Chapter Twenty-One: Lest The Earth Shall Turn To Ash
"I'll show you the power of a Pokémon that's fully matured." - Burgundy, EP676, A Connoisseur's Revenge! (Best Wishes)
(Dreigo POV)
Fire.
Running, screaming. More thundering footsteps than I'd ever heard in my life.
Red bodies threw themselves against the Barrier. The few that broke through, those not born to the Forest, most dragging as many of their friends as they could, were met with waves of silver water. Flashes and sent off ripples of clear light as bodies pounded against Evron's Barrier. The invisible border was now a wall of bloody red. It might have stopped Pokémon coming through, but it did nothing to filter out sound.
No one was running to help them. They were all too preoccupied with the bronze soldiers, fending them off for as long as possible before the inevitable happened. Varias and the Skarsgards and the scattering of little armies that had tacked themselves onto the war we started.
The war you started, came my mother's voice in my ear. The war you dragged your brothers into. The war you dragged my people into. And look where it's gotten you.
No, wait. There were Pokémon helping. A Skarsgard Hydreigon guard was holding her arms out, opening the Barrier up just wide enough just wide enough for the smaller Ruby Pokémon to slip through. I called out to her, a moment too late. A bronze Poliwrath hit her with a blast of silver, and she slumped to the floor as it spread across her body. The Barrier closed behind her, and a pink-and-maroon Mienfoo threw himself desperately against the closed gap, banging his fists uselessly against it.
A Thievul— Casper, I knew, one of Dei's friends— held the Barrier open just long enough for three Ruby Rowlet to escape, before a burning branch fell from an ash tree, crushing him the moment he lifted his feet from the ground.
A bright flash of crackling orange. A swarm of Joltik and Galvantula were trying to break through by force. No. Wait. The shocks weren't hitting the Barrier. And they were coming in strange bursts, some short, some long. They weren't trying to damage it, they were signalling to someone on the outside.
I locked eyes with the Joltik leading the swarm. I counted the flashes of orange. They were spelling out words in Pokémorse code:
… - …
S O S
I spread my wings and pushed off from the ground. Waves of heat washed over me and I felt my already burnt wings curling. I was sinking lower, lower…
I hit the earth and rolled along the grass. I pulled myself up with my arms and dragged along. The earth itself felt like it would catch fire at any moment.
I could just about see it up close. Faint red sparkles up into the air.
Joltik and Galvantula were pawing at the Border. The flames looked quite far back, but most of the Rubies were stumbling. Tornadus, the smoke. They were breathing in the smoke.
I slammed my Dragon Tail onto the ground, boosting me into the air. I beat my wings and spread my arms out wide. A purple glow spread from my body, out along the Barrier. As the it broke I felt the cruel blast of heat on my back, breathing in a puff of smog with each breath.
Joltik and Galvantula scurried through. The Joltik I'd locked eyes with hung back, yelling commands. Just behind her, fire was searing through a tree trunk, embers glowing from the cracks in its trunk.
One of the larger Pokémon stopped just behind the gap, trying to wave their leader on.
"Aren't you coming?!"
"Not until I've got each and every one of you out of here!" the smaller one replied.
"Joly-"
"Marry, move, now! That's an order!"
The Rubies filed through. The last three limped along, clutching onto their swarmmates. That's when the tree fell.
"No!" the swarm's leader screamed. She was right below its shadow as well, but when she saw death coming, she reached out to her Pokémon.
Twisting, I caught the falling half-trunk in my arms. I crashed to the ground just behind them. I felt web attach itself to my head and shoulders, and I was pulled out onto wilting green grass. The hole I'd made in the Barrier was closing, but slowly. Much more slowly than the gap left by the Thievul, than the other Hydreigon.
The Ruby Swarm were already scurrying away from the heat into a hole in the ground, where an Omastar and a Diggersby, two of the few remaining Finley Pokémon left intact, were waving people inside.
The leader of the swarm looked up at me, and saluted. I returned the gesture.
But they were just a drop in the bucket. Heracross was holding onto his child, begging the Pokémon on the other side of to take her, just her. A Meowstic couple were holding each other's paws tight, foreheads pressed together. A Pangoro passed out, their fur a ruffled mess as they leaned against the Barrier.
My family's legacy.
What a strange thought to come to mind at that moment. Yet I couldn't escape it: My whole life's work had led to this, my youngest brothers now forever scarred by the fires of war. And for what?
A Stantler, sobbing, ramming his horns uselessly against the Barrier. Two younger Stantler passed out beside him.
For this.
It was all so simple, we told ourselves. One simple solution, and all the world's problems would be solved. We'd believed that for generations, and for generations nothing had gotten better. Now someone else had given us everything we'd been fighting for, and it'd just brought everything tumbling down. Evron's answer was to wall the Forest in, mine was to burn it down. How could we have been so stupid?
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and saw a Ruby Goodra dressed in Varia armour. She bowed to her King.
"Your majesty, forgive me for what I am about to ask-"
"Yes, soldier?" I searched, but couldn't recall the girl's name.
She looked passed me. "My brother's in there…"
I turned; suddenly my eyes landed on a mystic purple line, through which smaller Ruby Pokémon were squeezing through. It was my outline, a hole I'd punctured in the Barrier, one that was slowly closing up again.
It had to be done.
I prayed my brothers would forgive me.
I spread my wings and hovered just about the ground. I leaned against the Barrier, just past where a troop of Morelull and Shiinotic was spilling through the gap left by my body. I felt a tingling sensation against my back. The air glowed purple, the colour of my soul.
I felt rather than heard a tearing, as beads of rainbow light scattered down from up high. It wouldn't happen all at once, and I prayed we still had enough time. I caught the eyes of a Varia soldier. Salome, a Mismagius, her mouth hanging open.
The last thought that came to me before the world turned black was my name, read in the Old Language, before it was translated into Itoran:
バリア
Barrier.
(Feather POV)
My gaze locked with theirs. A hundred blue dots that barely looked like eyes at all. Though I'd never seen a Pokémon anything like this one before, I knew without a shred of doubt I was looking into the eyes of a god. A god I'd just smacked across the face.
The world burned below me. I heard the cries of Pokémon from all around. The city I grew up in was rubble, the land I'd fed from black as coal. The people I loved… who knew? I felt an anger I'd never experienced before burning like the tears flooding my eyes. I had a thousand questions, but there was only one that mattered: Who was going to stop this?
No matter what the odds, if there was the slightest chance that person was me, I would take it. If it killed me, then so be it. If I couldn't stop them, if my death was all in vain… at least I would die with honour. And maybe my loved ones would live on with pride.
Inferno turned the black sky orange. Direct hit. The god was swallowed up by the flames. Then they reappeared completely unfazed. It was as if my strongest attack had moved right through them.
A dozen dots— had to assume they were eyes— moved to one central point, locked on me. Glowing blue circles appeared on my body, and a moment later a column of fire, laser-accurate, was headed towards me. I spread my wings and flew in a zig-zag as fast as I could manage. I thought for sure I was clear, then looked down and saw the fire following my path, moving the way no fire should. The flames sucked me in and it felt like being inside a furnace.
The god looked up at me from beneath their brow and grinned. They spread their wings and flames roared as they shot up high into the sky deadly fast. The wind howled and I flapped hard against the smoky air, struggling to keep my balance.
A red-pink dragon's head broke high in the sky into a thousand flaming comets, sucked into the vortex and spat back out at breakneck speed. I tightened my core and beat my wings as furiously as I could, throwing my body left and right to dodge them. I took a meteor to the shoulder and the knee. Had it not been for the metallic sheen I'm sure they would have ripped the skin right off my body.
Finally I was close enough and my Inferno was sucked into the hurricane and wrapped around the god like a Fire Spin and they were blind. I slipped around their back and turned my tail to iron and dived forward.
Glowing red as blood they came roaring through the sky. I heard a metallic twang as they smacked into me and I was dragged along Moltres knows how far in the air, glowing red horns digging into my flesh. Shadows ran from my wrists and grew into claws as long as swords. I drove them into the god's sides as hard as I could, they threw their head back and I went spinning through the sky.
Before I even had the chance to right myself dark-red fangs were sinking into my neck. A writhing serpent-dragon was dragging me down, down, down… Right into the mountainside.
A terrifying roar pierced the sky, high-pitched screeches that stopped and started unnaturally like a machine instead of a voice but the anger inside was undeniable. There was a flash of red and they growled and shook their head. Their tail fire shrunk and stuttered then gave off a crackling roar as it brought itself back to life.
The god's fire came at me like a speeding arrow. An Inferno might go wide so I summoned a Flamethrower, letting out a furious Charizard roar. Their attack cut right through and the flames swallowed me whole. I felt the underside of my wings curl. Then I looked down and saw the rocks of the mountainside were melting. With a great struggle I pulled my feet from the lava, I flapped my wings but they had no strength left in them. I went rolling down the warm stone, tumbling to the ground below. I landed hard on my stomach and heard that metallic twang yet again. What had happened to my body? I had no time to wonder.
I looked up and through the smoke and ash saw them staring down at me again. Despite the overwhelming heat a chill went down my spine. Then they looked just past me, I followed their eyes to the rocky cliff just above my head.
"No," was all I could say.
A flash of red. The god's fire exploded against the mountainside and boulders flecked with spots of lava came tumbling down on top of me. This was it then, I barely had a moment to accept it. I closed my eyes and I thought of my loved ones.
What the hell was taking so long?
I opened my eyes again. Around me were split-open rocks, gravel, soot. I looked down at my body. The glow from the lava was shining off my skin. I was… silver.
I was alive.
But I couldn't move, the battle had taken everything from me. I just prayed I'd done something. Even the smallest bit of damage, if I had weakened them just a little, just a single hit point…
After all, one person can make all the difference.
(Alex POV)
The wind howled. Our footsteps echoed. The purple stone was cold and dusty beneath our feet. The moon was high in the sky, it was the Dustox's hour. The fog was heavy, but through it I could still see the silhouette of the six Halo Mountains in the distance. Then he appeared.
He was glowing pink-red. We were alone on the Omega Plateau, just me, my partner, my teacher, my healer, him and the god he'd fused his body and mind with. Nothing like a party, right?
Clusters of blue dots stared down at us. Pink-and-maroon flames roared from underneath bony black wing bones, keeping them eerily still in the air. A tail flame flickered in the wind. His eyes flicked to the Chariz-Fang tied to my wrist and I saw his mouth curl up in a snarl.
"Stay back," Khan said, holding an arm out in front of me. His voice skipped across the plateau. "This isn't safe for you. You're not in a Pokémon's body anymore, we don't know exactly how fragile you are."
"No offence taken," I said.
"Alex, this is serious!"
"I'm serious!" I said, putting a five-fingered hand on his arm. I tried to push it down. It wouldn't budge. "I'm not standing off to the side cowering like a child while my friends fight my battle for me!"
"You're wrong," Asa said, stepping in front of me, "this is our battle now."
"We're a team," Khan said.
"Any battle of yours is a battle of mine," Tobias said,.He smiled up at me, and for a moment the world was a little brighter. "You're my partner."
Regiroy let out a (literally) earth-shaking roar. I clasped my hands over my ears and grit my teeth. There was a brief flash of bloody red. They hovered in the air for a moment, jaw clenched, clutching their scalp. They shook their head clear.
A laser-accurate pillar of fire came screaming towards us. Asa's Gem flashed. A pink shield raised up in front of us. It held for a moment, and then started to move backwards. It began to crack.
Asa rammed his head against the shield. Khan turned his back and pushed. Tobias and I raised our hands and shoved with all our might. The heat was agony. Gods, was this what fire felt like? I looked to my friends, their skin glowing red from the heat. Even through Asa's shield, I knew if it wasn't our lives at stake, I could never have withstood it. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to take a direct hit. I prayed to Moltres I would never find out.
Hell, what could Moltres do for me now? I couldn't rely on any divine intervention. I couldn't trust luck, because if it failed me now, we were all dead. There were only two things I could depend on: myself, and my Pokémon.
Regiroy's body was engulfed by a cloak of energy. A furry-faced dragon, their flames flickering in feather-like shapes behind them. They were barrelling straight towards us.
"Tobias, use Ice Beam, aim for the mouth!"
It came out of me before I knew it was coming. Without a second's thought Tobias' attack followed. The pale-blue beam cut right through the red glow and struck the back of Regiroy's mouth. The gave a roar of pain and missed us by several inches. The tip of his leg wing grazed the ground, leaving a crack in the stone. I felt my hair stand on end, my skin prick warm with pins and needles. For a moment Khan's scales glowed the pink-red hue of Regiroy's dragon energy. The fusion Pokémon swooped back around, wisps of energy trailing behind them. I saw that glint of embers in their throat and knew what was coming.
"Khan!" I yelled, raising my arm. "Counter with Fire Blast!"
Another pillar bellowed from Regiroy's mouth. The five-pronged Fire Blast came up to meet it. Behind the roar of the flames I yelled:
"Asa, start charging!"
Asa nodded. An Laser Inferno pushed back, sparked, howled. Khan spread his arms wide to shield us from the explosion. A cloud of black smoke rose up around us.
And was cut through by the burning yellow light of Asa's Solar Beam. Regiroy didn't have time to dodge. There was a burst of light as it collided agains their chest. It couldn't have done much damage, but the force pushed him back for a few seconds. Just enough time.
"Tobias, get on Khan's back. Keep running until I say, then both of you jump. Get that tail ready," I said to my partner.
Another Laser Inferno was coming but we'd already split apart. Khan thundered across the plateau, Tobias clutching onto his horns. And then, as he was just underneath our opponent-
"Jump!"
Khan pushed off against the ground. Tobias leapt from his shoulders and twisted and a whip of water splashed across Regiroy's underbelly. The fire at the end of their tail hissed. They swung their tail at Tobias, but he was already falling. Khan caught him in his arms, then lowered him, placing himself between the God and his students.
Regiroy's head snapped around wildly until it found me. From their mouth peaked a dragon's head.
"Khan, use Dragon Rush!"
Dragon Rush's navy-blue horns clashed with Wrath's gnashing pink-red maw. Four glowing hooves scraped against the stone ground. The horned dragon threw its head back and the serpent went flying across the plateau, breaking into nothing. I signalled to Khan, the glowing dragon nodded back at me.
Above us, Regiroy was clutching their head. I recognised that look at a glance: Confusion. Their body flashed red again, this time a very distinct crack down the middle of their body.
"Keep it together!" they roared.
"Asa, charge!" I said.
Yellow buds of light formed in his bulb I saw the flash again and knew Regiroy was summoning Laser Inferno to counter. He had his eyes fixed on the Bulbasaur.
The words burst out of me: "Giga Impact!"
Khan leapt into the air and crashed into the Legendary's back. At the same time Solar Beam streaked across his front side. A flash of red. Regiroy let out a roar that sounded like two voices overlapping. Their tail span around whip-fast and knocked Khan out of the sky, sending him crashing to the floor.
"Asa, pick up Tobias with your vines!"
They both looked at me like I'd finally snapped, but did as I asked.
"Come on then!" Khan cried, pushing himself to his feet. "I'm open, finish me off, you fucking coward!"
Regiroy looked down at him.
I jabbed my finger up at Regiroy. "Rapid Spin!"
Asa chucked him. Tobias was a blur of white-and-brown. The Legendary turned his head back just in time to take the full brunt of the attack to his jaw, splitting embers and saliva. Tobias landed on his feet, across from me, Khan and Asa at either side. I drew my sword and raised it high into the air.
Regiroy's eyes flashed, a thousand blinding blue stars in a sky of black cloud. Their wings spread out wide, trails of fire streaming behind them. The wind wailed, and suddenly my feet were skidding across the stone. My friends dug in as hard as they could, but it was useless. The stone was flat and almost completely unbroken, and the gust was too strong. A hurricane was lifting us off the ground.
A vine snapped tight around my wrist. Another grabbed Tobias by the tail. I dug my sword into a crack in the ground Regiroy's Dragonfly had left. I pulled with all my might and dragged Asa and Tobias over to me.
"Khan!" Tobias cried.
I grabbed my sword tight with both hands to hold on. I called out a command. Khan's Dragon Rush kicked with all four hooves. Instead of being sucked helplessly into the air, he rose higher and higher, beating an invisible circular path. His horns lit the underside of Regiroy's body brilliant blue, as Khan lowered them to strike-
Then was pushed away at astonishing speed. The hurricane turned suddenly outward, and I felt Asa's vine pull taught at the end of its tether as he was thrown backwards. Khan's four legs flailed. Regiroy's roar cut through the howling wind.
Then the meteors fell. Dragons heads of rose quartz-and-ruby crashed down from the sky, followed by deafening explosions that left columns of black smoke behind.
"Khan," I called, "pull back!"
Too late. A comet struck him between the eyes, leaving him at the hurricane's mercy. He was thrown backwards twenty feet and went rolling across the hard warm stone.
"Khan!" I called over my shoulder. "Come on! Something like that's not enough to take you down! Get back on your feet!"
Khan struggled onto one knee. Stumbled, righted himself.
Another comet-
"Asa, use Razor Leaf!"
-exploded in mid-air.
"Tobias, make us a shield with your Ice Beam!"
Tobias blinked, as if he'd never thought of something like that before.
"Khan, return!" I called, and he came running over.
Another meteor headed his way, he hadn't seen-
"Dodge it!"
He leapt to the right and the meteor burst against the ground just beside him. Khan rolled across the ground to safety underneath Tobias' dome just before it sealed us in completely.
"I don't know if we can overpower him!" Asa said.
"Asa," I said, looking him in the eyes, "you're the strongest Pokémon I've ever met. Type advantage or not, if anyone in Itori can beat him it's you."
"He's fused himself with a Legendary Pokémon! He's a God, Alex, and he wants us dead!"
I spread out my arms. They were so long I bonked Tobias in the head (sorry buddy). "To hell with what he wants! Dreigo wanted us dead, Sasha wanted us dead, Ruby Forest wanted us dead! And look at us! We're still alive!"
Tears had sprung in my partner's eyes.
"Asa's right, Alex," he cried. "I don't see any way we can beat them. A whole army of Pokémon couldn't beat them! We're going to-"
"Don't say it!" My hand tightened into a fist. "Don't even think it! You need to be thinking one thing, and one thing only: "I want to live!" Have you got that?! "I want to live!""
The ice dome broke. Rose quartz-and-ruby energy scattered into beads. I opened my mouth to speak, I thought we'd have enough time to move, but the next one came so fast, too fast for human or Pokémon to match. The last thing I felt before impact was a body, so much smaller than mine, shielding me with everything it had.
Everything went black. We were flying in all different directions, I felt dull thuds of adrenaline-muted pain as I was tumbled across the stone plateau.
I looked around frantically through the murk. I saw Asa's Gems glinting, heard Khan grunt has he rolled himself over.
"Tobias!" I called. No response. "Tobias!"
"Alex, look out!" Asa cried.
I got to my feet just in time. Laser Inferno struck the spot I'd been lying in seconds before, sending hot rubble scattering across my back, scolding my human skin. A pool of bubbling lava was left where stone had been.
I ran. Through smoke and ashes, over lava and fire, I ran as fast and as far as I could. Blind panic had set in. I wanted that creature as far from my friends as possible until they'd had time to recover. I was a human. I couldn't fight back anymore.
Heat on the back of my neck. I span around and raised my sword up high.
Up close, I saw a hundred eyes inside their head, although that might have been my vision blurring. They were hovering a few inches off the floor, their tail floating from the force of the fangs of fire running down the underside. The heat coming off their wings was extraordinary. It was even kicking up tiny tornadoes of dust from the ground.
"Human," two voices overlapped, both dripping with a different kind of hate.
"Keep away from him!"
White-foaming water struck the God Pokémon square in the face. Regiroy growled and stumbled backwards. Even standing on solid ground it looked like they were floating. Tobias stood between me and them.
"I'm not going to let you hurt my partner!"
Regiroy roared. Up until now they'd overlapped, but suddenly one voice sounded a lot louder than the others. Fangs the colour of spoiled blood clammed down on Tobias' body, cutting into the skin and leaving cracks all over his shell.
"No!" I ran for him, fists raised, ready to punch, kick, and claw my friend away from him.
The Legendary tossed Tobias into the air, and at the moment he started to fall span and smacked him hard with his tail. Tobias hit me square in the stomach, knocking me off my feet. My arms instinctively went up to hold him but I hit the ground hard and he slipped through my arms and went skidding across the stone. I scrambled to my feet. Tobias lay on his side, out of his shell, covered in black marks. His eyes were tiny slits, and his breath was heavy. Blue eyes turned on me. I stood between them and Tobias, and spread my arms wide.
"Regiroy!"
The Legendary Pokémon paused.
"Do you know who I am? I am Sir Alex Albion, Skarsgard soldier, and a member of the Atlanta Academy's Team Goldenrod! I've defied death since the moment I opened my eyes, and I've used every second I've had to protect the Pokémon I love! I won't let you hurt them now! I can't be defeated by the likes of you. I'm going to defeat you both! You here me?!"
Regiroy's mouth cracked into a smile. My heart thundered until it felt numb. I felt the heat rise. Well. This was it.
"Come and get me!"
Regiroy's coal-black jaws stretched open wide, wider than any Charizard's, wide enough to clamp down on my human shoulders, a black hole behind skewer-like fangs, a whirlpool of pink-red fire burning from inside their jaws.
I wanted to live.
I'm sorry, Tobias.
I felt the terrible burning heat of Regiroy's fire. I closed my eyes and took one final breath and-
Felt hands gripping my back and feet pushing off from my shoulder. A tail brushed against my hair a millisecond before water exploded in my face.
The force knocked me off my feet. I opened my eyes in time to see five jets of water burst from Tobias' shell. But instead of sea-blue or foamy-white, the Squirtle's whole body and the furious Hydro Pump he let out was lit up by the power of his Gem. For a brief moment, Tobias shone as gold as the sun.
Regiroy stumbled backwards, shaking the ground with each step. They roared and clutched their head. Their body flashed red again, and this time left a glowing red crack zig-zagging across their body.
"No!" came one voice much louder than the others. "No, don't you dare leave me!"
A piercing scream, the second voice cutting louder across the other. Words in a language I couldn't understand. Regiroy seemed to bring themselves back together for a moment, before they turned their attention back on us, and the crack grew wider. Tobias had come out of his shell and was staring, wide-eyed. Regiroy was soaked, and a gold halo surrounded their body. Goldenrod steam rose into the air.
I lifted Tobias up and hugged him as tight as I dared. He lay limp in my arms, gazing up through heavy eyes.
"Well, we beat 'em," I said.
"Yeah," he said with a smile, "we did."
I looked behind us. Khan and Asa lay flat on the ground.
"Are they-"
"They're alive," I said. I could see more clearly than he could. Human eyes were stronger than most Pokémon's.
"Thank God…" Tobias said, then rested his head against my chest.
Regiroy roared in our faces, and the loose human clothes I was wearing flapped in the wind. The crack grew wider still, and for a moment they were nothing but red. I saw a Charizard's face in the glow, and suddenly, unexpectedly, I remembered something.
"Fizz?"
Regiroy stared back at me, mouth agape.
That's when it happened. A sky-splitting screech as the air turned red, and for a moment we were all blind. A great cracked the ground open.
Blue-dot eyes flashed some indecipherable pattern. Pink-red light hacked its way down their body. Voices overlapped, one much louder than the other:
"No! We're so close! Don't leave me!"
The left side of their body was pulling away. The dots on their right faded to black skin that faded to orange, an eyelid screwed up tight. Their right arm tried to grab onto their left, then there was a howl of pain and the hand was snatched away, smoke rising from a pink-red sear across its palm.
The fire shooting from their wings pushed in opposite directions. The crack became a rend, red light and pink light spilling out in waves. Their skin was being pulled open, then snapping back together; orange on the right, pink-red on the left. I screwed up my eyes against a blinding pink-red light and clamped my ears against the bone-aching screech that came with it.
I waited a moment for my head to stop spinning. When I opened my eyes a Charizard was lying prone on the ground. Regidrago was hovering in the sky.
Fitzroy looked up helplessly.
"Please," he begged, "come back… we can defeat them, we can…"
The Legendary Pokémon stared down at him.
Fitzroy's face broke into a forced smile. "You'll change your mind. We're better together. Your strength, my intelligence. You'll see. We need each other."
The wind howled.
His face soured. He banged his fist against the floor. "Are you deaf?!" he barked. He jabbed a finger at me. "There he is! There's the human! He's the cause of this, he's the one behind everything! What are you waiting for?! Kill him!"
Dotted blue eyes flashed a slow pattern as they released sounds I couldn't understand:
.-... -..- -.- ..- -. .. ..- .-... .-.. .. -. .. ... ...- -.-.- .-. .-.- -.-. - - .- ..-. .. - ..- -.. .. - .-.- -.-. -. ...- .-. .-
But Fitzroy seemed to understand. He banged his fist on the ground.
"I made you stronger! I gave you purpose! I turned your hate into something meaningful! What was the point of all that pain if you won't use it?!"
.-. .-.. .. -..- .. .-.. .-. -.-. -. .. -.- .-. ... .- ..-.- -.- .-. -.-. .-..
Fitzroy was still.
Inferno ripped through the sky and hit Regidrago square in the face. I held my breath. Embers faded to smoke. The Legendary hadn't so much as flinched.
Regidrago threw their arms out in front of them. They looked like a giant yawning dragon's head. Pink-red light shone from between their fangs. Fitzroy's eyes widened.
"Don't!" I cried.
A serpentine dragon with a twisted furry face and feathered tail came spiralling down. Fitzroy tried to pull away, but far, far too slow. An explosion echoed through the air and made the ground shake. I shielded my face with my arms as a wave of dust swallowed us whole.
Regidrago went shooting off to the south, in the direction of Ruby Forest. Dust hung over the Omega Plateau. For a moment, there was eerie, empty silence. And then, echoing:
"ALEXANDER!"
"ALEXANDER!"
"Alexander!"
"Alexander..."
My friends tried to get to their feet. But it was hopeless. They'd pushed themselves much harder than they could take. If they keep fighting, I realised then, they're going to die. I picked my sword up off the ground.
Had a human ever defeated a Pokémon in battle before?
"You can't…" Tobias began, then choked on smog.
"I have to," I said.
I made my way across the Omega Plateau, to where Fitzroy stood, a tall, imposing Charizard, now just an inch or so taller than me. There was murder in his eyes like I'd never seen in my life. Not in this life, anyway.
"Hey buddy," his voice sounded like a hiss of steam, "remember me?"
"No."
Fitzroy spread his wings and blurred into the air. He hovered above my head, and I saw that subtle flicker in his tail that told me an attack was coming.
I saw his moves coming before he made them.
Inferno zig-zagged through the air. I vaulted to the left into a tuck-and-roll. His attack went wide. An easy dodge. Outrage's teeth-gnashing leviathan came swimming through the air. I swung my sword at a 45˚ angle. I grit my teeth against the pain in my arms. I slid one foot forward and twisted my hips, and the force sent Toby slicing through, scattered the glowing dragon into beads of fading light.
Next came the Hurricane. Fitzroy flapped his wings furiously, so hard I could actually see the air distorting around him. He was too high, I couldn't reach him. My feet lifted up off the ground as I was yanked backwards by the gale, carrying me up higher, spinning me round and round in concentric circles.
I waited until just the right moment. Fitzroy was hovering a few feet away from the Hurricane. Too far to grab, but just close enough to be struck by my sword as I tossed it into the wind. The blade sliced through his right wing's membrane. He gave a roar of pain and tried to pull back but with every flap he tilted to the right, until he was almost sideways in the air.
The Hurricane died and I was dropped to the ground. By some instinct I knew exactly how to land, knees bent and one hand on the ground to take the impact. Even so, I was shocked by how much pain stabbed through my legs. It had only been a five-foot drop.
Toby clattered to the ground. I snatched it back up just as Fitzroy righted himself. One one wing, he carried himself high up into the sky, tilted, dropped. The faster he fell the more his body tilted to the left. He tried to correct himself with his right, but the effort to balance himself took his attention away from my sword.
I leaned my body as if to jerk to the right. Then the moment I saw him tilt his wings I ducked and ran to meet him, swerved to my right, holding my sword up high. Something ripped.
I spun around and saw his right membrane had been sliced in two. He hit the ground hard in a puff of dust. His tail was right there, laid out prone in front of me. It would only take a second, a blink of the eye.
I didn't move. Fitzroy got back onto his feet.
His footsteps were heavy as he turned to face me. His breath was laboured, his tall proud body slumped. I watched his mouth, ready for the next blast of flame to come. It would be so easy for him to take me out with one hit, but that made his movements easy for me to predict. Or so I thought. Apparently, Fitzroy knew me better than that.
His tail smacked me in the ribs before I had the chance to dodge. My head banged against rock and for a moment I was seeing the Charizard approach through a shower of stars. Then I felt his foot pressing down on my chest. I saw the glow rising up from his chest, to his throat, to his jaws. I saw fire. I saw death.
I grabbed the sword as tight as I could in one hand and swung. It sliced through Fitzroy's ankle and triggered a roar of pain. His hold was just loose enough for me to slip through and get all ten fingers wrapped around my sword's handle. White claws reached out and grabbed me by the hair. I heard a click and saw a spark of flame.
Silence. No fire, no smoke. For a moment, we were both statues.
I looked down and saw my sword piercing through his chest. Red blood ran down the blade to the guard, dripped onto the ground. I felt the beat of his heart through the handle. I met his gaze. Purple eyes.
My breath caught in my throat, and the only three pitiful words I could manage were: "I'm sorry, Fitzroy."
Fitzroy's jaw moved, but no sound came out. The handle was wrenched out of my hand as he collapsed to the ground. The blood was pooling steadily across the floor. But his fire was still burning, maybe there as time. I scanned my surroundings and saw nothing but purple stone. Asa, maybe Asa could—
Asa was unconscious. Fitzroy had knocked him out. But I was a solider, I'd been trained to patch up wounds, maybe I do it! I bent down to examine the wound. Fitzroy clawed at me. My vision went black for a moment and I stumbled away, clutching my arm to my side. He'd sliced the flesh clean off my left wrist, just below the Chariz-Fang. That's what he was aiming for.
Green light streaked across the ground. It split off near the centre of the stone plane, forming a two-circled pattern a lot like the one on my tunic. White light flashed in the air, revealing black shapes. Unown. They danced around us in circles, up-and-down in waves. The eye of the storm was the centre of the pattern, where a round green object was rising from the ground. It looked a lot like a Wonder Orb.
I stepped around Fitzroy. Up close, the orb was just the right size to fit inside my human hands. But the simple simple act of reaching out and touching it was enough to give me a kind of stage fright. I looked up to the thousand eyes staring down at me.
"What is this?" I asked. I'm not sure they understood me, maybe they just registered my tone.
Seven Unown broke formation to float in front of me: U.
"I don't know what that means," I said. Then my eyes found Fitzroy again, and suddenly I did. The Unown had appeared the moment I'd realised I couldn't save him. This was a reward. Or a bargain.
I held it in my hands. It felt warm, like a living being. Then came the chill. My body was glowing, fading, becoming translucent. I felt something pulling my soul upwards into the sky. Everything began to fade. My vision blurred into a hurricane of Unown. I could only just make out my friends behind them. I reached out a hand I could barely see. Then it all faded to white.
(Fitzroy POV)
I snapped my eyes open. I couldn't close them. Couldn't close them. If I lost consciousness now it would be the end.
I put my hand to my chest.
God alive it hurt so bad. I had to stop the blood. I pressed harder- no, Gods, no, I can't take it!
I have to take it. I have to make the bleeding stop. My heart… That monster stabbed me right through the heart!
I tried to draw in a breath. Nothing came in, that's it, this is-
I breathed. I grit my teeth and forced my hand to stay in place.
Someone would come for me now. One of my soldiers. Ford. Ford would be there, Ford would save me. Like that time I fell into the river, he would rescue me, he would save me. Ford. Where are you, Ford? I need you. You're my best friend, I need you, please!
Ford you worthless human, getting your slimy ass here right this instant!
"Help," I croaked. "Ford. Ford! Someone, someone help me!"
Then I felt a rain drop land on my forehead.
No. It can't be. It's an illusion. I'm hearing things, I'm feeling things, I'm-
A rain drop landed on my collar bone. It trickled down my side, muddied with blood. More fell. I growled in pain as one hissed against my dying tailfire.
"Help," I pleaded into the open air, as blood trickled through my fingers. "Help me. Please. Someone. Anyone…"
The rain pattered down. I yelled. I barked. I screamed for help.
But nobody came.
My hand was an ugly, bloody red. Just looking at it made me want to vomit. But what was the point of that now?
Invisible raindrops fell onto my face to wash away my tears. I looked up the sky. Jet black, the black of coal, the black of blindness. It was quite beautiful, actually. I emptied everything else from my eyes. All I thought of was that beautiful, all-black sky.
Black smoke.
Black clouds.
Black sky.
Black.