into his eyes, forced open and blinded in agony, nothing but hatred and darkness. He returned to the soft petting, that was nicer, that was safer.

Yet, there was still something. It was… a cry? He needed to help! He yelled out into the darkness, but it was just him. Just him and the shadows behind him. It was not just him. It was never just him.

"Shh, shh, shh." He was shushed, someone caressing his head and ears with the gentleness of a friend. "You know it's not right to listen, child. She lies. She lied so much."

Soothe cried out again as Rhythm and Trill smiled to her. "We'll always be here for you!" Rhythm beamed.

"Hmph. As if you could expect anything less," Trill huffed. So, Soothe grabbed her spike and she stabbed him in the chest. No! Rhythm had to stop this, he had to save them bo-

Only one. She's the monster. Kill her. Soothe was the Fallen, it was a trick, she melted into Indeedee and he punched with all the force in the world.

The cry grew distant.

A flash of steel. A cry of death and betrayal and pain and betrayal and betrayal and betrayal.

They had sat on a cliff. It would have been easier had they pushed her off it. She spoke of a guild that could be here, her smile belied what she already knew. The sunset was beautiful, it'd be a lovely last sight.

If only she had been a little braver.

The darkness was all around him. It never left. It never let go. It never let...

Rhythm cried out for help, but no one would save him. You had to be strong for yourself, but Trill and Chitin and everyone had shouldered his burdens. He'd never learned how to be on his own.

You cannot be saved. You do not deserve to be saved. You will not be saved. There is no salvation. There is no mercy. Arceus has abandoned you. There is only me now. There is only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me. Only me.

Soothe was screaming? It was her, wasn't it?

She's a liar who manipulated you. She deserves nothing more, she's screamed for help so many times and never once deserved it.

Soothe is….

A liar! A killer! A monster.

My friend.

…

Rhythm raised his head, he could hear her. He pulled away from the soft wings. They turned into chains, iron hard. He was suspended, burning darkness in his eyes, down his nose, into his lungs, through his belly. Through everything, nestled so deep.

Trill's gentle voice called to him, the shadow of wings on his fur.

It's what you want.

"It's a lie."

…

He began to pull. The chains tightened around his throat, forcing his mouth open, the toxins flowed thicker until he had to swallow them or suffocate.

The only way you'll breathe is through It!

He continued to struggle.

His foot touched the floor, where was the floor? Nowhere, you are in the ai-

The floor. It touched the floor firmly. It was an anchor point for him to pull with his body, strong from years of-

Laziness, you are weak, your muscles wasted, and your passion broken. You stopped living out of regret, she broke you. She ruined the only thing that made you happy.

She smiled and laughed, jostling Trill. He was so happy just to be with them, on the road or anywhere else.

The cries were louder, more violent, something was shivering and shaking, and his other foot touched the ground as well. He pulled, pulled, pulled with the strength that moves hearts.

The chains began to buckle, cutting in even further as they cracked into sharp thorns. Thorns so sharp it could leave scars on his belly, strikes to kill your closest companion, a blade given in trust used to defile gods and ruin worlds.

She. Deserves. This.

"No one does," Rhythm said. That was impossible, he only thought it, he was drowning in-

"No one deserves this," he said, there was nothing in his mouth, up his nose, in his brai-

"Not even you."

He pulled, so hard, so hard, so hard so hard so hard.

And slowly, he began to move. The chains were not there, they never were. He staggered, falling into muck that sucked him down, dragging him under.

"Not even you."

He pulled up, crawling forwards on wasted limbs, vitality pouring. He pushed forwards on dying nerves, as nothing could be done he did something. Rhythm the Guildmaster attempted to do what couldn't be done and he succeeded in doing it, staggering forwards on strong legs that were irreversibly broken.

There was nothing but darkness, yet he approached the light. It always followed the light, it was too far away to reach, yet it was getting closer. The screams were louder, terrible sounds of pain and misery as betrayal struck firmly and lives were ended in tragedy.

He did not give in, pushing with every step to an unapproachable goal, there was nowhere to be, and he continued being, Wigglytuff was Rhythm and Rhythm never gave up!

Against impossible odds.

Against what couldn't be done.

He followed the light to the sound of purple. To where screams met screams, and darkness flowed towards the light.

He reached the window and smashed through it, its shards not touching him because they were never there.

Rhythm jolted back into life, cry only half made as his eyes cleared and Nelia's noose slipped around his neck. He had walked backwards out of hell and pulled out of Reverse Mode.

His eyes filled with tears as he saw the barrier and the trembling figure behind it. Soothe's Protect glimmered in space, beaten and bitten down until it was barely a helmet.

Her fingers twitched in place a few times, the assault receding. The top edges of the Protect dissolved like dust being blown away before it faded into nothing completely and she dropped without a sound to the ground.

"SOOTHE!" Trill squawked, fluttering over her and trying desperately to rouse her as Rhythm's stomach dropped out of his body and he nearly fell to his knees in horror of what he had done.

His throat burned with the rawness of his cry, but as he heard the malevolent chuckle behind him he also recognised that his bellow was only half made.

He spun around as Nelia threw a fireball and gave a bark, annihilating it in place. She recoiled, snarling, and began to send a flurry of fireballs, each one being destroyed in concentrated bursts of his power.

That would not finish anything and so Rhythm unleashed the rest of it, sending a new shockwave right at Nelia as she called upon everything she had left and cast Mystical Fire.

The power gifted to her by The Shadow. Her own greatest attack.

Shadows met Shadows in an enraged battle of wills, as both sides pushed everything they had into the clash. Fiery pulses roasted what little had not collapsed under the initial Yoom-TAH as each side strained at the other to overcome.

Rhythm's body, torn and bloodied by the recklessness of his actions in the battle began to drip, his proximity to Soothe, his defiant actions, on top of his injuries causing the Shadow to become loosened.

Soothe stirred as the essence of corruption flowed into her, a fresh surge of energy to ignore the ringing in her head. Her eyes slipped open, comfortable in the embrace of Trill and slowly raised to the pink blur in front of her.

Then they went wide in shock as she gasped. Injuries were opening up all across Rhythm's body, having been sunken into stable Shadow in an attempt to regenerate. As the Shadow was drawn out of him by her presence, its stabilising factor began to abandon him, and he began to bleed in earnest.

Rhythm, feeling his body beginning to puncture from his injured closed his eyes and pushed every last bit of will he had, overcoming the fire and blasting Nelia back with the remnants of his cry.

Bloodied, gasping, and trembling Rhythm stood with bright eyes again. He was half bent, almost falling over under the weight of his head.

"I… can… feel," he managed weakly, turning his head to Trill and Soothe, staring at him unblinking. He had managed a small smile, eyes twitching as he fought to breathe. "Are you… two… o k a…?"

His expression began to fall slack, and he tilted, falling to the ground.

Trill broke ranks, flying to Rhythm's side immediately and shouting his name, trying to rouse him like he had roused Soothe. "Don't do this Rhythm! RHYTHM!? Stay awake, listen to me, Rhythm please. I cannot lose you, please wake up!"

Soothe just stared, face dropped and eyes wide.

She was seeing things, she had to be.

Rhythm did not just collapse. He was the strongest of them all.

He pulled people up, not fell down.

He accepted anyone, as long as they were willing to try.

He forgave when there were terrible things to forgive.

He offered mercy to those who should have taken it.

He clinked glasses, told silly jokes, made everyone smile with his antics.

He led the Wigglytuff Guild, teaching the next pokémon to make the world a better, safer, place.

He took in those that were lost. Those that needed somewhere safe to be.

He smiled at the angry and offered them a place to cry.

He did not fall.

Elsewhere, Nelia laid near-unconscious, eagle-spread on the ground.

Everything hurt. Things that didn't exist hurt. Scars she had left behind millennia ago reared again in aches. Her eyes were cracked open, just barely able to see the dance of dragons in the sky. Eternamax Eternatus doing little to fight back against the assault of the Creation Trio, and she was too weak to help direct it again.

They were so close.

She had come so far.

Slowly, Nelia began to rise. She may have Fallen, but she always stood again. No matter how many times it took. No matter what.

She was standing again, arms hanging lowly before she began to straighten up. Trill cried over Rhythm, shaking him as if that would do anything. Soothe stared blankly ahead, realising they had lost. Their strongest fighter had fallen down and they were beaten.

Nelia's arm lit up in flames, she pointed her trembling, aching, limb towards them and unleashed it.

Soothe's eyes reflected Trill and Rhythm, one down, the other shaking them desperately. A new reflection flickered into place, an approaching fireball.

She stared at nothing.

The fireball approached.

Trill was shaking Rhythm.

The fireball.

Rhythm was not responding.

The fireball.

Nelia.

Fire.

Nelia.

Her eyes only saw fire and flashed a deeper green. Smoke poured as a barrier manifested, blocking the fireball and causing just a soft puff of wind. Nelia groaned as Soothe slowly stood from her hands and knees, onto two legs.

Trill noticed the commotion and snarled at Nelia, but then gasped as Soothe began to walk. From her right hand, came a beam of purple energy, cascading over Rhythm and causing his body to jerk and a sob to be pulled from his throat.

A terrible eye was pulled free from the energy transfer, sinking into Soothe as his wounds patched themselves to the smallest degree. Trill picked up Rhythm and began dragging him away to where help might exist as Soothe continued walking.

Nelia's scowl deepened as Soothe approached her silently, before gasping in pain and clutching her chest as oily corruption seeped from her wounds as well, cascading across the gap between them to Soothe.

She continued stepping forward until they were far behind her and simply stopped, facing the Fallen with a deafening expression of silence.

Nelia almost cringed, veins bulging as her whole body tensed obscenely. "Is she... taunting me?" she questioned herself, building a snarl on her face that was replaced with an ugly smirk.

"Oh Vic, how many times have we done this song and dance before? When will you understand? You. Can't. Win!"

She moved, splitting into a dozen clones of herself all baring claws, fire, lightning and shadows, surrounding Soothe in a falling curtain of macabre evil they all came down at once, only one truly real and there was no way she cou-

Soothe spun on the ball of her foot, caught Nelia's arm by the wrist and before Nelia could so much as widen her eyes, a dazzling pulse knocked her back, her arm being twisted, broken, and dislocated out of place in a single motion.

Nelia staggered back, grabbing at her arm as it was twisted at an unnatural angle, pain flaring through her senses all at once, trying to register what just hap-

A strike of light shot straight through her chest, then another, and another until it was a continuous scatter shot of glittering bullet-like lights.

Nelia swept her hand and cast them aside and raised her other one as fell light glowed amid her wrecked form. The wreckage of destruction behind Soothe rose as bricks, boulders, and walls all rose, being thrown forth at Soothe's back.

She was darkened in the falling wreckage, not moving an inch. She failed to even gesture as multiple massive Protect blades appeared, tilted edge-first. The falling stones struck the Protect and broke, snapping or being cut into pieces, bouncing off the barriers.

Nelia hissed and recoiled, Soothe raised an arm and sent the blades forth, spinning like buzzsaws as rocks continued to fall. Nelia dodged out of the way, before one came through one of the larger stones falling to her side.

She just saw that one coming and moved, but failed to dodge it all, losing the fingers on her left hand. Nelia gasped and gripped her wrist, staring in horror at her stumps and blood, and only blood, began to fall.

She looked up sharply, realising what was happening and turned to run.

Then, and only then, did Soothe move.

Nelia hit a barrier as she tried to run, and her neck was snatched by Soothe. She recoiled, sending fire all around her but Soothe simply waded through the flames, digits digging into Nelia's neck, and she bounced her head off the barrier, the veins under her fur bulging black as she drank the corruption from Nelia's ravaged body.

Nelia spun on the ball of her foot, a new illusion forming to strike Soothe through the eyes as she snatched her thorn and stabbed her in the arm to free herself.

"I am Nelia," Nelia was muttering as she tried to stab her again. Her wrist was caught, and the arm broken with the other one. Soothe kicked her in the stomach and knocked her onto her back. Nelia scrambled back. "I am the Fallen. I am The First Fallen."

Soothe pointed and light flashed again, spearing through Nelia over and over. She screamed in the throes of a cornered animal and lashed out with dying embers of immortal strength. A Psychic shockwave that forced Soothe off her feet, although she caught herself instantly with a barrier behind her.

Fire began to raise, setting wood and stone on fire and curved into deadly points as Nelia began to scream, sending a stream of flaming wreckage at Soothe, set to pierce barriers.

Soothe focused just on the indeedee before her. She leapt off the barrier, forming blades around her arms. A barrier deflected a spear, a strike of light struck several smaller ones out of the way before a shadowy force shattered a large stone, forming a bubble barrier to weather through that before emerging.

More were coming from above, from below, even in front of her. She moved gracefully, fluid in the air as Soothe gripped a thorn and made her body a weapon.

She flicked her wrist, bouncing something off the guard. A blast from a finger scattered projectiles into dust, barriers formed around her body as smaller objects got through her defences, bouncing harmlessly off a mobile shield.

She was dropping down and just pushed force into a full barrier and fell through the rest of it, landing and shifting it into an umbrella that followed her as she raced forth, everything bouncing off it.

Nelia was still trying to retreat, gain ground, plead to the mindless Eternatus for some sort of guidance or powerup. She was approaching the great pit, the bottom of the former dungeon where the trapinch lay hungering.

Soothe realised what she was going for, she was going to try and Dynamax. Use the power she scorned as a corruption of the purity of Shadow.

Nelia threw everything she had backwards as Soothe charged, nothing slowing her down for a moment, she raced forth, propelling herself off barriers to leapfrog ahead.

Soothe landed and tripped Nelia with a barrier under her feet, flipping her firmly with a moving one and grabbing a limb and slamming her backwards, into the ground.

Her paw sunk into Nelia's chest, deeper than just to jostle her organs.

"NO!" Nelia screamed, grabbing at her. "YOU CAN'T TAKE IT FROM ME!"

Soothe's fur smoked, and flesh bubbled as Nelia pressed sheer heat into her wrist. So much so that the air began to burst around them. She brought her foot up and kicked Soothe in the chest with every bit of muscle she had.

A Psychic impulse forced her off and Nelia slammed Soothe into the ground. She was laughing again, a croaking sound of desperation. "I am the Fallen, I am the Fallen, I am the Fallen. AND YOU AREN'T! The Shadow knows I am the greater champion, She who has understood Its great will and imparted it upon this worthless creation! I am Nelia! I AM THE END!"

Soothe raised her hand and unleashed Dazzling Gleam, Nelia bracing with a Protect under the surge. Her Protect swam with corruption, sucking at anything that dared to strike it to exhaust their supply of Power and-

The Shadows were fading.

From every impact of light upon her shield, more and more of her Shadows was fading and Nelia's mouth fell open as, through the light, she witnessed the corruption sinking into Soothe's hand from where it had been in her chest.

She looked down, grabbing at her healed flesh as the last of the corruption faded.

Soothe cocked her head slightly. "Is that all?" she asked softly. The darkness was deep around her eyes. Nelia continued patting at her chest, trying to feel what, what, what-

"Then."

Spoken with the silent wind and cool dirt of the grave.

She looked up to Soothe's expression. It had not changed a fraction throughout this most recent grapple, but now it was changing.

With descended finality in her eyes she said, "It's my turn."

A deep yawning sound began to build, almost reminiscent of the world itself quailing under the building of the Yoom-Tah.

This was not as merciful as that was.

Her expression twisted from numb remorselessness to utter, hateful, rage.

Soothe began to SCREAM.

In an instant she was holding her head, writhing in place, glaring, killing, murdering.

She was in three places, seven places, a hundred places at once, each one enraged beyond mercy, each one raising the knife, each one about to kill.

The sound grew longer, deeper, larger. A sound everyone heard as they slept late at night. The sound that built when injustice happened, when lives were taken, when bad choices were made.

It was a building cry of symphonic hate that resonated across more than the world, it resonated beyond for all things that went wrong in all times and places.

She began to warp and cry as the sound broke beyond a whisper, beyond the sound in the back of your head, as the world itself began to keen in pain and a roar ripped across time and space.

Shadows formed and tore into existence as space collapsed and Soothe was a behemoth, she was Victory and Victoria and small and audino.

She was human.

She was Shadow.

She was pokémon.

She was nothing.

She was Soothe.

The willpower that had withstood twenty years of torment raised her arm, a tendril as thick as a tree trunk lashed forth and snatched Nelia by the chest, raising her up into the air as the earth cracked and quailed.

YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE AGAIN

She formed a blade that she held in her right paw and pulled Nelia towards her, leaping out and slashing.

The blade sliced Nelia's legs off in a single motion, and nothing but blood followed the clean cut. Nelia was screaming as she was whipped into the air and slammed down with tremendous force.

Legs decapitated, Nelia was somehow bracing on her arms, teeth grit and bloodied as she tried to think-

Soothe was upon her, the twin iron thorns flashed, having been called back to her by the powers she forced into obeying. She stabbed Nelia in the throat, drawing a ragged scream before ripping the thorn out and stabbing her again.

And again.

AnD AgAIn!

She raised the bloodied thorn in her right arm one more time and plunged it into her chest, forming a devastating explosion of Shadow that pulsed out, staining the ground anew.

Legs severed, arms broken, horns snapped, bloodied from mortal injuries, Nelia was still trying to-

FEEL WHAT YOU INFLICTED ON OTHERS

The Shadows that stretched across the ground sunk Nelia's hands into darkness. She leaned into it, expecting the loving embrace she had always known.

Soothe's paw clenched, and the Shadows rose in a dark flame and for the first time in her entire life, Nelia felt the pain of a Shadow Move upon her body.

And she screamed.

Fur obliterated, flesh burning off in foul chunks, she legs severed, bloodied mess sinking into the darkness. The Shadow tendrils descended once again and snared her by the arms and lifted her up as Soothe pointed her hand and told her to die.

Nelia's eyes flicked up, saw the state of Soothe's face, and twin bursts of Power struck the Shadows holding her, splitting them and causing her body to drop, dodging an all-out beam of annihilation by hairs.

Soothe's eyes flicked down as Nelia's met hers, a twisted, broken, grin cracking her skull-peaking face. All at once, Nelia cast her final play.

She had done it to Soothe once.

Then to Rhythm.

And now, as Soothe lost herself to darkness once again, Nelia commanded control over the Shadow Pokémon and smashed into Soothe's mind all at once.

"From every step you took," Nelia murmured, crooning as the last piece of her plan slotted into place, head lolling, heart filling with joy. "Every breath you took. You never accepted one simple truth. Everything you have ever done, is just part of my-"

"I'm sorry," Soothe cut in curtly, causing Nelia to gasp and freeze.

Her eyes widened and she raised her dying head to meet Soothe's steely, sentient, gaze.

"You didn't think that would save you again, did you?"

She wasn't….

She wasn't?

She WASN'T?

Nelia's heart thundered in her chest, beating rapidly as if she sensed the end swiftly approaching and attempting an eternity of beats to replace this one moment.

Her mind scrambled for options, this was not right. This was the plan! Soothe was meant to be crushed under the corruption of The First Fallen. All the pain it would take to endure, it would work, and she would become the final, perfect, vessel for The Shadow Itself! What HAS HAPPENED? HOW IS SHE DOING THIS? SHE'S MEANT TO BE THE FALLEN HERSELF NOW!

Soothe raised her hand, Nelia looked up as the Shadow began to descend upon her, Hungering in eternal corruption. Eternatus itself would consume all that she was.

"Goodbye, Nelia," Soothe said. A last simple word.

Nelia tried to run, but she had no legs. She couldn't crawl either. The attack descended as the darkness spread across Soothe's body, the attack grew more intense, the battlefield shook, the earth began to quake as corruption dug into the very world itself, piercing straight through every barrier and defence ever crafted.

Eternamax Eternatus howled, shuddering tremendously before falling limp like a deadened arm as the grace of The First Fallen was finally severed from it.

Yet, Soothe did not relent. The attack continued to grow in intensity, her body drenched in the darkness of corruption, digging into her fur, her flesh, through her bones, seeking her very soul as she was lost to the revenge that had been building for twenty years.

Trill, fast on his feathers and having deposited Rhythm far away, came flying in with a cry. "SOOOOOTHE!"

He collided with her and was repelled by the sticking darkness as Soothe spun on him, more abominable Shadow then pokémon at this point.

The thing wearing her raised its hands and prepared to kill.

"This isn't you!" Trill cried. "She's dead! It's OVER! DON'T BECOME THIS!"

And hesitated.

The attack was still descending, and the thing turned to it and waved its arm roughly, fading the attack. What was left of her eyes, descending into white widened as she bore witness to what was left of Nelia's corpse.

She was dead.

She/It/They/Soothe/The Abomi-

no

It all collapsed.

She fell to her knees. Closing her eyes.

"Fight it!" Trill urged, trying to come close, fearing the worst as everything over her body went dark, the darkness sinking in.

All You Could Ever Desire. A World To Play With. A Realm To Bend To Your Whims. Nothing Is Out Of Reach. We Are-

No.

Soothe Refused.

She knew Its deals, the offers spun. She wanted no part of it. She just wanted this to be over. And upon her body, purified and will forever unbroken, It had nothing to cling onto.

And at once, It shuddered off her in waves. Trill gagged as he experienced a face full of dusty Shadow, coughing and spluttering as all the corruption fell off Soothe's like water off oil and stained the grass.

Soothe slowly raised her paw to her face, shaking as her eyes filled with tears as she looked over the ruined remains of the greatest enemy. How close she had just come to-

Trill could see emotion overtaking Soothe, the shuddering fear of whatever had almost just happened. He stepped forwards, the grass had gone green again and neither of them noticed.

Eternamax Eternatus hung as a lifeless arm in the sky, the Creation Trio wary but ready to start destroying it, to push it back and back further and further.

Trill raised a wing to comfort her, but hesitated. "I-I want you to promise me something," he said seriously. Her eyes flicked to him, and he braced. "Do not do that again."

Tears were falling from both of their eyes. "I-I cannot bare to see you-"

"Okay," she said, and he stopped stuttering, looking up. She was still crying, but there was a smile breaking across on her face. "I promise."

He wavered, squeezed his eyes shut, and leapt onto her in a firm hug. She leaned into it, shaking together as the dust began to settle. The taint was gone/or was it just out of sight?

"First," Soothe muttered, leaning into the hug before puling back, rising to her feet. "We have to make sure she's dead. Destroy the body completely, no coming back. Not again."

Trill nodded and they began to move.

---

A little known fact, but one still spoken of before.

When a Psychic-type dies, their minds linger for a short while.

Normally, this may just be for a final word before fading.

Normally.

---

She… she killed me!

And has refused- She. She REFUSED The Shadow?

No.

No….

It cannot end like this.

Not after so long.

Not after all that I have done.

No….

Great Shadow In The Sky And Beyond! Hear Me!

She Has Rejected You Thrice!

But I?

I Have Not.

I Have Given You My Mind, And We Engineered The End.

I Have Given You My Soul, To be Your Eternal Partner.

I Have Nothing Left.

Nothing.

But My Unworthy Body.

It Was Not Your Choice, But Please.

Take It.

Take My Body.

Become.

And Then Consume This Worthless World.

Consume It….

until there is nothing left

N O W

And darkness erupted.

---

I'm sorry? Did I say THIS was the final battle?

God, it feels good to kill Nelia though.