Interceptor's Wish

by Masterdude21

What started as a young man's search for his abducted mother spirals out of control. Soon, he is fighting a desperate war for survival against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. The enemy is everywhere and allies are far too few. With the entire region at stake, who can prevail when fate itself seems set against you? - Novelization of Pokemon Rejuvenation.

28. For Whom the Bell Tolls

~~~~~~~(0)~~~~~~~

Chapter 7 - A Teila Fire and Ice

For Whom the Bell Tolls

~~~~~~~(I)~~~~~~~

---

"Check this out Will!" Crawli said. "There's something…in there."

The dark hallway had opened up at one point, revealing a small trophy room with a single ice prison placed atop a pedestal. Will squinted his eyes and saw the shape of some sort of Pokemon in that frozen tomb. He couldn't make out what it was, but –

A shape blurred through the hallway ahead and shot towards the frozen prison. Will and Crawli both tensed up and Houndoom readied himself for a fight, but then Crawli yelled, "Wait, that's Tapu Koko!"

It was. Tapu Koko blitzed towards the Pokemon frozen on the pedestal and peered at the prisoner inside.

"But wait, it's different from the one I saw before…is this the one you encountered in the jungle, Will?"

He was right; this was the Tapu Koko he'd fought to a standstill twice now. "And during Amber's trial," Will said.

"Taapu!" The island guardian cried and with a surge of electric energy, the icy prison shattered.

What looked to be a second island guardian, with softer features and a pink color scheme, burst from the crystalline shell. It circled around Tapu Koko, producing a loud, enthusiastic cry, before fluttering over towards Will. It ran its eyes across its body, then produced another loud screech and darted off.

Tapu Koko turned to regard Will, before quickly flying after its comrade.

The time to fight…was now?

It had been after Angie all this time?

No, that wasn't quite right. It appeared that Angie had been after its brethren before. That was what Crawli had told him; a differently colored Tapu Koko had engaged Angie on its own, before losing and subsequently disappearing.

There were multiple island guardians, then. It wasn't farfetched to think that Angie had taken them prisoner too.

"I don't know why there are two Tapu Kokos, but it's clear it's on our side!" Crawli exclaimed. "Let's go!"

They hurried after the two Legendary Pokemon, sprinting down the dark hallway as the temperatures steadily plummeted again. Crawli flung the door open and then staggered back as a waft of snow and freezing wind washed over him.

"Grah," he cried out, stopping to zip his jacket up higher. "I hate that cold…"

"Try sleeping in it," Will said, brushing past Crawli and took a moment to survey his surroundings. Somehow, he had made it to the first tier of the massive tower. A fresh layer of snow had fallen since he first entered the tower. Said entrance was about a dozen meters below him now.

"Yeah, no thank you," Crawli replied, shivering. "How did you even get - get down!"

Both guys threw themselves to the ground as a Pidgeot swept down from above, nearly taking Crawli's head off with its talons. It disappeared in the night again, but with the cover of the darkness and the snow, it could circle around for another attempt within seconds and they would never know.

"Holy moly, where did that come from?" Crawli shouted, getting back to his feet and backpedaling into the hallway they just came from. "That was too close!"

For a moment, Will thought that seeking cover in the narrow confines of the passageway was a good idea, since the Pidgeot couldn't get them there.

But every second they spent cowering there was a second Angie could tear Venam and Melia apart. If she was so intent on murdering them in those karmic, ironic manners, it didn't take a genius to guess how she would dispose of Venam.

"Froslass, use Blizzard and keep that Pidgeot off us!" Will ordered. "Crawli, on me! We're moving!"

"Gotcha, right behind you!"

Froslass hovered out into the open. The flakes of falling snow suddenly froze in mid-air around her and she slowly turned to face the distant Pidgeot. Then, she spread her arms and the wind exploded into a vicious hailstorm that swept the air around her.

Will and Crawli made a break for it. Snow crunched underneath their feet as they ran up the embankment to their side, where the pathway wrapped around the tower.

"You've freed the green one from his prison?" The maid stationed there gasped, and she plucked a second PokeBall from her person to send out a Noctowl. "Lady Angie won't be pleased…"

"The green one has a name!" Crawli snapped, releasing his Galvantula to handle that particular problem.

"All the dead have names. When the snow has covered the bodies and the tombs are frozen over, who will remember them?"

Will didn't dignify that with an answer. Galvantula and Froslass kept the birds of prey off of them and the maid was unable to stop them. Together, Crawli and Will pushed onwards to the upper section that wrapped back around to another entrance. There, Froslass fluttered back to his side and unleashed a chilling storm of hail and ice that swept out like a great storm, knocking both Pidgeot as Noctowl out of the sky and throwing the maid off her feet.

Their six now secured, the two of them headed inside. There, Will nearly slammed into Crawli's back as the Bug-type leader had suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"Hey, what…" Will's voice trailed off when he saw them. Then, he saw them all.

Crawli and he had stormed into a room packed to the gills with maids. Will counted at least nine of the inhuman creatures, with a pair guarding a cell to the left of the room and a pair on the…podium…to the right.

…why was there a podium?

"Welcome everyone to the annual quiz show of Theolia Tower!" A maid with a brown hood and a truly gleeful expression said, and the gathered maids began cheering and applauding her. "Today we have a special guest, Veronica, or as you may know her, VenamTM!"

Moving slowly and with exaggerated care, Will started creeping his way around to the cell. The maids were too preoccupied to notice him, the vast majority of them having set their sights on the two booths on the podium and their cheerful "host" .

"Hey, Will! Crawli!" Venam hissed, poking her head out through the bars of her cell. "Man, am I glad to see you guys!"

The feeling was very much mutual; when he saw Angie cooing over the horrible death she was about to inflict upon Crawli, he'd feared the worst for Venam and Melia. But they weren't out of the woods yet.

"You guys have no idea what happened! I woke up alone and - "

"You wandered the basement until Angie smashed you over the head with a huge chunk of ice?" Crawli finished her sentence.

Venam blinked in confusion, staring at Crawli in befuddlement. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

Crawli shrugged. "Same thing happened to me, but it looks like Will escaped that fate somehow?"

"Yeah, Will is just built different," Venam grinned. "Come on, you guys need to get me outta here! I found a key in here, but it's not even for this cell! How useless!"

"We're working on it," Crawli hissed, shooting a nervous glance at the maids in the room. "Don't worry – "

"You two down there!" The host suddenly yelled and every single eye in the room turned to regard Crawli and Will. "Please make your way to the stage, please!"

Which really didn't sound promising.

"Okay, maybe worry," Crawli said nervously. "Stay put Venam!"

Venam held out her hands in a gesture of incredulity. "Duh? Not much else I can do…"

Surrounded by so many enemies, opting to fight their way out just seemed like suicide with extra steps. Even if they could get their Pokemon out in time, the maids could just swarm them and beat them to death in seconds. That, or swarm them and get their Angie-supplied Pokemon to beat them to death.

Even if they somehow managed to break through, the maids were sure to kill Venam the moment things kicked off.

So, as much as he hated it, Will knew he had no choice but to play along.

"You two are about to participate in a Big Event~!TM" The host said. "We're going to play a Big GameTM that will decide the fate of your friend there!"

"What?" Crawli said, aghast.

"It's Very SimpleTM~! You just have to compete in our game show! We will ask you and an opposing team a series of questions. First party to six points, or the party with the most points when all questions are done are the winner! If you win, you'll get a Big PrizeTM!"

"That doesn't sound so bad," Crawli whispered.

"Wait for it…" Will muttered back.

"Lose…and, well, we will attempt to kill you!" The host servant exclaimed joyfully.

There it was.

"Oh…" Crawli sighed. "Will, let's play along with their game…for now. I have a feeling things aren't going to end well if we try to fight back."

At least the two of them were in agreement…

As Will made his way to the podium, he heard the maids yell all kinds of encouraging things, such as…

"I wanna play!"

"Bonita always has good shows to perform!"

"I love Bonita's quiz shows! It's always a jolly good show!"

"I want to see the purple girl placed in a vat of toxic waste."

"OH MY GOD! I'M SO HYPED!"

Fun times.

Crawli took his spot at the side of the booth and gestured for Will to take the first turn. Before he could seat himself behind the little desk, a pink-haired servant ran up to Will and he instantly tensed up, adrenaline and fear pumping through his veins as he saw the girl's hands go up and –

And she took his hand and enthusiastically shook it. "Hiiii! I'm Patty! This is so fun, I can't believe I'm on a game show!"

Will stared at the servant. It was such a human thing to say and do…was this another trick? Something to get him to lower his guard? What went into the making of these things anyway, how did Indriad and Angie fashion their servants in the first place? Did they even have something like consciousness or was this all part of the programming, a pale imitation of a personality meant to torment their victims further?

He didn't know, he didn't care – all he wanted was to get Venam, Crawli and Melia out and then burn this entire cursed tower to the ground. If that included all of these damn things then he wouldn't lose any sleep over them.

"Sugar, are you ready? We are about to begin our Big ShowTM!" Bonita said.

"Yeaaaah, good luck!" Patty said, letting go of Will's hand and happily bounding back to her fellow maid.

…sugar?

That further muddled the waters.

Shaking his head, Will headed back to Crawli and took his seat on the booth. Almost instantly, he saw the big, red button sticking out of the screen in front of him. What would happen if he just pressed it?

"On the left we have newcomers, Will and Crawli!" Bonita said.

The gathered maids began booing and jeering at them.

"Hey, come on, fuck you guys!" Venam spat.

"Yeah yeah, boo all you like! Crawli shouted back. "We're gonna win this one!"

Considering it was that or being killed by angry maids, they simply couldn't afford to lose. But…what if he pressed the button?

"Aaaand to the right we have our very own team, Patty, Rebecca and Charleen!"

That got an applause out of the maids and the entire was so twisted, so weird, that Will decided approaching this rationally wouldn't do. He'd chastised Venam for going into this with the mindset of a normal human and here he was, applying the same morals and values to deranged situation.

Wrong approach, wrong mentality. It wasn't too different from putting himself in the shoes of the likes of Neved and Zetta to find out what the next logical step for them would be. If he was the enemy, how would he act, think and react? Something like that.

It was the same here. If he were deranged himself – don't open that door – how would he go about surviving this mess?

Simple. By playing the game according to its rules, going with the flow and winning.

"Now, the rules are simple!" Bonita continued. "I will ask you a simple question and you must respond with the correct answer. The first person to press the red button will be allowed to answer first!"

Will found the panel quickly enough, and he'd been fighting the urge to continuously press the big red button throughout Bonita's explanation anyway, so this would work out fine.

"And if there's a tie…well, the house wins, obviously! Let's get started!" Bonita cleared her throat. "Question number one! What number rule is this? Thou shalt not boogie like a maniac a quarter past midnight."

Will slammed the button before Bonita even finished her last word.

"Team Will?"

Crawli shot him a nervous look.

"Rule one."

"Oooh…sorry!" Bonita said with an apologetic grin. "That's not right! Rebecca?"

"That would be Rule forty-three."

With an electronic ding, the screen behind Patty's team lit up with a singular, blue bar.

"That is correct! One point for Team Patty!"

"Eat that, sucka!" Rebecca yelled.

"Queen shit, Rebecca! QUEEN SHIT!" Patty cheered.

"Will…" Crawli started.

There was no time. "Question two! What number rule is this? People shall remain a six foot distance from each other at all times. Those of the same gender must remain double this number."

Will was still processing the question when Rebecca's hand shot towards the button. "That would be rule number ten!" She said.

Another blue bar.

"Uh, Will?"

"That's correct! One point for Team Patty!"

"Yus, Rebecca's the boss!"

This was insanity.

"Question number three! The bottom level of this tower is called what?"

Will slammed the button. "Tower Cellar!"

"That's right!" Bonita said, and a blue bar appeared behind him too. "Good job for Team Will! TEAM SWITCH!"

Crawli and Will exchanged an uneasy look. Quickly, Will climbed out of the booth and Crawli took his space.

Half a minute later, the lunacy continued.

"Question four! What is Venam's real name?"

"Oh come on!" Venam yelled from her prison cell. "That's personal!"

The other maid beat Crawli to the punch. "Vermini."

…really?

Bonita winced. "Ooh, sorry, that's not right!"

"OMG!" Charleen yelled.

"Team Will?"

"Duh, it's Veronica!" Crawli said.

"That's right! Good job for Team Will! Question five: what is the name of the Relic that is being held in this world?"

Again, Crawli slammed the button. "The Ocean Relic! That one's easy!"

Another point, another question about rules that made no sense. Crawli took a guess, but it was a long shot and didn't pan out.

Another Team Switch ensued and Will found himself back on the stage again.

"Team Xen was hiding on Terajuma Island! Where was this place?"

Will smacked the button. It was starting to feel therapeutic. "Helojak Island."

"That's right! Another point for Team Will! Question eight: in the main courtyard of the tower. Which Pokemon was standing on a box?

Another button smack, another easy point. "Gothorita,"

"That's right! Question nine: what rule am I thinking of?"

"What?" Crawli snapped. "How are we supposed to know that?"

Patty pressed the button. "Uhm, Rule ?!"

Will's head started to hurt.

"That's correct!" Bonita exclaimed. "One point for Team Patty!"

"My sis wishes she was this cool!" Patty yelled. "Love ya, Party girl!"

One point ahead. If they screwed this up now, it would be a tie. Bonita didn't like ties.

"Question number ten! What is Angie's official title!"

Already hating himself for having to say it out loud, Will pressed the red button for what was hopefully the last time. "Lady Angie," he sourly said.

At least Angie didn't go around calling herself Mistress Angie…she seemed like just the type for that. He just knew she would make him call her that before killing him.

"That is correct! And those were all of the questions, too! The winner of this round's gameshow is…TEAM WILL!"

And the mad servants all began applauding.

"Yeah! We won!" Crawli whooped ."Let's go Will!"

With a heavy sigh, Bonita said, "I guess that means the game is over permanently now! Congratulations to Team Will!"

"Now, release our friend!" Crawli ordered.

To which Bonita smiled and…agreed. She strolled down the game room, took a key out of her pocket and opened Venam's cell. Venam bounded out the second Bonita undid the lock and wasted no time positioning herself next to Will and Crawli, as if seeking comfort in their presence.

Will waited for the inevitable, his hand clutching Nidoking's Poke Ball tightly but…it never came. The maids all started mingling, congratulating each other over a hard-fought battle and wondering when the next game would start.

"Wow, thanks guys," Venam said, warily eying Bonita. "That cell was cramped. Are you two okay? Where'd your eyebrow go?"

"Uh, let's just say when Will pulled my butt out of the fire, it was a bit too literal for my tastes," Crawli laughed.

"We're fine," Will reassured her.

"We're still missing Melia though…" Venam said pensively.

"I'm sure she's still somewhere in this tower," Crawli replied. "We just have to find her."

"We will," Will flatly said. "We're not leaving without her."

"Hell yeah!" Venam shouted. "We – "

"Hey!" Patty the servant said, wandering over to their spot with a big grin on her pale face. Seeing her almost made Will long for the dead-eyed, empty versions instead. There was something very disturbing about these fake emotions. "You guys were like, tooootally cool out there and stuff~! If you guys don't get turned into popsicles by Angie we should like, hang out and stuff yeah? Me and the girlies just had so much fun playing with you guys!"

Will didn't have anything to say that wouldn't antagonize the room filled with murder-maids so he kept his comment to himself.

"Uh, yeah, sure," Venam said, shooting a puzzled look at Crawli, who simply shrugged.

"Yasss! Okay, have fun fighting a murderous tyrant, or whatever…"

Will couldn't wait to forget all about this particular part of the tower.

Venam led them to a small room in the back of the podium, where a singular, purple tile had begun humming with purple light and a faint presence of Psychic power.

"A warp pad," Crawli said. "Wonder where that will take us…"

A warp pad. Teleportation technology downscaled to an individual level. Will had heard of those before, but he wasn't sure if he'd ever utilized one. For all he knew, the warp pad would deposit them a hundred meters in the air above the tower, or into some sort of dungeon of sorts.

But Crawli didn't think so. "A warp pad is always a part of a connected pair. I can't get into the specifics right now, don't know the technical details anyway, but you can't just set a warp pad up to end up in the sky. It needs specific infrastructure and power to sustain it. My bet is, Angie uses this to easily navigate through her tower."

"This shit can also just dump is into her throne room, right in front of more ice bullshit," Venam commented.

"I…" Crawli's expression fell. "Yeah, that's possible."

But once again, when every second counted, what was the use of arguing? Either the warp pad would kill them or it wouldn't. Since there wasn't any way forward anyway, they might as well go for it. "Let's find out," Will said, before stepping onto the purple device.

The familiar sensation of nausea returned, but it wasn't like teleporting. One moment, Will was in the game show room and the next, he found himself atop a platform that floated above an endless expanse of staircases and other, ice-covered platforms.

Once again, the temperatures plummeted below zero, but at least now they had a concrete path forwards.

Venam and Crawli were right behind him. Together, the three of them advanced into the floating maze of platforms and white, glowing steps.

Something like a prison cell loomed up ahead. Fashioned from large, curved teeth twice as tall as any person that all curved inwards, the strange cell was topped off with a heavy slab and twin pillars of ice.

Shivering from the cold, Venam said, "Uhh…w-who is t-his?"

A man poked his head out from the frozen teeth and spotted the trio. His hair was almost as long as Angie's, long and light cyan and tied into a long ponytail. A pair of glasses rested atop his nose and he regarded the group with something like mild curiosity. His long, navy blue coat and waistcoat seemed oddly out of place, like a man who was dressed for a formal meeting rather than a frozen hellhole.

"Ah, so it seems more of you have appeared in this realm then, yes?" He spoke calmly. "Very good. I request assistance from all three of you."

"Well, we did find this key in the room before, but…"

"Yeah, this could be a trap," Crawli said. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"I could be asking the three of you the same question, no?" The man retorted evenly. "But very well, I shall cooperate. My name is Kreiss. I am a man from Neverwinter, and I am a Gym Leader. I had heard news from an anonymous source that someone from Terajuma was impersonating me. So I took the opportunity to sail my way here and confront the hack fraud and settle things man to man. Turns out, the situation turned into man to woman, and before I could even say a word I was thrust into this domain. I've been locked up in this hot room ever since."

"Hot? I-it's freezing here!" Venam said.

"Irrelevant," Kreiss said with a casual flick of his wrist. "I require that key found earlier. At once."

With a suspicious look, Venam glanced at Will and said, "What should we do? If it's a trap, this could be really bad."

"But if it's not, then Kreiss is gonna freeze to death in here," Crawli fired back.

"No, I won't!" Kreiss said. "It's bloody blazing in here, I tell you!"

Venam shook her head. "This guy is clearly a fucking psychopath. I vote leave."

"And I vote, free him. I've vowed to protect lives, not harm them."

A couple of things didn't make sense. If this was a trap, it was a very bad one, considering they could just walk past it. Clearly, Kreiss wasn't attractive bait, and his words only made him seem suspicious and out of place.

They were all freezing their ass off – Kreiss notwithstanding – and Will would have freed the freaking Rift Gyarados if it meant increasing his chances at saving Melia. "We free him. We need all the help we can get."

Venam pulled a face. "Alright, if you say so. But if this blows up in our face I don't wanna hear it!" Reluctantly, she stepped towards the cell and inserted the silver key into the little hole in the ice pillar. Said pillar promptly collapsed, allowing the finely-dressed man to step out of the cell and appraise his rescuers.

"Well met," Kreiss said, offering his hand. "You are?"

"I'm Will. These are Crawli and Venam."

"I see. Now that you have freed me, I will be taking your lives now."

Alarmed, Will hooked his leg behind Kreiss' left leg and shoved him back, letting the man trip over himself as he slammed back against one of the teeth of the cell. Froslass appeared from his shadow, charging up a Shadow Ball right off the bat and suddenly another Froslass appeared out of nowhere, putting itself in-between Kreiss and her and priming a Shadow Ball of its own, this one aimed squarely at Will's face.

Crawli cried out in alarm, Venam jumped back and pulled one of her own Poke Balls and for a second, nobody dared to move.

Then, Kreiss awkwardly coughed into his fist. "Martin always did say my sense of humor was not very accessible. I do apologize; it was the wrong thing to say and clearly, you have not had an enjoyable time in this tower."

…humor? He'd been joking?

"I think you might have overreacted there, Will," Crawli said.

"Overreacted? Crawli, this place isn't even the most fucked up spot we've had to fight for our lives!" Venam growled. "Dude, what the fuck!"

"Yes, indeed, it was in poor taste," Kreiss calmly said. "A token of goodwill, then. Froslass, it is quite alright. These children will not do us any harm. You may lower your arms."

Almost hesitantly, the second Froslass released its grasp on the ghostly energy and let its Shadow Ball dissipate.

Which put Kreiss entirely at their mercy, which wouldn't make sense if he had truly been trying to take their life.

Belatedly, Will realized that he had overreacted. "Sorry," He sheepishly said. "We've had a…a rough day. Froslass, it's alright."

"No foul, no harm. You have made the right decision in freeing me!" Kreiss said as if Will hadn't just tried to attack him a second ago. "Now, I intend to make my way up the tower and have a "word" with Miss Angie."

"Guess your story is true then? You came to Kristiline to confront Angie?" Venam said.

"Of course it's true, child. Why would I lie about that?"

"It seems like anyone who tries to oppose Angie gets thrown into her tower," Crawli mused.

Kreiss crossed his arms with a professional disapproval. "I don't know how she's capable of creating an entirely new realm just for that, but…in our world, or hers, the result will be the same. I am going to drop kick her into the next summer solstice."

Will nodded with approval. Kreiss could have probably kicked his ass the moment he moved against him, but decided not to on principle. He had a feeling mister Kreiss was going to fit right in.

"You, sir, are very violent," Venam said, taking Kreiss's hand and shaking it. "I like that."

"I am a gentleman. I am simply doing my gentlemanly duty of kicking down frauds. Now, if you would excuse me…"

"Wait!" Crawli said before Kreiss could walk off. "We should stick together! It's our best bet here!"

"We too have something violent in mind for Angie," Will pointed out.

Kreiss waved his hand impatiently. "Yes, yes. You are allowed to join me in my endeavors. Come no, children."

"Okay, he's cool," Venam said, and Will couldn't have thought of a better way to describe Kreiss, but he swore if people were going to continue stealing his bad jokes

Their numbers now bolstered by the Ice-type Gym Leader, the four of them made their way to the top of the strange, frozen hallways.

There, Tapu Koko zipped down from above and came to a stop near another pedestal containing another one of his brethren. A surge of electricity, a flash of bright light and then, the next island guardian was free.

They were neatly at the apex of the tower. Not far to go.

But Angie wasn't out of tricks yet.

The four of them entered a chamber blocked off by a large mirror that spanned the width of the room, flanked by sturdy walls and pairs of red curtains. There didn't seem to be anywhere else to go, so Venam reached the completely logical conclusion that she needed to smash her way through the mirror by slamming her body against it, which she promptly did.

With a solid *crack, Venam bounced off the mirror and fell to the ground, sporting several deep gashes from where she glass had shattered and sliced into her skin.

"Venam!" Crawli exclaimed, kneeling down next to her and retrieving a first aid package from his bag.

"Yeah, smashing my full body weight into the glass wasn't a smart idea," she conceded dazedly.

"Haha, of course it wasn't. But don't worry! I'll get you patched up and ready to go as soon as possible! I have to make sure there aren't any glass shards stuck anywhere. Things would get a lot worse if you started getting an infection. Holly was a medic when she was younger, she taught me everything I know about patching people and Pokemon up."

While Crawli began stitching Venam back together, Will ran his gaze across the room. The floor was composed of perfectly square, reflective tiles as black as the night. The room seemed to be a dead end, symmetrically designed with the only odd detail out being a spiraling staircase that didn't lead anywhere.

"It is illogical that the path would end here," Kreiss mused as he too gazed around. "Though the scoundrel has failed in creating an opening, I feel it does not mean it does not exist. I believe finding the path forward is hidden within the layout of this room. When the scoundrel smashed herself silly against the glass, the sound was odd. Perhaps there is another room hidden behind the glass pane?"

A mirror…symmetry…another room…

Angie's realm wasn't a physical place that obeyed the normal laws of physics. During his time at the Theolia Mansion, he'd quickly learned that following certain rules led to certain results. In here, he doubted that even Nidoking could smash through the mirror without doing so the right way.

What was the right way?

He didn't have the foggiest. Probably somewhere near the left.

Although that staircase was suspicious…in fact, it was the only thing out of place in the room.

Mirror…symmetry…

Could it be that Angie would not permit them to shatter her mirror unless they did so at the one spot that was 'allowed" to break? If so, the one spot at the mirror over all the others would be the one odd spot.

Opposite the staircase then?

"Here goes nothing," Will muttered as he walked up to the mirror, shifted his weight to his left leg and then kicked at the glass.

His boot connected with the mirror and smashed clean through, revealing a dark hole instead.

"Hey, no fair!" Venam exclaimed. "Why'd it work out with you?"

"Because focused violence with intent is all the more potent," Kreiss said.

"Eh?"

"It means, knowing when and where to strike," Crawli explained. "Nice going!"

It wasn't a red button, but it sure felt therapeutic to smash some of Angie's belongings.

The hole led to another room, another dead end with mirrors. This one contained two odd details however; a stone statue carved in Angie's likeliness and another maid.

When Will locked eyes with her, she said, "This room is a reflection of the room before it. I wonder what would happen to that room if you were to change things around in this one?"

That confirmed his suspicions; this was all a part of Angie's twisted little game.

"Guys!" Will said. "Look at that staircase! Tell me if it moves!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Venam's impatient voice drifted through the hole. "It's a staircase! It doesn't move!"

Will walked up to Angie's statue and gave it a shove. It felt surprisingly light; when he pushed his weight into it, it moved just like the floating rocks in Aquamarine Cave had.

"Holy shit the staircase just moved!" Venam shouted.

"Fascinating, it seems Angie has taken the concept of symmetry and broadened it," Kreiss said. "Young man, listen to my instructions. Move your analogue as follows…"

Will followed the man's instructions, taking into account that the room was a reflection and thus, every direction Kreiss gave him had to be mirrored.

"There! Do not move! We have a way up!" Kreiss then said.

"Nice job Will! Come back in, let's head up!" Crawli added.

The puzzles didn't stop after that. More rooms with mirrors, more statues to lug around to simulate movement for the staircases.

Slowly, Will felt his grasp on what was real and what was just part of Angie's twisted reality start to slip. At one point, moving her statue simulated moving an indentation in the mirror, and every tile he pushed dragged the damaged part across the mirror like a slow-moving wave, until the indentation shifted far enough to the right to turn into another opening, leading to another room…

"I'm going to lose my freaking mind!" Venam yelled, kicking a stool across the room.

Reality turned into concepts. Concepts of statues, concepts of movement. A statue stuck against a wall could still be moved even if it physically did not, leading to a situation where Will just had to lean the full weight of his body against a statue stuck in the corner until Kreiss yelled at him to stop. At that point, the concept of moving the statue had turned into the concept of moving a ladder several meters across the room and Will started to feel his brain liquefying out of his freaking ears.

But it worked. Together with Kreiss, they made solid progress. In one particular chamber, they split up with Crawli taking the duty of moving the statue around while Kreiss counted out which directions and steps to take, while Will investigated another shattered mirror, which somehow led to another hallway with another dead end.

Except…

Not quite.

Not for him, at least.

The mirror at the far end of the room showed him a reflection that wasn't his.

It was Angie. Just…not the Angie he knew.

My precious friends. Will I ever know the truth about them?

She was the woman he had seen in Indriad's frozen prison.

Is this the price to pay for my failure?

Anju. He remembered now. Her name was Anju.

She wasn't alone. Next appeared a regal woman with long, silver hair and a golden crown. She regarded Anju with fondness, smiling at her and beckoning her to follow.

Anju tried. She never succeeded.

A specter rushed in from the right, and its shape overlapped with Anju and then…

Then, it was Angie who stood in front of him. Her shape turned to look at Will and she grinned her maniacal, ear-to-ear grin. She reached out as if grasping for his throat –

He backed out of that room and ran.

What did it mean? That hooded figure, somehow, they had taken Anju…taken her and done something to her, turning her from that friendly, smiling woman into…into this psychopath.

Had they tortured her? Down in the Theolia mansion, while he had been down there...was that where it had happened? Did that mean Maria failed to stop that man after all? Where were they now, how –

It was a puzzle without all the pieces, with unexplained rules and the wrong image on the cover of the box. Thinking about it would drive him crazy; he had to focus on one problem at a time. Find Melia, break her out, kick Angie's ass and then leave.

Then, they'd…burn down the church or something. Slap a no-trespassing sign on it or something.

Anything.

"There we are," Kreiss said when Crawli emerged from the side-room. "The ladder is in place, and the path ahead is clear."

"Will! You look like you've seen a ghost in there!" Venam quipped. "What'd you find?"

"J-Just a false lead," Will said.

"Splendid, because we have the true lead," Kreiss remarked. "After you?"

They climbed the last ladder of the tower and finally, finally they had pushed past the puzzles and reached the final stretch. Will sprinted across the final set of steps towards the chamber that lay ahead. He could see her, he could see her- !

"Melia!" He shouted. "Melia!"

Through a locked gate, amidst a massive chamber, Angie had Melia placed atop a large, black table surrounded by her maids. Dimly, Will noticed that this wasn't how she had tormented the rest of them. She – Angie had a plan for Melia.

"Today is a tremendous occasion!" Angie said, raising her arms to the sky.

"Melia!" Venam shouted as well, catching up to him.

"Through the darkness that shrouds our vision, a light is present."

Will gripped the bars of the gate and found it locked shut. Rage burned brightly within him, clouding his judgment and filling with a desperation almost akin to frenzy. He had the terrible feeling that Angie was about to straight-up murder Melia.

"And where there is light, there is love. Arceus' love. Its embrace will bring you to salvation. The terrible fate you all shall endure will be no more."

He didn't know what she meant, didn't understand her words, knew that it didn't matter, all that mattered was getting Melia out of there!

"Goddamnit Angie!" Will shouted. His heart thundered in his chest and his muscles were tense in anticipation. Something was wrong with the gate; he couldn't get his fingers around the bars and when he rammed his shoulder into its frame, it felt more like a flat wall than an iron gate. "Let her go! Melia!"

Angie's arms lowered a fraction. "Servants. Buy me just a little more time."

"We have to help her!" Venam shouted.

"Protect yourself first, scoundrel! We have company!"

Will glanced back. Another trio of those fucking servants came running up the steps behind them, flanked by their Pokemon. It was just one thing after another!

"They just don't stop…" Crawli sighed.

"You want to play?" Venam yelled. "Let's play!"

More stalling, more interference. The maids had Pokemon of their own, but only one each. That meant Nidoking, Seviper, Kreiss' Froslass and Crawli's Golisopod not only had the edge in firepower, but also in numbers.

The maids knew that. They fought not to win, but to drag it out as long as possible. The fight didn't take much longer than a minute, but a single minute was all Angie needed.

"This…is the end, isn't it?" One servant muttered.

"I shall enter eternal slumber now…" The other agreed.

"There!" Venam yelled. "You guys failed again! That's all you're good for!"

"Failure is but an inevitability for the Servants of this tower," Angie said serenely. "As failure is their purpose. However, one's failure is one's success. Ample time has been bought for the ceremony to continue. But before then…"

Another flash of light, another teleportation. Suddenly, Angie floated behind them, and she clenched her hand into a fist. The three servants exploded into clouds of dark, purple energy. Only a few motes of dark light remained to mark their passing. Then, after a few seconds, they too disappeared.

Venam gasped and staggered back. Crawli looked pale and sick. "You would sacrifice your own Servants!" He demanded furiously. "What's the reason for your cruelty?!"

"Cruelty?" Angie said, as if Crawli's words had deeply offended her. "I am doing nothing more than saving them from the wretched grasp of the corrupted physical world. Each and every one of my Servants have come to terms that to be sacrificed is to be saved. They all have met the same end, and anticipate it."

Kreiss softly shook his head. "Never have I seen such blatant brainwashing in all of my days…"

"Brainrot or not, I'm helping Melia right now!" Venam yelled. "Will, help me get this – "

Angie was gone. Even as Will sent Froslass out and ordered to blast that damn gate open, Angie bowed over Melia and gently, ever so softly, placed the palm of her hand atop her head. "The ritual shall begin."

"Melia!" Will screamed. "Froslass open this fucking door right now!"

But she couldn't, a fine layer of energy coated the door and try as she might, Froslass could not shatter the lock or snap-freeze the bars. She was helpless.

They were all helpless.

Angie's laughter echoed across every wall as her powers lifted Melia up in the air. Her body slack and weak, Melia could only turn her head to look at her friends raging at the gate. "Will…Venam…I'm sorry…" she whispered weakly.

"Oh almighty Arceus…cleanse the spirit from this girl and accept her into your everlasting light!"

Will screamed incoherently as he slammed his shoulder into the gate. Not again, not again -

The rage and desperation burned so hot inside of him but there was nothing he could do. Pain and guilt and fury howled within his mind as he tried, desperately, to think of anything he could to save her.

"Angie, please stop!" Venam cried out.

"This feeling…" Melia muttered as every light in the room dimmed and a deep, heavy darkness blanketed its every inch. "It's all so familiar to me now…where have I felt this before? This loneliness? This emptiness? I can't remember…But those feelings…I can't keep them away!"

Something happened. Will wasn't sure what it was. Red light erupted in the chamber and Angie, with all her cruelty, all her psychopathic malevolence…stepped back uncertainly. "Wh-what's going on here!"

Will saw, through blurry vision, multiple people appearing in the room. Hazy figures, all of them blond, all of them distinctly female. He thought he saw Melia, but he also saw what looked like Maria and the woman he had seen in Maria's room and many, many other women –

For the third time that day, darkness consumed everything. Yet Will stayed. He felt the faint energy that buzzed within the gate snap and all of a sudden he clutched cold, metal bars and nothing more.

"What happened?" Crawli hissed.

"I don't know, but it seems as if we have lost visibility in this room," Kreiss commented. "How dark and sinister…"

Pulses of red energy tore through the oppressive darkness. Intermittently and with irregular intervals, visibility seemed to stream back to the four of them.

"Is everyone okay?" Crawli said. "Is anyone hurt?"

The gate opened.

Will all but stumbled his way into the ritual room, followed closely by Venam, Crawli and Kreiss. It…was as if a bomb had gone off. Fire burned in every corner of the room, tiles had been torn from the floor and the walls looked as if someone had raked at them with enormous claws.

"My word…what atrocity has occurred to have morphed this room into such a state?!" Kreiss exclaimed, raising his voice for the first time since he joined them.

"We all saw what happened," Crawli said. "Angie caused this. But I think…something went wrong."

"What?" Venam said.

"When Angie was doing her ritual…she sounded surprised by something. It was too dark for me to see, but soon after…well, there's no use explaining it."

Nobody was going to mention seeing that many people gathering in the room? Had that just been him? Some sort of head trauma-induced hallucination?

"In that case…maybe Melia is okay? Oh God, where is she?"

Will didn't see her anywhere. Was she…did she…?

"I fear she may be lost to us," Kreiss softly said. "Forever."

'Don't say that!" Venam snapped, grabbing a fistful of the man's shirt and shoving him back. "She can't be…not again…I'm going ahead!"

Will found himself falling in line with Venam, hurrying through the large hole in the far end of the room that maybe Angie had made or the explosion had caused or –

Melia. Please.

If he'd lost her…if she was gone…

She couldn't be. She couldn't be!

The hole in the wall led them to a smaller prayer room, surrounded by lavender flowers and candles and –

Melia.

A sickening sense of relief swept through him as he saw the familiar blond-haired figure lying in the center of the room. Venam and he rushed to her side and began feverishly checking her vital signs, her breathing, her pulse –

"She's still breathing!" Venam exclaimed. "She's okay!"

Melia's eyes snapped open and the look in her eyes – vague and distant and not there. She got to her feet like she hadn't just gone through some sort of fucked up ritual, her body moving almost mechanically, and her gaze found Will.

And he took a step back. He thought of the images he'd seen on that mirror, what had happened to Anju and –

Melia opened her mouth and spoke, but it wasn't…it wasn't her and it wasn't words, not really, but they were -

An increasing flow of gibberish, spoken with conviction and power and authority. They didn't make sense, but still the words vibrated inside of his skull, made his thoughts heat up and they burned him. They burned him and he didn't understand why, why did these words burn him so much?

Then, Melia looked him dead in the eyes and she spoke words that circled around his head, pushed in on his mind from all directions and they lit a fire in his skull and oh god, the pain was so intense that his vision whited out –

How many times must we do this INTERCEPTOR?

Those weren't her words but they were and they made him bleed. "Stop, please," He begged hoarsely. His knees buckled and he pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes, biting back a scream that would never end if he allowed it to get out.

You betrayed me at one point

A knife dragged across his thoughts, its edge burning with a golden light and it made his ears ring, his eyes bleed -

No, he thought, screamed, howled. I didn't, I didn't –

"Enough of this!"

A faint cry of surprise as Kreiss flicked Melia's forehead. A soft, velvet voice wondering aloud where she was and…and…

It was over as soon as it started. His head rang and his vision swam – why, what happened? – and when he looked up, he saw Venam and Crawli worrying about Melia – she's safe, she's safe thank god – while Kreiss peered down at him with a concerned expression on his face, his white brow furrowed in concern.

"What on earth are you doing?" The man asked.

He…wasn't sure.

Why was he on the ground when Melia was right there? "I…don't know."

Kreiss offered him a hand, but for reasons Will didn't understand he couldn't take it. Instead, he shoved himself back to his feet and took notice of how unsteady his legs were. Was that the hypothermia coming back? Already?

"You have something in your eye," Kreiss noted, leaning in close to observe Will's face.

Will brought a finger to his eye and was almost relieved when he saw that it wasn't blood – why would it be blood? - just…tears? Why?

"Were you…" Kreiss coughed politely. "Overcome?"

"I guess?" He mumbled back. Tears of relief, most likely. It didn't matter; they weren't out of this mess yet. "Melia!"

"Will!" She said, breathing a sigh of relief. "You're okay!"

He drew his arms around Melia in a protective embrace, relief flooding through his veins as he held her for a moment. "'Course I'm okay," he whispered. "And you! I thought…" He held her tighter, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck,

"Please. Get. Me. Out of here," she whispered. The desperation in her voice took him aback. Then, however, her words solidified into something cold and hard and familiar.

He would. "I will," he promised her.

"Angie tried to sacrifice you, but it obviously didn't work out," Venam explained as Will carefully released Melia again. "How are you feeling?

"Not good," Melia quietly said. She rubbed her shoulder and looked away. "Where's Angie now?"

"We don't know, but I have a feeling we've almost reached the top," Crawli said.

"Then we should go," Melia said, turning towards the exit.

"Wait! Don't you need to rest for a bit?" Venam yelled.

"Resting won't make me feel better…" Melia said haltingly. "I'll…be okay once we are all out of here safely…just out of here."

With a quiet sigh, Kreiss said, probably to nobody in particular, "I yearn for the days where the drama is over…"

"It's all drama with us, all day," Venam told him. "Deal with it."

"Oi, vey…"

Again, another ice prison had been placed upon a pedestal close to the exit and again, Tapu Koko came in after them and freed his frozen comrade

"Was that Tapu Koko?" Melia asked in shock.

"Yeah. Angie's captured his brethren. We've been helping him free them," Crawli replied.

"I…I see…" Melia said shakily. She looked at him with a slight frown. "Anything…anything else? Crawli, you're…you're hurt."

"Oh man…so Angie took us all, right? She stuck me in a cell and…well, the usual." She jerked her thumb at Will. "You guys? Did I miss uh…did I miss anything?"

Considering what had happened the last time Will showed up out of nowhere to bust Venam from her predicament, he really appreciated the concern. It was a very welcome change of pace. "Mild hypothermia," he was happy to report.

"Probable burn marks, I think," Crawli added, scratching at his missing eyebrow.

"Might be missing a toe or two. Haven't checked."

"You what?" Melia stammered.

"I'll definitely need some new clothes after this is over," Crawli remarked, pointing at his half-burned trousers.

"Hey, torn trousers are all the rage these days," Venam pointed out.

"My word, you two are so sensitive," Kreiss with a roll of his eyes. "Hypothermia? When this place is as scorching as it is?"

Will would love to invite Kreiss to the Terajuma climate when this was over.

Melia regarded them with shaken, unhappy eyes. "What happened to you while I was gone?" She quietly said.

"Let me tell you, Angie fucked up by not immediately killing Will when she had the chance," Venam growled. "Because Will is as Will does and he busted out Crawli, hauled ass through the tower and then staged a jailbreak that I need a lot more booze in my system to do any justice. Next, we found this old guy – "

"Beg your pardon?"

"And then we uh…then we found you, and things got…weird. But hey! The old man is a badass – "

"Scoundrel I shall – "

"And he's gonna help us kick Angie's ass!"

Melia gave the man a suspicious look. "He is, is he now?"

Kreiss placed one hand behind his back and then bowed towards Melia like the gentleman he was. "I fully understand you have reasons to be skeptical. I assure you that I have no ulterior motives. I too have a stake in defeating the lady of this tower."

"Looks like this is the final stretch," Crawli said, gesturing at the dark hallway that loomed before them. "End of the road."

"I guess Angie's through there, isn't she?" Venam said. "Like…like she's waiting for us."

"She most certainly will be, yes," Kreiss agreed.

It was a feeling that the others must have felt as well. The enemy waited for them through that final passageway. There would be a reckoning for the things they had done in her realm. For their continued resistance to her will, for their constant defiance of her authority and the liberation of all her prisoners, Angie would have her vengeance.

She would be cruel, far crueler than she had been when she had them in the palm of her hand. If they made it through that final hallway they would be in for the fight of their lives.

A fight that not all of them might survive.

Angie had shown that she had both the power as the desire to inflict cruel deaths on those she deemed her enemy. That realization that any one of them could be next, weighed them down. And why wouldn't it? Nobody wanted to die. It was just normal to want to run away from pain and death. That was human.

To Will, courage wasn't an absence of fear. Being brave did not mean you couldn't be afraid to die. His mother must have feared for her life when she stared down Madame X. But still she had gone ahead with it.

Courage meant acknowledging those fears and taking action regardless. That was how Keta had faced his death with dignity, how Maria had confronted Indriad's wrath and how his mother had resisted Madame X.

He began making his way down the dark, freezing hallway. After the briefest hesitation, Melia stepped towards him and took his side. After that, Venam and Crawli followed as well, leaving Kreiss to snort and bring up their rear.

They walked down the length of the hallway until they reached the final gate. There, the enemy waited for them.

But it wasn't Angie.

It was the head maid, Cera.

Just Cera?

"Angie's underling," Melia muttered darkly. "She better not get in our way."

"I don't think Cera is going to cause us any trouble," Crawli replied. "We could just ignore her."

"Yeah, fuck that," Venam growled. "These people are insane. I'm not leaving one of them at our flanks."

Kreiss quietly shook his head. "Oh dear. Oh dear, what do we have here now?"

Cera eyed him with dark eyes, hatred simmering in her gaze as she drew herself upright and lifted her chin. "You've pushed Angie to her limits, you know. She won't listen to reason anymore. She won't even listen to me…"

"Why would she?" Will shot back. "She seems set in her ways."

"Regardless, the person up there isn't the Angie I know," Cera continued without rising to his bait. "But I shall remain faithful nonetheless. I suppose it's obvious that you won't be leaving this place without a fight, yes?"

"Damn straight!" Venam snapped.

"Then I pray to the Lord that you all will make a good show of it," Cera said. "You may not be leaving there with your body, or even your sanity, intact."

"That's alright, we got bandaids," Crawli quipped and Will shot him a look because making dumb jokes in dangerous situations was his thing.

"Just stay out of our way," Melia warned Cera.

Cera placed a hand to her heart and bowed ever so slightly towards Melia. "It is not the place of the servant to interfere on the Battlefield of the Gods. Only to watch. Gleefully perhaps, but watch I shall."

"Come on, let's leave this freak in the dust," Venam angrily said. "Will, listen up. That crazy bitch up ahead is pissed off, right? Not listening to reason and that crap? You know what we have to do, right?"

"Uh – "

"We're gonna piss her off more!" Venam said with a confident gleam in her eyes. "If she's angry, we gotta push all her buttons, make her flip out and lose her shit."

"Uh, I dunno…" Crawli said.

"It does pay off to anger those prone to fits of rage before battle, yes," Kreiss agreed. "The scoundrel is right; let their anger use them and they shall stumble before the finish line."

"See?" Venam said with a grin. "Old man Kreiss agrees! This is tactical shit! Let's make the bitch angry!"

"Just be careful," Melia urged them. "I don't think that maid was threatening us…I think she was warning us."

"Eh, tomato tomahto," Venam said. "Let's do this thing!"

They all stepped through the last door and onto what Cera had so ominously referred to as the Battlefield of the Gods. Will had to admit, the name had a certain ring to it, and the battleground that lay before him certainly looked the part. He passed over enormous panes of glass or transparent ice that showed an ever-shifting dimension of darkness and cold far beneath them. Rows of enormous pillars flanked them on both sides, wide enough for multiple people to hide behind and ending in large, curving teeth. Patches of ice slowly crept across the black tiles that lined the rest of the floor, visibly stretching out as the temperature continued to plummet.

Up ahead, the room ended up what could have been a place of worship. A lonely church built for one person. Angie stood there, facing a house-sized mural of herself. The glass mural showed a devout woman on her knees, gazing up into the sky with her hands clasped together in prayer. Her face didn't have eyes.

One last island guardian floated in a shimmering prison of ice right next to Angie.

Their footsteps echoed oddly through the chamber as they approached the woman. Kreiss nodded at Will, and he stepped forwards. "Angie!" He said, raising his voice.

"…I was given a gift from the lord almighty," Angie calmly said, still not turning around to face them. "A divine gift. One that was meant to be used to preserve its divinity and sanctity. That is what I believed. But what I witnessed in that room prior..."

That was when she turned, and the look in her eyes was nothing more than animalistic hatred. Pure, psychotic rage that promised not just death, but utter destruction, indiscriminate butchery.

Suffice to say, Angie was pissed.

"There was nothing more foul, more disgusting…" She slowly walked towards the four of them as she spoke, her voice growing louder and louder to the point where she was shouting at the top of her lungs. "More ABHORRENT, more PUTRID…FILTHY…nothing has prepared me for such a resistance to Arceus' light. NOTHING!"

The good news: she was incredibly angry and unstable.

The bad news: chances were she was about to unleash all that simmering violence on Melia. That couldn't be allowed to happen.

"You can keep spewing adjectives to us over and over again, but we don't care!" Venam taunted her.

"We won your stupid game!" Melia joined. "You need to stand down and let us free!"

"This is the pinnacle of your tower and the end of your reign!" Crawli then added. "You will pay for what you've done!"

"Me?" Angie stammered as if Crawli had just slapped her in the face. "Pay for what I've done?" The legitimate shock in her voice took Will aback.

A second later, that shock in Angie's voice turned to pure, unfiltered fury and an aura of terrible power flared to life around her. It exploded from her body like flames, but they weren't flames, they were blood-red tendrils of an otherworldly presence. They were malice given form and intent. An extent of Angie's malicious will.

Around her, mounds of jagged, knife-like ice erupted from the ground as Angie screamed, "YOU WRETCHED INFIDELS! THOSE WHO OPPOSE THE LORD'S LIGHT SHALL BE BURNED AWAY FROM THIS WORLD! THERE IS NO ROOM FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO DENY ETERNITY!"

Angie's aura of cold was overwhelming. Ice crept along the edges of the room as she swept her terrible power across the battlefield. It wasn't hard to see what she was doing; she'd sweep the chamber until the cold was so bad that they would be too slow to dodge her attacks, too sluggish to command their Pokemon. Then, if the cold didn't stop their hearts, Angie would probably smear the walls with their frozen blood.

"You guys might wanna step back," Will muttered to his friends.

"I will freeze the water in your eyes and the blood in your lungs," Angie snarled as she raised her hand. Water coalesced around her outstretched arm, coalescing into elongated shapes which snap-froze into sharpened spears. "I will make you cough up the shattered remnants of your entrails!"

Four icicle spears sped towards him with incredible velocity. Knowing he would have to trust his Pokemon or die a horrible death was agony. Froslass was on top of him, around him and she stopped the spears of ice in md-air when they were a mere meter away. With a disembodied scream, Froslass flung the spears back at Angie, who was forced to summon a shield of ice to block them.

A singular shard of ice sliced through Angie's dress. A harmless, meaningless gesture, but the imperfection that now marred her had her face twisting in rage.

"Now that I have your attention," Will said.

Wordlessly, Angie began sending out Pokemon. It started with a Jynx to her left and a large, muscled Beartic to the right. With a maddened howl, the Beartic began stomping forwards while Jynx started gathering power.

"Move!" Crawli said. He, Melia and Venam made a break for it as everything kicked off. The spears shattered into a thousand pieces against her protective barrier and Angie snarled with rage as she swept them back like a storm or shards.

Cold started seeping through his clothes and his body began shivering violently. Froslass was forced to intercept that storm of shattered ice with a Blizzard of herself. The strange dimension of ice mutated her attack into something else, something far more powerful and potent. Angie teleported out of the way, but the scale of Froslass's Blizzard was immense and it swept Angie's Jynx off its feet.

"B-Blaziken!" Will stammered as the cold began freezing his limbs in place again. He got Blaziken out just in time.

Almost instantly, the heat radiating from Blaziken's body clashed with the mutating ice and cold swirling around them. Some parts of the snow began to melt, others didn't. Water vaporized in her presence and soon, the searing heat staved off the chill that had crept into his bones.

Angie appeared to his left and she thrust her hands towards him. Twin beams of ice tore through the air towards him.

At the same time her Beartic surrounded itself with water and lashed out at Blaziken, but Blaziken leapt out of its range and then retreated back to Will just in time to put herself in front of the beams of ice. A conflagration of fire erupted around her as she pushed back against Angie's overwhelming might.

"Never will I permit you to leave alive!" Angie yelled.

Blaziken fanned the flames at her core and the fire intensified, erupting into an aura that scorched the frozen tiles below her and vaporized the flakes of snow in a wide radius around her. Heat seeped into Will's bones and the feeling slowly returned to his body again.

Venam and Melia didn't have the means to keep themselves warm. Sure, Hapi could manipulate Fire-type energy and create a temporary Heat Wave, but that was like burning stacks of paper to stay warm in a thunderstorm. Without a Pokemon that could produce the heat needed to survive, they were sitting ducks.

Angie knew that.

If she didn't get to kill Will, she would murder the ones he loved instead.

"Melia, keep your distance, keep warm!" He shouted. Froslass intercepted another hail of frozen spears that flew towards him and only narrowly managed to deflect them this time.

"I…I'm trying!" Melia replied, her voice far too faint for his liking. Hapi circled around her, spewing fire and scattering heat through its wings, but it visibly struggled to keep going.

And Venam…Venam had taken cover behind one of the larger pillars in the back.

"Venam!" Will shouted. Froslass threw a Shadow Ball at Angie's Jynx when it teleported behind him and she struck the Psychic-type head-on. "Venam, sound off!"

Venam raised her arm and waved at him, but he didn't hear her speak.

Damnit. Damnit!

"Crawi, cover me!" Will yelled.

"Gotcha!" Crawli yelled. He whirled from his cover and his Galvantula launched a devastating blast of Thunder at Angie.

Crawli didn't have a Fire-type either, did he?

This was insane! How was he supposed to fight Angie and keep his friends safe? He was lucky that he'd managed to piss Angie off to that extent; had she been a bit more coherent, she would have realized that killing Venam or Crawli was ten times easier than killing him.

If her anger meant she couldn't focus properly, all he had to do was keep her angry, right?

"You are twisted abominations that do not deserve the Lord's light!" Angie shouted.

Will slammed into cover behind one of the large, toothy pillars just in time for Froslass to shatter the next tow icy spears Angie flung his way. Their shattered fragments buffeted the statue and chips of ice flung around his head.

"Can't believe I'm about to listen to Venam…" Will muttered. He took a few deep breaths so his next words wouldn't sound so jittery and then raised his voice. "Want to talk about what happened to Anju?"

Judging by the wordless scream of rage he heard from further down the battlefield, he'd achieved at least one objective that day.

Okay Venam's she's pissed, now what?

"Your offal shall stain these halls for years to come!" Angie then shouted and the statue shook violently as Froslass prevented Angie's next attack from circling around and skewering him.

Dividing his attention over Melia, Venam, Crawli and three Pokemon was more than he could muster, but he had to persevere. As he broke into a sprint to get to Venam, he sent out Houndoom. His trusted Dark-type hit the ground running.

"Get to Venam, keep her safe!" Will shouted. Out of nowhere, Angie ordered her Crabominable into the field and the lumbering Fighting-type was close, far too close. The damn thing was even more massive than Neved's had been. It stepped in-between him and the statue Venam was hiding behind. How had Angie gotten that thing so damn close to him?!

"Tear him in half!" Angie ordered.

He was going too fast, he couldn't stop in time. He tried to stop, but his feet slid across the frozen ground and he couldn't find the traction.

Crabominable reached for him with a gargantuan fist –

Out of nowhere, Blaziken flung herself at the Crabominable and the force of her impact sent it staggering back. She turned her forwards tackle into a roll across the ground, narrowly avoiding its Crabhammer and then drove it back with a searing Blaze Kick.

Will saw Houndoom bound towards Venam. His jaws found the back of her jacket and he pulled her away from the ice-cold pillar. Heat radiated off his lean body and he anxiously paced back and forth, ready to throw himself into the fray but unwilling to disobey his order and expose Venam to any damage.

"Enough!" Angie shouted and a shockwave pulsed through the room. "The Cold Truth shall find you as well! You cannot deny it!"

Will ignored her taunts and ran towards Blaziken again, circling around a patch of frozen ground –

And onto the docks of Blacksteeple Castle. Snow poured down from the black sky above, its pale moon casting a pale hue in the endless night,

A massive tremor ran through the terminal. The door shook, before a thin, silver blade began slicing through the door.

His mother's expression hardened into pained resolve. "She won't let us just leave…not without…Will, please get yourself onto the ship. Tell Augustus to get everyone out of here immediately."

"This…how…" Will muttered. This didn't make sense, where was Angie, what was –

"This is the culmination of my strength and my faith in the Lord," Angie whispered into his left ear.

With a cry, Will whirled around to his left, but there was nobody there.

"It will subject you to the Cold Truth. It shall set you free, Will. Surrender yourself."

"She will follow us to the ends of the earth if she gets the chance," His mother said.

"This…this isn't real," Will muttered. "You're not real."

The sword flashed through the door and it fell apart in three loose pieces. Madame X stepped through. Will saw his own pale, frightened expression reflected in her visor as she stalked towards him.

"Is that what you think?" She said, brandishing her sword.

What?

Oh no. Oh no no no - !

A disembodied cry, a shrill proclamation of his name –

Froslass put her hands in his spine and pulled.

Angie's Crabominable swung at Blaziken several times in quick succession. Blaziken, forced to stay close to her trainer to prevent him from freezing to death, was hard-pressed to dodge his attacks. The only thing that spared her from its hits was its sluggish, wild nature and her own well-honed reflexes, but that could only last so long.

Will's breathing quickened. He saw Venam sluggishly climb back to her feet, saw Melia and Crawli still alive behind their cover. He didn't see Kreiss though. Where the hell was that guy?

Blaziken darted back to surround Will with more fire and the Crabominable gave pursuit. It swung a massive double-handed blow at the floor which exploded into a hailstorm of shrapnel and shards of metal. Blaziken flung her arms up to protect herself from the worst of it, but then Angie uttered a scream of frustration and her Beartic flung a massive piece of rock at Blaziken.

Lightning-fast, Blaziken punched the slab of stone out of the air but the Crabominable rushed forwards and battered her to the ground. It kept her pinned with one massive claw and raised the other to strike a crushing Crahhammer, but then Froslass blasted it with a Shadow Ball, forcing it back and allowing Blaziken to roll to her feet again

"Will!" Melia shouted. He risked a look her way and saw her pointing wildly at Crawli, who had slumped to his knees and sat there with his arms around his waist, unmoving.

Damnit, damnit - !

"Houndoom, get Crawli!" Will shouted.

"Get the cursed boy, why not!" Angie snapped, teleporting to the center of the room. "But who shall get you?"

"Froslass, I – "

A brief stab of pain and Madame X stalked closer, raising her sword even as his mother's Sylveon placed down an enormous Reflect screen to separate the Xen tyrant from his trainer.

The memories terrified him not because he knew what would happen, but because he couldn't see them objectively. He felt them, relived them as if he experienced them for the very first time, just as vividly as when he first experienced them.

His terror was real, the frustration that bled into every fiber of his being was real. Madame X struck and struck again and his mother's barrier shattered. She ran, and Madame X gave chase.

"No!" Will shouted. He knew what would happen, knew on an instinctual level that this wasn't real, but it was real and his mind was utterly convinced that this was happening right then and there.

Melia's Hapi swept down from above and lobbed one Aura Sphere after another at Madame X but it didn't – wouldn't – work.

"Embrace the truth," Angie whispered at him

With a pained groan and another push from Froslass, he managed to tear himself out of the memory -

Blaziken sprinted forwards to intercept Angie's Beartic, but the Crabominable scampered in her way and swung its fists at her, trailing ice and snow as it struck –

She was a blur as she intercepted its fists, stopping them just short of her face. For a moment, the Blaze Pokemon and her enormous foe were evenly matched. Blaziken snarled and whipped Crabominable's fists sideways and out of the way. A quick jab at its eyes drove it off-balance long enough for Blaziken to rear back and drive a Blaze Kick straight at its sternum.

Crabominable was big and heavy but Blaziken had sent hundreds of kilograms of dead weight plummeting with single kicks before. The crab-like monster flew backwards and slammed into Angie's Beartic in a tangled mess of limbs and Ice-charged energy.

Angie scattered another storm of frigid cold across the battlefield –

"I'm here to challenge that belief," Madame X said as she shattered his mother's barrier.

His mother stumbled back. She didn't run – why didn't she run?

"We won't let Nancy die here!" Melia shouted. She ran down the dock, running to catch up to Will and his mother. "Hapi!"

Again, Froslass ripped Will from the memories and again, the shock and the horror at how much the images had him shaking as he ran. He nearly faltered and stumbled, but managed to catch himself just in time to see Angie fling another spear of ice his way. Froslass surged forwards and she breathed power into the air around her, diverting the spear so that it crashed into the ground a meter to Will's left.

Instead of shattering, the icy weapon penetrated deep into the ground, sticking there like it had been made from metal.

He carried onwards, coming to a shaking, panting stop at Crawli's side. Crawli laid with his back against the pillar, his arms wrapped around his chest. He was shaking, shivering, and his eyes were glossed over. Will took one look and realized to his dismay that Angie hadn't just been targeting him.

She was targeting them all with the Cold Truth. That was how she was doing this! Images, memories and past events were pelting Crawli's mind from every direction, as vivid and clear as the day they happened. It would be the same for Venam and Melia.

But they didn't have a Froslass to pull them out of it. Will wasn't even sure if it was just a Ghost or Psychic-type Pokemon to pull them out, or if somehow, Angie's domain granted power and authority to the cold and ice itself. For all he knew, the twisted rules of this domain didn't allow Psychic-types to function.

Angie wasn't just killing his friends with physical cold, she was trying to break down their mental defenses as well. He needed to wrap this up. "Houndoom, to me!"

Houndoom broke off from Venam and began sprinting towards him. The ground behind him burst into frozen teeth, narrowly missing his hind legs.

Beartic swung a mammoth limb at Blaziken, who reared back to dodge his Liquidation attack and shoved the offending limb out of the way, pushing Beartic off-balance. She slammed her first into its neck, stunning it just long enough to land a pair of Fire Punches against its sternum and shove it out of the way. Right as the Beartic stumbled back, Crabominable came in from the side with another Crabhammer. Its first swing was a narrow miss and Blaziken leapt into the air, pulled both of her knees to her chest and then slammed a double Blaze Kick straight into Crabominable's face.

Will sprang away from Crawli's cover to avoid drawing Angie's ire on the helpless ranger. He made it about seven steps before the crazed woman drew a bead on him.

Houndoom dragged Crawli back to his feet, breathing heat back into his body. Angie uttered a cry of frustration and formed an enormous sculpture of ice into the air right above Will. At the same time, she breathed life into another wall of spikes that surrounded him just like in his nightmare, trapping him in a little kill-box from which he couldn't escape. The wind carved a singular, sharpened spike at the bottom of the overhead projectile and Angie laughed –

"Will, up!" Melia yelled.

Froslass fluttered down from above, seized Will's shoulders in her ghostly arms and jerked him off his feet. She flung him in the air just as Hapi soared by and Will flung his arms up, clutching one of Hapi's cloud-shaped wings. Hapi's momentum carried them both onwards and Angie's mass of ice slammed down and missed them by a freaking inch.

From the other side of the battlefield, Houndoom blasted a quick series of Incinerate blasts at the Crabominable, which flung its fists up into the air to protect itself.

Blaziken leapt forwards at Beartic, struck a glancing Fire Punch and quickly blurred aside when the Ice-Type tried to counter with Liquidation. When Crabominable tried to smash its fists into the ground to knock Blaziken back with the shockwave, Hapi swept in from above and nailed him with an Aura Sphere.

That bought Blaziken just enough time to whirl around Beartic, intercept its Liquidation with her left arm and land a rapid series of kicks at its upper thigh, flank and neck. Her fourth kick went wide when Beartic ducked low and drove a powerful fist at her head. Blaziken skidded backwards and Beartic charged at her again, summoning jagged spikes of ice with every thundering step it took.

"You will not prevail!" Angie shouted and cast another Pokemon into the fray. A Walrein appeared into the middle of the battlefield, its massive tusks gleaming in the pale light of the ice as its jaws parted in a fierce cry.

Will flung Nidoking's Poke Ball into the air and the massive, steel-skinned beast came into existence ten meters away from Walrein. He unfolded his limbs, took one look at the situation and exhaled a heavy, steamy breath. He rolled the joints in his shoulder and then cracked his neck.

Blaziken led Beartic straight towards him and Nidoking acted accordingly. He ducked low, allowing Blaziken to vault over him and face down this new threat in the form of Walrein instead.

Bellowing, Beartic swung a heavy Ice Punch at Nidoking, who enveloped himself in purple energy and caught the Beartic's freezing punch with his left claw. Slowly, he wrestled the Beartic's arm to the side, before cocking his free arm back and then smashing it into Beartic's face with so much force that it wouldn't have surprised Will if the Ice-type's head went flying in a separate direction from his body.

Meanwhile, Angie sent out yet another Pokemon. It was a strange, reddish Ghost-type that reminded Will more of a possessed refrigerator than anything else.

"Rotom, stop the interference!" Angie hissed.

Rotom wasted no time and surged towards Houndoom, buffeting him with quick strikes of Thunderbolt. Houndoom, fully committed to keeping Melia, Venam and Crawli safe from Angie's wrath and creeping hypothermia, couldn't defend himself from Rotom and continue protecting them at the same time. He darted back, shot a quick blast of Dark Pulse at the Rorom and then sprang aside when an errand spout of water from Walrein threatened to splash too close to him.

Will saw Angie bring her hands together, saw her flash him a wide grin and knew another attack was incoming. She raised her right hand and tightened it into a fist and he readied himself for Froslass to take over –

But that never happened. Instead, a trio of thin, long spikes burst from the ground and slammed into Houndoom's lean chest, stopping him in his tracks and shoving him up from the icy floor.

Her Rotom slammed down onto Houndoom's spine, driving him down onto the spikes. With a sickening sound, the points of the frozen spears sank deep into his chest.

Houndoom's paws kicked and slipped on the frozen ground, steaming-hot blood dripping down the frozen shafts and pooling on the floor. He visibly panicked, thrashing and twisting to break free, but the ice wouldn't give. A horrible, pained whine escaped Houndoom's throat as one of the spears pushed out through his back.

"No!" Will screamed, dizzy from the cold and panic and sting of fear and it was pure, blind instinct that made him snap up Houndoom's Poke Ball and recall him. That same instinct told him that the damage was too much, far too much and it might not be fixable, might not be something his friend could bounce back from even with all the healing in the world –

Hapi landed a quick flamethrower at Beartic's exposed back and the Ice-type stumbled forwards. Nidoking zipped past him, placing one hand on his foe's waist and whirling behind him, before getting his other claw in place and lifting Beartic up into the air. With a vicious scream, Nidoking choke-slammed the bastard onto the floor, shattering the black tiles underneath.

Beartic struggled to rise up, even after all that punishment. He swung an Ice Punch that caught Nidoking against his thigh, frostbite seeping into his armored skin. Nidoking uttered a high-pitched cry of pain and then pinned the offending limb to his wound, half pulling Beartic up before lifting his clawed foot and stomping down on the Pokemon's head.

After another stomp, the Beartic went limp.

It was too much, too much to keep track of. He ordered Froslass to go on the offensive, ordered her to chase down that Rotom and take it out.

Walrein roared again and an icy blue aura surrounded its body. On its command, the previously immutable ice shattered and moved. Large shards of solid, black ice sped through the air towards Blaziken and Nidoking, who were forced to quite literally run for their lives. Blaziken vaulted high into the air as one shard of ice slammed into the spot she'd previously occupied and exploded like an explosive, showering pieces of black ice in every direction. She came to an unsteady halt, then threw herself into a sideways roll to avoid another massive chunk of ice that exploded across Angie's floor.

Nidoking managed to interrupt Walrein's barrage with several projectiles of his own; he launched several Sludge Bombs towards Walrein and Angie's Pokemon was forced to protect itself by trying to shoot those out of the air with a thick geyser of water.

Blaziken disengaged, but the Crabominable was right on top of her again. With Froslass playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek with the Rotom, it was up to Nidoking to work out the solution.

Walrein slammed its bulky tail against the floor and one of Angie's black teeth of ice went flying towards Nidoking. Seeing his opportunity there, Will ordered forwards. The armored Poison-type darted towards the frozen projectile and managed to catch it before it could hit the ground and explode. With a heave and a growl, Nidoking flung the chunk of ice towards the lumbering Crabominable.

Blaziken ducked low and Angie's weapon smashed into her own Pokemon's face. Crabominable staggered back, clutching its bleeding face.

That allowed Blaziken to dart in, whirl underneath her foe's arm like she had once done to Neved's version of this thing and pull it off-balance. She brought her leg to her chest and lashed out, hard, at its thin, exposed arm and the resulting snap of its limb sounded hauntingly familiar.

Furious, blinded by pain, Crabominable tried to spin around to deliver a blow to Blaziken's stomach, but the damage it had accumulated was slowing it down. Blaziken easily dodged its sluggish blow and then dove for one of its legs. She clutched it to her chest and rolled across the ground, pulling the lumbering Ice-type off its feet and towards the ground. There, Blaziken managed to get onto her foe's back as it attempted to shove itself back upright.

Blaziken leveraged her weight to keep it pinned, before seizing its yellow tufts of hair in a burning claw and pulling its head back. With its bulky, spherical body, that was a very odd position for the beast to assume, but Blaziken put one of her feet into the cleft of its back and shoved it down. Then, she called fire to herself and stomped a Blaze Kick against its spine with all her mind, pulling hard at its head as she did.

With a heavy smack, Crabominable's bulk slammed into the ground. It didn't rise again. Blaziken swayed on her feet and had to steady herself against one of the pillars, but she had done it.

Angie screamed with rage.

Walrein's sheer girth and body mass meant that Nidoking had a very hard time landing any decent hits. He struggled to get close, while Walrein could simply keep throwing ice and slinging water his way.

But there was always a way, and Will wasn't about to fail his friends or his Pokemon now. "Blaziken, keep it distracted from range! Nidoking, get ready!"

At his command, Blaziken steadied herself and flung a quick barrage of Ember shards Walrein's way. The bulky Water-type allowed them to wash over its body, its thick fat shrugging them off with impunity. It slammed its tail into the floor again and again, it used Angie's authority over her domain to take control over the mutated ice around it and fling massive, volatile chunks at Nidoking.

He just needed one of his Pokemon to get close. Aside from those tusks, Walrein didn't look like it had any means to defend itself at close range.

Walrein opened its maw and formed a small, shimmering orb which quickly exploded into a solid stream of ice. It slashed across the battlefield and Nidoking was barely able to pivot in time to take it on the shoulder instead of his chest. Will wasn't even sure what move that was; it looked like a simple Ice Beam, but the impact had spun Nidoking around like it had an immense kinetic energy and when Nidoking quickly rolled aside to avoid a follow-up strike, it looked like the thick, steel-like hide on his shoulder was all torn and cracked. Blood seeped from his wound.

He could see why this was Angie's strongest Pokemon; in her dimension, it could endlessly attack its enemies at every range. All it had to do was look at the spot it wanted to attack and…

All it had to do was look.

Visibility.

"Nidoking, keep it occupied with Poison Sting!" Will. "Blaziken, I need more fire on that Walrein!"

The pair poured it on. Walrein erected a thick wall of ice in front of itself to block the sudden hail of poison-tipped darts of energy and craned its head around Blaziken, flinging more exploding ice her way.

A jet of flames splashed across Walrein's ice and, more importantly, the ice and snow around it. Angie's ice was all but untouchable even to Fire-type Pokemon, but that didn't go for all of her ice. Steam geysered into the air where her Flamethrower struck. Water and ice alike vaporized into large clouds of steam.

Angie wasn't stupid; she saw what he was trying and her power swept across the battlefield like a great wind. Already the clouds of steam grew still before freezing into tendrils of ice again.

But for those precious few seconds, Walrein didn't have a clue where his enemies were.

When it came to the likes of Blaziken, they preferred to be really, really close.

Nidoking vaulted over the wall of ice Walrein had erected and slammed both of his feet against Walrein's face. He landed awkwardly on his elbows and knees and Walrein roared, flinging a massive shard of ice at his exposed spine.

With a swing of his massive tail, Nidoking swatted the frozen projectile out of the air. He shoved himself back to his feet but the arm Walrein had struck before hung at an odd angle.

Walrein readied another punishing Ice Beam, then pivoted to fling two massive chunks of black ice at Blaziken, one high and one low. Blaziken vaulted, twisting her body horizontally to pass through the narrow gap between the two. She landed on her feet and Walrein directed its Ice Beam at her. As he fired, Nidoking smashed head-first into its broad chest. His horn sank deep into the blubber protecting Walrein's blubber and Angie's final Pokemon blasted Nidoking back with a sudden jet of freezing water.

Nidoking staggered back, clawing at its face and Blaziken came in hard from the side. She dropped into a slide to avoid that same trick and managed to land a quick one-two combo of Fire Punches against Walrein's face. It reared back and Blaziken used that quick moment of confusion on her foe's side to scramble onto its back. There, she clutched the sides of the Walrein's side -

With a snarl, Angie sent a trio of sharpened spears of ice at Blaziken.

Nidoking lunged forwards. Half blind and in the throes of hypothermia, he still slammed an armored fist into Walrein's face, brought his thick arms and swept them up, shielding his face even as he staggered in front of Blaziken.

The frozen projectiles slammed home with solid, crackling thumps. One embedded itself in Nidoking's shoulder, the other two in his left arm. Blood poured to the ground from his myriad of wounds.

Blaziken dug her claws deep into Walrein;'s fatty, sturdy flesh and threw herself backwards, pulling what was very likely to be been half a ton of Walrein with her. With so much weight and so little energy left she didn't so much suplex him against the ground as she managed to get her legs underneath its bulk and prevent it from crushing her.

But it did expose its soft underbelly.

Nidoking, swaying on his feet, swept out with a vicious claw-strike. Venom and poison laced his limb as he gauged a deep, bloody trail across Walrein's exposed underside.

Visibly exhausted. Blaziken dropped Walrein by her side and sluggishly rolled out of the way.

"How can it be that I am losing?" Angie shouted in agony, in fury, as she floated up towards the mural. Every word she spoke sent another crack through the murals glass. "This was a role that was DESTINED FOR ME!"

Spiderwebs crept along the mural as Angie's otherworldly power began warping and breaking everything around her.

"I – "

The ice on the ground beneath her began expanding upwards, growing into curved spikes that swept in every direction.

"WON'T – "

The red tendrils whipped madly around her body, casting twisting shadows on the floor that didn't belong. Will saw the storm coming and recalled Nidoking. The three spears clattered to the floor.

"ACCEPT THIS!"

With a deafening roar, the mural shattered into thousands of pieces. With a wordless, guttural roar, Angie swept the deadly-sharp glass up in a great storm.

"Guys, run!" Crawli yelled.

The red tendrils of power that flared and writhed about her frame flooded over the thousands of shards a split-second before she flung that storm towards them.

"FREAKING RUN!"

Melia and Venam were caught out in the open. They were closer to Will than to any semblance of cover. They would never make it in time.

"Froslass!" He shouted.

Froslass surged forwards and unleashed one final Blizzard in return, giving it everything she had. Force met force as she brought the full power and might of the supernatural winter to bear against Angie's hailstorm.

A second Froslass flickered through the tide of glass and ice and held its position right next to her. it added its power to the barrier, aiding in their struggle to hold back a power that would obliterate the entire tower.

Superdense fragments of hail and ice clashed into the knife edges of the mural's glass, thousands and thousands of them, and the resulting clash seemed to tear the very air apart.

Melia and Venam had the time to scramble towards Will. Angie's manic grin grew wider as Will's Froslass faltered. Angie had spent the entire fight flinging shards of ice around. Froslass had spent the entire fight laboring to keep everybody alive. She couldn't have won. There was no world where she could have won.

But it bought them time.

Blaziken stepped in front of them, her body glowing red as flames streamed down her limbs and she raised her arms. Right as Froslass broke and Angie's storm of glass and ice swept at them, Hapi swept down from the right and added his own fire to Blaziken's Blaze-fueled storm.

Kreiss's Froslass failed as well.

What remained of Angie's storm washed over them.

An explosion of fire erupted right in front of the three trainers as their trusted Pokemon defended them from Angie's wrath. The blinding, white-hot conflagration swept outwards and detonated into Angie's storm of blades. Will saw through blurry eyes how the combined efforts of their Pokemon blasted through the air like a tidal wave of liquid fire. Snow exploded into clouds of steam and a whole slew of molten silicon and bits of glass poured into the floor. The concussive force of the thermal bloom swept outwards and bled into the floor, forcing all three of them to shield their face and stagger backwards.

Then the violence was over, the light and the heat vanished. The torrent of fire trailed off into the ceiling like the tail of a comet.

With a scream of rage, Angie slammed into the ground right in the middle of their formation and sent everybody flying. Melia's body tumbled across the floor and came to a sudden, jarring halt against one of the pillars. Venam skidded across the ice and only barely managed to gather enough wits to scramble back to her feet and run. Blaziken crashed to the ground in a heap. Hapi's limp body rolled across the floor. Neither of them even tried to rise up again.

And Angie still bore down on him.

Are you freaking kidding me? Will thought frantically as he scrambled back on hands as feet. Shards of ice and glass dug into his hands and clothes. His muscles screamed in protest as he angled his head up to face her, seeing his own startled fear reflected in her murderous eyes. What did it take to stop this woman?

"There you are," Angie said through clenched teeth as she raised her fist –

Tapu Koko slammed into Angie's back in a wash of electricity. Snarling, the woman spun on her heels and swept at the Pokemon with another storm of ice

"Here we are! Here we stay! Yo, ice hoe! We ain't here to play!"

Will felt his breath hitch in his throat. Never before in his life had he been this glad to hear Saki!

Furious, Angie spun to face the intruder – but it wasn't just Saki.

Adam, Valarie, Saki, Aelita and even Braixen had somehow managed to break through. Aerodactyl slammed itself against the ice Angie had called to her and shattered it into pieces. Will didn't know how they did it, but they were there, they were here!

"We heard you messin' with our friends and for that we're gonna give you the BESTIE BEATDOWN!" Saki shouted, riding into battle atop her Metagross, holding on for dear life.

"Besties! Assemble!" Braixen yelled with glee from right behind Saki.

A wordless scream of rage escaped past Angie's lips but one of Tapu Koko's own besties came in from the side and flung a pulse of Fairy-energy at Angie, forcing her to break off her attack and focus on shielding herself instead.

Adam's Aerodactyl swept down low and slammed into Angie's legs. She nearly crashed to the ground before she caught herself and flung a pair of icy spears at the offending Pokemon, but Aerodactyl was far too quick and it managed to dodge her projectiles.

Metagross slammed the full weight of its body against Angie and the woman was only barely able to hold it back. But then Saki came from around and threw herself at Angie's back, pulling at her head and her shoulders –

Valarie dropped into a slide and came to a jittery halt next to Will. "Hey, are you alright? Come on, we're leaving!"

She pulled him to his feet. Will quickly looked around, seeing that all of his Pokemon were now out of commission. Then, he saw Blaziken slowly shoving herself back to her elbows and her knees, shaking her head as she struggled to rise. Even her Blaze ability had fizzled out. She wouldn't be doing any fighting for the foreseeable future.

But if she could still move…

"Blaziken!" He said and her head snapped towards him. "Get Melia and get out of here!"

Blaziken glanced over to the pillar where Melia still lay, then looked back at him.

"Don't question me, do it! You have to keep her safe!"

Blaziken shot a glare at Angie.

"I don't care what it takes!"

Angie's rage exploded and the entire tower hummed in response. Razor-sharp formations of knife-like ice burst from every physical surface imaginable even as more and more of the island guardians joined the battle against her.

One particular sculpture of ice crashed into the ground and exploded into fragments right next to Venam. A cloud of frozen shrapnel washed over her legs. With a cry of pain and surprise, the girl crashed to the ground.

If anyone around saw it happen, they weren't able to get to her. Angie reached up and her hand found the back of Saki's shirt. Furious, she pulled the engineer over her head and flung her to the ground. She raised her hand and a stake of ice formed around her fist –

With far more force than was possible for such a small Pokemon, Aelita's Hawlucha slammed his winged arm into Angie's side and the woman stumbled before she could execute Saki, her eyes widening in frenzied madness. Snarling, she whipped around and shot a beam of dark, icy energy at Hawlucha, but then Aelita bounced over Saki's body and her foot snapped out, catching Angie in her neck.

It was an amazing display of focused violence that would have snapped the neck of any normal human, easily, but Angie was far from normal – or even human, at this point. She thrust her arm back at Aelita and it was only because of another island guardian swooping down to pull Aelita out of the way that Angie didn't manage to impale her then and there.

Valarie had her Primarina out. With one Water Pulse after the other, she laid into Angie's defenses, allowing Aelita to move up further as Angie moved to protect herself.

On the other end of the room, Blaziken got her claws underneath Melia's neck and the back of her knees. She lifted the girl from the ground and started carrying her out.

Meanwhile, the out-of-control shards of ice were getting uncomfortably close to Venam. Taking comfort in the thought that Blaziken would get Melia out in one piece, Will decided that he wasn't done himself quite yet. "Come on Venam!" He yelled as he hurried her way. "Get up!"

Tapu Koko flew overhead and blasted an unseen target with electricity. Will grabbed Venam by her arm, heaving to pull her to her feet.

"Fuck!" She hissed. She was so pale that she almost looked blue and her breathing was labored and shallow. She had her hands pressed to a bleeding wound on her left leg. Blood was welling up from multiple wounds there. "Fuck…gimme a moment…"

"You really gotta ignore that pain now, we need to go!"

"I can't…just - "

Thump.

Something slammed into his chest and it gave way. Crack. Snap. The sound was sharp and clear and very swiftly followed by ice-cold, deep, marrow-freezing cold embedding within his sternum. It happened in an instant and yet, the sensation lingered, reverberating belatedly through his body in agonizing slowness. His frazzled brain struggled to make sense of everything. There was the sensation of skin parting, a sickening feeling of flesh and muscles tearing and ribs shattering, splintering -

The impact rocked him back on his heels and knocked the wind out of him. Disoriented and confused, he looked down at Venam and saw a look of horror frozen on her face. An incredible pain spread through his chest and his legs lost all their strength. He groped to feel the wound, assess the damage –

- and felt the sharpened spear of ice that had impaled him through the chest.

A cry of horror clawed its way up his throat, but then the pain hit him well and truly and he screamed, he screamed as the ungodly pain exploded from his chest and across his body. His vision whited out. Everything seized up and slowed down.

Everything.

Blaziken, still holding Melia in her arms, coming to a sudden stop and staring. Melia's eyes widening as she saw what happened.

Venam starting to scream, incoherently, her bloodied arm outstretched towards him, coming up short just inches.

Crawli diving behind cover, glancing over and then freezing on the spot.

And Angie's triumphant, maddened grin.

Will wanted to run, but he couldn't. The pain. The pain. It lit him up on the inside, filled him with fire. It was unlike anything he had ever felt in his life. He couldn't do anything except clutch the spear that had impaled him through his chest. His limbs failed him. His knees hit the ground. Blood welled up between his fingers.

People screamed. He thought he heard Aelita shouting his name, over and over…

"Give me some covering fire over here!" Adam howled.

Different colors exploded across the battlefield as the island guardians battered Angie with everything they had. Angie struggled to hold them off. It took the combined firepower of five Legendary Pokemon to overcome the lone, mad woman.

At the far end of the battlefield, Kreiss finally stepped into view. His Froslass struck. Ice enveloped Angie.

The fighting stopped.

Something like liquid filled his throat when he tried to breathe. His mouth tasted like copper. His next scream came out choked and gurgling. The sounds of the fighting grew dull and vague. Fainly, he felt his body slump to the ground. Soft, warm arms caught him halfway.

His mother's name echoed in his mind. Was this what it felt like? Was this how she spent her last moments?

Beyond Kreiss, he believed he saw Crescent. He tried to focus, but everything was so blurry. His field of vision narrowed as he struggled to see her. He thought it was Crescent anyway. She held a hand in front of her mouth.

His mom must have been lonely in the end. But…

I don't…want to join you yet mom, he thought in a confused haze.

Snow fluttered down to his face. He barely registered it.

Strong hands clutched him by his shoulders and began dragging him. He saw a wash of purple hair in front of him and Aelita was there, she was there and her expression twisted in tearful agony and fear. "Will, no! No no no no no! Will!"

I can't join you yet.

Screams. Conflicting cries for help and orders. Adam's voice booming above the rest, roaring for someone to pass him a first-aid kit.

"We're losing him!" someone yelled, Valarie maybe, and then Saki was there. A bloody scrape marred her cheek. She clutched his hand, keeping him from clawing at the spike protruding from his chest. Braixen's warm, fluffy hand brushed the snow and frost from his face.

"Don't pull that out!" Kreiss ordered. "That bloody thing is keeping him from bleeding out on the spot!"

Melia had called him something. He remembered now. Something…important. What was it again?

His head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. Blood pooled in his mouth. It leaked past his parted lips. With incredible effort, he looked to his right again. Valarie held Venam in her arms as she cried hysterically. Aelita bowed down over his body, clutching his hand so tightly that her knuckles were stark white. He didn't feel her fingers at all. He barely heard her as she shouted his name again. She too was crying, he thought, but that couldn't be. Aelita never cried.

"Stay with us Will, stay with us!" Adam shouted at him, the enormity of his voice's volume cutting through the fog in his mind. "More pressure Aelita! Come on Will, keep fighting. Stay with us!"

A blast of frigid air. More voices. Orange and black shapes moved around them.

"Oh God, he's turning even paler" Braixen's voice came from somewhere far, far away. Muffled. Odd.

Adam screamed at him to keep fighting. So Will fought. Didn't know against who, though. At that point, he didn't remember doing anything but fighting.

Sorry mom I can't go where you went I want to stay here please let me stay here.

Adam told him to fight and he fought but he was losing -

Had he…had he at least done her proud? He pictured her face…then, he pictured Crescent's face and he knew, he knew that this was what she'd warned him against.

His friends had all gone silent, he thought. Only Adam was audible, but he sounded like he came from underwater.

Will's head lolled to his left. Blaziken had put Melia down. She seemed barely conscious. But she was alive. She stared at him with those large, gray eyes as tears silently streamed down her face.

It was the last thing he saw before he slipped away.

~~~~~~~(II)~~~~~~~

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AN: And so ends the biggest story chapter so far. That is "A Teila Fire and Ice" wrapped up! What's that? Another cliffhanger? I can't help it. It's an addiction.

Originally, Chapter 7 ended with Venam, Melia and the Interceptor losing consciousness due to their injuries and sheer exhaustion, combined with the devastating effects of the freezing cold. I simply took that scene to its next logical conclusion. It also didn't seem right that the maddened, blood-lusted Angie would stick to a double-battle format. To me, everything that can be chalked up to game mechanics can be expanded upon and made into a larger and, dare I say, more intense action scene.

Desperate struggles for survival against overwhelming odds are so much more fun to write when they're not restricted to the battle system of the game, is all I'm saying. From what I've gathered so far, those expanded scenes tend to be more fun to read as well, so everybody wins, no?

This entire chapter was one big emotional rollercoaster and I was hundred percent up for the ride! We have passed the 400,000 word-mark and I have no intention of stopping. So with our cast freshly traumatized and sufficiently battered, we are well equipped to roll into Chapter 8!