Year 902 – Dead Man's Field, the Outlands
To survive in the Outlands, it was better to keep your head down and never put attention on yourself. The gangs ran the streets, and their calls were to be obeyed without a second thought. Those who opposed the top dogs were doomed to be torn to shreds That was the law of nature.
Vilgot obeyed these laws without question, knowing he was weak and helpless against the true monsters and their fangs. An orphaned wyrm who was lucky to find a tart apple that allowed him to become more than puny Applin, yet he was still the runt of his town.
"Hurry up with our food, you little worm!"
Vilgot shuddered under the hungry gaze of the scarred Tyranitar, hurriedly taking a batch of seeds and rapidly growing them into ripened berries and other fruits. He smiled and nervously wrung his hands together. "Uh, here you go?"
The Tyranitar swiped the basket. "Tch, took you long enough."
"I-I'm sorry. Y-You're absolutely right. I'll do better next time. I won't waste anymore of your time."
"…Hmph. That's more I like it." The crook turned away and walked off, letting Vilgot breathe a sigh of relief.
It wasn't an easy life, but it got him through the rough patches. Vilgot didn't make money off his fruits. They were only useful in bargaining for his life. If you weren't useful to the gangs running the town, you were next up for slaughter. Vilgot at least had a means to keep himself fed given how fast he could grow and recycle seeds.
It wasn't much, but he was still alive at the end of the day.
"Yeesh, is that how you let that jackass talk to you?"
Vilgot perked up as someone else stopped in front of his stand. It was a teenage Alolan Raichu wearing dusty, ragged clothes and a pair of crackled goggles around his neck. He balanced atop his floating tail, glaring at the meek Flapple in disapproval.
Vilgot gulped and offered a friendly smile. "O-Oh, don't mind all that. I love giving my berries away for free. I don't have much use for money here. As long as I'm fed, I'm fine."
The Raichu sneered. "But is this the life worth living?"
"It's a safe one, at least. Not much place for me outside the Outlands." Vilgot looked away sadly. "I'm…not smart like those city folk in the kingdoms. I wouldn't last in proper society."
The Raichu scoffed. "Pathetic."
"E-Excuse me?"
He slammed his hands down on the stand. "You heard me! You're letting jerks like that stupid lizard push you around, and you thank them for it! Don't you have any pride in yourself?"
"W-Well, I…I don't see much point in doing more than what I am now. Better than a dead man, right?"
The Raichu groaned. "A dead man can be remembered for loads of reasons out here. You're just some boring chump playing it safe. Have some ambition! Have you ever had dreams of conquering the world?"
"That sounds…what?" Vilgot shook his head. "L-Look, I don't know what you're on about, but I can give you some berries if that's what you're—"
The Raichu slammed his fist down, startling the dragon. "Do you not have a single selfish thought in your head? You let these guys walk all over you. What's wrong with taking what you want? Who's going to oppose? The strong make the rules out here."
"B-But I'm not strong—"
"Because you let them say you are." The Raichu smirked. "Come on, even you must have some selfish desires. Don't you want more than some boring job that pays you in not having your neck twisted? You're more than some fruit dispenser to these guys. Why, if you had an ounce of ambition in you, you could have it all. The Outlands is the place where the worst of the worst thrive! Make it your own!"
Vilgot blinked in bewilderment. "What…do you mean?"
The Raichu laughed. "Picture this. Gangs falling at their knees, bowing to you. Money and riches raining around you. Women throwing their bodies onto you. All the power in the world at your fingertips! That is what your missing out on! No one comes to the Outlands to be subservient. They come here because they want to be free from society! To be free from law! To be free from normality! That is what ambition is!"
"I…" Vilgot scratched behind his head. "Gee, I've never really thought about…any of that." He shook his head. "S-Still, I'm not much of a fighter, and I can't just go against the gang leader. He'll kill me if I rebelled."
The Raichu smirked and held up a vial of dark blue liquid. "Well, there's another saying out here: it takes two for a plan to be executed perfectly."
Vilgot's eyes widened. "Is…that poison?"
He laughed quietly. "The name's Ulrich. Want to be my partner in this crazy, noisy, lawless land?"
"Shit, shit, shit, SHIT!"
Vilgot took off rolling through the gorge, ricocheting off walls with Phoebe and Magni hot on his trail. With her rifle loaded, Phoebe fired at the fleeing Flapple, her shots pinging off the earth and barely grazing his shell. Even with the boosts from his Dragon Dance speeding him up, Phoebe's accuracy and Magni's ever-increasing speed made the process of shaking them off nigh impossible.
"Rain down hell, Mags!" Phoebe yelled.
"Stinging Shower!" Poisonous energy crackled through his horns and fired out into a volley of arrows arcing down into the Flapple's path.
Recognizing the attack's name, Vilgot grabbed from his secret stash inside his shell and quickly grew a seed into a kee berry. He immediately ingested it before the arrows struck down and rippled through the earth around him. Though the poisonous arrows were strong against him, the kee berry worked its magic and drastically boosted his physical defenses. He then immediately ate a revitalized lum berry and used it to cure himself of the poison.
From Phoebe and Magni's perspective, it looked as if the attack did nothing, and Vilgot continued on his merry way rolling blindly through the gorge. Magni growled. "Tear flesh to bits…"
Phoebe scoffed and loaded another bullet into her rifle. Armed with seeds he can instantly grow with Recycle and his Ripen ability. Can't restrain him or wither him down without healing himself. He's weaker than the other one, but he's more annoying to kill than the pepper brothers. Our only advantage is that he's mostly blind when attacking. So, the plan is to keep him still long enough to land a kill shot.
She took aim and fired one of her trick bullets. "Absolute Zero Bullet!"
The bullet streaked through the air in an aura of super frigid air. Though it missed its mark on the Flapple, it released a chilly wave across the immediate pathway. Ice stretched along the ground and high walls, freezing them in a deep sheet of ice. The cold passed under Vilgot, causing him to lose traction in his spinning and twirl out of control.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Vilgot opened out of his shell and took flight before he could crash into a wall. As he hurriedly fluttered into the air, he spotted Phoebe aiming another shot at him.
"Got ya!" She squeezed the trigger.
Right before she fired, he immediately downed another kee berry and bunkered back under his shell. This time, Phoebe fired a bullet wrapped in a dense orange aura. It struck with incredible force, crackling the air on impact.
"Force Bullet!"
Vilgot's increased defenses couldn't match the energy outputting from the bullet, causing him to be blasted out of the sky. He careened onto the icy ground with a hard landing and skipped several times off his back before crashing into a rock. His apple helmet shielded his head from major injury, keeping him lucid enough to see Magni charging across the ice with little issue.
"Stinging Spear!" Magni lowered his head and extended his horns into giant spikes.
"SHIT!" Vilgot bunkered into his shell again right as the horns struck and smashed him through the frozen rock. Magni drove him through the walls, locking around the wyrm's apple and dragging him along. Vilgot winced, feeling the rough terrain grinding against his shell.
Phoebe carefully walked along Magni's neck before pointing her rifle at the pinned wyrm. "Don't take this personally. We're just better."
Vilgot gritted his teeth. I'm not playing second fiddle to anyone again. I will earn my right as the Daredevil of Pride!
He revitalized two berries: a jaboca and a rowap. He scarfed them both down, munching as quickly as he could. He felt their energies taking effect thanks to being dragged through the walls.
"Braeburn Burst!"
Phoebe and Magni's eyes widened as the Flapple illuminated in blinding light before detonating. The blast threw Magni off balance, causing him and Phoebe to tumble the rest of the way through the gorge. They barely caught and dragged themselves to a stop.
Vilgot bounced out from the walls and hovered in the air to catch his breath. He glared at the huffing duo. "I'm always treated as the joke, but I won't go down without a fight! Golden Demolition!" He retracted back into his shell and dropped out of the air while rapidly spinning.
Phoebe stumbled to her feet. "That move! Magni, get ready!"
Vilgot touched the ground and took off like a cannonball. Magni immediately jumped in front of the attack and roared as the Flapple drove into his side. He stood his ground and summoned a spike-covered boulder. "Stinging Smash!" He slammed the boulder on top of Vilgot, hoping to crush him, but ended up triggering another retaliatory blast. It threw Magni off balance, causing Vilgot to fly around the Scolipede and set his sights on Phoebe.
Getting rid of the monkey with a gun should be top priority! And unlike Ulrich, I don't intend to miss my chance by monologuing!
Realizing she was his target, Phoebe strapped her rifle to her back and took off running on all fours. "Magni, you take a moment to rest! Back me up when you can!"
"You're not getting away, Burkhard!" Vilgot shouted. He cracked his shell open just a bit to see her general position. Even spinning as fast as he was, she was the only splotch of purple in a sea of earth. "I'll flatten you in apple crisps!"
Phoebe grunted and kicked her arms and legs as fast as she could. She barely kept ahead of him, but he proved to be faster and was quickly closing the distance. She studied the rock wall on her left before jumping. With the small handholds she could find, she ran across the wall.
"Think you're safe off the ground? Sugar Bee Blitz!" He channeled the full might of his Dragon Dance into a localized whirlwind around himself. He lifted off the ground, enveloping himself in the translucent winds, and coated his shell in a metallic sheen. He rammed himself into the walls, nearly crushing Phoebe into it.
"FUCK!" Phoebe leapt ahead to avoid his attack and kept on running. She peeked back over her shoulder and watched him dislodged himself out of the wall to continue his flight. His movements were unsteady, telling her this wasn't a state of flying he was used to, but it also meant she couldn't easily predict how he would attack.
My Metronome is still burned out for another ten or so minutes. I can't use any surprise attacks. And I don't have the time to load a bullet into my rifle. Close-range combat is my only recourse, but getting him to stay still won't be easy.
She reached her tail around to her dagger and pulled it free. "So be it!"
She climbed higher up the walls surface with Vilgot still chasing her down. He slammed his shell into the walls, causing minor tremors that nearly knocked her down. She kept her cool as she ran, studying every potential handhold she could find. However, she didn't plan to run for long.
Three. Two. One. NOW!
She kicked off the wall and jumped directly on top of Vilgot. She grappled with his shell, holding still as she spun along with him. "What the—HEY! Get off me!" he shouted from inside.
She tightened her arms and legs around him as best she could and yelled, "Looks like I'm baking an apple die today!" With her heated dagger firmly clutched in her tail, she stabbed into his shell and twisted the blade to drill into the inside.
"Idiot! I'm not weak to fire, and my defenses are still at their maximum!" Vilgot increased the spinning on his Dragon Dance, spinning Phoebe around so fast that, upon opening his shell, he forced her grip off and threw her like a stone straight for the ground.
Acting fast, Phoebe grabbed her rifle, loaded a trick bullet in, and fired at the ground. "Flood Bullet!" She unleashed a small ocean's worth of water into the gorge. Though hitting water at her speed would still feel like hitting solid earth, she tucked her body in just the right way to lessen the impact on herself.
The water spread out among the wide area, dumping Phoebe back onto solid ground. The cold air blowing through the gorge sent chills up her soaked body, but she ignored the knife-like wind and took off running again. Vilgot crashed onto the ground and continued on course.
"Putting in all this effort just for me?! Oh, so now you see me as a threat?!" he shouted.
"You have some serious issues to work out with your partner, you know that?!" Phoebe shouted back. "May I recommend you to a Scolipede with terrible English?!"
"I'm going to prove to Ulrich that I don't need him or anyone else to get by in the Outlands! I'm taking my place as the true leader of the Deadly Seven, and then I'm taking on the Outlands myself!"
Phoebe scowled. You really have no idea what you're getting yourself into. You haven't lived until you've seen the dark underbelly of this shithole.
"Come on! This is barely a workout for me!"
Ulrich roared, raining down a barrage of psionic electric spheres into the gorge. A trail of teal explosions went off, each one dead set on killing the fleeing Boltund in a single shot. Yet, no matter how many he fired, Caractacus continued to run unimpeded. Not a scratch or scorch mark on his body, and no halt in his running. He kept moving and taunting Ulrich.
"Yeesh! So, you're supposed to be my nemesis?" Caractacus mocked. "Well, I hate to break it to you, but there's a long line of potential nemeses that'll you have to stand in! Take a number and wait your turn! You'll eventually outlast them, assuming you don't burn yourself out!"
Ulrich clenched his teeth. Despite the injuries and hasty mending he performed on himself, he roared through the pain and channeled a mass of psionic electricity between his hands. "The only thing that'll burnout…IS YOU! 40% Psycho Core: Almighty Blast!" Gripping his wrist tightly, he fired a massive laser into the gorge.
Caractacus leapt toward the walls of the gorge, releasing metal claws from his prosthetic legs, and proceeded to run along its surface as the laser carved through the earth. He raced up the jagged wall laughing even as the laser caused a rockslide to rain down on top of him. The rocks couldn't reach him, always moving just slow enough for him to race out of their path.
Ulrich cancelled his attack and lowered the power. "Dodge this. 30% Psycho Core: True Sight!" He fired the reduced beam, manually controlling its trajectory and tracking Caractacus' movements.
The hound looked over his shoulder, emerald eyes sparkling with excitement. "Ooh, scary~!" He jumped off the wall with the laser still following him. He landed and immediately broke into a sprint with the laser and Ulrich hot on his trail. "You really are something, whats-your-name! I've met a lot of people who wanted revenge on me, but I usually remember their faces and names for precautionary reasons! You? You must be low on the list if someone as brilliant as me can't recall your ugly mug!"
Ulrich growled, gradually upping the power and speed of his True Sight. The laser made sharp turns through the air to catch the hound by surprise. Caractacus, however, simply stopped running for a split second and let the laser fly past his face before taking off running again. The laser fired out from the earth, but Caractacus once more avoided it with ease.
"That's the thing I hate about you the most!" Ulrich growled. "It's that undeserved arrogance you carry around you!"
"Undeserved?!" Caractacus laughed. "Buddy, let me lay down the facts: I was born better than you! I was a genius before I was out of diapers! I outthought adults before I could say my first words! Don't be angry for your shortcomings! I can't help being better than everyone!"
Ulrich gnashed his teeth. "And that is what pisses me off the most! You never even noticed me! So lost in your own little world that rats like me don't even register in your eyes! Some of us had to work our asses off to survive in the Outlands! How fair is it that some unwanted bastard child ends up being blessed?! Why do I have to scrounge through the dirt to get anywhere while everything just falls into your lap?!"
"…" Caractacus smirked. "You really are clueless."
Ulrich, seeing his True Sight wasn't getting him anywhere, stopped firing and concentrated energy throughout his entire body. "50% Psycho Core: Overwhelming Presence!" He screamed and unleashed the staggered shockwave of energy from his body, obliterating the gorge walls and ground in a single blast.
Despite a massive shockwave racing toward him, Caractacus just laughed. "Ooh, breaking out the big guns, are we?!" He stopped and anchored his claws into the ground before the shockwave reached him. It struck, dislodging the earth he stood on, and sent him hurtling through the air like he was riding a hurricane on a surfboard.
"AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Caractacus cackled even as he spun through the air like an out-of-control Spinda.
Ulrich stared at the flying Boltund in disbelief. Still unharmed?! I'm throwing everything at him! Why can't I hit him?! He clenched his fists and roared. "YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF!"
He took off flying high into the air and raised his hands above his head. He waited until Caractacus was paralleled with the upper level of the gorge and channeled his energy. He concentrated all of it into a massive sphere the size of Wailord. His veins glowed brightly, and his skin burned from the overwhelming flow of unrestricted electricity within him.
"75% Psycho Core: Universal Bomb!"
Heaving with all his might, he threw the giant psionic sphere down on top of Caractacus and blasted him into the earth below. The explosion was immense, spreading across the gorge as a visible shockwave that made even Ulrich's fur stand on end. A ring of dust and snow was picked up in the blast and pushed along the shockwave, expelling beyond the area of the gorge and rolling out into the vast plains of the Outlands.
Ulrich panted heavily as his skin smoked, trembling from the pain. However, the cruel grin on his face didn't waver in face of this agony. "You…don't deserve to be called my equal. I am the Winds of Pride, and you will bow before your superior!"
He floated down to the epicenter of the blast and, with a gentle wave of his hand, blew the dust away.
"I suppose if you end up dying, I'll just tell Cain it was self-defense—" His eyes widened. "W…Wha…?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. I must say, I'm quite insulted by your comment."
Ulrich recoiled in horror at the sight standing in the epicenter of his attack's impact. All around was scorched earth flattened to a crisp, yet in the center was a one-meter radius of untouched earth without a single trace of ash within. And standing within that radius, once again looking as pristine and radiant as ever, was Caractacus.
The hound smirked at the dumbfounded Alolan Raichu. "After all, for that to make one billionth of a fraction of sense, you and I would've had to been equals at some point. Désolé, but…I am me. You aren't even worthy of being my inferior."
As far as they traveled, navigating through the twisting canyons of Copper Gorge, destruction followed. Phoebe kept ahead to the best of her ability while Vilgot blindly threw himself into anything that made a sound. Her footprints echoed loudly off the surrounding rock, allowing Vilgot to pinpoint her general location. This was a simple matter to overcome, but not done in confidence.
Phoebe had to leap forward, barely avoiding the wrecking ball of pain Vilgot was slowly turning into. With each defensive boost he gave himself, his shell became tougher and heavier, putting more force behind his blind tackles. Even if he couldn't hit her, the shock of seeing the earth smashing under his weight was enough to startle the comparatively frail monkey.
Phoebe couldn't catch a moment to prepare her rifle, much less aim a shot with Vilgot constantly bouncing off the walls. Her only option as of now was to run and hope Magni regrouped with her soon. All she had was time on her hands to think.
I have a means to limit his technique, but I need to lose him first. If I can get him to peek out of his shell, I might be able to steal some of his stash. That won't fix the current situation, but it will limit those blasts he keeps emitting.
"Snap Dragon Slam!" Her eyes widened as Vilgot suddenly bounced into the air, floating just a bit ahead of her, and rocketed down with a burst of wind.
Phoebe barely jumped out of the way, shielding herself from the rubble exploding on impact. She tucked her head in and crashed into the wall. As she stood up, Vilgot revved himself up and charged her down. She slammed her tail down and sprung into the air, barely avoiding his hammering crash that sent cracks splitting up the wall.
Upon landing, a multicolored glow briefly flashed through her eyes. My Metronome is off cooldown! She clenched her fists and took off running before Vilgot could pull himself free. Don't really have time to fire a Mystery Bullet, so guess it's random bullshit time!
After putting some distance between herself and the Flapple, she turned on her heel and began wagging her tail. "Alright, you little wyrm. Try this!"
Vilgot revved himself up and charged toward her. Phoebe activated Metronome, feeling energy swell through her right foot: Low Kick. She sprinted toward Vilgot before diving onto the ground, her foot extending in front of her. She struck the base of Vilgot's spin tackle, knocking him into the air and over her head.
Vilgot briefly opened his shell to reorientate himself before retracting back into it. "Golden Demolition!" He struck the ground and charged at Phoebe again.
Again, she activated Metronome. From her tail hand, a ball of intense orange light appeared in it. "Focus Blast!" She swung her tail forward and met Vilgot's charge, seemingly stopping him in his tracks.
Or so she thought.
A retaliatory blue light shined off Vilgot's shell, releasing an explosion that disrupted the Focus Blast and knocked Phoebe away. Vilgot picked up speed again and managed to catch up with the falling Aipom. He jumped and steamrolled into her stomach, dragging her back into the ground. He punched her into a crater and continued to spin on top of her, burning her skin from the friction.
"AAAAAAH!" Phoebe screamed.
"Stay! Down!" Vilgot yelled. "Just hand over Faucher and MacGyver, and I may consider sparing you!"
Phoebe cracked one eye open and snarled. "Spare this!" She activated Metronome again and screamed into the Flapple with red soundwaves.
They seemed to barely affect Vilgot. "Ha! Round? That moves useless on its own! You can't keep relying on luck to get by!"
Phoebe stopped using Round and used Metronome again. "Try this!" She activated the move, causing a red and blue aura to surround her. "Huh? Wait, what did I—" Her eyes widened as she felt Vilgot's attack weakening…slightly, but better than what she was feeling before. "Oh come on! Power Trick?! Seriously?!"
"Time's almost up, Burkhard!" Vilgot warned.
Phoebe growled. She activated Metronome one more time, then her eyes widened as she realized the move she rolled. She smirked. "Well, that one's new."
"Huh?"
Phoebe reached inside her bullet bag, grabbed one of the blank bullets, and transferred the rolled move into it. "That one's going to be killer later!" She activated Metronome once again, eyes sparking with joy as she finally got something halfway useful. "This'll do! Triple Kick!"
She twisted her legs enough to strike Vilgot's underside. Due to switching her strength and durability, it didn't strike nearly as hard as she liked, but she delivered the last two kicks with just enough force to knock Vilgot off her. With him briefly in the air, she rolled back and hammered both her legs into his underside, sending him flying through the air.
Vilgot stopped spinning and opened his wings to catch himself. "Tch. So, you got a lucky shot off. Do you want praise?"
Phoebe rolled onto her feet and dusted herself off. "Bah! Who needs any of that? I'm all the praise I need!" She pulled out her heated dagger and brandished it at him. "Why don't you come down here and fight me like a man?"
Vilgot scoffed. "You must've hit your head. You can't beat me in a contest of strength."
Phoebe smirked, activating Metronome again. "Who said anything about strength? I get by on wits." She inhaled and fired a volley of Embers up at him.
Vilgot shielded his face with one wing and fanned the little sparks away. As he did, Phoebe took off running the way they came. He scoffed again and took off flying after her. She doesn't have any actual strategy. She's just as inept as Ulrich! She's blindly running into these fights without a plan. I shouldn't have to lose to her. I won't lose to her!
He grew a sitrus berry in his hand and munched on it to restore his stamina. Even though he didn't trust Phoebe's planning skills, he couldn't get cocky. That was how Ulrich nearly died against the last Pride and Envy bearers. That wasn't how he planned on going out, especially to a bunch of nonsensical mercenaries.
"Sugar Bee Blitz!" He curled back into a ball, spinning and coating himself in high winds. Once he adjusted to his speed, he navigated himself through the air and trailed in the general vicinity of the fleeing Aipom.
Phoebe glared over her shoulder as Vilgot descended from the sky, randomly striking down at the ground in a bid to crush her. She smirked. "If you're so desperate to kill me, you sure do suck at it! At least your idiot partner knew actual kill shots!"
"Don't compare me to that idiot! I want nothing to do with him!"
Phoebe snickered. "He may be an annoying pest to you, but he's your partner in this Arceus-forsaken wasteland! I'd say you're the idiot for throwing all that away!"
"You don't know anything! You think it's easy dealing with a narcissistic piece of shit who puts you down all the time?!"
"…" Her smirk waned into a sadder expression. "Heh. I don't know. I'll have to ask Lamecaster for his opinion." She went back to laughing at him. "Still, at least we hate each other openly! You idiots were just holding in all that baggage for years, haven't you?!"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Vilgot picked up speed and rocketed down onto her position.
Phoebe stopped on her heels and immediately backflipped, narrowly avoiding Vilgot's dive attack. "I was waiting for that! Metronome! Play Rough!" She dove on top of him and, with a sudden burst of speed, proceeded to wail on him inside a comically large dust cloud. Her kicks and punches squeaked against the dragon, who could do nothing but lay still under his shell.
"AAAAAAAGH!" he screamed from inside.
Phoebe ceased attack and catapulted off him. She activated Metronome again, finding a move that wasn't immediately useful. "Alright, save this for later!" She expelled the charge into a blank bullet before landing and sprinting away again. "Later, loser!"
Vilgot pulled himself out of the ground, roaring and flapping furiously after her. Dammit, I'm losing my cool! Vilgot, get a hold of yourself! She's baiting you into making a mistake! Ulrich's the screwup! He's the one who wastes time not going for the kill! Why am I struggling just to kill this infuriating monkey?!
Phoebe peeked over her shoulder again before cupping her hands over her mouth. Mocking Whisper. She projected her voice back at Vilgot and whispered around him, "I'm starting to see why you were chosen to represent Envy. You've always hated being in your buddy's shadow, thinking you could do so much more. You hated that you got so big in the starlight that you want to be seen as more than the second fiddle to him."
"Shut UP!" Vilgot screamed. "Golden Demolition!" He rolled up into a ball again and charged with such ferocity that he carved a path through the earth.
Phoebe flipped out of the way while keeping her Mocking Whisper active. "Actually, I think what you're really envious about…is that you just wanted him to acknowledge you for once. You didn't care about being the best. You just wanted to rule the Outlands with the friend you admired so dearly, and you were afraid you were losing him to the pride of being a Deadly Seven. You hate the Deadly Seven for dividing you two up into ranks. They named you weaker than him, didn't they? You two never had issues with who was the strongest, but then the Deadly Seven came along and injected those beliefs into him. You hate them for tearing your friendship apart, and you're doing all of this just to prove to him, the Seven, and yourself that it wasn't all for naught!"
"Do you EVER SHUT UP?!" Vilgot roared, rolling with such speed that he nearly vanished from sight. He blitzed through the earth and rammed through Phoebe's general direction, the shock of it throwing her off balance and sending her flying ahead.
She skidded off her face and flipped onto her back. "Uuuuugh…"
Vilgot ricocheted off the walls and raced straight for the downed monkey. "I don't need to listen to any of this, you hear me—"
BAM!
Vilgot was knocked out of his technique as, from seemingly nowhere, Magni charged into the battle and speared the Flapple with his Stinging Spear. Vilgot spat blood before flying back through the gorge, skipping off his back and smashing down on top of his face.
Magni huffed. "Leave…friend alone."
Phoebe flipped onto her feet and laughed. "Oof. You know how to make an entrance, big guy. How's the wounds?"
"Aching, but better."
Phoebe cracked her knuckles. "Good. That means you're up for a little bullying. Oi, you spoiled wyrm! Ready for a clobbering?!"
Vilgot didn't respond immediately, seething on the ground as he glared up at the sky. He curled his fists, his mind racing with furious memories of that day.
Why did they say he was weaker than Ulrich? What gave them the right to say who was strongest? What gave anyone the right to declare themselves strongest? All his life, Vilgot had to play passive to appease those of higher authority, and he turned to the one force of pride in the Outlands who could challenge that dubious notion. He needed Ulrich to get by. He needed that shameless pride.
All because they hyped Ulrich up, a rift formed. Slowly but surely, it tore between their friendship. Vilgot tried to ignore it, but he couldn't deny that the honeyed words of their new allies poisoned whatever decency and comradery they shared together. They stuck through the worst the Outlands had to offer, and their friendship was ripped away because of a lie.
Would it have made a different had he just admitted to killing Neely and Denholm himself? Would he be the one with the oversized ego, not Ulrich? Did Vilgot even have a tempered ego like he believed himself to?
"…" Vilgot clenched his fists. "I wanted nothing more than to overthrow the Deadly Seven to prove to them that the weak can still triumph over the strong. If I can't even beat a monkey with a gun and random bullshit, am I a failure? Or is my belief held through you?"
Phoebe glared. "Eh? What's he on about?"
Vilgot hopped onto the base of his apple shell and took a deep breath. "You know what? I don't even care anymore." He reached inside his shells and pulled out a cluster of seeds. "No more second guessing. I'm just going to kill everything. If I succeed, maybe there's still hope for me."
Magni glared. "What he doing?"
"Replenish."
Vilgot spread his energy through the seeds and rapidly group bunches of jaboca and rowap berries. He took a deep breath and proceeded to shove all of them into his mouth, no decorum for manners or health. He munched furiously on the berries, their juices spilling over his face and clothes.
Phoebe gagged. "What in the…?"
He struggled to breathe for a moment, but he managed to shoved every last scrap of berry down his throat. He paused a moment to catch his breath with juice dripping off his chin and hands. He shuddered in between breaths before wiping his face clean.
"This…will be my final attack. May Arceus have mercy on your souls, because even I don't know what'll happen once I start moving." Vilgot curled into a ball and started spinning in place. "Best of luck to you both."
Phoebe and Magni, sensing the danger they were in, silently agreed to turn and run. She immediately hopped on the Scolipede's back, who broke into a blinding sprint down the gorge. They hoped to escape before Vilgot could launch his technique.
But they weren't prepared…for the deafening boom that followed after.
"Envy Devastation!"
Caractacus' Hideout
Evelot kept her arms over her head, trembling as the cave system shook from the explosions going on outside. Rock shifted loose from the ceiling and rained atop her head with only her costume keeping her safe.
"Oh no, oh no, oh no…" she mumbled, shaking at the possible situation outside. Though she had full confidence in her friends, the escalation of events was far greater than what they dealt with fighting Alibrand and Wigbrand. A single misstep could mean their demise, and all the poor Mimikyu could do was listen to the rumbling outside and pray the worst doesn't pass.
She pressed her back to the operating table, nervously wringing her costume's ears around her hands. "Phoebe, Magni, Caractacus…oh no, what'll happen to me if they don't win?" Her eyes widened. "What if the cave comes down on top of me? No, no…no, not again! Anything but that!" She pulled on her ears and cried, "I don't want to die—"
She froze as something snapped down on her arm. She trembled at its cold grasp before peeking over her shoulder. Her eyes widened upon seeing the metallic pincer gripping onto her.
"A…Amos?"
The Gligar lifted his head weakly, letting the rubble sitting on his forehead slide off. He turned, panting as he fought against the lingering anesthetic in his system, and glared at the trembling Mimikyu.
With a raspy voice, he asked—
"Where's…the rat?"
"RAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
He let out the vitriol boiling deep within his gut. He unleashed the full onslaught of his Psycho Core, peppering the surface of Copper Gorge in an endless bombardment of attacks that scorched the air with static. His sights were set on the smug Boltund sitting in the epicenter of the blast, focusing down every ounce of strength in his body to vaporize his overblown ego.
"DIE, DIE, DIE!" Ulrich screamed, switching between volleys of electrical spheres to powerful, sweeping beams that shaved the earth to dust. He rained it all down, casting the purest of destruction that would rival the ferocity of the legendary God of Destruction, the man who brought unrest to the Outlands and beyond decades ago. His power would rival Spring-Loaded Harriet, the Lord of Shadow, and the Roar of the Wastes. Every last one of them would pale to his swelling power, forced to acknowledge him as the best.
He refused to be some memory!
"ALMIGHTY BLAST!"
He finished off his onslaught with a powerful burst of psionic electricity, completely decimating the smoldering earth below him. Its cry echoed across the gorge like the thunderous tones of Bronzong summoning rain to the whole of Virdis. The ground collapsed under its own decimation and withered down to a massive crater that could fit a small village inside. Smoke rose from the ashes, wrapping around him like a cloak as he basked in his potential.
He panted heavily, shoulders rising and falling between breaths. His eyes sparked with lingering psychic electricity. His flesh smoked and sizzled from overuse of his upper limits.
"…Why?" he growled, clenching his fists. "Why…can't I KILL YOU?!"
It was all for not. Despite sitting in a massive, smoking crater surrounded by nothing but hot earth and ash, Caractacus remained untouched and unharmed. Not a speck of ash to be found on him, nor a waver in his brimming confidence as he laughed at the huffing Alolan Raichu.
"Well, I suppose you're not as inept as you look," Caractacus mocked, dusting off his shoulder needlessly. "Any other would quiver before such power. Too bad I am me."
Ulrich snarled. "I don't get it. How have none of my attacks landed on you?! How are you avoiding all of this?!"
Caractacus sighed. "You don't think too laterally, do you?"
"I…what?!"
"Are you so dense that you think I'm dodging all your attacks? Have more respect for your craft. Every single one of your attacks has hit me dead on…well, the ones I wasn't purposefully dodging, at least."
Ulrich clenched his teeth. "I…huh?"
Caractacus smirked. "In the short time we've met, I've already divulged the secrets to your technique. It's a simple mashing of Stored Power and Electro Ball, though it's complex in its simplicity. By using…hmm, Nasty Plot and Agility? Yes, that's right. By using those moves, you increase Stored Power's power. Agility increases Electro Ball's since its power correlates to the difference in speed with you and your target. By combining both these moves together, you accidentally created a fluctuating power amplifier that not even you can control, but with the benefit of unleashing devastating power even at the lowest of uses. It's quite ingenious."
Ulrich's eye twitched. "You…just figured all that out?!"
"One must always divulge the mechanics of their enemy's technique to get the upper hand." Caractacus laughed. "But this is why the notion of us ever being equals can only be an imaginary concept. You still don't understand what you're dealing with."
Ulrich growled. "Oh yeah? Well, I'll—"
"No need for dramatics. I'm so confident in your failure, I'll explain it to you myself." Caractacus tapped the side of his head. "It's really just three simple moves: Protect, Electrify, and Charge."
Ulrich gasped. "Huh?"
Caractacus smirked. "I must admit, I was inspired by the idea a long time ago, but only bothered utilizing it after my run-in with the jackal who did this to me. There was this street performer in the Outlands who commanded a team of Magnemite. I remember that he created a net of electricity that wouldn't lose its strength no matter how many times someone attacked it. I realized it was an interesting application of Electrify, which converts all attacks into electrical-based ones. He could maintain the charge so long as he pumped a little electricity into it, making the net virtually unbreakable. I naturally improved upon the design.
"My Negative Space creates a barrier within a one-meter radius of myself, extending to anything near my vicinity should I so choose. This barrier comprises of Protect, and I changed it into an Electric-Type move with Electrify. Anything that comes in contact with this invisible barrier, whether it be elemental attacks or kinetic force, is automatically cancelled out and converted into electricity. Normally, Protect takes a lot of concentration to maintain, thus it cannot be maintained by a single mind without risking a mental overload. This is where Charge comes in. I specifically modified my Charge to do two things: convert all that damage into electricity to strengthen my barrier, and to reenergize my mind."
Caractacus tapped the side of his head. "I cheated Protect's limited staying power. The best part? I made the entire process completely automatic from myself. I don't even need to be awake to activate my Negative Space. No matter my current status, you'll never reach me. Brute strength is trumped by pure genius."
Ulrich's jaw dropped. He fell on top of his tail, shivering with rage and fear. "Y-You mean…"
"Finally understand? You. Can't. Touch me. You can't even beat me in a war of attrition because, one hundred times out of a hundred, you'll be the first to drop while you'll just feed me the energy to stay active. You can't keep me pinned down. You can't strand me in one place to starve me out. I'm untethered from the consequences of this world. I am me."
"Y-You…" Ulrich curled his fists and snarled through clenched teeth. "You arrogant…!"
Caractacus bowed. "And even after giving you the lesson plan to how my technique works, you will continue to fail. There isn't a single thing you can do to stop me because my mind rises among the stars while you mosey among the commonfolk. Scintillating, isn't it?"
Ulrich huffed and puffed through his teeth, sparks crackling off his fur. "That's the thing about you I hate the most: you always looking down at everyone, never looking at us commoners with any adoration or respect. You always have to make everything about yourself, and you can't even be bothered to remember anything if it doesn't stroke that inflated ego of yours! I hate you! I hate you more than anything! That undeserved pride just because you were born better! We had to fight to survive out here! You don't deserve to call yourself an Outlander just for being born lucky!" He huffed one last sigh, then smirked. "Or maybe you're just lucky to be born…"
"…" Caractacus glared. "Childish insults like that won't get a rise out of me."
"No one's that detached from the world." Ulrich formed two spheres of psionic electricity in his hands. "I'll show you…what true skill and hard work accomplishes here in the Outlands. I'm going to rule this shithole and become the King of the Outlands!"
"…" Caractacus chuckled and finally stood up. "Well then…allons-y."
The rage of explosions decimated throughout the canyon, rockslides going off left and right without end. Phoebe and Magni kept pace to keep ahead of the rockslides with Vilgot in hot pursuit. Shining in a brilliant aura of orange and blue, he rocketed between the walls at blinding speeds, energy erupting off his shell with every collision and accelerating him at speeds that could blitz the steamrolling Scolipede.
Phoebe covered her head as rocks rained down over Magni's back. He pushed through the rubble while Phoebe collapsed onto her knees and quaked from the pain. "Agh!" She glared over her shoulder. "He's a menace!"
"Strong. Fast."
"Not fast enough." Phoebe pulled out her rifle and took aim. She loaded an Absolute Zero Bullet and fired at the speeding Flapple.
Vilgot, though unable to peer outside his shell, heard the shot ring out and gave himself an extra boost of speed upon hitting the walls. He narrowly avoided the freezing bullet, which spread a thick sheet of ice that stopped the raining rockslides around it. He dove into the ground and followed after the duo with energy blazing off his shell and tearing through the earth.
Phoebe loaded another bullet and took aim. "Metal Destruction Bullet!" She fired, destroying the barrel of her rifle with the silvery beam.
The beam impacted Vilgot's shell, but the sheer magnitude of energy rippling off his shell split the beam around him. It carved through the earth around him instead, further leaving a trail of destruction behind him.
Phoebe tossed aside the broken barrel and pulled out her last disposable from her bag. "Can't use anymore of those." She snapped the barrel on and rummaged for another bullet. "Keep him off our tail!"
"Stinging Smash!" Magni summoned a spiked boulder over his head and threw it back at Vilgot. Predictably, the boulder was obliterated on contact with the rolling wyrm. "Stinging Shower!" He fired poison arrows from his horns and blasted into Vilgot, whose aura of destructive energy kept the arrows at bay. "Raaaaah!"
Phoebe winced. "Dammit…"
"I told you before, I'm putting everything into this attack!" Vilgot shouted. "I won't stop rolling until I know you two have been flatten into bloody chunks!"
Phoebe loaded a bullet into her rifle. "Charming! Drill Bullet!" She fired the bullet of spiraling aura into Vilgot's shell.
There was a brief stalemate with the bullet trying to pierce through the shell, but the overflowing aura exploding out of Vilgot eventually won out and disrupted the shot. Vilgot briefly hopped, triggering a small explosion that accelerated him into Magni's back leg.
"RAAAAAAH!" Magni shrieked, the explosive energy searing some of his flesh off. "Stinging Shriek!" He roared at the ground on his right, his scream layered with thousands of tiny poison needles.
Vilgot steered away from Magni, his aura once more repelling the brunt of his scream. "None of my superiors know about this technique! I've been saving it for the right moment! The day I take over the Deadly Seven! Once I prove the power of this technique by killing you two, I'm going to refine it against the rest of them! Absalom! Babylas! Amadeus! All of them will pay for calling me weak!"
Phoebe's eyes widened briefly. Amadeus? She shook her head and growled. "Take your issues out on someone else! I'm not interested!" She grabbed a handful of normal bullets and loaded one after the other, firing into Vilgot.
All her shots were deflective off the explosive aura. "What are you aiming at? Now I can tell you're getting desperate!" He steered back into Magni and rammed his side, searing off his flesh.
"RAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Magni howled.
"Get off him!" Phoebe swung off Magni's back and stabbed into Vilgot with her dagger. The explosive energy triggered and threw her back. Her dagger went flying out of her hand, but she managed to catch it in her tail. However, she was now gripping for dear life onto Magni's cloak with her back inches from scraping against the ground.
"I sense your predicament, Burkhard! Let me end your suffering!" He sped toward the hanging Aipom.
Panicking, Phoebe activated Metronome and summoned a handful of…eggs into her tail? "Ugh! Barrage!" She whipped her tail and fired the egg-shaped projectiles into Vilgot.
They did nothing to him, but one managed to scrape under him and knock him off course. Phoebe tensed up as he accidentally sped past her, grazing her shoulder instead. She seethed from the pain, seeing her raw skin shaved off from the brief contact.
Magni jolted himself up and swung Phoebe back onto his back. "Good?"
She clutched her bleeding shoulder and smirked. "I'll live. Metronome!" She activated the randomized move again and felt psionic power flowing through her mind. "Okay, I can work with this one."
Vilgot managed to steer himself back on course and charge directly toward Magni. "Your steed's tough! Let's see if he can survive with a hole in his chest!"
Phoebe hung off from Magni's neck and raised her hand. "Confusion!"
The weak, telekinetic hold wrapped around Vilgot. With all her might, Phoebe swung her fist and redirected Vilgot away from Magni. She grunted, barely keeping the connection steady, and tossed Vilgot into the rock walls in hopes of making him lose his sense of direction.
He wasn't so easily disposed of. His shell exploded against the rock walls, and he angled the blast just right that he launched himself into Magni's pathing. "Envy Devastation!"
Magni saw the careening Flapple and knocked Phoebe off his back in the nick of time. The Scolipede howled in agony as Vilgot landed a destructive divebomb onto his back, crushing him into the earth with a rippling explosion tearing up everything around them.
Phoebe guarded her face as the explosion hit her and sent her flying into the rocks. "Agh!"
Vilgot hopped out of the crater, briefly hovering in the air. He cracked his shell open and spotted Phoebe laying on the ground. "Good. Lined up and ready for execution." He folded back up and revved himself up again. "Envy Devastation—"
"Stinging Scissors!"
In crippling amounts of pain and with rocks stabbed through his body, Magni emerged out of the crater and caught Vilgot in-between his scissor-like horns. Vilgot spun between the horns as they held him in place, their poisonous touch grinding into his shell.
Magni growled with blood dripping over his face. "You…leave friend. Alone!"
"Tch. Big mistake trying to stop me!" The energy erupted off Vilgot again and blasted the horns off. Magni recoiled from the blast, leaving Vilgot free to charge Phoebe down again.
"No more escape, Burkhard! I'm taking Faucher with me, and there's nothing you can do to sto—"
Phoebe suddenly sat up with her rifle aimed. "Fire!" She shot into his shell before jumping out of the way. She screamed as the sole of her foot got scraped up in the blast, but she managed to avoid the worst of it.
Vilgot rolled out from the wall and revved up toward Phoebe. "What did we just finish discussing? You can't pierce through my—" He soon stopped rolling as he heard something whispering around him. "Huh?" Cautiously, he hopped into the air, opening his wings to stay airborne.
A sound came through clearly. The humming of an eerie melody in the air, like the march of ghosts encircling their prey in the middle of dark swamp. Looking down, he noticed Phoebe and Magni reacting to the noise as well, though Phoebe seemed unbothered.
Vilgot, still alight in his explosive aura, growled. "What did you do?"
Phoebe settled her rifle across her shoulder. "Remember how I fed some of my Metronome into my bullets? One of those moves…was Perish Song."
His eyes widened. "What?!"
She smirked. "I never fired Perish Song through a bullet before, so even I don't know what'll happen. It could just extend the range of the song, or maybe the force of the bullet is transferred through the melody. Either way, all three of us are going to lose, and we might not even wake up afterwards."
Vilgot growled. "You're insane!" Perish Song's range is dependent on the source. I just need to get out of here before it completes.
Phoebe shrugged. "We're all a little crazy. I just wear mine with pride." She pulled out another bullet, casually flipping it up and down in her hand. "You need to be crazy to survive out here."
Vilgot prepared to tuck his wings in. "I'm not sticking around to find out what this Perish Song will do."
Phoebe smirked and flipped the bullet one last time. "Too bad." She whipped out her dagger and struck the bullet, setting off the gunpowder. The bullet exploded into a brilliant flash of light that instantly blinded Vilgot.
"AAGH!" He recoiled and covered his eyes. "C-Can't see!"
"Stealth Dash!" Using Magni as a springboard, Phoebe leapt through the air with incredible speed and swiped at the unguarded Flapple. She flipped around and landed on the rock wall.
The light faded, and Vilgot rubbed his eyes clear of spots. Realizing Phoebe did something, he patted himself down and found his hidden pouches were empty. "My seeds!" He glared back at the Aipom, who held a handful of seeds in her tail.
"I'm sorry, were these yours?" With the biggest shit-eating grin Vilgot had ever seen, she dumped all the seeds into her mouth and swallowed them. "Mmm~! Delicious!"
Vilgot roared and flew at her, coiling into a ball. "I'm going to bury you!"
Phoebe revealed an electrified ball in her tail. "Metronome! Volt Switch!" She slammed the attack into the charging Flapple, lighting up the area in a bright yellow. She leapt through the air and whistled for Magni to charge while Vilgot was stunned.
Magni sprung into the air, his horns sharpening and growing. "Stinging Spear!" He drove his horns into Vilgot's back and buried him into the rock.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Vilgot screamed.
"Stinging Shriek!" Anchoring his legs into the wall, Magni held tight and blasted into Vilgot with his defense-shredding roar. The poison needles made quick work tearing through the apple shell, withering down its previous boosts.
Phoebe loaded a bullet into her rifle. "Force Drawing." She clenched her tail into a fist and forced a random move from Metronome, loading it into her final Metal Destruction Bullet. "By the way…I lied about the Perish Song bullet." She smirked as the melody picked up around her. "It actually just infects everyone with the song. You can't escape it. It is strong the closer you were to the shot, so at least Magni should be spared from the worst of it since he was the furthest."
Magni leapt off the wall and landed beside Phoebe. Vilgot pulled himself out of the wall, panting as the music continued picking up speed. He turned and glared down at the smug Aipom. "Yooooou…!"
She aimed her rifle. "You want something to be envious over? Know that everything that happened today…was just as much your incompetence as your friends. After all, you made the choice to become a failure."
His eyes widened. "YOOOOOOOU—"
"Mystery Bullet."
With a pull of her trigger, she fired the metal-destroying beam and obliterated her final disposable barrel. The beam, a mix of Steel Beam and Rock Slide, blasted into the rock wall with a force so grand that it collapsed the entirety of the earth within and above in a single strike. Earth shook loose from the walls and rained down on top of itself.
Vilgot tried to flee, but the sheer quantity of rock pinned his arms down and kept him from escaping. "No! NOOOOO! SOMEONE! HELP!" He stretched his neck and screamed to the sky, "ULLLLLLLRICH! HELLLLLLLL—" The rocks completely overtook Vilgot, crushing him under hundreds and hundreds of tons of earth.
Phoebe smirked as a dark aura rang out around her. "Goodbye…Loser of Envy…" The Perish Song took hold, and she passed out on her feet. Right as she tilted forward, Magni caught her by the collar and took off running before the rockslide could take them both, too.
A dark aura rang out around Magni soon after, but he pushed through the encroaching darkness surrounding his mind and sprinted ahead of the rockslide. Even as his mind began to wane, he kept running. He ran and ran as far as he could from the rubble, biting through his injuries and blood loss.
Soon, Magni's resolve gave out, and he collapsed just like Phoebe. He tripped over his legs and passed out onto the ground, dropping Phoebe as he did. Fortunately, he managed to outrun the rockslide's area of effect as the entirety of the canyon behind them was sealed off in a pile of rubble.
The first half of the Dynamic Terrors…was eliminated.