~~~~~~~(0)~~~~~~~
Chapter 7 - A Teila Fire and Ice
Tower of Theolia
~~~~~~~(I)~~~~~~~
"You got here early," Adam's voice came from right behind her and it was all Valarie could do not to jump out of her skin and fall into the water.
"Adam!" She gasped, putting a hand on her chest. "Did you follow me out of bed? You creep!"
"I couldn't help myself," Adam said matter-of-factly. "You're just such a pretty girl."
They stared at each other intently, before both broke the façade simultaneously and started laughing. Adam joined her at the pier and sat down next to her.
After a moment's silence, Valarie asked, "How's it goin', Adam?"
"That was my question, drama queen," the big man retorted.
Valarie sighed. "Nothing, it's just – "
"Nothing doesn't wake you up before 7 am," Adam cut her off. "So are you gonna talk, or are you just gonna stand there and spout filler?"
"You really should let a girl speak her mind!" Valarie scoffed.
Adam's face, as always, could have been carved from stone for all the emotion he showed. "That's exactly what I want. So speak."
Valarie bit her lip. She didn't immediately answer him. Instead, she let her thoughts drift back to the meeting in Tesla's home. The things they had all agreed upon…how they had all agreed on that. It just never ended. "It's just…I've been trying to keep strong for the others, but…everything is crumbling in such a small frame of time. And…I was powerless to do anything about it."
Team Xen appearing so rapidly, with so much power that they had nearly taken Melia and Will without anyone being aware of it…it had her rattled. Tesla's girl being taken, Melia's dad being taken, Tesla herself leaving and Will…
"It's all just too much," Valarie found herself admitting. "I can feel myself breaking down fast."
"It's not like you to crumble," Adam commented. "You're usually so stable."
"I've never been pushed to this limit before. I don't think anyone has. At least, none of our own."
"Definitely," Adam sighed.
"It's a cliché, but I wish I were stronger…I wanted to be able to protect everyone, but I'm pretty helpless." Slowly, her fingers curled inwards, digging into her palms. "Melia and Will and Aelita have been through so much crap already and I want to keep them from having to experience more of that crap, you know? But I can't. I can't help but see things going wrong in the future. I got this feeling, this terrible feeling…"
"We're all helpless, that's the point," Adam said. "By ourselves, we're nothing. But together, we're strong. That goes for Will and Melia, too. You saw it right, you know? He was really freaking out. I wouldn't have caught it. None of us."
"I should have been there for him," Valarie whispered. "I saw him falling apart and…it scared me. I didn't know Will could freak out like that. Seeing that made me realize how vulnerable we all really are…and I didn't know how to deal with that. So when he needed me, I…choked."
"Which is where I came in," Adam said. "I helped him. Talked to him. Basic mental wellness stuff. The rest, he did by himself. Everybody needs someone to help them. In our group, everybody has someone to help them. So we can keep fighting. Together."
"Adam…" Valarie sighed. At times, she hated how right he could be. Today was not one of those times. "There's a reason you're my best friend, you know? You always know how to make me feel better."
"Someone's gotta," Adam said with a little crooked smile. "Might as well be me. Hey, Val?"
"Yeah?"
Adam got back to his feet. "Let's kick some ass tomorrow."
"Hah! You got it! Let's kick some ice ass!"
~~~~~~~(II)~~~~~~~
Mynori Sea
Aboard Farha's weirdly-roomy submarine
Farha accelerated the museum's submarine towards a higher speed and it sailed through the Mynori Coral Reef. Will moved up to the cockpit to watch. Val and Aelita had already beat him there.
"…about this place in a few books when I studied at Axis High," Val told Aelita as she swept her finger from one cluster of bright coral to the next.
"Fortunately, the waters here have been unaffected by Angie's reign," Farha said as she gently steered the submarine through the coral reef and towards open waters. "It is through this avenue that I was able to escape undetected."
Melia hovered behind Val, peering intently at the reefs they passed by. "It's a shame we can't even enjoy this view...if we don't stop Angie and Team Xen, this view will all be gone someday too."
"That much is certain," Crawli agreed. "But that's why we can't let our guards down even for one second, friends!" He aimed that last part at the teams of rangers packed inside of the submarine as well. "We're the last hope this island has, so it's all on us, got it?"
A chorus of "yes sir!" followed.
Braixen scrunched up her nose. "You suck at pep talks…"
"Eh?"
"Holy crap," Saki called from the back of the cargo hold. "Braixen can talk?"
Adam couldn't physically reach out and slap the two girls, so he settled for the next best thing. "Just ignore them, Crawli..."
"Alright…"
Farha sucked in a breath. "Alright, past this point, things get a bit dodgy…are we all ready to proceed?"
"Hang on!" Will yelled to the rest of the group. The rangers braced themselves as best they could.
"We're ready Farha! Let's go!" Braixen gave them the all-clear.
"Right. Let's go."
Farha angled the submarine a bit to the left and plummeted into the depths of the sea. Their tub jumped, accelerated and shuddered as Farha increased its velocity to its maximum.
Crawli leaned closer to Will and quietly told him, "We're gonna get hit hard by whatever's up there. You make sure you hit them back three times harder, alright? Then you take point. You're our, ah, "spearhead"; you don't stop for anything until you've broken through their resistance and found Angie. We'll take care of the rest."
"Got it," Will replied.
"Thirty seconds!" Farha eventually called out. She cut the throttle and the Submarine began losing speed, coasting by only with its forward momentum.
The rangers reached for their PokeBalls, checked their gear and otherwise readied themselves for the inevitable clash. They were about to assault a fortified position against a foe who had murdered their comrades and civilians. They might be next.
Crawli addressed a pair or rangers at the back. "You're our rear guards, guys. Stay here and guard the sub with Farha. Sorry."
"Yes sir."
"Got…got it sir."
Will thought he heard something like bitterness in their voices at having to stay behind while their comrades joined the assault. It couldn't be helped; if Angie ruined their submarine, nobody would be escaping Kristiline Town again.
Farha had the submarine surface and then opened the hatch on the topside. Adam jumped out, followed by Aelita, Will and the others. After that, the ranger squads disembarked.
"The exit is just up the stairs and to the right," Farha told them.
Crawli waited until everybody had disembarked, then called, "Okay guys, this is it! Let's get this done! Keep a buddy system, one ranger is no ranger! Guard each other's backs at all times!"
"Orrrr we can start zappin and blast this entire fucking island into dust," Saki suggested.
"Hey!" Farha sharply said. "No blasting! My grandparents don't deserve that!"
"I wouldn't pay too much attention to her," Adam said. "She's a gremlin."
"A what?"
"Guys, let's stay focused, please," Melia urged them
"Okay everybody, this is it! Let's hit them!" Crawli shouted.
Together with the first team of rangers, Will sprinted up the stairs, Houndoom joining the myriad of other Pokemon part of the assault group. The ground level of the Sapphire museum was iced over and cold, just like Kakori Village, but instead of a bunch of ice sculptures, it had a large group of survivors huddling in the corners. Some of them wielded improvised weapons, others had Pokemon at the ready to guard them. None of them looked ready or willing to attack.
"Is this a rescue?" One of the women meekly asked.
"Yes ma'am, we're here to take Kristiline back and drive away Angie for good," a ranger answered. "Stay put, don't get out until you've gotten the all-clear signal!"
The rangers hurried on, stacking up on the door that would take them out of the museum and into the city proper.
Will was about to join them when one of the civilians called him over. "Psst! Hey you!"
It was a girl who didn't exactly look native. At first look, she almost reminded him of Ren; pale skin, short, gray hair and even darker eyes. She looked a lot more enthusiastic and happy than Ren - not to mention, she wasn't trying to kill him, which was also a difference these days.
"W-What took you guys so long!? I've been stuck at this stupid museum for WEEKS!"She exclaimed. "If you guys are staging a coup, then I want in!"
Will shrugged. It was one of those kinds of days, he supposed. "Sure, join the squad. Let's fight."
Her grin widened. "Hell yeah! I've been waiting for this! By the way, the name's Reina. What's yours?"
"Call me Will."
"Will! Got it, I won't forget it, kay? Let's go Woobat!"
The little fuzzy Pokemon that had been flying around her head followed closely behind, and Reina moved to join the squad at the rear.
Once he had joined them, one of the rangers had his Empoleon break down the door in a series of quick slices and they all sprinted outside, quickly fanning out as they took in the situation.
"Keep moving! Move while they don't know what hit them!"
Will was among the first who left the museum, his boots leaving deep impressions in the snowy ground. He had a few seconds to take note of the large, well-crafted houses and the almost regal look some of these buildings had when they appeared.
It was as if they materialized out of the snow, or simply stepped into existence as if through some other reality. One second the coast had been clear and the rangers had been fanning out across the urban district around the museum and the next, all of them came under attack at once.
The air became thick with screams, cries, energy discharges and explosions. Rangers yelled orders and warnings and cries for help as an opposing army came down on them out of nowhere.
Maids. Well-dressed, pale-skinned, dark-haired servants with dead eyes.
Lock them up and take their souls away.
Panic exploded in his gut and his head all at once, robbing him of his breath and his focus. For a few heart-stopping moments, he couldn't move, couldn't bring his limbs to bear even if he wanted to -
Then, Houndoom was at his side, shoving Will out of the way as a massive, white bear-like Pokemon came lumbering down at them. It struck the ground where he'd just stood and a massive spike of ice erupted from the snow.
Move! He howled at himself. Fucking move!
The snow Houndoom kicked up when he darted around and back to Will's side stuck to his face and his neck and it was cold, deathly cold, cold like he had felt on Xen's battleship that night when Nim picked him up again -
Oh your name shall now be Willow! The man who cannot break!
Will shoved himself back to his feet.
Come Willow! Let's win this game!
He wiped the snow from his face. His orders weren't to break but to break through and he would get that done. He would get that done even if it killed him.
Houndoom sprang back as the Beartic attempted to wallop him, then sprayed him with a rapid-fire Incinerate burst. Quick on his feet, Houndoom was out of there before another Pokemon - a slow, lumbering Camerupt - could nail him with an Earth Power.
Another pair of rangers ran past him, rushing for cover as their own Pokemon surged out. A Butterfree sailed over the Camerupt and began spreading Sleep Powder over the area.
"Go, go!" Will shouted at Houndoom. Realizing that he'd wandered face-first into a freaking war-zone, he sent out Froslass. "Froslass, this is your battlefield! Keep us safe!"
His ever-dependable Froslass didn't perform any theatrics. She didn't giggle or dance. She cast her gaze about the battlefield, her eyes narrowed and she faded away in the snow.
Will took a moment to let the adrenaline wash over him. It drowned out the fear and the terror at seeing these things again. He ran forward to take the lead, joining the few rangers who had managed to break through the initial attack.
Another maid appeared right in front of him, stepping out of the snow as if she'd just stepped through an invisible door. She never spoke, never even emoted as she commanded her Mismagius to attack. It appeared right in front of him, just a few meters away but as far as Houndoom was concerned, it might as well have been a mile.
Mismagiuss eyes glowed white as she fired -
A haze of Ominous Wind swept the Mismagius up and threw off its aim, and the Psybeam went wide. Froslass appeared from the wind, blew the maid back with a quick gust of Icy Wind and then stared down the Mismagius as it struggled to recover.
"Get away from my friend!" Valarie shouted and the next second, an Ice Beam tore through the sky and forced Mismagius all the way back again.
Will risked a look over his shoulder and saw that Val had her Lapras out. Even as the maid's empty eyes focused on this new threat, a second Ice Beam pierced the sky and this time, struck Mismagius head-on.
"We got this Will!" Val yelled. "Keep moving!"
He did. Cold wind whistled past his face and snowflakes dusted the surface of his coat. "Houndoom." he called, and his Dark-type leapt atop a building where one of the maids had taken up position. He body-checked her with the force of a speeding truck and the resulting fall must have broken half the bones in her body.
Or not, because these things weren't normal, weren't human.
"Houndoom," Will said again, putting force and anger into his voice to stave off the howling in his mind. He let the adrenaline crash into him, washing away all uncertainties and doubts. "I forgot my mittens!"
Houndoom looked supremely disappointed to hear that because honestly, who forgot their mittens for a winter-assault? Houndoom had brought his, and even Braixen had thought to bring hers!
A Rapidash leapt over a rock outcropping, burned a long line into the snow and promptly took a blast of lightning as something soared overhead and disappeared from view again.
Before the Rapidash could get back on its feet, Houndoom went for its throat and dragged it to the ground.
Snow crunched underneath his feet as Will pushed on. The incessant rattle of explosions and the screeches of fighting Pokemon testified to the intensity of the conflict raging around him. He pushed up a hill and leapt back when suddenly, the ground a few feet ahead of him just erupted into a spike bed of irregular and crooked shards of ice. Pointy and massive, they looked so sharp that Will felt his fingers start to bleed just looking at the things.
He didn't slow down, though. As Houndoom bounded by his side, Will banked sharply to the right and reached a mansion at the top of the hill, where a handful of rangers were struggling to break through the stiff maid resistance.
"It's okay Bidoof. You're a war criminal. I know you can do this."
"This is the Princess' home! We won't let you cause anymore trouble!"
Houndoom muscled his way past a sturdy-looking Blissey. Down the hill, another carpet of ice spikes erupted from the ground, blocking the path ahead and forcing Will to circle around again.
There, a pair of maids appeared to block the path ahead. An Ampharos launched a glowing Aura Sphere at Houndoom who was forced to throw himself down the side of the hill to avoid it and an emotionless Audino raised his hands and placed down a protective sheet of Reflect. It was absolutely nothing compared to the Reflect mom's Sylveon had put down, however, and Will grabbed a firm hold of his fury and adrenaline and sent out Nidoking.
"Houndoom, to me!" He yelled. "Nidoking, Poison Jab! Clear us a path!"
Nidoking knew a thing or two about running on fury and adrenaline. He lowered his shoulder, charged through a massive Aura Sphere fired by Ampharos and rammed the Audino's Reflect. If Houndoom's tackles were like getting run over by a truck, getting rammed by Nidoking was like getting hit by a freight train. Large, spiraling cracks appeared where he made contact with the protective screen and that was before he started getting serious.
Gathering venom and power to his forearms, Nidoking began punching the barrier. He didn't have the technique and finesse Blaziken had, but when every punch he landed was strong enough to shatter concrete, he didn't really need to. Poisonous energy seeped into Audino's barrier, slowly whittling it down with every hit he landed
"Will! Head's up!"
"We've got this!"
A pair of rangers came sprinting down the slope. An Ariados began launching Shadow Balls at the Ampharos.
The Audino looked over at his comrade and his concentration wavered. Nidoking shrieked and then shattered the barrier with an absolutely vicious jab. Before either of the maids could react, Nidoking bounded forwards and slammed into Audino, snatching him by his throat and lifting him off the ground with one hand. With the other, he struck a crushing Poison Jab into his sternum and the Audino went very still.
Houndoom scampered up the side of the hill again. Together with Nidoking, they brought up Crawli's spearhead and continued their push.
The ferocity and intensity of it all began to wash away his concerns. He no longer cared about the otherworldly abilities these women showed, no longer cared about the threat they could have posed at close range. All he cared about were his Pokemon, the allies at his back and the objective he had to reach.
Down the hill, next to another large house. Nidoking caught a hostile Bonsly with Earth Power and when another maid materialized from the snow and sent out a Zebstrika, Will had Houndoom pepper it with Dark Pulse until the rangers could bring up the rear.
Another formation broken, another position contested.
One more, at the start of a large bridge. A hostile Alakazam raised its hands and Psychic energy began ripping apart the ground and suddenly, he couldn't move his limbs and an invisible claw ripped him off his feet and into the air –
Houndoom put himself in front of Will and blasted Alakazam with Dark Pulse. The Psychic energy shattered as Alakazam defended itself and together, Houndoom and Will pushed onwards. They hurried onto the bridge as a massive explosion went off somewhere behind them –
A second maid came out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere and lunged for Will. She got her pale, freezing hands around his throat and put her weight into it, shoving him back as her fingers began digging into his throat.
With a lunge forward, Will's forearm found her throat in return and he pushed her back. She was strong, physically stronger than he was, but he bent low and locked his knees into place like Aelita had taught him and brought her momentum to a halt.
Hands were weapons, she had told him, and throttling someone with hands simply meant tying down both your weapons while giving your opponent the chance to strike back. Lungs were big, and it took a while to actually choke someone out.
In his adrenaline-fueled haze, Will decided that he had enough oxygen to not worry about the steel grasp on his throat and he landed a heavy punch on the maid's face.
He saw her nose break, felt her nose break and she didn't care. Blood poured down her face and onto his forehead as she further increased the pressure on his neck and began squeezing harder, her eyes empty and blank and dead. Will was about to wave Nidoking forwards to crack some skulls when he heard a familiar voice yell, "Will, get down on your back!"
He obliged. He put one foot against the maid's waist, snaked his hand around her wrists and threw himself backwards into the snow.
Superhumanly strong or not, he weighed more than the maid did. As he rolled onto his back and pulled her with him, the maid went up into the air -
And Aelita's foot nearly took the woman's head off. It snapped back with a wet crack and her grip on Will's throat slackened. He got his right arm underneath her armpit and shoved her aside. Then, he brought his legs up and kicked the maid off the damn bridge.
Aelita rolled to the side to dodge a Water Pulse that Will hadn't even seen coming and then Adam came in hard for the second maid.
"Bash through together!"
Adam, built like a brick wall, had like five-hundred pounds on his foe. He got his arm around her waist and bull-rushed her into a rock on the other end of the bridge with so much force that he would have snapped any normal human in half. As it was, the maid tried to get her gloved hands around his neck as well, but Adam proceeded to give zero shits and he slammed his knee into her sternum, before slugging her across the face. Blood poured from her parted lips as she signaled her Alakazam to attack.
Adam's Aerodactyl swept down and seized the Alakazam in its hooked talons.
The next second, Aelita was up in the maid's face, landing two quick jabs at her throat before taking her head and bringing it down against her knee while jumping up and Will wouldn't have been surprised if Aelita ended up decapitating her,
As it was, Aelita simply shoved the woman's motionless body to the ground and then instantly began worrying over him. "Nice going Will! Damn, are you okay? Whose blood is that? Did she hurt you - "
"Aelita!" Will said, catching her wrists before she would lose her focus. "I'm fine, it's hers, not mine. Also, holy shit you are the coolest person ever!"
"I know," she grinned. "Glad to see you're picking up some tricks though."
"Contact!" Adam roared as another pair of maids dropped down from the nearest rooftop and sent out their Pokemon to stop them. A large, burly Poliwrath stepped into the fray and wasted no time throwing down with Aelita's Hawlucha and Adam was forced to step back when a massive Bouffalant charged in at Aerodactyl, its hooves kicking up snow and ice.
"We're counting on you Will!" Adam yelled. "You can stop Angie! If no one else – Know that I believe in you!"
With those words driving him on, Will nodded at Adam to let him know that he got it, then sprinted past them and ran towards the end of the house the maids had just come from. Nidoking and Houndoom followed closely behind, but then the ground just ended and he only barely managed to skid to a halt before he ran straight down a narrow hill into the icy waters below. It wasn't a steep drop, about two-thirds of the cliff he'd dove from with Adam back in the resort, but if he didn't break his body against the thick layers of ice that covered the docks below, he would certainly die of hypothermia in the water before ever getting out.
Melia, Venam and Crawli would be somewhere right behind him. They had orders to find another way through to ultimately storm the church. It looked like this was the right way, and they would be the safest if they followed him, but it looked like he had to make it to those piers below to continue his advance.
"Ohmygosh it's time for the new girl to prove her worth! What a cliché!" Reina yelled from just a couple of paces behind him. "Hang on Will, Psychic!"
For the second time in a couple of minutes, a large, invisible hand picked him around his waist and flung him over the edge and onto the dock below, just slow enough that he wouldn't break anything upon landing.
Will slipped on the ice, braced himself with his right hand and looked over his shoulder. Houndoom and Nidoking both jumped for it, easily clearing the gap and, in Houndoom's case, even sticking the landing like a champ.
Nidoking landed and very nearly smashed through the wooden dock when he landed. With a look of dismay on his face, he thrashed and kicked and heaved himself over the edge before he could slip back and fall into the ice-cold water below.
Reina, holding her position at the edge of the hill, waved at him. "I got a question for ya later on, kay? It's not like I did that for you so that you would answer it, but I thought I'd help! Kick Angie's ass for me!"
"Got it!" He yelled back, before hurrying down the docks and back onto solid ground. He was just south of the church now, half a kilometer away.
Half a kilometer through a busy dockyard filled with perfect ambush locations and then through the heart of the town. A tactical nightmare.
"Froslass, you still with me?" He asked.
A vague, echoing cry was all the confirmation he needed. Apparently, she hadn't been too worried about that maid trying to pull his throat out. Which, yeah, she'd been right about, but still. Rude.
Together with Houndoom and Nidoking, he continued running.
Maids and their Pokemon ran hither and yon, the rangers and the gang raised seven kinds of hell as they pinned down Angie's forces where and when they appeared. The sounds of fighting came from all around. Will made it through the dock unmolested, ran up a large flight of stairs carved into the side of another hill and then across another massive bridge, large enough for ships to pass by underneath had the water not been completely frozen over.
There, a ranger and his Clawitzer fought alone against a silent maid. His partner lay bleeding out in the snow, and it looked like the lone ranger was fighting for both her life as his own against the punishing strength of a foe Grimmsnarl.
Houndoom ran forward, adding his fire to the beleaguered Clawitzer and caught Grimmsnarl by surprise. The overwhelming heat of his flames melted the snow in an instant and created a massive cloud of steam, which Clawitzer promptly used to blast Grimmsnarl with a devastating Water Pulse.
Will didn't pause to see what the maid would do and continued his offensive. Nidoking smashed his way through an enemy Golem and Houndoom caught a flanking Haunter with a Dark Pulse.
An explosion went off somewhere in the front and blew a large, frozen tree into splinters. Snow sprayed out from Houndoom's feet as he suddenly broke into a sprint and bounded forwards, a black and red arrow loosened across the frozen battlefield. He banked sharply to the right and leapt, his blazing jaws slamming shut around an invisible form that promptly resolved itself into a Dusclops.
As the two Pokemon tangled, Will spotted a shortcut that would lead him closer to the church, a road flanked by two houses that normally led to a dead end blocked off by an enormous shell of some sorts, but the elevation behind it led to a wooden plateau that fed into another bridge.
The church was right on the other side. It looked like had to –
"BETTER BACK IT UP!" Saki shouted and a burst of Psychic energy tore the shell into a hundred pieces.
Will spun around and saw Saki with her Metagross.
"You gotta take ya ass and jump over the shell because I broke it," Saki said somewhat sheepishly. "Sorry, SORRY. I'm not making any sense. I'm a little war crazy right now."
Nidoking dropped to all fours and uttered a low, threatening growl as a pair of maids ran after Saki.
"Oh look…bitches," Saki said and between her and Nidoking, Will decided that he would have rather tangoed with the big Poison-type than mess with a war-crazy Saki Blakeory. "I'll take care o' these two, Will. You go on ahead. Crawli broke through, Melia and Venam are with 'im. Go on, git!" She snarled.
Will turned and ran for the broken shell. Nidoking overtook him easily, slammed himself against the plateau's frame and held out his claws against his knee. Will jumped atop him and Nidoking hurled him up into the air, and on top of the plateau.
"I will hurt them," Saki proclaimed, and she turned her bloodlust towards the two unfortunate maids even as they too sent out their Pokemon.
He'd come full circle; he'd smashed the blockades around the island, shattered Angie's forces and broken through to the Isle of Angels and the church residing there.
And while he had been wreaking havoc with the rangers, the maids had been forced to spend themselves fighting off a violent frontal assault with everything they had. That meant nobody had time to up and search for, for example, Hapis flying by.
Crawli, Melia and Venam had broken through the weakened, distracted forces and gotten to the Isle's gates almost completely unopposed. Times like those, it paid to have a distraction with a strong, emotional attachment to breaking things and causing a ruckus.
Venam and Crawli, out of breath, waited for him just a dozen meters into the forest road that led to the Isle of Angels. Melia too seemed winded, although Will wasn't sure if that was because of the physical exertion of the sheer terror and beauty of a full-frontal assault on an emotionless, unfeeling enemy that didn't hesitate to kill.
"Are we…the only ones that made it through?" Melia asked them.
"Seems like it," Venam said.
"The enemy resistance was far stronger than we thought," Crawli said, taking a moment to catch his breath. "For a moment, I thought we wouldn't make it at all."
"Should we go back and help?" Melia said hesitantly.
"What good would that do?" Venam retorted. "We made it through, right?"
'But – "
"Venam's right," Crawli interrupted. "We made it through so we should carry out the mission."
"The whole point was getting us where we are now," Will said. "But that was just the easy part, Melia."
"Hell of a motivational speech, Will," Venam said, rolling her eyes. "Keep that to yourself, the next time."
"No, he is absolutely right. The entire point of the assault was to get our strongest fighters to face Angie, and she's far more dangerous than these weird maids she had defending her," Crawli said. "Come on; the church she's residing in isn't far from here."
Will called Nidoking and Houndoom back, but kept Froslass around just in case.
Nobody could have moved in the frozen forest that surrounded them without making a sound, yet Angie's servants did. One by one, the maids appeared from the shadows, gliding silently through the woods until they reached the treeline. There, they just…stood. Watching with those empty, dead eyes of theirs.
One to their rear. Another one to their right. A pair to their left, too.
"I think we're being watched," Crawli muttered. "Don't look now, but there's a pair of those maids on the left."
Venam instantly turned to look. "Holy crap. You're right."
"I saw them," Will muttered. "One in the back and the right, too."
"Just keep moving," Melia whispered tersely.
The forest opened up in a large, frozen pond. Lanterns flanked what should have been a path to the other side, but only a handful still burned.
Ahead of them, on the other side of the pond and nestled atop a small hill dotted with more frozen trees, stood a massive, ordinate church.
The four of them moved forwards…
…past two whole rows of silent, watchful servants, all identical, all staring. They turned their heads as Crawli, Melia, Venam and Will walked through their formation, their eyes burning a hole in their backs.
It didn't feel so much as a cadre of bodyguards as it felt like a funeral processing. A decision had been made, judgment had been cast.
Back on the island, they had been an invading force. Out here, at this church, it felt like they were expected. Not even as intruders, but as guests.
After all, the only ones who arrived at a funeral ceremony without due invitation were the ones for whom the ceremony was being held in the first place.
For whom would the bell truly toll today?
Stepping inside of the dilapidated church was like stepping into Indriad's mansion. They weren't meant to be there, the place didn't want them there.
Unlike the Theolia mansion, the church could have been abandoned a decade ago. It was overgrown by shrubbery and even some trees. Several windows had been boarded up and the air smelled musky and old. The place was dark and gloomy and yet…it didn't feel abandoned. Somehow, Will felt like they were already being watched.
"This place is so creepy," Melia muttered.
Crawli swallowed. "The Ocean Relic is usually held in here. This was an abandoned church that existed before the calamity. Originally there were plans on tearing this place down, but…we decided to let nature retake it."
"Kinda wish it got torn down," Venam said nervously.
"Somehow, I don't think that would've prevented this…"
Melia took a deep breath. "Let's get this done. The sooner, the better."
Crawli nodded slowly. "Yeah. Stay close, and stay vigilant."
They continued into the church, crossing a flooded hall into a large, central chamber of sorts. It was all too similar in layout to Indriad's abode, complete with two sets of stairs that led to a second tier, one to the left and one to the right. Melia stuck with Crawli and took the right side, while Will and Venam crossed the left.
It was quiet, with only the faint, hollow creaking of the church's foundations to disturb what would have otherwise been a perfect silence. Will's instincts nagged at him, screaming at him that something was wrong.
They passed through an impressive archway and into the heart of the church. They passed by rows after rows of wooden seat. With a growing sense of unease, Will noticed that their quarry had seated herself upon a large, wooden throne of sorts, casually resting her elbow on the chair's armrest and leaning her head against her hand.
She was a woman of exceptional beauty, her long, cyan hair tied into a ponytail and falling into a fringe on one side of her face, covering her eye. She too wore a classic black and white maid dress, which was odd, because Will had expected the maids to serve her. That was what the clothes signified, wasn't it? Servitude?
So if this was Angie, who did she serve?
To her right, a large, heavy book lay on a stone-cared pedestal, already open at the midway point. To her left stood another maid, but this one was different. She was clad in all red and black, not a hint of white to be seen, and her expression was far from empty.
In fact, this one looked particularly aggravated. "No need to step any further," she called.
The four of them halted. At that point, Will would have wanted nothing more than to tell Froslass to obliterate Angie's head with a Shadow Ball and call it a day, but…even if it were that simple, he couldn't. There was something about the woman that had him paralyzed, unable to take the initiative he wanted.
And…he knew her, didn't he? He had seen her before, noted her appearance before. But where?
"Angie…" Crawli said, his voice high and strangled.
"Welcome, esteemed guests," Angie said. Her voice was like liquid ice rolling down Will's spine, like a breath of frozen air against his bare neck.
This was her. The woman he'd dreamt about. The woman who'd claimed him and then murdered him in his nightmare.
Despite being with Melia, Venam and Crawli, he suddenly felt very alone. If that hadn't been a nightmare but a premonition of sorts, things were about to get really uncomfortable.
"Why have you all blessed me with this visit today?" Angie continued, looking as if she were addressing her congregation instead of her would-be killers.
That supreme confidence had a cause, Will knew it, but he didn't see it.
"Esteemed guests? That's a joke," Venam spat. "You know damn well why we're here."
It seemed Venam's sense of danger was as absent as always.
"You have to pay for what you've done," Crawli said and that wasn't it either. If this woman was another Indriad Theolia – and he had no reason to think she wasn't – Venam and Crawli were addressing her all wrong. Simple human values and morals had no meaning to the decidedly inhuman and that was what Will's instincts were telling him now, that Angie was something above and beyond mere humans.
Which meant that he really had to signal Froslass to attack but he couldn't.
"Is that so?" Angie said with perfect calmness. "How about we look into something else? Let us look into the book and see what lies inside your hearts. Cera."
Her maid, Cera, strode towards the open book and picked up with more deference and caution than a mother cradling her newborn child. She presented the book to Angie like it was the most valuable object in the world and when Angie took it, Will felt like he was staring at the barrel of a loaded gun.
"Do you even realize the situation you're in right now?" Venam snapped and if Will had any doubts that Venam had learned from her experience in Indriad's mansion, they were gone now.
"Veronica, or "Venam" as you like to call yourself," Angie read. "It says here that you are loud, obnoxious and selfish. You lied about the specifics of your profession so that you would gain a larger source of income."
On a surface level, it would make sense for Angie to know that. It had been a public event and anybody could have attended that beach party.
And yet…something about the way Angie phrased it was…off. It was an observation, an almost objective summation of what Venam had done, as if Angie wouldn't judge Venam herself because the judgement had already been cast.
Her words rattled Venam too. She'd always worn her heart on her sleeve and Will saw how she grit her teeth and turned her gaze away, as if too ashamed to keep looking at Angie. "What's the use of bring that up?" She murmured angrily.
"Crawli," Angie continued. "You are a "brave" leader who goes out of their way to help anyone in need. But that's just a front to hide the fact that you feel powerless to make a difference." She smiled and that single show of emotion chilled Will more than the entire theatrical display thus far. "And how true that is. Even your rebellion against me made no difference. Because despite your efforts, your choices have brought you here in front of me again still."
Crawli…didn't respond. He too averted his eyes.
"And Melia – "
Melia, taking a page from Will's book, interrupted Angie's psycho-analysis and angrily stepped forwards, yelling, "I don't care what you have to say about me in that stupid book! Do you know the pain you've brought? Just who do you think you are!"
Cera's red eyes blazed as she snapped, "Quiet, you impetuous – "
"No," Angie said, raising her hand to interrupt her servant. "Let her finish."
"Thank you for the "courtesy", but I don't need permission from you," Melia spat, venom dripping from her every word. "We came to put an end to all of this, we're going to stop you!"
"Oh?" Angie said, reacting to that threat as if Melia had just told her a confusing knock-knock joke. "And just how do you expect to "stop me"? With your Pokemon, perhaps? Like the one currently hiding in the fake's shadow, hmm?"
Which felt a tad personal to Will, considering he never claimed to be a ranger but simply wore some of their stuff because it was just that good.
Also, holy crap Angie could see Froslass?! That set off every alarm bell in his head.
"How else?" Venam snapped.
"Now that would be just too simple," Angie said, waving her hand as if dismissing the entire idea. "No, when you are in my domain, you abide by my rules. Rules given to me by the Lord, Arceus."
If Will had had any alarms that hadn't gone off before, they would have exploded at that point. He'd been comparing Angie to Indriad because that was the closest comparison he could make, not because he knew he was about to attack Missus Theolia.
Oh things were about to get bad…
"Oh brother, here we go…" Venam said, making a dramatic motion that included rolling her entire head.
"I propose a game," Angie said, and –
I propose a game. For the souls of everyone you're keeping here you inserted yourself in this game too Marianette a game where one falls to the bottom –
Not again. Not again.
"F-Froslass, now!" Will ordered and Froslass loosed the lethal bolt at Angie and Angie raised her hand and Cera gestured with her arms and the Shadow Ball stopped in its tracks and dissipated –
"Insolent dog!" Cera shouted. She raised her hand into a gripping motion but Angie, again, bade her to calm down.
"Ah-ah-ah," Angie said, wagging her finger at Will like she was chiding a misbehaving child. "It is not in your power to strike now, and nor in your power to decide how this ends. You wish to wage war against me, so this is my playing card."
"This is bad, we might have screwed up," Crawli muttered.
"If you all truly wish to stop the Lord's will, then you must embrace the flames encased in ice!" Angie exclaimed and her calm smirk grew wider. Black, smoky ice erupted around them, herding them in place.
"This is a war you cannot win."
Jagged teeth of ice exploded behind them, cutting off their escape.
"This is a war where the ignorant suffer."
Will leapt back as the shards snapped into existence around the railing too, ice with edges so sharp that even touching them was out of the question.
"This is a war where Arceus' light will blind those who resist its grasp!" Angie exclaimed, grinning manically from ear to ear as she raised her hands and brought them down in judgment.
A void of darkness washed over them and everything went horribly, terribly black, and he sank into that blackness
…
Allow me to grant onto you a perk of your existence…Nowhere shall you be trapped…As long as you're with me, heh.
The voice echoed around inside his head. A single golden butterfly fluttered in front of him and Will felt the strange, immutable urge to reach out and touch it, but he couldn't move. His limbs were unresponsive. Heavy and dead.
Slowly, the blackness faded and his blurry vision slowly came into focus. Something tugged at his neck. His eyes wouldn't open. His limbs wouldn't move.
He rememembered...cold. A deathly chill had seeped into his bones, settling within his marrow, slowly freezing him solid from the inside out. He took a deep shuddering breath and everything inside felt vaguely pain, but distant...so distant.
The tugging intensified. Something like warm air buffeted his face. He couldn't feel his…his everything.
But it wasn't that cold anymore.
Something moved in front of his hazy, blurry eyes. Vaguely, only vaguely, he felt something touch his face, but it was odd, like his body didn't register the touch.
Another shuddering breath. He was tired. He wanted to go to sleep, drift back to that voice, where it had been warm…
Warm. He started to feel warm and snuggly now, the cold wasn't as bad. He could just close his eyes again and sink…away.
Warm.
A stab of boiling, burning pain in the back of his mind, an echo that howled within his thoughts. It thrummed violently and the whole nightmarish thing came echoing back to him. Angie, the game, the blackness.
Warm...
Warm?
He wasn't meant to be warm. Angie was cold. Angie was ice and snow. She wouldn't allow him to be warm.
Will opened his eyes, but they only fluttered open halfway. Ice clung to his eyelashes. He tried to brush them clean, brush the ice off, but his arms wouldn't obey. Desperation brimmed within his gut and he clumsily shoved his head against his elbow, fighting to get enough coordination into his body that he could move.
You are a prisoner in Angie's game, he told himself. He managed to wipe his face against his shoulder, but it was slow and awkward and it took him far too long. You are dying of hypothermia. You need to heat up.
He managed to creak his eyes open enough to see the shape that had been moving in front of him. It was Ralts; it stared at him with wide, desperate eyes, its purple scars a stark contrast to its white body. Snow clung to its limbs as it continued to shake Will's face.
"Houndoom," he said, but it came out like "H-h-h-h-ooo-u-u-und-mmm. His lips were numb, his face didn't obey him. Dimly, he knew that was not good, and that his body likely wouldn't be recovering from this anytime soon, if ever, but that didn't matter because he didn't see the others, didn't see where Angie had taken them. He thrashed, but he barely got more than a shiver out of his body. "B-B-Ball," he pushed through his lips, staring at Ralts, willing it to understand. Why hadn't it read his thoughts? It was a Psychic-type right? Couldn't it sense what he wanted?
Where was Froslass, where was literally everyone?
Ralts shuffled out of his view. By the time Will realized that its little body wasn't at his face anymore, it had already come back. Ralrs was shivering by now, but it rolled two Poke Balls in front of his face.
The terror really sank in when Will realized that he couldn't move his arms anymore. He pulled and tugged at his limbs, but it was like someone had glued an anvil to the tip of every finger.
He blinked sluggishly. Snow cluttered down onto his eyes again. He was trapped inside a body that couldn't move.
Ralts tapped the Poke Ball long enough to eventually hit the right button. It sprang open and Houndoom was there, shaking himself violently as he dragged his paws through the snow. He looked down at his trainer, blinked, then immediately shoved his head against Will's chest and began exhaling flames. At least, that was what Will thought happened. It started to become very hard to string thoughts together and his senses were all but deaf and blind.
Over the course of what felt like long, arduous hours, the fake, pseudo-warmth in his body turned to shivering. Steam washed from his body as Houndoom's heat melted the snow and seeped through his clothes and into his body. It drove away the bone-deep chill that had nearly shut down his organs and gradually, something like feeling started to flow back into his extremities.
Pain, namely.
Pins and needles like he'd spent three nights sleeping without any circulation at all washed over him and it was like Houndoom had replaced his blood with the lava from Amber's trial.
Will welcomed the pain, let it invigorate him, and prove to him that he was still alive. Ralts had pressed itself against Houndoom's chest to warm up.
Slowly, Will got his breathing back under control, and the pins and needles in his body turned into shaking. He tried to climb back to his feet but left his legs behind on the ground so he crashed to the floor again.
Houndoom looked at him with a look that suggested he would have rolled his eyes but didn't think the effort would be worth it.
Will felt his pouches with clumsy, stiff fingers, counted his remaining Pokemon and realized that he was complete. Somehow, Angie had banished Froslass back to her Poke Ball…but then how had Ralts gotten out? How long had he been lying there, anyway? Long enough to nearly freeze to death. Not long enough to go all the way.
Just long enough to suffer, then.
Did these psychos have a freaking rulebook or something? Did they have to make their games as excruciating and punishing as possible?
Slowly, Will started taking in his surroundings. Large flakes of snow drifted down from an endless night. His surroundings were all dead and dying vegetation, gray and brown trees and hedges that had been trimmed so neatly that they might well have been part of the Theolia Mansion. A pair of maids looked to be working the garden, but everything was frozen and dead. An emtpy box stood in-between two patches of ground and what looked like Gothitelle's pre-evolutionary form stood on top of it, solemly watching the two maids plowing the ground.
Shakily, he pulled Ralts off its feet and placed it on top of his backpack, where it could cling to his neck and sit down if it wanted to. "Now you watch my six," he said.
Houndoom came up next to him. Together, the three of them started stumbling their way towards the scary tower that loomed ahead of them.
They weren't alone. Maids tended the garden. The garden. "Hey," Will said, his voice trembling with the cold. "What's going on? Where am I?"
Slowly, the pair of maids turned to regard him. "We are preparing for the harvest," one simply said. "When winter comes, you may participate as well."
"Do you feel the brisk chill of winter's approach? Soon the harvest shall arrive."
Harvest? Winter's approach? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Will thought better of picking a fight with the scary, inhuman possibly-soul-snatching servants and continued his steady pace towards the tower. With every step he took, he got more and more sensation and control back over his limbs. They felt heavy and awkward but no longer like useless blocks of ice. His fingers were stiff and stark white. If he was very lucky he would only lose one or two toes to frostbite and perhaps only one pinky.
Upon his approach, the heavy metal gates that had kept the tower locked down shuddered and slowly ascended with a metallic groan.
It was obvious that someone expected him. He wouldn't want to disappoint his host, so he continued onwards.
"Don't bother wiping your feet," he told Houndoom.
Houndoom huffed with great dignity.
"No, we're not staying for dinner."
The trainer and his Pokemon entered the great spire and the gates fell shut behind them. Soon, they found themselves in a cellar or basements of sorts. Contrary to Angie's previous grandiose proclamations, the interior of the tower was dull and gray and designed like an ancient prison more than anything else.
More servants wandered around the area, and the Queen-Servant herself awaited Will's arrival.
"Welcome, insolent dog, to the Tower of Theolia," Cera said through clenched teeth. Her crimson eyes were filled with so much malice that Will was sorta surprised that he hadn't caught fire yet. "Angie has brought you here to test your capabilities. And thus the game goes as such: you shall travel through the tower and reach the pinnacle. Only then will you have a chance to escape. Do you have questions?"
"Houndoom, I think she's talking to you," Will said, bowing over to Houndoom's head and pretending to whisper.
Cera's eyes widened in outrage. She sucked in a breath. "Cute. Lady Angie will enjoy breaking you. Oh, your suffering shall be legendary. If I were you, I would say my prayers and beg for forgiveness. You will never succeed and as such, you will never escape."
No amount of witty comebacks would have concealed the shiver that ran Will's spine, so he didn't bother. He tore his gaze off the head-maid and began searching his surroundings instead.
She didn't miss that. The corners of her mouth rose in an abominable smile. "Good luck. You shall need it."
With that, she turned her back and walked away. The doors fell shut behind her and locked themselves in place.
Okay. Now he had an objective and a way to win. He had to get all the way to the top of the tower where, presumably, Angie would be waiting for him. It was very likely that she was a bit miffed at his attempt to kill her, so when he showed his face he'd better do so with a plan B.
…Theolia? Did she say, the Tower of Theolia?
Great.
"Hey Maria, if you can hear me," Will said aloud, and the two maids turned to regard him suspiciously. "I still got my soul. That's an improvement, right? Don't know if Angie is your mother or a mean aunt, but…I could really use your help, now."
The deafening silence of the empty hallways was his only response. Ralts shifted around his neck and Houndoom's ears rotated around, but neither of them gave any indication that help was coming.
He had expected as much.
The low, numbing buzz began in his head and he felt the edges of panic digging into his mind. He couldn't panic though, not now, he had to breathe and anchor himself.
"Okay," he said to himself. "Count…to five. I see…a brown box…a big casket…some lichen..."
They pried at his ribs, pried at his heart –
"A-A hole…in the wall…"
Plunging their hands into his being and prying at his soul –
"And…a…candelabra," he gasped. He forced himself to keep breathing. You have friends now. You cannot fall apart, they need you.
Melia needs you.
"Four," He growled. "Things I will touch." The path ahead was a dead end. He recalled Houndoom and sent out Nidoking ahead, since Nidoking always came equipped with a masterkey.
Nidoking regarded him funnily for a second, before slamming his armored claws into the hole in the wall and ripping it apart.
As Will had suspected, there was a whole passageway behind it, complete with lit candles and everything. Nidoking, Ralts and him made it through and emerged through a second hole into a whole different section of the cellar. There, the maids had stashed even more barrels of liquid and large stacks of food. The cellar went on and on and Will began to notice reddish leaves and flowers growing along the length of some pillars.
He had half a mind to start thrashing the barrels simply to spite Angie, but it would be a waste of energy and time. Worse, Angie might take that very personally and reenact his nightmare for real this t ime.
For all he knew, Melia and Venam and Crawli were freezing to death all on their own. Every second he wasted was a second they could incur irreparable damage.
They continued onwards. Eventually, Will found himself on the other end of what had previously been the dead end, but this time it was only a small stream of water that separated him from the way back.
He wouldn't be fooled though. He noticed the silver key lying in the far end of the next dead end. "Ralts, can you help me out?" He asked.
Ralts peeked its head from around his neck.
"I think that key is booby-trapped. Can you lift it from here? Use psychic powers to move it or something?"
Ralts took a hold of his hair with one appendage, then raised the other. A faint haze of purple energy came to life around its body, but it fizzled and warped out of control and Will quickly backpedaled before the wild psychic energy could remove a chunk from his face.
"Uh – "
Ralts tried again. Another wave of purple energy cascaded through the air, but it didn't go much farther than a few meters before it fizzled out into another explosion that ripped through the floor like a spiral pattern.
Ralts lowered its arm again and made itself small and unnoticeable.
"Happens to the best of us," Will said. Honestly, that one was on him. He still had no clue what Team Xen had done to turn their Pokemon into rejects. Asking for something that required finesse and concentration in such a stressful environment from an already unstable Pokemon was just clamoring for trouble.
So instead, he decided to risk things and reached for the key himself.
No explosions, no sharpened spears of ice or soul-snatching maids appearing in front of his face. Just a regular, metal key. Nothing else.
These psychos really did have a playbook, it seemed.
A short journey brought Will back to the large room with all the barrels and stocked foods. He walked through its well-lit interior –
The silence shattered like a glass and the images and impressions he got from his senses were suddenly everywhere, digging and seeping into his brain as his grasp on reality was wrestled away from him. One image asserted itself and it was of the very room he had just entered, except he saw Crawli wandering around, yelling –
"Where is everyone, where is everyone!" Venam screamed frantically and serrated mounds of ice erupted all around –
- Melia and she yelled at the unseen assailant to stop, STOP –
The floor was suddenly inches from Will's face and he dimly registered his hands splayed out on the cold floor. The image of Melia falling to her knees was still bright and vivid in his mind, but when he looked up he didn't see Melia, but the serrated teeth of ice were there and Angie was there, floating above the floor as if she commanded gravity as well as ice in this realm.
Her realm.
Angie drew in power.
No time to react. Will managed to reach up for Ralts –
"You will succumb to the truth," Angie said serenely. "Just as the others have!"
And a storm of cold and darkness took him.
~~~~~~~(III)~~~~~~~
The particular cellar in the Tower of Theolia was much colder and darker than the others. Truly, it was not so much an absence of heat as it was the sheer presence and pressure of the coldness. A darkness had swept through the room like a savage beast, driving away the light and scattering the heat until nothing remained but a frozen hellscape.
So of course that was where she found him.
Gothitelle saw him, too. She raised one hand to her mouth and uttered a bemused giggle.
Crescent gave her partner a disappointed look. This was no laughing matter. Unamused, she placed her hands on the railing and stared at the frozen protrusion of malice and ice…
And the young man imprisoned within.
An eternity stretched out before her as she stared at him. The woman, Angie, had played her cards masterfully. She had ambushed him not physically, where he had proven to be quite resilient, but mentally, where recent events had whittled down his resilience to a degree. Since he had not carried himself with due diligence, had failed to surround himself with Pokemon powerful enough to protect him from the evils in this world, there he was. Entombed in a miserable prison.
Not a hint of fear on his frozen expression. Confusion, yes. Annoyance, perhaps. No fear.
Perhaps he considered bravery to be an absence of fear? If so, he had become a miserable fool. There could be no absence of fear in a fight. Fear and terror and hate and fury, those drove humans to better themselves, to survive what the weak could not survive.
If this continued, "Will" would not survive the month.
Crescent brushed a lock of stray, raven hair behind her ear and sighed. "You're just so…painfully helpless without me," she said, and she allowed the bitterness to color her voice.
He was no fool. His past actions had shown that somewhere within the recesses of his thoughts, he had something akin to solid judgment. It was far below average these days, but it was present. So what drove him? What motivated his actions, made him decide what he had settled out to do?
Crescent did not understand one bit. Perhaps, if he made an effort, he could explain it to her. Perhaps, if she heard it, his motivations would not destroy what little she had left.
"Look at what you've gotten yourself into now," she continued. A miserable fate, left to be stashed away until the lady of the tower decided on the best manner with which to torment him, like she would for the other fools. "Who else but me would save you from this fate?"
She held out her hand and as always, Gothitelle interpreted her wishes flawlessly. Her ever-familiar scythe materialized in her outstretched hand. "I'll set you free this time, but next time, you're on your own. Understand, Will? Don't forget my kindness."
The power and malice Angie could bring to bear was not inconsiderable. Be that as it was, Angie had an entire tower to divide her concentration over, whereas Crescent could bring the full force of her fury to bear on a small area. A point to shatter, a will to break only locally, and her will was considerable.
She lunged for the ice and her scythe swept across its surface, shattering the crystalline essence and cleaving it in twain.
Her actions warranted caution; she had told Will that she would never hurt him and she intended to keep that promise. It would not do to accidentally harm him in the process of freeing him.
That Ralts she had witnessed Will shove away from him peeked from around one of the boxes. It stared at Crescent with an odd look on its face and she did not much appreciate that.
So, Crescent set herself to ignore the damaged runt and continued her work. After just several cleaves, the ice crumbled apart and Will's body slumped to the ground. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his limbs twitching as he regained his consciousness almost instantly.
Crescent made to leave, but his voice rang out and stopped her dead in her tracks.
"Wait," he hoarsely said, and he sounded so haggard that she felt a painful twinge in her heart.
Crescent turned around and regarded him sharply. She had no time for pointless banter. In fact, she had not even assumed he would have the physical wherewithal to recognize her. That he did, meant something, but she dared not think too much of it. "I shall permit one question," she told him. "Do not waste my time."
Will slowly gathered his wits, pulled his limbs back to himself and coughed. Then, he regarded her with his those clear, emerald eyes. "Will…will you help me save the rest?" He asked.
And Crescent felt something fall apart deep inside of her.
The rest, the rest - !
He still knew nothing of her, did not remember a hint of his previous life and when he had the chance to learn, to discover, he threw that chance away in favor of the others?
It was lunacy. Crescent did not have any other word for it. It was as if he had lost his mind. At this point, that explanation was the most plausible.
Plausible, but no more bearable.
"No," Crescent whispered. Then, she turned and walked away.
~~~~~~~(IV)~~~~~~~
What happened next wasn't very clear. Crescent turned her back and she left, she just walked away with her frilly skirt and white blouse and left him alone in this nightmare to fend for himself –
It bothered him, far more than it had the last time, but he didn't have the time or focus to think about that. "Fine," Will growled, a thousand words and even more questions buzzing around his thoughts. "Be that way."
Twenty Questions would have to wait. He took the devastating implications of Crescent being around to save the day again and shoved it into a tiny box. Then, he put that box next to the unsettling visage or vision or mental echo that had been seeing –
- CrawliMeliaVenam -
- where are you guys where the hell are you guys please stop STOP –
- and he pushed himself on throughout the mazelike corridors and the staring, soulless maids and soon, he found himself back in the main room of the cellar but this time, he had the key, and he turned it with a satisfying *click* and he shoved the door open, Houndoom leaping ahead.
Will breathed.
Everything would find its place. There would be time for introspection.
Later.
The room ahead was much more like Kakori Village. Hot, damp, filled with large plants and tropic vegetation. Dozens of weblike strings snared through the interior of the room, coming together into a massive web with a humanoid figure all tangled up in a cocoon of sorts.
Angie regarded the web with an almost reverent tone. "Boy cursed by the heavens. Look at where your path has led you. This is your punishment for resisting Arceus' divine decree. Arceus itself has laid its judgment upon you." She tilted her head, and her voice assumed something twistedly sympathetic. "But worry not, your sins shall be devoured by the ones you held close. For you should have put your faith in Arceus, rather than the vermin you cling close to your heart."
Houndoom wasted no time slinging a Dark Pulse Angie's way, but the woman merely stepped to the side as if she were avoiding a puddle of water on the ground and the blast of dark energy missed by an inch.
"Let's try that again," Will told her, putting aside the fact that Angie had somehow recreated a freaking jungle just to torment Crawli in a twisted sense of irony. "Angie."
Angie turned to regard him. "Witness his fate, Will."
Oh, he'd do more than witness this time. "Why? What has he done to deserve this?" He asked. "What's the point?"
She smiled ever so sweetly at him. "The threads of his demise were crafted by him and him alone. He had no right of authority."
Before Will could ask what the hell that particular bit of nonsense meant, Angie straight-up teleported out of there.
Either Angie had so much power that she could simply create rooms at will and tailor them to specific kinds of torture, or she had known all this time who would be coming after her head and how they would do so and prepared these twisted games ahead of time.
And this time you don't have Maria to bail you out.
Both possibilities suggested that they were all way in over their heads so Will decided to focus on the here and now. As long as he still had his soul somewhere inside of his body, he would fight like hell. First objective: getting Crawli the hell out of that cocoon and onto his feet.
A quick survey revealed four large strands holding Crawli's silky prison adrift. "Ralts, this might be a bit too much for you," Will said, before recalling the timid little Psychic-type. Next, he sent out Blaziken. For all he knew, Crawli had a whole swarm of Joltik stuck in there with him, nibbling on his toes or something. Compared to that, some burn marks were a mercy. "Blaziken, target those webs there and there! Houndoom, to the right, that spot and that one. Burn it all down!"
Maybe this was an alternate reality where Angie could warp and change things to cater to her every whim. Maybe she was all-powerful inside of here and resisting her was pointless all along, as pointless as it had been to defy the other Theolia.
But right then, right there, Will still had his Pokemon and he could still fight. The rest came as naturally as breathing.
Blaziken and Houndoom blanketed the entire room with flames. Plants and trees alike lit up like candles, water bubbled and boiled and ice vaporized as the two Fire-types gave them hell.
Pokemon burst from their cover all across the webs. They exploded from cocoons, came scurrying down from dark corners or just erupted from the ground. Spinarak and Ariados and Orbeetles and Beedrill.
Fire was pure. Fire was simple. It didn't care about the where or how. It didn't care about the name Theolia. Fire just was.
Fire cleansed.
Houndoom and Blaziken put their backs against each other as they shifted their aim. A pair of Beedrill lunged for Blaziken and she shot one of them out of the air with a well-placed burst of flames and caught the other between her claws, its massive stinger a mere inch away from her face. With a snarl, she slammed its abdomen against her knee with enough force to shatter its chitinous plating, then threw it into the air for Houndoom to shoot down with a quick Incinerate.
Angie couldn't change that. Angie couldn't take his soul. It was his. And nothing Angie would throw at him in this tower would change that.
Orbeetle began shooting quick shots of Psybeam and Houndoom pivoted in front of Blaziken to take the brunt. Its Psychic energy simply washed off of his body and Houndoom retaliated with a searing beam of dark energy that scorched the walls and boiled through the vegetation in its way
A pair of Ariados got too close. Houndoom broke off its Dark Pulse and charged, wreathing himself in fire as he flung himself at the first arachnid, snarling and leaking purple flames from his parted jaws.
Blaziken vaulted over Houndoom and struck the second Ariados in the head with a Blaze Kick.
Will circled around towards the cocoon in the center. It was moving now, something or someone inside wriggling like mad to get free.
A shadow detached itself from above and a massive, moth-like Pokemon with white fuzz and six reddish wings swept down. Flames poured from its wings as it soared overhead and Will scampered for cover, hurrying to shout commands to Houndoom and Blaziken.
The two Fire-types moved with a purpose. Houndoom sprinted towards the enormous Volcarona and put himself in the way of the flames, absorbing their heat and energy with his Flash Fire ability while returning fire with Dark Pulse.
Blaziken, meanwhile, went on the offensive. Somewhere before or possibly even during the fight against Tesla's Charizard and the Tapu Koko, she'd learned to use the Brave Bird move. The sheer violence and kinetic energy behind that type of attack was insane, but it had the drawback of Blaziken having to essentially go above the physical limits of her body to achieve said damage.
Torn muscles, damaged ligaments, micro-fractions in her bones – all of those were minor injuries she could easily heal on her own or even with the help of a healing item, but in a life-or-death situation those injuries could mean the difference between a narrow victor and a defeat. Combined with her Blaze ability, Brave Bird could help Blaziken dish out a truly staggering level of violence…but then she'd crash even harder.
Golden minutes. A reckless, all-or-nothing tactic for when the situation was almost hopeless.
The Volcarona scattered flames in every direction and some of them poured onto the cocoon. Apparently, silk was more flammable than kindle as the entire thing started burning.
With Crawli still inside.
Will moved without thinking. "Take that thing out now!" He yelled as he vaulted himself over the raised platform and thrust his arms into the cocoon, which had begun thrashing and kicking like crazy.
The heat of the flames was immense; he felt the skin on his forearms blister even through his jacket as he fished around, found something that felt like an arm and heaved.
Crawli came tumbling out of the cocoon, frantic and panicky. He rolled across the floor, patting at the flames that licked at his left leg. "Ah, hot, hot!" He cried.
Will blinked away the black dots that swarmed in his vision and got his hands underneath Crawli's armpits. He groaned as he dragged the young ranger away from the cocoon, which had lit up like a bonfire by then.
Crawli hacked and wheezed. "Ah, that was disgusting!" He yelled in-between gasping coughs. "…where am I? Why is the room on fire? Why was I on fire?"
"You're being saved!" Will yelled back. Blaziken and Houndoom had driven the Volcarona back to one corner of the chamber, but the flames were getting way out of hand now. "Everything is under control!"
"Will, you saved me?" Crawli said. "Where are the others?"
"Later!" Will thrust his hand towards the head ranger, who quickly took his hand and allowed Will to haul to his feet. "We gotta go!"
Blaziken struck a crushing blow with Brave Bird and the Volcarona cratered into the floor.
"The door's locked!" Crawli said. "I found a key before Angie got me…lemme get it real quick…"
Together, the two ran towards the exit at the other end of the room. There, Crawli fumbled with the key for a second before unlocking the door. Blaziken and Houndoom followed closely behind. With one final Dark Pulse for good measure, Houndoom darted through and Cfawli shoved the door shut.
"Holy crap, that was intense," he gasped, putting his head between his knees to catch his breath. "What…what's happening? How are you here?"
"Angie tried to have you devoured by Bug-type Pokemon," Will said. "I don't know how, but she was really adamant about it."
"Tch. Talk about a mutiny. But this place…I've tried finding where we were, but my PokeGear isn't even picking up a signal!" Crawli shook his head in disbelief. Parts of his clothes had burn holes in them now, and one of his eyebrows was gone. The side of his face had a couple of blisters, too, Will noted.
"I, uh, you…are you hurt?" He asked.
"Yeah, my face smarts a bit, but I got something for that," Crawli noted. He saw the look on Will's face and probably guessed the rest. "Hey dude, come on, that wasn't your fault."
But it was. He had gotten so carried away with his own form of defiance against Angie that he hadn't stopped to think about it…he thought he had things under control, but…"That Volcarona caught me by surprise, but…I was the one who set that room on fire," Will said. "I didn't – "
"Well, that beats getting eaten by Bug Pokemon," Crawli said. "You got me out of that one, so I'd say we're even, alright?"
"Alright," Will said, and that heavy feeling in his chest suddenly felt a bit lighter.
Only you blame you.
"Any idea where the others are?" He asked.
Crawli winced. "I was hoping they were with you, truth be told. When I woke up I was alone. I have a feeling that was the case for everyone else too. Bah, such a nasty trick to have us wander in her domain one by one. Well, either way, I'm not leaving until I avenge my parents. I'm a lover, not a fighter."
"Wait," Will said with dismay. "You can't be both?"
That seemed to take the sail out of Crawli's winds. "Well, yeah? But I'm not. Although, sometimes there are exceptions you know? And I'm through with Angie. Let's make her our next catch."
"I hear that," Will said. Together, Crawli and him headed into the dark, cramped hallway and towards whatever other horrors awaited them.
~~~~~~~(V)~~~~~~
AN: We've had physical injuries, we've had deteriorating mental health and now, ladies and gentlemen, we are finally entering the realm of supernatural mental damage. That one's going to be picking up some steam in the future, but it really started in Chapter 7, albeit slowly and somewhat subtly.
I can say with certain that the next chapter is going to be the final part of Chapter 7. A fitting finale for a banger of a Chapter.
As always, please leave a review if you liked this update or if you have thoughts/feedback you would like to share and I will see you all with the next update!