Chapter 25: Zack vs. Destiny

Destiny. The name seemed to have rang a bell somewhere, almost like I heard it somewhere before. Well, maybe not the whole name entirely, but like part of his name, spoken by the last pokemon of his I had encountered. And the only pokemon I could have possibly heard it from was none other than the Sneasel who had tried to kill me back in Viridian Forest. And now here I was standing before the very pokemon the Sneasel had meant to mention right before the tree crushed him. He seemed a lot bigger up close now that I was face to face with him. But right now, I had to keep my focus upon him so as not to lose.

"End of all things, you say?" I questioned. "What makes you think you can just do what you want and change the world into your liking?"

"Think about it, quadruped," Destiny said.

"Why do you think pokemon were giving unique abilities over humans? So that they could live as pets, never knowing what a battle is like? Or perhaps to be used as a means of fulfilling battles humans themselves couldn't do? Of course, if you thought about it, if humans were to fight one another, civilizations would instantly fall apart, shaping the world into an age of war and destruction."

"Enough!" I said quite calmly. "If I wanted to be talked to death, I would have found a small room for us to sit in."

Destiny chuckled. "Amusing, quadruped. If you wish to die, then I shall grant you that request." I immediately got into a battle stance as Destiny's eyes glowed blue. I wasn't exactly sure what attack he was using, but after a couple of minutes of nothing happening, the blue glow faded out, a look of uncertainty crossing Destiny's face. "Odd," I heard him murmur before the blue glow returned in his eyes. I took this chance to do a quick glance back to see how Ted was fairing. At the moment, he was using his Swift upon the pokemon he was fighting, aiming upward at an angle.

I returned my attention to Destiny as the blue glow in his eyes returned to normal again. "Interesting," he said. "Somehow you must have done some special training to resist being affected against my Psychic attack." What was he talking about? What was this psychic nonsense he was talking about? It didn't really matter though. What did matter was that Destiny's guard was down, providing me with a perfect opportunity to strike. Smiling, I quickly formed a Shadow Ball within my mouth and fired it at Destiny.

Caught slightly by surprised, Destiny used the things he was holding to bat the attack away, but by that time, I was already charging following the attack, readying an Iron Tail. The moment he batted my Shadow Ball away, I had already leapt at him, twisting my hind end to whack him hard. Unfortunately my tail winded up hitting a green looking barrier, my tail bouncing off before landing on my feet.

"I must admit, quadruped," Destiny said as the green barrier faded. "You definitely took me by surprise. Your speed is quite impressive. You might actually be worth something by joining us."

"Love the offer, but I think I'll pass," I said. "World domination isn't really my style."

"A shame, quadruped," Destiny said. "I feel that you would make a great addition to the team. I shall leave the offer open if you ever change your mind."

"Like I said," I said. "Not interested. I'm amazed how something like that can go right past your head and not even register the words being spoken to you."

"Be careful how you speak to me, quadruped," Destiny warned me. "No one ever dares speaks to me like that and gets away with it."

"Watch me," I said with a smirk.

"Don't be so cocky," Destiny said, crossing the objects and forming a Shadow Ball. "Just because my psychic abilities don't work on you doesn't mean that other attacks can't." Destiny fired the Shadow Ball at me, but I easily stepped to the side, avoiding the attack.

"That was it?" I asked. "After all that big talk, you fire one little attack and-" I stopped myself mid-sentence, noticing that Destiny's eyes were glowing blue and he was smiling. Why was he smiling? And why were his eyes glowing blue? I had a very bad feeling that the attack was making a comeback, so I could only turn my head just in time to see a Shadow Ball make contact with my face, or it would have, had my dopple ganger not been in my place. Needless to say Destiny was quite surprised, he almost got hit with his own attack. Unfortunately he batted it away, which, of course, I was already taking a different course of action.

Running as quickly as I could, I leapt onto the wall and right at Destiny from behind, releaskig my volley of Swift. He caught me out of the corner of his eye, unfortunately, barely saving himself in time as his eyes glowed blue once again, my stars turning the same color as well as they circled around him. "What the-!" I said in surprise.

"You underestimate how great my powers are, quadruped," Destiny said. "If I were to unleash the full extent of my power here, there'd be nothing left of anyone in this section of the cave. Even the moonstone I had come to collect would be no more. Lucky for you, however, I'm only using a hare fraction of my power so as to not allow that to happen." The Swift stars, meanwhile, continued to circle around Destiny while he talked. Once he ceased talking, however, the stars all shot out toward me in a single line. I barely had time to register what was going on being that I was shaken by the fact that he might be a lot more powerful than I had taken him for, but I reacted quickly by countering with a Psy Beam, destroying the stars just before they could reach me.

"And you underestimate my strength and power," I said upon landing. "Even if I'm not as powerful as you, you're one biggest mistake would be allowing me to live and get stronger."

"Don't be foolish, quadruped," Destiny said. "No amount of training you do will ever make you my equal. I far surpass you in everything. You have no idea who I am."

"I don't care who you are!" I yelled. "I don't care how powerful you are. So what if you have the power to kill me? If that's what it means to protect this moon space stone thing, then I hope to take you down with me."

Destiny only laughed this time. "You amuse me, quadruped," he said. "You actually think you can take me down? Why do you protect something that's not even worth protecting?"

"For the sake of others," I answered him. "I protect things of other's because, to them, it's everything to them, the only thing they care about in the world, more than anything else." Destiny remained silent, his eyes bearing into mine, like he was looking for a more explainable reason behind my motives.

"And what about you?" he asked silently. "What do you care about more than anything in this world?" My eyes were diverted as I thought about what it was in my life that I cared for, only to realize that that was something Destiny had probably expected. Snapping my attention back to him, all I could do was watch as a very dark energy beam was shot right at me. I could only stand there as the attack made direct contact with me, or it would have if a strange yellow wall took the attack instead. Wait. Where did that yellow wall come from and how did it cancel out the dark enegy beam? My questions were soon answered as Cleft jumped right in between Destiny and I, the yellow wall fading.

"Cleft?" I said surprised. "What are you doing? Get out of here! This isn't your fight."

"You have it wrong, Zack," Cleft said. "It is too my fight. We should be the ones defending our home, not you. Yet you fight for something that's not even yours, putting your own life on the line until the end. Consider this my way of apologizing for having my suspcions upon you and your friends." Something seemed to keep catching in my head the whole time he said all this.

"What do you mean we?" I asked, instantly finding out that other Clefairys were popping out from nowhere, all forming in front of me and facing Destiny. Just how many others like Cleft were there? And were most of them male? "Cleft, I appreciate you trying to make things right for the way you've acted, but I don't think you can take on Destiny. If what he says is true, then all of you would have died for nothing."

"Don't bother trying to stop us Zack," Cleft said. "On behalf of all the pokemon who call this place home, we will do what we have to to thwart Destiny's plan, even if it means sacrificing what we treasure dearly." With that, all the Clefairy stuck up their paws, all pointing a single finger in the air before swinging their arms back and forth, side to side. My eyes began following the pattern, entranced by whatever it was they were doing. Perhaps it was some sort of dance. But what kind of dance would help out in this kind of mess? Then again, they could have had some super big attack they were going to use. Ooh! Maybe it was some sort of beam attack or maybe even a laser! Why a laser I'll never know.

Tearing my gaze away, I took notice that there were other Clefairy blocking Destiny away from the giant moonstone, even though he just stood there probably wondering what they were doing too. "Metronome?" he said. "You're using that attack on me? An attack that, based on luck, may or may not do anything to stop me?"

"That's right," Cleft said with a nod of his head. "Metronome always calls forth any attack. We never know what attack we'll use. However, more times often than not, there's always one attack that seems to come into effect every time."

"And what attack would that be?" Destiny asked as the Claefairys began slowing their swinging paws.

"I think it's something you're not going to be able to stop!" Cleft said. "In fact, if I were you, I'd be ducking for cover." I saw Destiny's eyes widen as his attention snapped straight to the moonstone.

"No!" he yelled as he began moving straight for it, just as the Clefairy slowly brought their paws straight up, snapping them up with their fingers pointing up at the ceiling, finishing their attack, whatever it was. The next thing I knew, everything went white and a loud eruption blew through my ears, feet leaving the ground before everything went black.