"It's been a long time coming
I'm coming back for you, my friend"
"Hunter's Moon" from Impera by Ghost
Codi threw herself into the medicham right before it managed to land a kick on Snivy. The kid had been too busy trying to join the fight against the ghastly in front of him to even notice. Codi didn't mind as she bore a relief of the medicham's upper body into the ground below until it disappeared. It dissipated into a puddle just in time for Codi to notice glowing glints of lavender in the corner of her eye.
She jerked her head to the side and saw a blaze engulfing a chandelier with dots for eyes and an empty smile. It began to glow white, staring Codi down. She almost prepared to jump out of the way before realizing she still had Snivy right behind her. That kid wouldn't survive the hit.
Codi braced herself.
A tidal wave smashed over the chandelure before it could get its attack off. As the attack knocked it to the side, Mom bore down on it with a beam of ice from her maw before smashing into it with her jaws. She ripped it into the air and whipped her head around, ripping it to shreds while its form failed and faded into the remains of a void shadow. With that taken care of, she glared at Codi.
"Th-thanks!" Codi said, trying to smile through the terror. Mom marched right up to her with her arms crossed. Every exiled pokémon around them was engaged with a void shadow. Neither noticed.
"Idiota," Mom barked, snatching Codi up by the flap of scales on the back of her neck.
"B-but I couldn't-"
Mom silenced her with a stare. "I do not care if all of creation and the world is at stake. You will not throw yourself into danger like that, niña," she scolded. Every word had Codi's cheeks burning a deeper shade of indigo. She desperately hoped everyone was too busy with void shadows to see this—wait.
"N-Niña?" Codi stammered. With a glint of a smile, Mom yanked her into a hug. All the embarrassment returned at once, and she started to squirm. A moment later, she had her paws on the ground again.
Ash was right next to her. He was smiling. The instant Mom started to turn, Codi wrapped a paw around Ash's snout to muzzle him. "Not a word," Codi hissed. Even with her paw around his snout, Ash was smirking, but he threw his paws up in surrender with a nod. Codi took a deep breath and let go of his snout again.
"A-"
A red club of a paw scooped Ash up into its arms. In one smooth motion, the throh spun around once and let go to smash Ash into the ground. He completed the motion, but Ash never hit the ground.
Fire burst from the paw that snatched Ash up. In an instant, the blast sent Throh stumbling back, and Ash took advantage of the situation by engulfing himself in flames and slamming right into the odd belt at the throh's waist. A final plume of flame dissolved the throh into a puddle.
Slapping the dust off his paws, Ash sauntered back over to Codi. "As I was saying," he hissed, giving a disdainful glare to the puddle behind him before looking back to Codi. "Any idea how many floors this place has?"
Codi narrowed her eyes and shrugged. "Why would I know that?" she barked. Ash shrugged back. Before Codi could hate him as much as he deserved for that, she had to stop a shadow ball from slamming into the stupid fucking hedgehog. She wished she'd thought quick enough to reconsider, but in the end, they needed to take as few hits as possible.
… so maybe it was a bad idea to try tanking a Hyper Beam to defend a child.
After spraying the Shadow Ball into wisps, she spotted the aegislash that sent it on the left. Ash and Codi went for it without needing to communicate at all. Ash flanked from the right while Codi went straight for it. It slashed an arc of flames through the air at her, and she dove to duck it and get in close.
Once she'd slid right under it, she hopped up, ripping her claws through the air as shadows engulfed them to slash through the aegislash. It stumbled back, and Ash lit it ablaze with an inferno from the right. After their hits, its shining blade dulled to an oozy black. It dissolved into a sludge with its shield. It tried to lunge for Ash one last time and splattered into the ground under its own weight.
Codi's breath of relief died when a vine snatched her up by the ankle. A bulging club on the end of the vines had it spin around her a few more times before smacking into her stomach. It ripped her away from Ash before he could stop it.
She caught a glimpse of the oblong, silver and spiked form of a ferrothorn before another whip slashed her across the face. The burning sting of the cut ripped the breath from her lungs. The vines on her ankle burned the same.
Codi yanked herself up to slash her claws through it. It ripped an ache into her ankle that she barely felt as she took hold of the vine she'd cut. She whipped it around one paw as she fell while the other grabbed hold of it, preparing to fling it with the force of her fall. Her vision seared white when her hindpaw hit the ground, but that didn't stop her at all.
She ripped the bitch forward by its own vine and slammed it into a sawk, bronzong, and four ghastlies that were distracted by an ongoing barrage. With every void shadow she flattened, she whipped her head around to smash it into the next. The unbearable pain of her ankle made it impossible to stop.
By the time the vine turned to sludge in her paws, the room was empty of void shadows. She was out of breath but not from exertion. She could still feel the slash of grass on her face. Her ankle.
The spine on her back.
Blue scales ripped her off the ground. Codi collapsed into Mom's embrace.
"Though my memories have faded
They come back to haunt me once again"
With every exchange, every hit taken and given, it was clear that Dark Matter wasn't going to win. They stood, brawling in an empty void of space with nothing but their own attacks to fill the empty landscape. Layer by layer of darkness peeled back as he and Ithos hit it with barrage after barrage of attacks until they could see its glowing red core of malice at the center between the black skeleton of what remained to protect it.
With every hit, every attack, every bit of ground that it ceded, Max felt a growing dread. They were winning. They were going to save the world. It was a certainty. With Ithos by his side, they'd easily triumph.
Max felt nothing but despair. It wrapped its tendrils around him as he took a breath between blows. His heart, beating out of his chest, felt like it would stop any second. He'd pushed past it all up to this point until this moment, and he had nothing left to push him.
I have felt your soul calling for a very long time.
Dark Matter hissed into his mind. Dark, black tendrils coiled around him with a slick, warm chill that shivered down his back. He looked to Ithos, sending another inferno into Dark Matter, to shout, but a tendril wrapped its way over his mouth before he could. Its tasteless slime coated his tongue in nothing as it clutched him tighter.
I know you. I know you better than they ever have. As you watch the sun rise, set, you see no difference in their beautiful destruction. For each burn, each bring about their own end, and another beginning to dread. From the day you arrived, we have been closer than anyone you've met. Your soul calls to me.
Its tendrils continued to wrap around him with a loose grip. He felt his heart beating faster and faster, yet no fear seemed to spur it on. In the tendril's icy warmth, Max could finally feel the despair fading away. Even as he felt peace for the first time he could remember, his eyes tried to shift to Ithos. The tendrils happily turned his head to let him see Ithos hitting Dark Matter with another plume of flame.
He cannot see you. No one can. You stare at him and see all the hope, joy, love he so desperately tries to exude, yet his gaze never recognizes your own. He looks at you like a dream come true, yet you were never the dream. He didn't want you. He wanted a friend, a partner, but never you.
Max tried to shake his head. He tried to will any rebuttal, any rebellion into his limbs, but he didn't have the energy. He was so tired, far more tired than this physical exertion could ever cause.
They cannot see you. They do not know what you really are. They look to you and recoil before shaking their heads, assuring themselves that no such evil could exist. They cannot imagine that evil you know is within, so they do not.
Max tried to grit his teeth, shut the voice out of his head. His mouth couldn't even close around the tendril. Not even when it had moved out of the way for him.
They see their savior and nothing else. None but you endure the sick core that torments your every moment. You have never been known.
His heartbeat began to slow. His muscles began to relax. He should have felt terror, anger, some flavor of resistance, but it all dissolved before it could form. He watched the void of space disappear behind another tendril that finally covered his eyes, shutting him off from the world.
I know you, Max. I know you deeper than any other has dared to let themselves. I have heard your soul's every cry. I know what you are. I know what you want. All of these attempts at companionship, friendship all fall apart because they are complicated solutions to a very simple problem. Long have you known the cure. I know what you want.
Nothing. You want peace. You want no one to hide their eyes from that darkness that lies so deep within ever again. You want an end.
So easily could I bring you what you desire. I have always held that peace, that nothing, kept perfect and safe for the occasion that you would finally see how much you need it.
Let me show it to you.
Warm scales wrapped around Max and slowly roused him from his slumber. The warm, familiar embrace brought her a peaceful transition from the nightmares of his past to the present moment. Fire crackled around her. She could taste smoke in the air, even with something covering her muzzle.
Her leg hurt. Bad. Everywhere was sore, but moving it brought a special strike of pain. It must still be broken, or at the very least fractured. It probably couldn't hold any weight.
The pain strongly pulled her back to where she'd been mere moments ago. They were still below the Tree of Life, or more likely, what remained of it. She curled into those familiar, warm scales a bit more while the shadowy slaughter in front of a blinding blaze replayed in her mind. Their warmth couldn't do anything to stop the growing shiver.
Max carefully tilted her head up to look around. The pale yellow scales yielding to a darker orange preceded any other sight. She could feel that shiver growing and tried to lean further into the warmth again.
"Max," Ithos whispered. He brought a sitrus up to her mouth that already had a few bites taken out of it. She bit it again, timid at first before quickly wrapping her mouth around it and chewing it whole. She could hear Ithos' chuckle in the chest she had her ear up against. His paw came to her chin, coaxing her face up to see his.
Blue eyes that burned with rage sat above a gaping maw engulfing the world in flames. Max froze in terror at the sight. She tried to burrow into the scales that comforted her, but the comfort had to contend with a horrifying realization. Her comfort was her terror.
Max felt her body fighting itself while the world began to dim around her. She could feel every crackling ember with growing acuity as it overwhelmed her mind. Mortal terror ripped her from Ithos' arms.
It yelled after her as she leapt away. The moment her leg hit the ground, it collapsed out from under her in pain. Max flopped into the ground with a yelp of agony before scrambling around to watch the charizard with terrified, blackening eyes. She could feel him growing distant as its face filled her vision, the only sight she could make out around her.
Ithos' expression didn't matter. She couldn't see it. Her instincts wouldn't let her forget the gaping maw searing a blaze through yellow fur before its paws dealt the final blow. The sight terrified her, yet the empty air around her fur burned. The absence of the scales felt more palpable than their presence had.
In the scant few moments she had for a thought to cross her mind, she knew who he was. She knew who he'd killed, had to, but it couldn't break through the overwhelming screams of instincts blaring in her mind.
Another limp back made Max whimper. It hurt less, but only slightly. She could rest her paw on the ground but felt it ache with any amount of weight on it. As the Tree of Life burned, the Harmony Scarves were losing their power. It worked. They'd taken out Fara's main source of power as well as their own.
Its ache made the chill of the air around her hurt that much more. She felt herself lost in an empty void again. Her heart ached as she caught his eyes staring into hers.
Could he still see her?
Max had nowhere to run. She couldn't run. She began to curl up against the wall in familiar horror. She could feel herself fading away from her mind again with an aching leg she could barely remember hurting, bundling into a scarf more important to her than her own skin. All again, it had all come for her again, lifting her higher just so that she could fall that much further.
She shook her head. It wouldn't happen again. She wouldn't let it.
Before her instincts could complain, Max threw herself forward. It was barely one limping step, but it started the motion. She clenched her eyes shut to focus on what she needed. That chill of empty air around her fur had to stop. She limped step by agonizing step until she could feel the edge of warmth again.
"Max, it's okay," Ithos whispered. She clenched her eyes shut tighter, growling before her instincts could terrorize her into opening them. "It's over."
His voice. She could hear it saying thousands of words of comfort she could recite at will and thousands more that she couldn't. Its soft, low boom came with the same soothing warmth of his scales. Even now that it had gotten deeper from evolution, she could still hear him.
Max limped forward one last time to press herself against his leg. She shivered in terror, trying desperately to let his scales warm her. His paw came to drag claws down her back. Even now, he could still find all the right places to scratch. With simple passes, loving scritches, she could feel herself relaxing against him again. Even just pressed against his leg, she could feel all the embraces of before.
Holding onto him for support, she pulled herself up onto her hindlegs. It could almost hold her weight, now, but it didn't need to for long. He pulled her into another embrace to take the weight off.
"Pity," Fara hissed from the other end of the room. Max jerked out of his embrace, both turning halfway around to see Fara's remains floating limp in the air. "I was certain that would work. Oh well." Her remains bounced along with her every word like a puppet. "Once more in earnest, shall we?"
Fara's body flew back against the wall behind it as a dark swirl began to fill the air she'd floated in. A familiar gleam of red flashed before another swirl of pure black engulfed it yet again. The deep crimson and violet swirled in on itself like storms of disaster, crashing into each other with the violence of tidal waves to build itself up, heart guarded by malice.
"Enough pretense," Fara hummed. The air itself inverted in a familiar way as she spoke, now. A bright, red shine built from deep within her. With crackles of lightning, it burst out of her and engulfed the entire room in an explosion of darkness.
Max gasped as it ripped her away from Ithos. Tendrils of death wrapped around her form while what remained of the Harmony Scarf's power fought desperately to hold it at bay. The lightning of the blast crackled around her, eating into her more with every second, and she could feel its power draining.
In a sudden burst, her own fur shattered into an evaporating glow around her. The tendrils of darkness left, taking with them the last of the Harmony Scarf's power.
She looked at her paws. Yellow. She took a breath of relief. She knew how to use this body much, much better. As she pulled herself back up, she saw those black crackles engulfing and rotting the few roots that Ithos hadn't burned to dust. Even with less weight to carry, though, she could still feel an ache from her right leg. It still hurt, but it would have to do.
Max stared into the dark sphere at the center of it all. Memories clawed at her mind from the sight. She glanced right to see Ithos staring at Fara's true form with as harsh an expression as he could manage. It was… new.
She couldn't feel it scratching at any old memories. With a sigh, she turned her glare back on Fara. Max would have to be the brave one this time.
She wouldn't take her eyes off him for a second.
"To where we'd hide as children
I'm coming back for you, my friend"
Codi took careful bites of the oran she'd found along the way. They'd finally put the pieces together. Lotus could only grow within a Dungeon, so Fara had spliced them into the Dungeons in the Voidlands. They lost potency, but that didn't matter. Thanks to the slower time, they grew fast enough to feed a continent.
All she needed was people to harvest it.
Thinking about it had her digging her claws into the oran in her paws. That 'plague' Fara had warned everyone about was her own. She'd cultivated the virus and brought it out to infect the most vulnerable.
Fara cut the most vulnerable and called their blood that poured taint.
Codi ate the rest of the oran and hopped up to test her ankle. If she put a lot of weight on it, she could feel the ache, but she could walk fine. Once the rest of the oran's work came through, she'd be good as new. Probably. She could at least manage peak performance either way. She'd gotten so good at ignoring what hurt that she could barely tell when she was in pain anymore.
"Hey, Codi," Ash said. Codi nodded to acknowledge him, still looking off at the expanse below them. "You good? What's up with going off on your own?"
"Yeah, I'm all right," Codi said without really thinking about it. They didn't really have time to think about their emotions at the moment. Time might run slower, but it still ran. She'd never know how close Ithos and Max were to defeating her until it was too late. Would they even know? It could already be too late.
Of course, that assumed they would beat Fara. Yet, even while she imagined her own eternal demise, she couldn't imagine Ithos and Max losing. It didn't even feel worth considering to her. Maybe Mom's hope had rubbed off on her.
Ash was staring at her. She gave him a side eye that at least got him to stop staring, but she could still feel him watching her. "You're doing the thing Max does," Ash said.
"What?" Codi asked. If nothing else, Ash's nonsense was good at pulling her out of her thoughts.
"Must be a girl thing," Ash said with a shrug. Codi tried not to let the little affirmation distract her from the topic at paw. Luckily, if Ash noticed her falter, he didn't take advantage of it, happily going on to explain. "Gettin' all moody and quiet when you're not okay."
Codi rolled her eyes, saying, "I think that's just what anyone does." Whatever he thought he was doing, at least it was sweet.
"Not guys," Ash sagely explained. "Not me. I'm not okay, you know who's problem it is?" Codi watched in wait with a hint of genuine curiosity. Ash threw his paws out to gesture to the world. "Everyone! You expect me to shut up? Keep it all to myself? Solve it on my own?" He shook his head at his own absurd suggestion. "Nah. I'm way too stupid to figure out my own problems."
"Of course," Codi chuckled behind a paw. His constant insistence of his stupidity always got to her. Yet, as she chuckled, she couldn't help but disagree. "I don't know if that's stupid, Ash." She watched the silent, barren wasteland below them. "That's probably the smarter option."
Ash considered this a moment, then nodded. "Nah," he said. Before Codi could object, he shrugged and waved her back. "C'mon, we made it."
"All ri—WE WHAT?!" Codi shouted. "We made it? What do you mean?" They'd been climbing for a whole day straight at this point, but she couldn't imagine they'd already made it to the peak. Ash merely gestured to the cave she'd sat herself outside of and let her run in to see what he meant.
The whole place was crowded around one area. Even though no one was going through, they were all centered around the one exit. Codi prepared to shove her way through, but people seemed eager to give her a way.
She didn't have to think hard to imagine why. Everyone had given her a wide berth ever since her display with the ferrothorn. She might be able to hide it, but her true nature would shine through in the end. Even if she was on their side, they all knew she'd been a soldier. It hurt to imagine that they thought she'd hurt them just for getting in her way, but she couldn't really blam—
"ALL RIGHT, I got her!" Ash barked, mere feet behind her. "Everyone ready?" She made it to the wide mouth of the exit with him and watched him turn to face the crowd.
Oh. They were letting her take position in front of them. It wasn't that deep at all.
"Now, the exit's only there if it's clear!" Ash explained. Looking out, though, Codi had to wonder what the point even was. The pokémon flooded every inch of this cave, leading well into the area behind. The reason they'd been so able to get this far had been their numbers, so it's not like he was telling everyone.
Yet, as he explained it all again, she watched their faces (the ones she could make out, at least). She'd gotten good at tuning him out, so she didn't hear a word he said, but as he spoke, she could see a growing shine in everyone's eyes. It looked different depending on who she looked at, some glares of determined rage, others wide smiles of excitement, but it was in every face she could see.
That dull glaze that had overtaken the first eyes they'd seen after beating their first void shadow had vanished. Everyone looked on with the same heart, the same feeling, and as Ash spoke, it only grew stronger. She knew what it was.
Hope.
She'd had orders barked to her before. She'd stood at attention while a superior told her exactly what she needed to do and felt her scales digging into each other as she did. That was the only way she'd ever heard a battle plan come across. With Ash, everyone looked moments from triumph.
Maybe he was smarter than he let on.
"All right?!" Ash called to the crowd, throwing his paw in the air. "LET'S FUCK!"
Maybe not.
Regardless, everyone still seemed eager to follow his call to action with only a few people upset about the children in the crowd. The whines weren't enough to stop them, though, and they were quite toothless to begin with. Codi was glad to have had the oran as she turned to march everyone to freedom.
Freedom. Libré. Codi chuckled to herself. Max never told her why that name bothered her so much. Oh well.
The steep incline gave her a bit of trouble, but not much. Particularly once she saw the light at the end of it, she could hardly stop herself from picking up the pace, ankle be damned. Would the injury follow her into the overworld?
Only one way to find out.
Ash and Codi burst from the entrance to the top of the mountain and found a bright, shining light waiting for them. It was real. Max was right. They were going to do this.
Pitch black oozed out of the ground in front of them. All at once, the portal's shine disappeared. A void shadow, then. A hangup, but nothing serious. They'd taken out plenty already. Ash and she signaled the crowd to wait and ready for the incoming fight, everyone watching with bated breath as the sludge seeped up from the cracks in the ground.
It didn't stop coming. It grew and grew without any sign of stopping like the others, nor did it split into multiple. It seeped and seeped with a constant hiss as its hue began to shift from a light consuming darkness to glowing purple.
A sick gurgling came as its slick sinew formed a massive arc on the inside. Its flesh reached and flagged to the other side as it grew, struggling to hold up its own weight as it built and built higher and higher. The mouth it made could already have consumed everyone that had made it to the peak, yet still it continued to grow.
A sopping, slimy tongue flopped out of its mouth as the roof of its mouth finally formed. Its bottom teeth sank into the earth below, showing only glimpses of the sharp monstrosities on full display above.
With its mouth formed, the rest came in no time. Distorted and disgusting as it was, there was no denying its resemblance to a gengar. Was this some corruption born of the Voidlands? Its disgusting form overtook the endless skies above. If there was a sun, this thing would have blotted it from the sky.
"Huh," Ash hummed. Tapping his chin, he watched the horrible monstrosity form with curiosity. "Y'know. I feel like this was an important detail to leave out."
Codi slapped her paw to her muzzle.
"And though my mind is somewhat jaded
Now, it's time for me to strike again
Tonight, it's a Hunter's Moon"
The lack of roots to call on did little to limit Fara's options at all. Instead, she flooded the room with tendrils lashing out from every direction. They were, under normal circumstances, not that hard to dodge, but Max wasn't under normal circumstances, and the attacks didn't need to land to serve their purpose.
As Max choked down another oran to silence the pain in her leg, a tendril came to whip across her back. She could feel it coming, but didn't have a chance to dodge before it landed. Its force sent her careening into the ground below with enough strength for her to roll through too many rotations to keep track. As her roll slowed to its natural end, the ground began to rumble below.
Max threw herself to the side just in time for a spike to jut out of the ground she'd been on, yelping in pain. That leap probably undid whatever good the oran did for her leg. She didn't bother trying to land.
Ithos grabbed her by the forepaw and tore her up off the ground. Before she could thank him, he'd thrown her arm over his back, putting his own under her for support. "Together," he said, staring her directly in the eyes. He smirked with undue confidence. "We're winning this together."
Your souls will not be granted an afterlife.
A sweep of darkness reared back around it before lashing out in a massive sweep through the entire room. Ithos dove for the ground with Max in tow and tried to shield her from the attack. It smacked into his back and sent them both flying uncontrollably into the nearest wall. By some miracle, they managed to hit it basically sideways, neither crushing the other underneath.
They rolled down the wall for a second before slapping against the ground. A cloud of soot burst from underneath. Max already had enough in her fur to send a cloud, and this had replenished her reserves.
While Ithos tried to recover from the hit, Max's ear flicked up. She looked up to see Ash's petrified form flying through the air towards them. She didn't think twice before ripping Ithos off the ground and jumping them to safety. She felt the statue hit the ground rather than heard it, her ears ringing in pain.
"Max!" Ithos said, ripping her into his arms. "D-don't-" A tendril whipped towards them, forcing him to help her up and hop out of its range. Max was running out of breath.
"Ithos, you have to go," Max said. His objection died the instant he saw her expression. She hissed in a breath at another surge of pain with every beat of her heart. "We need to attack her. I can't make it over, but you can." Before he could object, another tendril slashed for them. Max forced herself out of his hold and threw both of them out of range of the attack. This time, she didn't use her bad leg. "GO!"
Ithos looked at her, worry wetting his eyes until he saw her hop out of the way of another attack. She had the speed to dodge, at least. With a nervous nod, he booked it for Fara.
A tendril ripped from the earth and wrapped its way around Max.
Hell-
"No,"Max barked. With a quick shock, she evaporated the tendril around her. She wasn't going to deal with that again. She dropped to three legs, her back right tentatively there for little more than moral support. She closed her eyes and tuned in to her awareness. No point in resisting it for now.
The ground rumbled beneath her again. She waited until the last second to throw herself out of the way of the spike as it shot out of the earth, only for another to hit her from the other side. It ripped a yelp out of her lungs before she could mask it.
Another tendril caught her, slamming her into the ground to coil around her. She already knew what was coming and called out another electric burst. As she let it out, several more tendrils came.
It's rude to interrupt, you know.
Max rolled her eyes. If Fara was going to torment her, she could at least be funnier about it. This was just annoying.
Another wave of darkness slammed down toward Ithos. He leapt out of the way, but only kept his top half from taking the hit. Max tried to rip herself out of the tendrils by force, but they clutched her tighter. She tried to let out another shock, but it wasn't enough to stop the constant barrage wrapping around her.
I must say, I'm impressed. I thought surely your fear would have you at his throat. You must really love him.
This time, the words didn't have quite the same weight. Thanks to her time with Eleos, she was a lot more used to feeling someone else chime in on her thoughts. If anything, it was nostalgic.
That must make it hurt so much more to know how this all ends.
Max stiffened. For just an instant, she felt a spike of pain and immediately felt a fresh chill burrowing into her soul.
All it takes is a single moment of weakness.
The thoughts started filling her mind more, now. She could feel Fara taking what influence she could over Max's heart and playing it to her whims. The pain was scarred, but Fara brought it fresh and ready to the forefront of Max's mind. Fara seemed to almost sing with glee in her head.
You really believed it, didn't you? Another chance. You've even managed to get him to love you. Won't it be horrible, then, to cut him off again? Did you think you could stay, or were you just that eager to break his heart again.
It was artificial pain. Max knew that. She knew the truth far more than Fara could ever distort, but the pain didn't have to be real to hurt. Her darkest thoughts trot out to hit her once again. Fara's grip tightened.
The whole world will see you for what you are. They worship me, the one who brought them back to life.
"You killed them," Max forced through grit teeth. The rumble of a chuckle shook the back of her head.
I give only what their hearts desire. None can ever truly resist me. No heart is clean of hate.
Certainly not yours.
A tendril snatched the blast seed out of Max's paw the moment she grabbed it.
That won't work twice.
"Yeah?" Max asked, a bored look on her face. "Well, neither will this." She sucked in air as she felt along the tendrils that burrowed their way inside her. They slid through her with precision that she recognized as sloppy. Eleos had been a lot more thorough.
After all, it wanted to make sure it couldn't hurt her again.
The beat of her soul lit the tendrils burrowing into it with a burning blaze that shined no light. She thought of every quiet moment with Ithos, every shared glance, every laugh, every smile, pain, joy, and let those moments take over what the tendrils attempted to take hold of. Every hold they'd forged burnt to nothing as Fara's influence died. Max called a bolt of lightning to finish off the dregs and freed herself.
"Sorry," Max said, flopping to the ground for just a moment's rest. "I don't want to kill myself anymore." In actuality, she had no idea if that mattered in the slightest. She just remembered how it felt when Eleos helped her flip her brain into her heart's soul to leave all three scrambled like eggs.
It was surprisingly pleasant.
Max ended her rest in a hurry as another bundle of tendrils whipped for her. She could manage to jump on three legs better than running, but it left her much more susceptible to interception. Already, Fara whipped at her from behind only to have a spike jutting out of the ground moments before Max landed on it. Max had to brace against it with an iron tail to slide down its length safely.
The barrage started to lighten, and Max felt a bit of dread building in her gut. That had to mean Fara shifted more focus to Ithos. She hoped he'd already gotten some hits in before Fara could get him off.
Fara was on fire. That was probably a good sign. Max could even see Ithos still sending an inferno into the sphere.
All of Fara's tendrils built up into a massive wave of darkness again. She wound it back for another sweep, then swung right for Ithos. Instead of bothering to dodge, Ithos paused his ongoing flame to slam his paws into the ground below and engulfed himself in a sarcophagus of rock.
Max had no idea when he'd even learned Rock Tomb, much less how he figured out how to use it on himself. The results weren't exactly brilliant, knocking the protective layer out of the ground and skidding a few yards to the side, but Max had to dodge the wave herself before she could judge his tactic's efficacy.
Jumping as high as she could, Max sent a calling charge down so the lightning bolt could give her the rest of the height she needed. It got easier to manage her air control as a raichu, and luckily, that seemed to persist. It wasn't as high as before, but she cleared over the attack. She had to worry about another retaliation as she landed, but none came.
Max realized three legs weren't ideal to land on the moment she tried it. Her balance immediately sent her falling onto her bad leg. She managed to hit her knee instead, though, keeping the fracture (nubbins crossed) mostly unburdened.
No attacks came immediately. She didn't waste time appreciating the moment to breathe and immediately looked up. Ithos had broken out of his protective casing and started shooting more blazes into the dark sphere. Fara just sat there in the air. Even as the flames engulfed her further, the air around her began to grow dark. If Ithos even noticed, he seemed to think the best solution was to keep lighting her up.
Fara was preparing an attack.
"ITHOS!" Max screamed milliseconds before all the darkness encasing Fara smashed into Ithos. The impact shook the ground, even as it sent him flying through the air. He'd bounced off the ground.
As he flew through the air, he didn't look like he was moving. Max felt her stomach turn, but wouldn't let herself consider it possible. She followed his flight path and ran for where he would land.
Ithos ended up even further back than her. He tensed as he hit the ground before going entirely limp. Max shoved her paw into her bag's other pocket and took out her reviver seed. It was too early to use it, but she didn't have a choice. The moment she made it next to him, she crushed the seed against his scales.
A flash of light engulfed him, and his eyes had opened when it dissipated. He looked all right, but Max shoved an oran in his face anyway. 'Alive' wasn't exactly the same as in fighting condition.
"Darn it," Ithos grunted before chowing down on it. He quickly yanked Max into a hug, which Max used as an opportunity to yank him up onto his paws. It wasn't easy on one and a half hindpaws, but she managed anyway. As he choked down his oran, he said, "Thanks." He was trying so hard not to look embarrassed, and it was adorable.
It was even cuter when he offered her an oran of his own. Max chomped it up without complaint and looked back at Fara with Ithos. "D-did I do anything?" he asked. "I can't tell." He started to deflate around the same time the ground below them started to rumble.
Max held him tight as they both leapt out of the way, glad to have him to lean on for the time being. "Think about it this way," Max said. "If you didn't, she wouldn't have killed you."
Ithos glared at her for a second before a chuckle interrupted his anger. "Oh, my lightning love," he grumbled through a giggle. "You always know just what to say." Max chuckled and looked to Fara, trying to think what they should do next. Leaving Ithos up there alone just put a target on his back, and even aside from having passed out, he already looked pretty exhausted.
How the hell was she going to make it up there, though?
"This way," Ithos said, jerking her to the left. Max could only squeak in objection, not having the balance to resist. He dragged her along without another word while tendrils came after them from behind. He let go to turn and evaporate them with a plume of flame. After the attack, he gasped with a paw to his chest.
He was definitely losing steam already, and Max couldn't blame him. After all, he killed Fara mere minutes before Max sent him off to do it again. Sending him after her to fight all alone had been a horrible plan, but she didn't know what else she could do. She wasn't supposed to make the plans. She was supposed to sit there and look pretty and revise as needed.
"Perfect, there she is!" Ithos cheered. He shot down to grab something, and Max realized he was digging through Codi's bag. It was hanging from her petrified form, half buried in the dirt.
"Ithos," Max grumbled. She turned her eyes to their surroundings to watch for attacks (and keep from looking at the petrified remains of her best friend). Her complaint didn't seem to register with Ithos, though, and he quickly snatched whatever he was looking for out of Codi's bag.
"Here!" Ithos said. He held his paw out to give her whatever he'd grabbed, and Max had to tackle him out of getting hit by the next spike stabbing at them from the earth below. It missed them, but hit Codi's statue, sending her flying comically high as she flew through the air. Ithos followed her flight path with his eyes scrunched up in worry. "Is-"
"She'll be fine," Max said. After he yanked them both up, she waved the worry out of the air. "I'm pretty sure those are indestructible." As long as the soul persisted, but now wasn't the time to share that specific.
"Great," Ithos said, shaking his head of the thought. Finally, he was going to accept a half answer for once in her life. Again, he held out his findings. Max got the chance to actually look at them this time, taking a roll of bandages and two wood boards about the size of her shin. "Do you know how to wrap a splint?"
"I'll figure it out," Max said. They'd taken the same first aid course, of course she did—not to mention her own long, long history of having a shitty leg to deal with, but he didn't know about that.
Maybe her right leg was cursed. That could explain a lot, actually.
"Cover me," she said as she flopped to the ground and got to work. Ithos immediately had his work cut out for him with a legion of tendrils flying at them again. Max let herself trust him to focus on remembering how the hell to make a splint as quick as possible. She sucked in a breath and let out a hiss as she wrapped the bandage around her leg once, giving herself a place to slide the wood into.
It was too long. "Kachu," she swore. She ripped both out and broke chunks about the width of her hindpaw off of both with a quick iron tail. In fact, that gave her an idea.
First, though, she got both shoved into the first strip still around her leg. Once they were nestled in nice and tight, she could feel the ground below her rumbling again. Ithos yanked her up by the shoulder, giving her barely enough time to grab one of the excess chunks, the other never to be seen again.
"Thanks," Max gasped. This was already too much time wasted. She needed to hurry up and got to wrapping the bandages down the length of her leg. As she did, practically on instinct, she started reciting, "Secure. Tight enough to be uncomfortable, but not tight enough to hurt." It had been so long since she'd seen Neb. Max had to wonder what Neb would think, seeing her now.
...probably pissed that she'd broken her leg, given their last argument.
Max reassured herself these were extenuating circumstances as she reached her ankle. She wrapped the bandages down around her heel to secure the excess she'd chopped off there, supporting both of the boards at the bottom. A few more wraps around her hindpaw, she had to hope it would work.
Max tossed the roll of bandages back into her bag with the same motion she used to cut them loose, one forepaw sticking around to tuck in the end. It wasn't a cast, but it would do. It would have to do.
"All right, let's go," Max said. She looked up and winced as she watched Ithos let out a breath of relief. "Sorry."
Ithos yanked her into a hug and kissed her. "Anytime," he said. He glanced down at her leg and gave a slightly worried tilt of his head. "You sure you can walk on it, now?"
"I hope so," Max said. That wasn't at all an answer Ithos wanted, but he reluctantly acquiesced. They nodded to each other and turned back to Fara. He hadn't finished turning before he threw himself around her again, slamming his paws to the ground. Right as another sweep of darkness was about to hit them, he surrounded them with another rock tomb.
Thanks to being horizontal this time, it managed to stay stuck to the ground. The jostling wasn't pleasant, but it was better than getting hit by that thing. It was awfully intimate, too, but Max didn't let herself think about that.
Ithos broke them out of the tomb just as easily. Max pecked him on the lips and hopped down to get ready to run. She could feel Ithos watching as she tested putting weight on the splint.
It worked better than she expected: at all. Just in case, she pulled another sitrus out of her bag and choked it down in three bites before her first attempt at running. She didn't faint from the effort, so she counted that as a victory, giving Ithos a quick thumbs up as they both started closing in on Fara.
Immediately, a wave of tendrils greeted them. A few lashed at Max from her front, but most came in from the sides, forcing her to hop back and forth to dodge them. Fara was trying to agitate her leg further.
Max grit her teeth and ran straight ahead. A few tendrils already primed and ready ahead of her slashed at her face. She managed to get ahead of those coming at her from the side, though, and while getting hit in the face stung, those had mostly been distractions. None of the attacks really hit her deep. She just had to hope running this fast wouldn't ruin her leg sooner. She was favoring her left hindleg, but would that be enough?
It was too soon to tell. Max let the worry go and felt as the ground began to rumble again. She felt for anywhere that might be safe, but couldn't seem to feel anything. Fara wasn't holding back anymore.
Time for another bad idea.
Right as she felt the spikes breaking out of the earth beneath her, Max leapt up and intercepted it with an iron tail. The spike stabbed right into her tail, the iron hardly stopping any pain, but she just barely managed to keep the attack going. It didn't shatter, only dissipating after she was flying through the air and towards Fara.
Shortly after she landed, she heard a massive rock slam into the ground mere yards away from her. It skid ahead of her, rolling a few times before an orange paw punched its way out of the rock. Ithos yanked himself out of his tomb, gasping for air.
"Good idea, darling," Max chuckled. She ran up to help him out the rest of the way with a smirk. Ithos feigned a grimace as she did.
"I must be spending too much time with you," Ithos grumbled, rolling his eyes.
"I certainly hope so," Max said, glancing to Fara. They still had a few yards to go before they made it to her, but they were closing in. "Should we split up?" She looked to Ithos before looking at the devastation of the ground behind them.
Ithos nodded as he looked back, too, saying, "It would split her focus." Yet, he gave a glance to her leg with a frown. Even standing still, she was clearly favoring her left.
"It's gonna be like this whether we're together or not," Max said. Ithos gave her a worried glance, but ultimately nodded. Max hopped up to kiss him, then dashed to Fara's right side. Behind, she could feel Ithos going left. Splitting up was better for speed, anyway. Even with a bad leg, she could outrun him. She still kept a moderate pace to keep herself from tiring out too soon, though.
As they made it to the last stretch, Max looked up to see another wave of darkness building behind Fara. It started to swing, so she leapt up while sending another calling charge below her. The lightning didn't strike before the wave swept into the air and slammed her back into the ground.
Max screamed as it squished her and left her wheezing in breath to replenish her lungs. She'd at least spread her limbs out, this time. Maybe her instincts had finally done something useful and helped her fall properly.
Two tendrils wrapped around her arms and began to yank her up. Before they could get far, Max yanked her paws in, ripping them out of Fara's grasp. The parts wrapped around her wrists writhed as they evaporated into the air. Max swallowed the pain and started closing the rest of the distance. The moment she was close enough, she sent a calling charge into the air above Fara.
A lightning bolt crashed through Fara's form, briefly illuminating the skeleton that formed the structure of its sphere. Her defenses were thinning. It was slow, but they were making progress. They didn't need to beat her on their own, though. Max just hoped they could last until Ash and Codi made it out.
A spike shot out from the ground beneath her, barely giving Max time to feel it before it stabbed out of the earth. She managed to dodge getting skewered, but its side still hit hers. She wince as it sent her flying to the side.
It didn't send her back, though. Max let herself roll a few times before righting herself and pulling in all the electricity she could. Electricity on its own was great, but she was much more physical than that.
Max glared up at Fara while lightning crackled through her fur. Tendrils swung at her, so she dashed forward to dodge them. That only brought more shooting straight out of Fara herself, swiping at the air in front of Max and forcing her to run around. A few tried to skewer her from above, nicking her across the back as she barely jumped out of the way in time.
For the last few feet, Max didn't bother dodging. She'd surrounded herself in enough electricity that the tendrils dissipated in her charge before they could hit her. Right as a spike shot out of the ground beneath her, she leapt up and let it shoot her into the air, blocking it with an iron tail again.
At the peak, she shot a calling charge up that yanked her down on the rebound. The lightning bolt that shot through Fara threw Max right into her, bursting with her own storm of electricity.
Lightning burst all through Fara's form while Max slammed into her. She kept the circuit going as best she could to keep herself stuck to Fara as she pulled her paw back. The lightning that shot through her started to crackle crimson as she clenched her paw into a fist, the pull of her own charge strong enough that she had trouble pulling herself away from Fara enough to get the attack going.
Once she'd pulled back about as far as she could manage, she threw all of her weight into the punch as well as letting the full force of the charge yank her into Fara's outer shell. It smashed into the shell with a resounding crack, the last of her electricity finally bursting out of Fara as well.
Before she could fall, Max kicked herself into the air. With crimson still crackling around her, she flew up before using electricity to propel her down. For such a small girl, maybe a body slam was odd.
Max appreciated her extra weight more than ever once she slammed into Fara's outer shell. Shatters spidered all through the dark aura, dark bursts of red and violet bursting forth from within. She'd left a crater where she landed that all the cracks originated from, which she happily watched spread as she fell. This was far from the end, but she was still proud of the milestone.
"We're doing it, Ithos!" Max shouted as she landed, a grin spreading her lips wide. She could hardly believe she'd managed to get off three attacks before Fara retaliated, even. Considering how hard it had been to get there, she expected Fara to defend herself better. Maybe dividing her attention had worked.
Why hadn't Ithos responded yet?
You still haven't noticed. And you call this love?
Max felt her stomach turn. She spun around to see not even the slightest flash of orange around her. With one more sweep, she could see the writhing slime of tendrils that had encased him. They'd even wrapped all the way around the end of his tail, extinguishing his flame.
"ITHOS!" Max screamed, knowing he couldn't hear her. Too caught up in the sight, she couldn't notice the darkness that had begun to eclipse Fara's glow as she ran to save Ithos. She hadn't made it halfway there before all the darkness had coalesced around Fara, eclipsing her entirely before it started to roil around and in on itself.
Max barely had a chance to hear the hiss of air breaking around the attack as Fara's attack smashed her into the ground hard enough to send her flying. She could barely hold onto consciousness as she flew through the air. Her entire body ached, but she had to hold on.
She reached out a paw, trying to scream, but her voice only came out in a whisper, "Ithos." She fought to keep her eyes open, but they kept growing heavier until she slammed into the ground.
The last thing she saw was the distant shadow of Ithos, encased in Fara's influence.