Chapter 128

Stretched Thin

Darkrai shot up into the sky. He became a hazy blur of shadows and smoke. Through the layers of darkness I could see a red eye gleam brilliantly as he rose up. The miasma around his body began to shift and it looked like he grew in size as well. Darkrai seemed to expand, bellow out in such a way, I couldn't tell whether it was an illusion, a play of the light or if he actually became bigger.

Palkia and Dialga circled around each other, briefly locked into a stalemate. Darkrai suddenly appeared in the center of their dance and brought all the focus onto himself. If he had looked bigger before, it was all utterly meaningless when compared to the true legendaries. Yet, Darkrai was still up there and he was charging up an attack. Palkia and Diagla watched Darkrai with a curious eye.

Three Pokémon that powerful, that close to each other. I felt like a neutron in a fission chamber; a meltdown was imminent.

"We better move."

"I'd prefer that," Midna retorted, she turned her head up and sent a wary look at the legendaries.

"Can you in any way or shape copy them?" I asked. It was the original reason she was created. To copy the true gods and take their form.

"Still no," Midna swallowed hard, a brief look of dejection crossed her face. I sighed, it probably wasn't meant to be then. We were as close to them as we ever were and Midna still failed. At least she had other things she could do now, we could maybe fly on her back if she transformed herself into a Pidgeot again but that would leave us awfully exposed. "Luna, how's the teleporting?"

Luna shook her head, she had a dreadful expression.
A thundering crack sounded through the sky. Right above us Darkrai's body began crackling with energy.

"We're moving, now." I began to jog. The air felt nauseatingly thick. The alleyway stretched in front of us. The walls that surrounded us felt claustrophobic now. I couldn't help but glance at the brick wall that had been torn to ruins mere seconds ago. It had collapsed, the bricks had been broken and ground to dust, but Dialga just reversed time and undid the collapse. It was extremely uncanny to see the neighborhood in such perfect condition after witnessing it being an open field earlier.

I tried to focus on the facts, seeing if there was anything to glean from this. Was there a limit to Dialga's range? Could he affect organic matter? Was there a timescale he had to operate in? There were probably wooden floorboards and beams incorporated into the structure of the buildings. I saw Dialga move that too, so at least dead organic matter was affected. Now I just had to see him use that trick on a Pokémon or human. For range, well at least a full city block, could you really talk about range when dealing with the gods of Space and Time?

The 2 Pokémon gods were above us. Their dance had been briefly interrupted by Darkrai's presence, they didn't seem to know what to do with the new Pokémon. Darkrai was gathering energy around himself and it formed into a whirlpool of dark red substance. Whatever he was doing, it at least kept everyone down for a second and allowed us to make some headway to the towers.

I kept running. My Pokémon chased after me. I didn't know the exact way, but the towers in the distance at least told me to choose a turn that led into that direction.

A torn down part of a building blocked the way but a telekinetic blast tore it apart, allowing us to reach a more 'active' part of town.

We passed a couple people along the way that were discussing angles from which to attack the gods, or theorizing what they were after. Most people we passed were trying to run away.

I didn't stop to help anyone. Instead I focused on moving forward, closer to the center away and away from the duo. Not that it mattered. Diagla wasn't even close to Palkia when he turned back time and Palkia's waves were tearing through half the town as well.

I let out a chuckle. It was utterly bizarre, but I had to accept that the flow of time could just be reversed at any point. I had read about this stuff online. Active time loops in Johto, time traveled messages and visions, but this something else.

The worst part of it all was that I felt exhilarated.

We finally left the maze of back alleys and side streets and found ourselves in one of the mainstreets led straight to the center of town. I could see the tower at the end of the road. All we had to do was go in a straight line and we'd reach it.

I stopped for a second to catch my breath. Midna slipped through my legs to survey the area. Fay's sword kept glowing, giving off an almost soothing vibe.

"It's the dragon lady." Midna said.

"Her?" Luna narrowed her eyes.

I raised my head.

Across the street was Clair. She stood on a small podium and was talking to a crowd. Her Dragonair was slithering through the crowd, pushing potions into people's hands, behind her floated the same Xatu from before. The bird looked absolutely terrified.

Surrounding Clair on all sides were trainers. They looked at her with a variety of expressions. Some dreadful, others tearful and some even looking excited. Claire's own expression was grim but determined. Most of the civilians were off the streets by now so the chaos was kept to a relatively minor huge clusterfuck.

I briefly considered asking her if she knew where Flamera was but decided against it. She was already drowning in questions, besides, it mattered not that much.

"Okay a little bit further." I mumbled, half out of breath. "Reach the tower, get up on the Tower and play the disc."

I grinned.

An ear rupturing crash suddenly tore through every muscle in my body. A black blur streaked above our heads like a falling star before crashing somewhere deeper into town, near the towers.

Well, that was the end of whatever Darkrai was doing.

"Attack!" Claire yelled.

Palkia roared and the air distorted. She teleported away and appeared on the other side of town.

A thought popped up; Hey. She's far away now. We're at least safer now. Purple spheres gathered around Palkia, the street and area around her warped into her direction, as if her gravity wa—

Xatu let out a shrill screech. Clair mounted her Dragonite. Xatu disappeared in a white flash.

"Run."

Midna's shape shifted,her body lit up. In the distance the horizon continued to distort, as if it was wallpaper and someone started to wrinkle it.

I turned around. With my free hand I grasped Luna and scampered back into the alley in an almost blind panic. Fay was already ahead of me and had become a blur. I couldn't detect Aura nor was I a psychic, but every fiber of my being screamed danger.

Palkia released the sphere.

We were caught right in Palkia's line of fire.

"Get on!" I heard the sound of hooves slamming against the bricks. Next to me charged a Rapidash, there were no flames on her back, but besides that she looked exactly like one.

Fay was already ahead of me. Luna climbed her way up my body and I made a leap for the Rapidash. I wasn't even on her properly as she accelerated, I half hung to her side, fearing half that my face would smash into the wall if Midna altered her course in the slightest and half that I'd fall off and become flesh crayon.

A shrill screaming erupted around us. It was a horrible unnatural sound that was unlike anything I've ever heard. It made me feel sick to my stomach. "Ugh."

Vivid images flashed in front of my eyes making it difficult to see, it was like these images were projected onto my iris. Something that you usually wouldn't want while running for your lives. I had trouble steering Midna, in fact, I had trouble keeping my head straight as reality became a fluid blur in front of me. I was walking through a metallic corridor-the sword was glowing a bright blue in my hands-next to me was a blue Vulpix-I was standing in front of the knight statue-I looked up and saw a brilliant golden light in the sky.

I told you things won't stay this easy.

When reality finally became real again I found myself lying slumped against the wall. My body felt sore. Midna was still in her equine form, lying in a half collapsed pile of garbage.

I tried to get up fast, but immediately a dizziness came over me. I forced it away and did a head count. Luna was also lying on the ground next to Midna, she looked completely fine, I turned my head to look for Fay. She he wandered a small distance away from us and looked back into the direction we came from, her eyes furrowing in concentration.

"What was that attack?!" I murmured. I looked at my body, I found a few bruises and grazes, all things considered I was doing really well.

"Shit!" Midna cursed, she tried to get up but her hooves slipped through a cardboard box, she made another comical attempt but her new shape didn't help her much. Letting out another frustrated growl she changed shape. Her body flashed white for a brief moment and she emerged as a Zorua again. "That hurt!"

{I know.} Luna pulled herself up.

"We're all in one piece at least. What the hell was that attack?"

"Everything," Fay answered ominously. She didn't move her gaze.

Above us the black sky was empty again. It was strangely quiet, the sounds of battle sounded distant and almost muted. The attack sadly didn't do much to Dialga and the two had continued their fight in another part of town where they undoubtedly were tearing it to pieces. The two gods continued relentlessly and didn't seem to be slowing down. Between the two Pokémon I spotted the shadow I presumed to Darkrai. It had gotten up again and was sending attacks towards the duo. Red coloured streaks were left in the sky as Darkrai flew past the duo. It looked like he was trying to separate them. He didn't last long, Dialga sent him a glare and the nightmare Pokémon was tossed across town. Dialga then forced his attention on Palkia again, sending a torrent of ripples towards her that tore apart everything in its path.

The people that were trying to fight them, either in the air or from the ground, seemed hilariously small compared to them. Every so often a bigger attack would be visible against the darkened sky, like fireworks, though none of them even drew the duo's attention.

"I think we might be in the clear," I said out loud, putting as much confidence into my voice as I could. I doubted it would be helpful to mention that Dialga and Palkia's range was basically the entire town. Morale and all that.

"We're not flying," Midna warned me.

"No flying," I agreed.

"It is really strange over there." Fay said, she pointed towards the mainstreet.

{I feel…nothing?} Luna asked, she narrowed her eyes.

"Survivors?" I asked.

Luna looked at me. She pouted but didn't give me an answer.

"I guess we'll take a look." I said, "it is the fastest way to the tower."

The silence was still really eerie. Above the rooftops I could see strange colored whisps drifting slowly through the sky. Somewhere else Dialga summoned coloured pillars from the ground and tried to impale Palkia. She weaved between them easily while the pillars struggled to rise.

"Let's go." I said, pulling my gaze away. "They're not looking in our direction."

Without wasting more words, we backtracked our way into the alley. All the while the silence was eerily haunting. Coloured whisps danced above our heads like demented Northern lights.

Our footsteps echoed. The doors and windows remained closed and we didn't find anyone. Finally, we turned the corner and found ourselves back in the main street. The space time towers loomed beautifully in the distance.

I stopped death in my tracks. My breath hitched. I tried to utter a warning but the half formed thoughts got stuck in my throat. It wasn't necessary however, my Pokémon instantly recoiled upon seeing what lay ahead.
The scene I saw in front of me was fragmented and looked utterly deranged and buildings were stretched out and elongated, spaghettified to a degree. The street extended far into the horizon, far further than it physically could go on, because the Space Time Tower was still visible on the same horizon, somehow violently contesting the physical space the street tried to extend into.

The living caught in the range were frozen on the spot and looked almost like distorted shadowy whisps. Sometimes they flashed and moved forward, causing their bodies to get stretched out, but then they were frozen once again. Their expressions didn't leave much to the imagination.

It appeared as if they had tried to run or flee, but were too slow to react. I didn't see Clair amongst the victims, though it was hard to say for sure, because the faces were hard to recognize when stretched out several meters. I did spot a Dragonite, but I couldn't tell if it was hers. From what I could gather it tried to shoot a Hyper Beam straight up.

That wasn't the only one other Pokémon as well had tried to launch an attack straight up, towards Dialga right before they were caught in this bubble. Their assault had also been distorted across the fabric of space-time and created the colorful and wisps we saw in the sky.

Despite the abnormality and impossibility of the scene, the thing that struck me most was how serene it looked. There was a distinct lack of gore and corpses. The blood I did see was found on what I presumed were the edge of the effect, where people and Pokémon were half caught inside the effect.

The parts that had been caught inside the effect were stretched out, the parts that didn't were left behind and had dropped to the ground where they left a bloody mess of organs, severed limbs and cut off wings.

I knelt down and picked up a metal pipe that belonged to some construction effort. Without saying a word I clenched the cold pipe in my left hand and prodded it forward.

Nothing happened.

"Dust…" Fay muttered.

I took another step, making sure the pipe was in front of me.

Still, nothing happened.

Then, as I pushed it more forward the end of the pipe stretched out. It passed an invisible barrier and became a long gray blur that stretched out horizontally.

I quickly pulled back the pipe and hastily retreated until I was at least 5 meters away from where the distorted pipe still hung into the air.

{Cut off clean.} Luna said, looking at the pipe I was still holding onto. It was significantly shorter.

"I don't think going in there will be good for your health." Midna said.

"You don't say." I kept looking at the pipe. The cut was perfectly smooth.

"I think I can sense the shape of the area," Fay murmured. "I mean, I don't sense it but the absence of it is telling."

"Are they conscious?" I asked Luna. She gave me a confused look.

"Nevermind, I actually don't think that matters." I dropped the pipe. It was too short to be useful anymore. "We should make haste."

Palkia and Diagla were still fighting and although both of them looked perfectly fine, they were tearing apart the physical reality around them at the seams. Palkia threw a large building towards Dialga. The blue Pokémon roared and the building was frozen on the spot, still hovering in the air. It wouldn't be long before there wasn't a town left to traverse.

I bit my lip. If these guys summoned me, they casually stopped time and warped space with the same ease I would swat a fly. What could they want from me? And if it wasn't them who summoned me…then what did that imply?

A/N I just love Pokémon gods being…powerful. I might have a thing for making enemies stronger than they should be, poor Dust.

I was planning on making this chapter longer but I couldn't find a good flow. I'll probably release a 1K chapter later this week. In the meantime, tend to your roses and thanks for sticking with us so far.

Also join the discord to discuss the chapters. I'd like to answer reviews but they would take up too much space and DMing every review is…quite something.

Anyway, see you hopefully later this week. Until then, rest easy. We got a whole insane world left to explore.

-CaptainMoonShine-