PARAGON

  Hisui Incursion Arc [33]

  Chapter 85 : Hisui Incursion

  Kamado watched, speechless, as Ash’s light engulfed him, and everyone. He could’ve sworn a meteor or two had hit him, yet he felt nothing, aside from an invigorating strength welling up from inside him. To the side, Rei and Akari looked similarly starstruck.

  As Ash’s meteors continued to rain down, Kamado squinted, trying to pierce the blinding veil. Volo was lost behind the light, but that there hadn’t been any retaliation yet had to be a good sign. Subconsciously, his eyes drifted back to Ash.

  The man stood tall, resolute against the seething darkness that’d almost engulfed him, and even now, he looked as strong as a statue as he directed the very heavens onto his hated enemy.

  This was fantasy.

  Decades Kamado had lived, and he’d seen many things throughout. This eclipsed every single one of them. Even in his wildest dreams, he could not fathom even the strongest pokémon he’d ever known pulling off a feat like this. And yet, Ash was human. Or was he? Could someone who could do something like this really be called human?

  Kamado hadn’t even noticed when the storm of light finally ceased and the cacophony of divinity quieted into silence.

  Still, Ash stood tall and motionless.

  At the far end of the temple, Volo lay against one of the temple’s pillars, blood leaking from his nose. Gone were his demonic attributes; he looked like little more than a frail vagrant now. His sallow chest rose and fell slowly, and his eyes were glassy, staring into nothingness.

  “Ash…?” Rei said beside Kamado, knocking him from his stupor. He began to walk toward the young man.

  “Wait,” Kamado said, his voice gravelly.

  Carefully, Kamado paced closer to Ash. He frowned.

  Something is wrong.

  As he circled around to the young man’s front, it soon became clear why.

  Although Ash stood on his feet, his eyes had rolled back into his head. He was unconscious.

  “Bring my bag,” Kamado barked. “Quick!”

  “That won’t help.”

  Kamado turned to see the Guardian Riley sliding off of Braviary’s back, rubbing his head. Behind him, Sabrina had sat up and was rubbing her eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Kamado demanded. “He’s injured terribly! I have herbs with me that can heal a man—“

  “That’s not the issue.” Riley nodded in Ash’s direction. “Look. His injuries are gone.”

  Kamado frowned, studying Ash’s bloodied clothes. It was difficult to tell, but it didn’t look like he was still bleeding. And despite his unconsciousness, he stood as if he were perfectly healthy.

  “He’s completely spent,” Riley said quietly, approaching the younger man. “Not only did that attack defeat Volo, it also restored his and our bodies. Something like that…he would’ve needed to use all his strength.” Even Riley sounded incredulous at what his friend had just done. “I will ameliorate his condition.”

  Kamado heard a choking sound behind him, and he turned.

  Sabrina clambered off of Braviary’s back and loped toward Ash, her eyes bloodshot.

  Riley scowled. “Restrain her!”

  Sabrina’s chest heaved, and violet light began to leak from her eyes.

  Kamado raised his hand to issue an order, but Akari surged up from behind Sabrina and grasped her hand. Sabrina whipped around, hellish fury and sorrow alike blazing in her eyes, but Akari met her gaze with an undaunted one of her own. Still holding her hand, she wrapped Sabrina in a tight hug. The psychic flinched, but her errant power seemed to calm, and Kamado breathed a sigh of relief, turning away from his pokémon. Braviary’s eyes lingered on Sabrina, wary, but he soon turned away as well.

  The glow of Aura burst out from Riley’s palms as he began his treatment of Ash, now laid down on the floor of the temple.

  But Kamado’s attention was snagged by something else.

  “Hey! Rei!” he barked.

  Rei padded toward Volo, a pokéball gripped tightly in his hand.

  Kamado ran toward Rei and snatched his sleeve, pulling him back. “What are you thinking, boy?” he snarled.

  Rei glared at Volo, his young eyes saturated with hatred.

  Hearing the nearby fuss, Volo moved, tilting his neck so he could glimpse Rei. “Don’t worry…Kamado,” he murmured. “I can do…nothing now. You’ll…have to protect me…from this boy’s rage…”

  Rei ripped himself free of Kamado’s grip. “Traitor!” he spat.

  Volo nodded absentmindedly, as if accepting the label.

  “Do you know how many members of the Survey Corps died because of the Alpha Pokémon? Huh?!”

  Volo shook his head. “Scraps…compared to the world beyond these shores. I’d do it all…again.”

  This time, it was Kamado’s turn to scowl. “Everything you did, you did for the greater good? Is what we’re to believe? Why then would you erase our memories?”

  “Give us our memories back!” Rei roared, his face twisted in anger.

  “You…no longer…need them. You already…returned to my home. Giving back your memories…will not repair that village.”

  “Do you feel nothing?” Kamado sneered. “After everything you’ve done?”

  A thin smile twitched across Volo’s face. “Damn…you. If only he hadn’t mentioned it…I never would have had…to remember. What was once there…is now just…void.”

  “Do something!” Rei yelled, stomping his foot. “Fix this! Fix everything! Close that hole!”

  Volo’s smile faded and he glanced skyward. “Twisting Oblivion… Ah…right… I still…must uphold…my end of the deal.”

  He started to raise his hand, but in a flash, Kamado’s katana was on his neck. “Don’t move,” the head of Jubilife Sanctuary growled.

  Volo rested his head on the flat of the blade, allowing his sharp edge to press into his skin. “Did Ash not tell you? You can’t…kill me. You got lucky…before.”

  Blood beaded on Volo’s neck, sliding down the sword’s edge. He frowned. “No…” He recoiled and swiped a hand across his neck. His eyes trembled as he stared at his bloodstained hand. “No…” His head whipped skyward, and a line of saliva leaked from the corner of his mouth. “He’s coming.”

  Thunder roiled overhead. Dark storm clouds had slid across the sky, bathing the temple in an ominous darkness. The very air began to stink, as if a storm was coming.

  “Rei! Kamado! Get away from him now!” Riley roared.

  Kamado sheathed his sword and snatched Rei by his collar before tearing across the grounds of the temple. As he turned around, he saw Volo smirk.

  Braviary squawked in alarm, flapping his wings erratically. Riley was dragging Ash’s body toward the temple’s edge, but he still hadn’t awoken. As Akari tried to calm Braviary down, Sabrina raised her hand, and Ash lifted into the air. Riley nodded in thanks.

  A gale of darkness belched from the now spiraling vortex above, racing over the temple and bathing the entire summit in an infernal haze. Ash dropped unceremoniously to the ground as everyone was thrown off their feet at the sudden shaking of the mountain beneath them.

  Sweat trickled from Kamado’s brow as he stared at the otherworldly maelstrom. This could be the end of Hisui. No, even beyond…

  Golden claws stained red emerged from the rift and closed around its edge. The temperature plummeted, and Kamado shivered. Shadows dripped across the temple’s wounded granite, pooling in swamps of malefic acid. Another claw grasped the rift’s edge, then another, and another.

  Blue light burst to life in Riley’s eyes, purple light in Sabrina’s, but even together, they seemed like mere candles in a hurricane.

  A ghostly face unlike anything Kamado had ever seen pushed its way through, and what must have been its maw opened slightly, for he saw rows upon rows of spinelike teeth within. The creature’s skin was gray but ringed in a golden exoskeleton that pulsed with a foul crimson light. Two pitch-black sheets opened over the temple, its webbed edges lined with blood-red spikes. It took several moments for Kamado to realize they were wings.

  “QZHTJOMRVEWLYXCAPGIDNBFKSUROQTMVHLZEJYKXADCNIPG.”

  Kamado shuddered as the sound assaulted his ears. It was flowing from the massive creature, whose countless clawed legs were now crashing down onto the temple. A vicious tail as thick as a tree trunk whipped behind it, curling out from the rift like a serpent.

  “VNZKQJHDPWTSXIMRLYOACFEGUBQVXTRMNDZHSJOLAKIPYWGCFEUBRQNMSXTVZHDJOLKIPAYC.”

  Kamado gaped in horror as the creature’s mouth almost seemed to tilt up into a smile.

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  “LFYDZQJHPRXWONKVCGUT… Ah, right. Humans. There. You should be able to perceive my words now.”

  Its eyes swept over the temple, taking account of all who were gathered. As its gaze lingered on him, Kamado closed his eyes, praying it did not take any interest in him.

  “Stay back!” Sabrina growled, standing in front of Ash protectively.

  A low chortle echoed across the temple.

  “The Platebearer. Wake him up.”

  “We will never let you reach him,” Riley spat.

  Kamado could only stare in awe. How could these two even form sentences in the presence of something like that, much less stand up to it?

  But then he noticed Rei beside him, and Akari beside Braviary, both wearing a similar glare. Unmoved, and seemingly, unphased.

  Kamado sighed. I’ve been in the Sanctuary for too long.

  “Wake him,” the beast repeated. “I am not here for you.”

  “Now, Sabrina!” Riley called.

  A sphere of Aura the same size as the man himself blustered into existence before him, and he hurled it up at the demonic creature. At the same time, violet orbs of light shimmered into being around Sabrina and fired off crackling energy rays at a blinding speed.

  The monster gurgled, and the mountain shook as it shifted its weight. One of its wings swept around and batted both attacks aside like they were made of air.

  “Enough! Wake him now. I need to speak to him!”

  A tendril of shadows capped with a crimson spike shot out of the creature’s back. It spun over Riley and past Sabrina in an instant, and plunged into Ash’s chest. When the two touched, a burst of energy threw Riley and Sabrina aside, white light flashing through the temple.

  Ash’s friends stared in horror as the shadowy tendril withdrew from him, trembling as it did. A blinding light emerged from Ash’s chest, a jagged piece of stark white crystal lodged within. At first, Kamado thought the monster had impaled him with it, but it soon became clear it was pulling it out of him.

  “Hmmm. The Electric Plate. So that’s where it went.”

  With a violent jerk, the monster forced the crystal back into Ash’s chest and the light faded.

  “Wake up! Now!”

  Ash gasped, light pouring from his eyes and mouth as consciousness returned to him. He seized, before lurching up. Panting in place, his gaze trailed up the monster’s form. Taking in his surroundings and those with him, he then slowly got to his feet. “Giratina…”

  Yes…that was its name.

  Giratina grinned, darkness dripping from its alien lips.

  “Twisting Oblivion,” came a voice from beneath Giratina’s shadowy body.

  From the darkness, Volo limped forward, clutching his side.

  Giratina turned, twisting its wyrmish body to meet its servant.

  “Please forgive my failure. But now, together, we—“

  Another of Giratina’s tendrils whipped across its body and slammed into Volo’s stomach. The man flew back into a pillar and slumped to the ground, a smear of blood trailing from his head.

  “You’re no longer needed.”

  Ash scowled, concern even for his enemy etched across his face. “Why would you kill him?!”

  “He isn’t dead. Not yet. But his purpose is served. You are before me.”

  Ash faltered, but his determined visage swiftly returned. “You shouldn’t have revived me. Do you think I’ll go down without a fight?”

  “Do you think I’d have woken you up if I wanted you dead?”

  “What are you saying?” Ash demanded.

  “Volo must have told you of his machinations for harvesting Platebearers. In truth, you are the only Platebearer I was interested in. Everything was for the purpose of bringing you before me.”

  Everything…? The Alpha Pokémon…the rift…Volo…the Platinum Clan… All of that…was just for this?

  Giratina snorted, a dark cloud billowing from its face. “Do you doubt your importance? Or are you simply surprised I know his name?”

  “You don’t strike me as the type who’d remember names,” Ash muttered. “I’m even surprised you can speak to us.”

  “Don’t mistake us, Ash Ketchum. You may be mere insects to us, but even an insect has an insect’s strength. You will not be underestimated. And at times, it is prudent for us to interface directly with you in this way.”

  Ash shook his head. “Why did you bring us here? What do you want from me if you don’t want to kill me?”

  “I wanted to see you. Now I have.”

  “For what?! Do you know how much damage you’ve caused?”

  “Not all Platebearers are the same, Ash Ketchum. To us, who live beyond time and space, destiny is as solid as the stone beneath your feet. Volo, and the one before him, were not destined for nearly as much as you. I wanted to see you, as Arceus does.”

  Ash clenched his fists. Electricity crackled around them, but he did not raise them to fight. “Why won’t you kill me? Aren’t you Paragons after the Plates too? And why would you kill Volo? You’re just letting one of the Plates slip away from you!”

  “You’re laboring under the delusion that you and I play by the same rules. You humans cannot cull each other for the Plates, but we can. Volo’s Plate is mine, as is yours, if I wanted it.”

  “Don’t you?!”

  “Of course. But it does no good within me. The warfare between Necrozma and me is incomprehensible to your human mind, but know this. If I were to subsume a Plate, Necrozma would do the same, and nothing would have changed between us. It is far more beneficial to us within you humans. You tiny, nigh indistinguishable humans, who possess the power to change fate. Who command the element of unpredictability. For a war that began at the beginning of existence, these are the things that tip the balance.”

  Kamado glanced at Ash, utterly lost. He’d heard about Giratina and Necrozma from Ash and others yesterday, but he hadn’t had any context for the explanation. And even now, as Giratina itself stood before him, he couldn’t wrap his head around what the creature was saying. But at the sight of Ash’s deep glare, it seemed he did.

  “So you’re just going to let me keep the Electric Plate? Is that it?” Ash spat.

  Kamado understood Ash’s frustration. This being which had wrought so much chaos refused to fight, and now almost seemed to want to help him.

  Giratina glanced up at the sky, then back at Ash. “Not just the Electric Plate.”

  Giratina’s shadowy tendril spun through the air between it and Ash, and buried itself in the fallen Volo’s chest. Volo’s eyes went wide and he coughed up blood. The tendril trembled, then slowly withdrew. A jagged black crystal, glowing a dull crimson burst from Volo’s chest, and the man groaned in pain.

  “Stop that!” Ash cried.

  Giratina glanced back at him and sneered.

  A gleaming white lightning bolt shot toward Giratina’s tendril from Ash’s outstretched hand, but it suddenly jerked away, and the bolt sailed past. The crystal ripped from Volo’s body and he went lifeless, sinking to the ground. It shined with an ethereal darkness on the end of Giratina’s spiked tendril, and the creature hurled it into the ground, where it lodged between it and Ash.

  “Shuttle this into the future for me,” Giratina said. “It’ll be safer with you.”

  Ash glowered at Giratina, his face aghast. “Whatever game you’re playing, I won’t go along with it!”

  “Oh, I think you will. What else can you do? Leave the Dark Plate here? If you don’t take it, I will, and I’ll give it to someone with a far greater aptitude for evil than Volo. Perhaps you’ll find your future ruined when you return.”

  The Dark Plate… If I touch it, could I…?

  No! Kamado dashed the thought from his mind. This creature is twisting my sensibilities! Look at how it corrupted Volo so, and what became of his servitude! Kamado glanced at Volo’s limp body, his eyes wide and lifeless.

  When Kamado looked up again, he could’ve sworn he saw Giratina smirking at him, and he shuddered.

  “You have promise, Ash Kectchum. Go forth and gather more Plates. Once you have more, I’ll kill you then and take them back. Satisfied?”

  Kamado saw Ash’s gaze flick between Giratina and the Dark Plate, a foul aura emanating from it.

  “Where… Where is Arceus now?” Ash asked.

  “Everywhere and nowhere.”

  “Everywhere…,” Ash murmured. “The Plates are scattered… Unity and incarnation… The Origin Child…”

  “The Origin Child,” Giratina snorted. “There will never be an Origin Child. Arceus will never incarnate. Existence belongs to me! To oblivion!” The dragon grinned, its eyes glittering with malintent. “I will not stop until all of reality is of Giratina!”

  “All of reality…?” Ash repeated. “You want to replace Arceus?”

  “‘Tis my birthright. I will be God. Just a little longer… Just a little longer, and the war will finally end.”

  “And when it does, what becomes of this world?”

  Giratina simpered, its massive wings pulsing behind it. “Arceus’ creations will cease to exist. This world, this existence, this reality, and his Plates, naturally. No proof of its existence shall persist within my infinite domain.”

  Ash pulled his cap low over his eyes. “We’ll never let that happen.”

  “Try and stop me, then. Bear the power of the Dark Plate. Bear more of Arceus’ soul. And find me again. This is not the last time we will meet.”

  “We’ve met before,” Ash said. “Or was I beneath your gaze then?”

  Giratina chortled. “What you met then was nothing but a sentinel, akin to a single atom of my great being. A shadow on the wall. Even this form before you now is but a fraction of my consciousness. You don’t truly think this is the extent of my form, do you?”

  Ash glanced at Riley and swallowed. Judging by the Guardian’s inert expression, it seemed even he wasn’t sure of the truth of Giratina’s words.

  “Tell me one last thing, Giratina,” Ash called. “Necrozma is your enemy, aren’t they? So where are they? And what are they planning?”

  Giratina looked up at the sky, then back down Ash. “Excellent inquiries. I’d like nothing more than to tell you, but unfortunately, we’re out of time.”

  Giratina suddenly lurched forward and one of its colossal legs bent and snapped, twisting into the shape of a humanoid arm and hand. “You can have this back in a moment.” Its hand grasped the Dark Plate, and its crystalline shape morphed and shifted into a long, jagged spear. Without warning, Giratina ripped it from the ground and swung it skyward.

  The dark storm burst apart, azure light flooding the peak of Mount Coronet from above. A resounding gong echoed outward, and a screeching keening followed it.

  Kamado shielded his eyes from the sudden explosion of light. He put a protective hand in front of Rei, as if that was any help.

  “You again. This is now the second time you’ve forestalled my enterprise.”

  Kamado heard the thud of boots hitting the ground and he pulled his arm away from his eyes, squinting.

  “You’re trespassing on sacred grounds, O Twisting Oblivion. Return to the shadows from whence you came.”

  Giratina’s laugh echoed through the temple like a smoky blizzard, thick and foul. “It’s as I said, Ash. If there’s one thing you humans are good at, it’s changing fate.”

  In front of Ash, a new figure stood tall, a blinding sword of azure clutched in his gloved hand. A roughspun cloak billowed behind him, but the navy blue of his attire beneath was unmistakable. He even looked like Riley with his spiky black hair that grew low over his eyes.

  “Sir Aaron!” Ash exclaimed, a smile breaking across his face.

  “Apologies for the delay, but this one erected a sort of barrier around Hisui that took some time to bypass.”

  Sir Aaron? Kamado remembered reading Laventon’s report from when he’d first encountered these denizens from the future. They’d mentioned looking for Sir Aaron… But Sir Aaron died five hundred years ago… Was the man before them really the legendary hero?

  “Hmmm.” Giratina glanced from Sir Aaron, to Ash, to Sabrina, to Riley. “There is too much power gathered here. This form cannot best you all. As you wish, I will withdraw,” Giratina intoned, forcing the Dark Plate back into the ground, where it promptly shrunk back down to size. Its entire body began to melt away into pitch-black shadows, pouring upward into the vortex it’d emerged from. “Remember what I told you, Ash. We will meet again.”

  Giratina’s head was the last to disintegrate, but soon, what remained of its body was naught but a thick smoke, and that too disappeared into the rift. The maelstrom of darkness around them receded, giving way to the sunlight beyond. Then, finally, the rift began to close, sky and sun eating across its dark existence until no trace that it had ever existed remained.

  It’d been easy to forget it was the middle of the day, but now, the sun shined down from above as usual, snow drifting slowly onto the temple’s now marred floor.

  “I apologize for the delay,” Sir Aaron said, turning around to greet Ash. “You must be the one I found. Would you please tell me your name?”

  Next — Chapter 86 : Back to the Future