PARAGON

  Hisui Incursion Arc [29]

  Chapter 81 : Light Against The Darkness

  “Voidestria!” Volo roared, and a tidal wave of darkness rippled outward from him in a putrid blossom.

  Ash gritted his teeth at the fast-approaching miasma. He could see Volo’s twisted smile beyond the smoky distortion.

  I can try and protect myself from it, like I did with the Sanguinesilica…but I don’t know how this technique works! If all it needs to do is touch me, then it’ll be over right here!

  Ash glared at the darkness, now bearing down on him, and noticed the two Koraidon standing within the darkness unperturbed. Is it targeted directly at me, leaving the Koraidon unaffected? No, it doesn’t matter! I need to dodge! I can’t let it touch me!

  “Dodge, Pikachu!” Ash yelled, and at the same time, he flooded his own body with electricity and blitzed out of the way, into the sky. Lightning trailed behind him in a blinding burst and he angled himself toward the nearest pillar and grabbed it.

  The miasma of darkness passed beneath him, pouring out of the temple like a carnivorous fog. He had his arm wrapped around the pillar, clinging to it, and he quickly found Pikachu doing the same to the pillar across from him, his claws embedded in the ancient stone. Ash’s eyes flicked over to Volo and his Koraidon, yet none of them had moved. If he was a smarter trainer, he would’ve used this moment to attack us.

  As the darkness flowed beneath Ash, it began to fade, blowing away in the mountain wind breezing in from outside.

  Perhaps his Voidestria technique required a certain level of concentration, given its utterly incapacitating effect. However, not a second after he thought it, the crimson darkness once again flared to life around Volo, this time concentrating around his fist.

  “Kill his pokémon!” Volo snarled, leaping into the air toward Ash, pitch-black darkness burning on his fist.

  As the black Koraidon tore toward Pikachu, the red one opened its mouth and began charging draconic energy that snapped as ferally as the pit it’d come from.

  Still imbued with electricity, Ash forced more power into his own fist, gusts of wind blustering around him as white lightning began to crackle across his forearm. Shifting his weight, he kicked off the pillar with both legs, launching toward the evil Platebearer.

  “Volo!” Ash roared.

  “Ash!” Volo spat.

  As both men brought their fists forward in a vicious arc, divine energy seared to life within the cramped temple, half of blinding brightness, half of oily darkness. As the two suns of light and dark concentrated around their fists collided, a cacophonous explosion echoed outward, tearing through the temple in rippling walls of pure power. The walls and floor turned orange, embers burning on their scorched surfaces, but the ceiling could not handle the two Platebearers' proximity. Cracks webbed out across its formerly pristine surface and chunks of stone began to fall. However, before they could crush the two combatants, they were annihilated into minuscule fragments before they could get close.

  With the roof of the temple now gone, the rift above yawned over them in full force, an abyssal pit beyond which Giratina was surely watching.

  Ash’s eyes burned from the blaze of their collision, but he forced more power into his vision, piercing the grayish void left in the wake of the two fading powers. As he expected, Volo wasn’t finished.

  They were both still suspended in the air and the force of their two punches hadn’t even allowed their fists to connect, but now Volo lunged toward him, darkness bleeding behind him as he charged a smaller volume of darkness on his fist. Ash’s gaze narrowed and he jerked his head to the side as the punch went sailing past. However, then he saw Volo’s other hand, and his eyes widened. A darkness laced with crimson sparked in his other palm, and Ash had just dodged straight toward it.

  That’s Voidestria! Ash realized.

  Volo grinned as he thrust his other hand toward Ash.

  His pupils turned white and electricity sparked around him, adrenaline, instinct, and the natural protection of the Plate all activating to supercharge his senses. The thought had spent a fraction of a millisecond in his head before Ash’s hand shot outward and grabbed Volo’s wrist before he could touch him. Distance! Ash thought, and he whipped Volo around, throwing him back to the ground.

  Volo landed on his feet, extinguishing the embers at his feet, and Ash dropped to the ground a second later, panting.

  “Impressive, Ash! As expected, you’re certainly a match for me!” Volo’s eyes and lips narrowed into a serpentine smirk. “But I wonder if the same can be said about your Pikachu. Or your friends.”

  Ash glanced aside. Just before their masters had collided, all three pokémon had been wise enough to take their battle beyond the confines of the temple. Now, past the pillars, Ash could see Pikachu jumping and hopping across the icy rocks of Mount Coronet’s summit, narrowly avoiding attacks from the Koraidon. The black one seemed to prefer melee combat, swiping and snapping at Pikachu with claw and fang, but the red one remained airborne, floating on blue and white wings that’d unfurled from its head as it fired off ray after ray of draconic energy.

  Ash clenched his jaw. Pikachu was fine for now, but the battle wasn’t in his favor, especially with how much damage he’d already sustained from Garchomp. Eventually, he’d need commands from Ash if he had any chance of besting the two primordial dragons.

  At the same time, Dialga and Palkia continued the sail through the sky, releasing otherworldly cries as they continued their assault on Riley and Sabrina. With the roof gone, now Ash could see their battle properly, though with how much smaller his friends were compared to the dragons, it was difficult to accurately gauge the status of their battles.

  Finally, Ash’s gaze drifted straight up, at the pitch-black rift above, and he exhaled. Even if Dialga and Palkia were beaten, even if all of Volo’s pokémon and the man himself was defeated, the enemy stronger than all of them combined still remained.

  Giratina… Ash thought. I can’t fall before I face him…

  Refocusing on the enemy before him, Ash tightened his expression and prepared his power for the next round. One at a time, he thought, his mind already racing with ideas on how to deal with the current state of the battlefield. He trusted Sabrina and Riley to deal with Sinnoh’s legendary dragons. Right now, Volo was his priority. I need to turn this back into a pokémon battle. I’ll tire myself out too much if I keep fighting Volo head on alone. I need to draw the Koraidon back here…

  “Pikachu!” Ash yelled once his plan was formulated. “Three Heavenly Bolts!”

  Pikachu screeched in acknowledgement, reversing velocity and heading back toward the temple. Ash opened his palm, feeding his partner with power as winds whipped around him.

  As expected, the black Koraidon followed, snapping at Pikachu’s heels.

  “One on each!”

  Blinding energy streaked off Pikachu as he ran, his body becoming saturated with the energy of the Plate. He leapt into the air as a miniature comet and suddenly twisted in midair, hurling one bolt at the Koraidon right behind him, one at the Koraidon in the sky, and one at Volo.

  Volo sneered and batted it away with his fist, and the bolt collapsed into a storm of sparks. However, an effulgent explosion blossomed around the black Koraidon and it screeched in pain, careening backward into a granite pillar. Likewise, the lightning bolt lanced into the red Koraidon before it could dodge, and it fell from the sky, smoking. It crashed into the temple floor and tumbled across, groaning.

  However, just a few moments later, both dragons stood again, looking a little more than enraged.

  Alright, that’s step one, Ash thought. Let’s see if we can take this to the end! “Electro-Ball, rapid-fire!”

  As electricity tore across the Temple of Sinnoh, Volo issued a string of commands to his pokémon and the battle resumed with gusto. Multi-colored blasts ringed ground and sky alike, supernal violence consuming the Hisui Region’s peak.

  Riley bulleted through the sky, a trail of Aura streaking behind him as he narrowly avoided a shaft of deep indigo energy fired from the colossal Dialga’s mouth.

  Lightning lanced and thunder groaned across the dark sky in chaotic intervals as if the heavens themselves were under strain from the magnitude of the battle playing out below them.

  Riley sucked in the mountain’s thin air greedily as he used the few seconds Dialga took to turn back toward him to catch his breath. He flipped backward, landing back on the snowy path leading up to Coronet’s summit. The path was narrow and shadowed by the mountain beside it, yet Dialga seemed to have no trouble picking out Riley’s comparatively tiny form as it once again sucked in a breath and bellowed out another screaming shaft of devastation. Grunting in annoyance, Riley once again sent a surge of Aura through his body and he zipped away, back into the sky.

  A second later, Dialga’s attack sheared through rock and snow where he’d been, burning through it like a hot knife through butter and leaving a gaping spherical hole in the mountain. The mountain trembled and an avalanche cascaded down its face, but Riley had seen enough of Dialga’s power that he no longer stopped in awe at its sheer destructive ability.

  Riley was using Aura to keep himself airborne, but all he was doing was fleeing, and it was tiring him out rapidly. Unlike Sabrina, who, when he had the luxury to check on her, he could see teleporting across the sky at a nearly imperceptible speed, the power of Aura wasn’t exactly meant to be used like this, especially not for prolonged periods of time.

  Sooner or later, he would need to go on the offensive. Sabrina had her hands full with Palkia, and Ash was the only one who could face Volo. Alpha Dialga’s defeat was Riley’s to procure, obviously.

  Quite a step up from AZ’s Dragalge, he thought grimly, recalling the last foe he’d been up against solo. And this time, he didn’t even have his pokémon to aid him.

  As Dialga fired another blistering beam his way, Riley closed his eyes and forced himself out of the way, trying his best to ignore the mounting fatigue.

  From what he could tell, Sabrina also hadn’t engaged her legendary opponent offensively either, and she seemed to be stuck in a similar loop of dodging volley after volley of colossal blades of amethyst energy.

  Riley wasn’t terribly well-versed in knowledge pertaining to the legendary dragons; he wasn’t a Dragon Master or a Lorekeeper, after all. But, by a stroke of luck, he had spent quite some time in Sinnoh, and as such, knew a bit more about the Dragons of Spacetime compared to the other dragons. He was fairly certain the move Dialga continued to use against him was called Roar of Time, and Palkia’s was surely Spatial Rend.

  Not that it mattered all that much. Even a Tackle or Scratch from either of them would be lethal.

  That being said, despite the apparent hopelessness of their situation, Riley and Sabrina were both taking great care to ensure they did not place themselves between the dragons and Spear Pillar itself. They did not want Dialga and Palkia’s attacks getting anywhere close to Ash and his battle. And though Riley wished he could expend some of his attention on keeping track of the status of that battle, he could barely keep Sabrina and Palkia in his periphery as is. Though by the sounds of it, Ash was having just as hard a time as them.

  No, knowing him, he was doing better than them. Despite being up against a stronger opponent, he wasn’t the type to simply run away. Doubtless, he’d already come with a plan to strike back against Volo and was executing it.

  Think, Riley! the Guardian demanded of himself. What else do you know about the Spacetime Dragons?

  During the Team Galactic debacle, Dialga and Palkia had also been forcibly summoned to Spear Pillar, though Riley doubted they were the same Dialga and Palkia up against them now. For one, the ones from back then weren’t Alpha Pokémon like these. And this time, Giratina the Paragon seemed to be personally involved. The Giratina that had appeared during the Team Galactic incident was far smaller and weaker than the entity Riley had encountered when they first got to Hisui, and frankly, it didn’t even seem right to refer to them by the same name. But ever since Raphael had told them the true names of the Paragons, he’d been thinking about how that “Giratina” from before tied in with the Paragon of Darkness.

  But, he’d come up with nothing. Which meant no additional help for their current predicament.

  Riley grit his teeth as he blitzed around the mountain, ducking behind an outcropping of rock. This battlefield is the worst for us. Spear Pillar is hardly large enough to accomodate Ash and Volo’s battle, and now Dialga and Palkia are flying around too! No doubt intentional on Volo’s part. We need better footing!

  As Riley flew around into Dialga’s blind spot (he hoped), he allowed himself to study the dragon’s body. Its colors, its skin, and the metallic parts that could only be described as alien all looked as Riley remembered it should from books and online pictures. The only difference seemed to be its size.

  Can we get them to follow us all the way down to the mountain’s base? Maybe, but if either one decided to abandon pursuit and go back up to gang up on Ash, it was questionable whether they’d be fast enough to divert their attention again. Maybe Sabrina was, but Riley, at the very least, did not believe he had the speed or firepower to keep Dialga on him all the way down. And if Volo designed this aerial battle intentionally to put us at a disadvantage, then I doubt he’d allow them to let us gain an advantage by taking the battle to the surface.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Each beam Dialga fired seemed to be getting closer and closer to Riley. He was running out of time.

  Can I force a melee exchange? he thought wearily. The beams were becoming tiresome. Maybe if he could get Dialga to try a different trick from its bag, he’d have better odds. Doubtful, at that size. Even at close range, it’d be better off sticking with the beams. If it ain’t broke, and all. And Dialga didn’t even seem to be getting close to getting tired.

  Wait… Riley thought.

  The Team Galactic debacle had been replaying subconsciously in the back of his mind, and he suddenly realized a certain detail about both incidents. Well, actually, it’d made him remember something he’d read about Dialga and Palkia once before.

  In both cases, Dialga and Palkia had been summoned to Spear Pillar. They didn’t fly down from the heavens and they hadn’t walked up to the temple on foot. They’d appeared out of thin air. In this instance, they may have already been here and all Volo did was conceal them; there were probably a million different things he could’ve done with his Plate to hide them. But in Team Galactic’s case, there was no doubt.

  They’d been forcibly summoned using an artificial Red Chain.

  But from where? Riley thought. That was what he’d just remembered. According to certain texts in ruins across Sinnoh, Dialga and Palkia lived within their own personal realms, their own dimensions. Even if Volo had only been hiding them, ultimately, that was likely where he or Giratina had initially pulled them from.

  Can we force them back? Maybe they didn’t need to actually defeat the Spacetime Dragons. Maybe, all they had to do was—

  No, no, no. Riley dashed the thought from his mind. Dialga and Palkia are masters of the dimensions. They’d simply rip open a hole and come right back. That was far too optimistic. No, Dialga and Palkia needed to be beaten into submission. Just like Decidueye, Unown, and Avalugg. But if we can at least get them back into their respective realms…if we can follow them inside, we could fight them one on one without having to worry about Ash…

  Was fighting them in their own personal domains really preferable to fighting them here, up in the skies? After a bit of thinking…Riley actually thought yes.

  Surely Sabrina was itching to let loose too, right? Teleporting around like she was indicated that the conditions were less than ideal to go on the offensive for her too.

  Of course, the obvious concern was how to return even if they defeated their respective opponents. Getting stuck in an alternate dimension within an alternate time period would be quite ironic, to say the least, Riley mused.

  Though to that end, Riley had come up with a plan. Really, it was more accurate to say it coincided with his plan to defeat Dialga, and that plan was truly…unhinged, for lack of a better word. This may be even crazier than anything Ash has come up with. Perhaps the younger man’s eccentricities were finally starting to rub off on him.

  With a grim smirk, Riley finally sent off a telepathic message to Sabrina, knowing she’d be listening. Sabrina! I have an idea for Dialga and Palkia!

  A few moments later, Sabrina’s voice came into his mind. Is that what they’re called? A few more seconds passed. What’s the idea?

  It seemed her telepathic voice was just as strained as her real one would’ve been had she been speaking aloud. Such is the ordeal of facing Palkia and trying to hold a conversation at the same time, Riley thought. Not that it mattered.

  We should force Dialga and Palkia back into their own realms! Riley said mentally. There, we’ll have free rein to battle them without having to worry about each other!

  How would we get back—?!

  Don’t worry about that, I’ll handle that! As you may have guessed, Dialga and Palkia’s weak points are the orbs on their bodies, the source of their power! I believe if we target them there, they may come to believe that it’d be more prudent to deal with us in their own domains!

  That was almost pure speculation on Riley’s part, but he was banking on the fact that Volo knew next to nothing about the dragons. Most of modern day knowledge about them, what little of it existed, hadn’t come from this far back in time, so Riley assumed Volo only knew the very basics, like their names, that they were dragons, and that they held command over the forces of time and space . He likely wasn’t privy to the intricacies of their behavior. Even modern scholarship didn’t have much, if anything, on that subject, as far as Riley was aware, but at the very least, he knew they’d opened up portals and disappeared the moment they’d been freed from Team Galactic’s clutches. That suggested to Riley that they preferred their own domains. And if their power sources were directly targeted, they’d probably want a battlefield they were familiar with.

  Lots of hasty conclusions, admittedly, but what other choice do we have? At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before we’re incinerated and Ash is left on his own!

  At first, due to the silence in his head, Riley thought Sabrina was denying his idea, but eventually, he heard her again.

  Alright! If you can stall them both for a few seconds, I’ll attack them both at the same time!

  Riley smiled. She was quick on the uptake; that was going to be his next request. He wasn’t strong enough to threaten Dialga badly enough for it to want to return to its realm, at least under these circumstances. Sabrina would have to be the one to attack them simultaneously. Which meant Riley needed to incur Palkia’s wrath too.

  Palkia roared, the sound echoing through the falling snow, as it unleashed another barrage of violet arcs toward Sabrina. The psychic zapped between them, but could see she was moving away from it, leaving him room to take them both on.

  How considerate.

  The Aura around Riley’s body flared and he rocketed toward Palkia. Even without turning, he could hear Dialga snort and race after him. Possibly due to the minuscule threat he posed, Palkia didn’t even take notice of him until he was right in front of it. Riley felt Palkia’s indignant rage shift to him before he saw its baleful eyes glance down, and he bristled nervously. Heat blossomed through the winter air as Palkia’s arms began to glow, and it raised them, ready to tear him apart with Spatial Rend. Similarly, he heard Dialga charging another Roar of Time, a sound he’d become all too accustomed to over the past several minutes.

  Gritting his teeth, Riley urged more Aura into his body, increasing his velocity, and he shot slightly downward, through Palkia’s legs. The dragon whipped its tail toward him, but he narrowly dodged it.

  The iron taste of blood coursed through Riley’s throat, but he ignored it. He could handle a few seconds of surpassing his limits if it meant allowing Sabrina to catalyze the next phase of the battle. Due to his proximity to Palkia, neither dragon could fire off their attacks immediately, but such a trick would not stall them long, and they swiftly angled around, both legendary foes bearing down on him, oozing threat.

  “Sabrina!” Riley yelled. It’d been a few seconds! Her turn!

  Suddenly, both dragons twisted in the air. A jagged crack blitzed across the gem on Dialga’s chest, and the light emanating from Palkia’s shoulders faltered.

  Above them, her eyes gleaming a harsh violet, Sabrina’s arms were outstretched. The air around her hands warbled violently, as if boiling.

  Dialga glared at her, but before it could move, Riley lunged at it, brandishing a blade of Aura in his hand. He crossed the sword in front of his body, prepared to slice at the crack in Dialga’s core, but Dialga suddenly shuddered, and the crack sealed up immediately. Riley’s face wrinkled as he slammed his sword into Dialga’s core, however, it didn’t even leave a scratch. Of course it healed instantly. Why not.

  Zipping around to Dialga’s back, he tried plunging his sword into what appeared to be a softer part of its body, but before he could, Dialga soared away out from beneath him, leaving him to skewer naught but air.

  With the original matchups now restored, Dialga once again glared at Riley, and he could see Palkia doing the same to Sabrina in his periphery. C’mon…take us to your home!

  Behind him, the air sputtered, and a thin azure rift twice as tall Alpha Dialga burned into being, ethereal energy seeping from the galactic beyond.

  Riley grinned triumphantly. Yes! Glancing over at Sabrina, he saw that Palkia had made the same decision; a magenta rift bled behind Sabrina, and the psychic was backing toward it cautiously.

  Quickly refocusing on Dialga, Riley saw the mythical time dragon hunker down, prepared to charge straight at him. Goodness, Riley cursed. He flooded his body with Aura, diverting as much as he could toward enhancing his defenses. A trickle of blood fell from his nose.

  Similarly, Palkia cried out, its entire massive body brimming with energy.

  Mere seconds before Dialga charged toward him, Riley found the strength for one last act.

  “Good luck!” he screamed, unable if Sabrina could hear him. It was a message for her as much as it was for Ash, and for himself.

  Dialga launched forward with a deafening roar, closing the distance in an instant.

  Pikachu cried out as the black Koraidon’s tail smashed into his midsection, sending him hurling back to the ground at Ash’s feet. He groaned, but soon staggered to his feet, panting.

  Ash cursed silently. The black Koraidon smirked and licked its lips as it loped across the temple grounds, and the red one still hung in the air, ever the insufferable sentinel.

  To his credit, Volo hadn’t been bluffing when he’d said he’d come prepared this time. The Koraidons’ strength surpassed Ash’s initial judgment, and they weren’t even infused with Volo’s darkness yet. It was like fighting two legendaries at once—not as powerful as the Alpha Dialga and Palkia, but he wagered they could battle Cynthia’s Cresselia and Darkrai to a standstill.

  And speaking of Dialga and Palkia, they’d just disappeared along with Sabrina and Riley. Ash wished he’d gotten more of a heads-up or some time to digest their situation, but all he’d gotten was a quick mental shout from Sabrina that this was “Riley’s plan” and “not to worry about them.”

  Ordinarily, that request would be impossible for him to oblige, but at the moment, he literally couldn’t spare them the thought.

  “Dragon Pulse!” Volo commanded. “And Giga Impact!”

  “Defend with Iron Tail and Thunderbolt!”

  Pikachu’s tail hardened as he dashed forward, and a rippling cloak of energy blustered into view around the black Koraidon. Static danced around Pikachu’s body and he squeaked angrily as the red Koraidon darted behind him, charging dragon energy in its maw.

  Not to be arrogant, but Volo was a simplistic fighter. The difference between his battle style and that of a World Champion-caliber trainer was stark. His orders were short and blunt, and he’d done little more than issue command after command consisting only of two seemingly random attacks for the Koraidons to tag team Pikachu with. It was easy enough to defend against, but it left little room for counterattack, and Volo was slowly racking up damage on Pikachu. The last pair of attacks had been Meteor Beam and Dragon Tail, and due to the sheer width of the Meteor Beam, Pikachu had needed to let the Dragon Tail hit him and roll into its trajectory to mitigate the damage as best he could.

  Ash’s stalling was mainly due to the three remaining pokémon on Volo’s belt. If they were anything like these two, and even the Garchomp, Pikachu wouldn’t be able to run through them all. Not without my help at least. That was the sticking point. Ash was holding out on using his Plate as long as possible, knowing he’d need as much energy as possible for the inevitable showdown with Giratina, and Volo before that.

  A tremendous clang burst out from Koraidon and Pikachu’s collision and sparks flew as the two forces grated against each other. As the red Koraidon’s Dragon Pulse tore toward Pikachu, lightning lanced out from his body, meeting it in midair without him even having to turn around.

  Ash’s eyes narrowed. This is it. “Pikachu, flip away and use Electric Terrain!”

  Pikachu grunted and slipped his tail around the black Koraidon’s face, then batted it away. At the same time, he disengaged the red Koraidon, letting the Dragon Pulse scorch the ground he’d been standing mere milliseconds ago, but he somersaulted out of the way, putting distance between himself and the two dragons. Sucking in a breath, he growled, and blinding electricity blistered across the temple like fire, crawling across the floor and up the pillars.

  “Dragon Claw and Flamethr—“ Volo started.

  “Golden Serpent!” Ash roared, thrusting his hand forward.

  The electricity around Pikachu crackled and thundered, his cheeks sparking as he sent a surge of power into the ground. A guttural howl echoed through the temple, emanating from around Pikachu, as the black Koraidon blitzed toward him.

  As Koraidon raised its claws to strike, jade energy dancing on its hands, a gleaming column of electricity erupted beneath it, slamming into its stomach and throwing it into the air. The electricity blazed, golden scale-like patterns rippling across its surface, and a low growl echoed from its horned dragon head.

  “What in the world?” Volo screeched.

  A jet of fire shot from the red Koraidon’s mouth, but Pikachu’s serpent swam through the air and intercepted it, swallowing the attack whole through its fanged mouth. Lacy whiskers fluttered beneath its royal snout, and it fixed the red Koraidon with an imperious glare, before lunging toward it. Koraidon squawked in alarm as the serpent rammed into it, thunder echoing through the temple upon impact.

  “Fire Blast and Outrage!” Volo demanded, his tone saturated with fright.

  The Koraidons twisted and shook off the damage, unleashing their devastating attacks. However, the serpent simply coiled and plunged straight back down into the ground, disappearing into the electricity as if it was water. Then, before they could comprehend what had happened, it reappeared, ripping out of the electricity behind them and blasting through both of them in a single zap. Blinding light flashed through the temple and the Koraidons screamed in agony.

  “Focus down the black one!” Ash ordered.

  Pikachu’s tail twitched, and the electric dragon responded accordingly, twisting through the air and lurching toward Koraidon. Volo hadn’t seemed to notice, but Pikachu had his tail planted in the ground, and he controlled the serpent through its minute movements, as if his tail was a steering wheel. However, if his tail lost contact with the Electric Terrain, his command over the serpent would be severed.

  Fortunately though, the black Koraidon could barely raise its head in the electric dragon’s direction, collapsed as it was on the ground, before it was suddenly assaulted by a full deluge of electricity. Pikachu’s serpent tore into it, unleashing the full force of its power into Koraidon’s body. The black dragon convulsed and seized on the ground as the golden serpent disappeared into its body. Its roars of pain echoed through the temple, but before long, they quieted, and its body stilled. Its skin was scorched even darker than before, and wisps of electricity zipped across it.

  “Impossible…” Volo breathed. Then his expression hardened. “Get up, Koraidon, and avenge your brother! Use Collision Course!”

  “Thunder, then Volt Tackle!”

  The red Koraidon snorted and clawed the ground, heaving itself up. Fury burned in its eyes, and it glanced at its fallen twin, then at Pikachu. Fiery light bled into existence around it and it clenched its teeth, taking flight once more.

  But Ash had long since clocked its favor for the sky, and not a moment later, a colossal pillar of lightning smashed down on it with a low crack, once again grounding it. It screeched in frustration, but that was when Pikachu slammed into its jaw, electricity glittering around him. The Koraidon’s eyes went white and it fell backward, collapsing onto a pile of ruined rocks.

  Pikachu moaned as he landed, and he buckled under his own weight, slumping onto his arm. The electricity around him faded, and a few moments later, the Electric Terrain lifted too, blowing away in the winter wind. He turned back toward Ash, his eyes full of sorrow, and he released a squeak of exhaustion.

  “Don’t worry, Pikachu. You did more than enough. I’ll be fine.” Ash palmed his Hisuian pokéball and recalled his partner, then fixed his gaze on Volo.

  Volo trembled in place, his body slick with sweat. He swallowed, his eyes blank as he stared at his defeated Koraidons. As if on auto-pilot, he unclipped their pokéballs from his belt and recalled them, leaving the two Platebearers the only beings left at Mount Coronet’s summit.

  Next — Chapter 82 : Riley vs Dialga

  My schedule may become even more inconsistent than it has been the past few weeks/months going forward, unfortunately. However, I’m about half a million words deep into this fic and I’d like to see it through to the end, so chapters will continue to release, even if it takes me longer than seven days to get them finished!