The Trial of Juno Saga [PG-13]

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 2
The Passing​

We were safe, for now. As long as we stayed in the trenches, the only threats we were going to face were from the Narzek soldiers. Still, it was nearly impossible to speak or hear anyone with all the pounding of machine gun fire blasting everywhere and Pokémon attacks exploding against the ground. I couldn’t see the tower anymore, so I didn’t even know what direction to head in. Still, Captain Davidson knew was he was doing, and what other sensible alternatives did we have besides trusting his leadership? The five of us followed him as he got back up to his feet and made his way through the trench. All the while, pounding explosions, rattling gunfire, and dying screams deafened our ears as we slipped further away from sanity.

But now we weren’t so safe anymore. Any time we rushed forward and moved closer to the tower, anyone up there in the tower could see us in the open and fire down at us, and we wouldn’t stand a chance. Whether they were distracted or not could make the difference between survival and death. Our best option to survive it was to move quickly down the length of the trench as a group. That way by the time they spotted us, it would be too late for them to open fire by the time we reached the other side.

Already we were deep into enemy territory and we were some of the only few that made it this far into this sandy hellhole. Just as we quickly made another turn in the complex trenches, the Captain and two of the Privates in the front opened fire upon the stationed Narzek soldiers hoping to create a flanking ambush directed at a second allied squad of ours. But even after I watched those two Narzek men fall to their death after being shot repeatedly, all we did was keep moving, and just focus on the task at hand. Not once did we even consider that we had just taken another man’s life…

We made it closer to the tower, but once again, we had come toward one of the forward trenches. Again, we had to move quickly as a group, and we had to do it faster now, since every forward trench we came to was going to be worse than the last one, simply because we were getting closer to the tower and it was becoming easier from them to see us running in the trench from the tower’s position.

“We can make it,” The Captain assured us. “Just keep together and we’ll make it through.”

Then after he had counted to three, we furiously dashed down the length of the trench. While we were running, I heard a shout but we didn’t stop. Soon after, they began firing upon us but we quickly made it to the wall, where they wouldn’t be able to see us. But then, it wasn’t long before I had realized one of us had been left behind.

“Captain,” one of the Privates informed him, “Private Sanders is still down in the trench.”

I had quickly looked back and saw one of the Privates laying down back in the middle of the forward trench, lying on his stomach and trying to reach out to us. I couldn’t understand what he was saying but he sounded desperate…

“Come on…” The Captain muttered to himself in frustration. “Just get up and get out of there.”

“Sir, look at his leg,” The Private responded anxiously. “His leg was shot. There's no way he's getting back up without help.”

After I noticed the pant leg of his uniform was soaked in his blood, I knew there was no way he could walk on his own. I didn’t want to leave Private Sanders there alone in the dirt and sand either, but it was suicide to try and go back to get him.

“I know that, Private,” Captain Davidson replied, looking at the fallen soldier. “But we can’t go back to get him. It’s too risky.”

“Sir, I’m not going to stand here and let that soldier die,” The Private replied. “You wouldn’t want us to do that if you were him. Just give me some covering fire, I can do this.”

After thinking about it for a few critical seconds, the Captain then looked up to the Private. I was already feeling pretty sick looking at his expression.

“You have absolutely very little time to get him out of there.” The Captain warned him, “Grab his arms, and drag him out of there as fast as you can. I’m warning you though…”

But he didn’t even respond. Instead, he quickly dashed out to Private Sanders, and once he reached him, he pulled up his arms and started dragging him furiously. Sanders was screaming from the pain, but there was very little that could be done about it.

And then, out of nowhere, five deep gashes were suddenly ripped into the front of Private’s chest, and he stumbled backward, unable to control his balance from the force of the bullets that had just struck him. He had looked toward us with a winced face as his contorted hand grabbed the bullet wounds and was quickly saturated with his own blood. After he had dropped his rifle and had fallen backward to the ground, Private Sanders was then silenced with the same machine gun fire that had killed the Private soon after word, never to speak in this world again…

“Damn it...” Captain Davidson growled in anger as he turned his back to them. “Why the hell didn’t he listen…!?”

I knew why he did it, but I knew the risk as well, and it was from knowing that same risk that stopped me from trying to save the life of Private Sanders myself. I admired him for trying to rescue his comrade, but I knew there was very little chance of him actually successfully doing it. Instead, all we could do was turn around and continue with the mission. However, after seeing one of our own comrades fall before our eyes, we had already lost much of our morale…

We didn’t have much choice but to continue with the mission, and leave their bodies behind. After fighting our way to the second to last forward trench before we arrived at the tower, we took a deep breath. Our walk through the trench would now be easily seen, and we needed to be fast about it. If we stopped at all during the length, we were dead, plain and simple.

“Come on, we can do this…” Captain Davidson told us, urging us to prepare, “One… two… three…”

Then, we began to dash down the length of the forward trench, but then when we had reached the midway point, we had seen four Narzek soldiers appear before us at the end. We were trapped, and going back would be suicide. There was no choice but to fight here and now in those few critical seconds.

“Damn it!” The Captain shouted bitterly, grabbing his M-16, “Fire! Fire now!”

Immediately I was caught in a rush and began firing furiously. My heart almost sank as I watched Corporal Harrison get shot several times, and then fall to the ground, only grabbing air in his attempt to break his fall as he dropped his rifle. The Absol and the Luxray were next, both of them caught in the ambush before they even had the chance to attack. My heart was racing now as the only thing I cared about was where the bullets I was firing were traveling. It wasn’t until I saw the Captain struck in the chest with the machine gun fire and the Private next to him follow soon after did my soul feel weak and felt there was no way any of us were getting out of this. Both of them fell backward, thrown off of their feet from the merciless incoming fire.

Two of the Narzek soldiers went down, but it was just too little, too late. I turned my fire on the third, but only managed to get a shot on his shoulder before he was suddenly out of sight.

I had seen what had struck Captain Davidson, and it wasn't the four Narzek soldiers, it was the mounted 50 cal machine gun that had killed Private Sanders and the soldier that tried to rescue him just a few moments before. Only a split second later, I felt four hideous explosions of pain suddenly surge throughout my body. I cried out in pain as I suddenly became too weak to hold my rifle or stand on my feet, so I had to fall to my knees.

“Kossak!” The Private behind me shouted, knowing out of the three, I was the only one still left alive.

But after he cried, I suddenly heard him scream in pain as the machine gun fire was directed upon him, ripping through his uniform violently. I never even knew that Private’s name, yet the fact that he knew mine meant something deep to me as I stood there, unable to move.

I could feel the blood fill in my mouth, and suddenly it became too much for me to contain. I bent forward just a little to spit it out so I could breathe, but then my knees gave in, and as I fell to the ground I knew I didn’t have the strength to get back up again. I coughed and winced from the crippling pain, and I was too tired and cold to keep going. Every last ounce of energy was stripped from me, and even the sounds of gunfire, screams, and explosions were becoming a faint, jumbled mix of sounds that were rapidly fading away.

After several painful moments, I didn’t even hear the gunfire anymore. Everything was encased in silence, just before it was taken over by the darkness as I took those last breaths… soon pulled into the darkness…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 3
The New Homecoming​

I felt nothing for a long time. Then, slowly and carefully, I felt myself being lifted up, suddenly light as a feather and able to float freely and effortlessly. I didn’t open my eyes, since I still wasn’t sure where I was or if I really wanted to get up for that matter. Considering what I had just been through, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to stare death back in the face again. I had done it before, and it was not a welcome sight.

I could sense something bright and powerful before my closed eyelids, but I didn’t open them in fear of not knowing what it actually was. But then, I suddenly could feel my senses coming back. I could hear and feel things now, and only then did I slowly open my eyes. I didn’t expect to see what I first saw, but then, very strangely, it had all come back to me, like I had opened a book upon my past life and read and absorbed every fine detail about it.

I could feel a wet and cool sensation under me, and I then lied down in it, thinking the battle was finally over and I could cool myself off in the water to relieve the agony that I had just gone through. But as I did it, I felt different. It was the strangest feeling, suddenly so foreign for one moment, and then in time becoming so familiar with every passing second. After I fell into the shallow stream, I pushed up on my tiny hands, and looked at my reflection in the sparkling water, now looking at a face I had forgotten.

And then the memory became real. I looked into my shiny black eyes and my soft, yellow furred face, and I realized I was Juno the Pikachu, a life that I had left behind years ago to continue on my journey as Jake Kossak. As I had realized, both Juno and Jake Kossak had died, leaving my soul, one that was living between two completely different worlds, finally at the end of it all. But how was it decided that I would spend the remainder of eternity as Juno instead of Jake Kossak? Was the life of Juno the one that I was really meant to live? It suddenly made me question fate, or whether it was just a decision made completely on whim. Either way, I couldn't help but feel like I had no control over my own destiny.

Regardless, it was all gone now. The machine gun fire was replaced by the tranquil sound of the flowing water, and the dirt and sand of the Orre wasteland was now a long mirror of water that stretched for miles between purple mountains as it traced its way back to the everlasting and brightly colorful sunset. I watched the white waterfall in the distance creating a cloud of mist into the pond the water flowed in, and then turned to look at the soaring Wingull head toward the horizon, and then disappear into the distance. It was a place that could only be possible in dreams. I had been here before, but still didn't know where I was.

As I slowly walked through the shallow water, trying to get used to walking as Juno once again, only one thought crossed my mind…

It was finally over. I didn’t care whether we had won or lost, just so long as I could rest. I had remembered this place now. This was the place where I had been after I had died as Juno and continued my life as Jake Kossak. But now, both of those lives were over, ironically both of them dying in combat. Regardless, the days of living in those two worlds had passed. Tomorrow I would no longer stand, but instead find my comfort here, in this realm of tranquility and peace, a place where violence and hatred could never pierce its adamant foundations of placidity. Whether I did it as a human or a mousy Pikachu, at this point, I didn’t care. Somehow, as I was Juno now, there was a feeling of wholeness that wasn’t there before when I had been human. I figured it was fate trying to tell me something…

And then, like the shadow of an angel, I had seen a winged figure emerge from the distance, never needing to beat her wings to stay afloat as she soared through serene wind that lightly blew around. After she drew closer and closer to me, I had been enveloped by a sensation of revelation as I had recognized the face of a genuine friend that I had left behind so many years ago. I looked upon Blazewing, my Latias, a true companion of mine that had died to save me on the hard battlefield long ago. I had seen in her eyes that while she was finally content to see me here, she still seemed surprised that it had occurred so early in time. Unfortunately, that’s the way it was with war. It was always about lives given up early to prolong the lives of others.

She had landed on the clear water, causing its mirror surface to ripple around her like a pulsing aura. She then turned to me, and looked upon me with her shiny, topaz, innocent eyes.

“You’re here earlier than I thought you would be…” Blazewing had told me, looking into my eyes with a sign of dismay. “How could your journey as Jake Kossak be over so soon?”

“For the same reason I never lived a full life as Juno,” I told her, feeling a bit melancholy about the whole thing. “War. No matter whether it’s fought with firearms, blades, or technology, it doesn’t make a difference where the battle wages, war never changes, and it always ends the same way…”

I didn’t want to think about what I had lost. I knew I had lost a lot during those last moments. I lost friendships and memories that were burnt to a crisp as I realized those moments would never be spent that way again. Those times had all met their end, but there would be better things to look forward to. I could feel it now, and I could sense that a new beginning was going to flourish off of that old beginning’s end. I didn’t need to think about those hard times anymore. Unlike other soldiers that had doubts there was life after death, I knew… I had something to look forward to for once, despite the price there was to get there…

“I’m glad I had another chance to see you again,” I told Blazewing, having missed her a lot during those long years. “But we’re free now. It’s over…”

“It’s been long time, Juno…” Blazewing had replied, looking off to the horizon, “But you’re home now. I’m sure you’ll love it here. They call this place ‘Utopia,’ the heaven of Pokémon.”

It sure seemed like it, though I found it fascinating Pokémon had their own rendition of Heaven. The cool breeze was refreshing, and the air was crisp and clear. No doubt that this was the perfect place to wash away all the pains and sorrow of the past lives. The hard burdens that I had gone through would no longer hold me down, for they were gone and could not find me here. What happened now wasn’t up to me anymore. My time was done…

“How has Sita been?” I asked Blazewing, knowing it was also a long time since I’ve seen her.

“She’s been wanting to speak with you for the longest time,” Blazewing had told me, looking into my eyes. “Come, I’ll take you to her.”

She then turned around and let me climb upon her back. As soon as I had mounted myself on her back and made myself comfortable, she then took off into the air, and I was instantly greeted with a pleasant wave of reminiscence as I remembered flying with her long ago. I had only been in this tranquil place for only a few minutes, and already I had been peacefully greeted with more contentment than I could ever experience in a normal lifetime. I couldn’t help but smile as we flew between the purple mountains and as I gazed at our reflection on the water while we flew overhead. Truly these would be better times…

It was a shame that was all going to have to change…

We flew for many miles, but it didn’t seem that long considering how peaceful the journey was. Truly I would find more comfort here after many years of hard struggles. Where was my family and friends now? Most of them were gone, but the very few I did have, I tried to hold on to for as long as I could. I’ve come across so many kinds of people, but almost all of them had to be left behind. To say the least, I moved on, and I became someone very different. Someone they might never recognize even I stood before them...

Blazewing had told me that we had crossed into the fields of Utopia after we left the purple mountains and crystal lakes behind to enter a vast landscape of green hills and valleys. I had never seen this area before, but when it was opened up before me, I couldn’t help but be captivated by it. For once, the land seemed so untouched and unscathed. It seemed so different from the world before this…

Soon after, Blazewing had descended toward the ground, and I had seen Sita standing upon the grassy field, just waiting for me. Like me, she was also a Pikachu, and I had been very close to her long ago. But for some reason, she seemed different now. I didn’t think ten years could bring so much change to someone, but at the moment, she seemed so uneasy. I couldn’t imagine how, especially considering how peaceful and relaxing this place seemed to be.

After Blazewing had approached the ground, I hopped off and made my way toward Sita, feeling the gentle brushing of the blades of grass upon my feet as I walked toward her. However, before I even had the chance to say hello, her anxiety seemed to rob her of any passion she had to rejoice over my privilege to see her again. I knew at that moment it had to be pretty severe…

“I take it that you were deprived of a normal life...” Sita had concluded from my early presence. “The dawn has only just passed, and yet you are already here.”

“Unfortunately, war and combat exist everywhere,” I told Sita as a conclusion, trying to explain why I was here so early. “They all start for different reasons, but they never change and the result is always the same. Where unfairness and oppression exist, there will always be war.”

I would have rather met Sita on happier circumstances, but that clearly wasn’t the case anymore. Sita, Blazewing, and I all knew that I was here earlier than I should have been, that even if the human life I once had was trivial to the seemingly crucial role of Juno that I had to fulfill, it was still a life that was not fully lived. And I knew we could have lived more peacefully if both of us had the chance at a normal life, which neither of us had considering we both died at the ends of violence. Despite that, I still had questions. I wanted to know why I was here, for I still didn’t understand what was really going on…

“I still find it strange to be here,” I had told her, looking into her eyes. “Is this really where I belong? And really, who am I in the end? Am I really Juno, the one that destiny seems to guide me towards, or am I really Jake Kossak, the human I was originally born as?”

Sita had turned away a bit, and still seemed very downcast. I could tell it seemed like even while she was here in this realm of peace, she was still unable to rest from the tensions that surrounded her all the time. I could see this had been very hard on her and I only wished there was something I could have done to ease her emotional pain.

“In one world, a beautiful garden is spread out for nine acres in memory of you,” Sita had told me, still looking off to the side as she recalled a vision. “It is here where your body lies. There, they commend you for all your acts of bravery, and how you fought in the name of justice, peace, and freedom, and gave up everything to build a new era of happniness. Your name and legacy has been etched into solid stone so memory of you would never cease, and for the longest time, many Pokémon had gone there to pay tribute to you and find new inspiration for their morale and loyalty…”

And then, she looked toward me, and suddenly I felt very different and seemingly cold inside…

“In the other world, you are one white cross among fields and fields of other white crosses,” Sita continued, looking into my eyes. “The mourning space is only a few feet, and in that world, no one remembers what you went through in your fight for justice. Upon that cross, there is no name or memory of who you were or why you were there. Please tell me, Juno, which legacy would you rather live…?”

It became clear to me then as Sita’s revelation was the equivalent of a spiritual slap in the face. I never considered what I had left behind ten years ago and what effect it might have had on the Silver Rebellion. Half of me felt like I did it just because it was the right thing to do. All those memories of fighting and determination to try and pull through to be a part of that brotherhood had suddenly came back again. After that, I knew which destiny I wanted to live from now on, even if it was in stark contrast to how I had begun my existence.

Deep inside, it happened the very moment I was back in Randy’s living dreamworld and I decided to become Juno. I stepped into something far deeper than I could ever imagine, but all the signs around me kept telling me time and time again that it was meant to be… as if Jake Kossak’s only purpose in life was to become Juno so that he and Blazewing could emerge from a world where only dreams are possible to take on challenges and legacies that went far beyond anything I could have imagined. I shut my eyes for a moment and knew that I needed to continue down this path and not try to go back. But even now, I didn’t want to.

To me, Jake Kossak was dead. He died in the trenches of Orre, killed by machine gun fire, and was laid to rest bearing no name or no memory. Weighing one against the other, it made sense. Jake Kossak, as a human, wasn't anyone special. He wasn't anyone's hero, almost never did anything else for others, and even after the revelation of Juno, most of the life I spent as him was simply surviving off of menial jobs before getting drafted into the army.

Juno, on the other hand, lived a brief but totally different life. Even in those few brief years, I had accomplished more than what I did as Jake Kossak for as long as I managed to live in that position. Destiny wanted me to accept Juno as the fate to remain in now. I figured while I didn't have much choice in the matter, maybe it was the better way to go. There really was only one road I could go down now, so maybe it was time to make the life of Jake Kossak a distant memory. It would be difficult, but in time, maybe it would be easier. Those were the only things I could really consider at that moment.

Still, I couldn’t imagine why Sita was upset. I knew the two of us hadn’t lived the way we could have lived and we never truly had the chance to live it together, but from what I could see, we could do it now. I didn’t have a war to fight, or threats of enemies charging at the gates to steal and rob of us everything we had worked for. Here, in Utopia, we were safe and there was new life here. In truth, the past was a book I had closed and threw aside to collect the dust of forgotten memories.

“I understand Sita, but it’s over now,” I told Sita, trying to help her relax some of the tension away. “Please, let’s just try to rest in peace. The fighting has gone and passed. You’ve done all that you can. Blazewing and I are here for you, now. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, and I promise our new beginning will be a great one.”

Still, she looked uneasy, and I didn’t even know why. I knew how the past war really brought her down, but it was over. Why was she still so upset?

“Sita, the war is gone,” I continued, still trying to convince her while hoping this depression she was fighting wouldn’t be eternal. “Shouldn’t you be happy now that The Silver Rebellion lives in peace?”

And then, she looked toward me with a glance of dismay, as if I had said something completely and utterly wrong. I still didn’t know what was wrong, but intuition made me suddenly reconsider it all.

“The Eternal Silver Apex no longer lives in anything close to peace,” Sita had informed me, looking very downcast. “Immediately following the war against The Crimson Stars, a nation by the name of Black Onyx, an Imperial kingdom that had taken advantage of the weakened state of our nation in its time of reconstruction, had assaulted our people without mercy. Juno, every one of our cities has become a graveyard. Even the great city of Symarix fell under their control... or what's left of it.”

I felt sick, and even a bit guilty about being ignorant about it. If there was anything that I wished could have been a lie, it was that. In fact, I believe I felt even worse than Sita did at that moment as she told me this traumatizing revelation. Was it really too late now? Was everything we fought for suddenly lost? I couldn’t imagine that the great city of Symarix was in ruins I couldn't even picture in my mind. It seemed so hard to believe and I wanted to see the situation for myself, but I already saw it in Sita’s eyes, and it had a devastating effect on me. Not knowing for myself was painful, but I had a feeling that dark discovery would only quench curiosity and instead leave me with a painful sight and memory instead.

“They mostly live underground now, just hiding and trying to get back on their feet,” Sita told me, looking miserable about it. “They only have three underground settlements now, all of which are kept a secret. They used to come to your gravesite to pray until it was burned down to the ground, desecrated, and all that was left were charred and broken stones. Juno, as much as you did for them, it’s hard believe you were even once there.

No. I couldn’t imagine what Symarix would look like as a fallen city, especially after remembering how beautiful it was. After I looked down at the grass before my feet, I then felt a sudden urge. For a moment, in a place that should have been a realm of eternal rest, I was as restless as I could have ever been.

“No, this is too insane,” I told Sita, suddenly not wanting to be in Utopia regardless of how much it tried to relieve my tension. “I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t sleep while they struggle to keep alive. We can’t go back to the misery we lived in and just take it all to the grave. We can’t disappear after all we have come through. I can’t allow that to happen. Not to them…”

“Most of us find it nearly impossible to go back to the life we lived before,” Sita told me, trying to find an answer. “We were meant to leave the pressures and burdens of the past life behind. Juno, you of all are the most deserving of the peace and tranquility that comes with this renewed life. I won’t deny that I can’t help but grieve for their loss, but I can't help them…”

“Well, maybe I can,” I told Sita, making up my mind about it. “I didn’t fight hard for them only to have them fall to yet another ruthless nation. I'm not going to let everything I fought for the first time go totally to waste. Sita, I hope you can forgive me, but I’m going back to Kivistal any way I can. They still believe in me, and I can't say no to that. How can I rest here comfortably when they need my help?”

I wasn't even sure if escape from Utopia was possible. But something in my heart wanted me to go. Wanted me to find a way back and ensure that it wasn't all just for nothing.

In my eyes, I had already left this place behind. All I needed now was a way to do it…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 4
The Second Departure​

Waste.

I couldn’t rest. Memories of what I did as Juno the first time I was in Kivistal seemed distant and almost like a surreal dream, but they were there. The brutality and violence of the war I faced as Jake Kossak reminded me of it, but still, they were very different. It was... almost appalling to think that no matter where it took place, war never changed.

But the idea of everything being lost on Kivistal to this Black Onyx faction didn't make sense. I could understand how it happened, but then what was the purpose of me being there in the first place? Why had I been called beyond worlds and beyond death to save the Silver Rebellion when this Black Onyx faction would become the victor? It seemed like a broken strand of fate, and it left me without a logical answer. Instead, it left me with the desire to save whatever was left of the Silver Apex and find out more about this Black Onyx faction that Site spoke about.

There was a reason why I came to Kivistal in the first place, and it wasn’t to have all my efforts lost and to have the citizens of Symarix submerged in hopelessness at the hands of the Black Onyx. With those thoughts in my mind, I had turned to Sita, and looked into her shiny eyes.

“I have to go, Sita,” I told her, feeling a bit in dismay at the thought of leaving her behind so soon when we finally managed to reunite after many long years. “I’m afraid of what the people of the Eternal Silver Apex are going through and what this Black Onyx faction is doing to them. From what you’ve told me, I’d hate to see what their lives have become, but I can’t stand here and do nothing about it. If I need to be there to bring them back to what they used to have, then I have to return to them. But that means I’ll have to say goodbye, one last time...”

I knew it was going to be hard on her, but I was hoping that once this last conflict was done and resolved, we could finally rest in comfort, knowing the ones we had done so much for could finally live in eternal peace, untouched by those who would want to destroy it. Even though we had waited so long for it already, I still didn’t feel like the time was right.

“I want to be with you, but I can’t grab the courage to stop you, Juno,” Sita replied, looking down at the grass as she gathered her thoughts. “For even though a part of me begs for you to stay here, the other part beckons for you to continue the destiny that you and you alone were meant to have. It seems the last page of this journey has not been reached.”

Recommended Listening: Chicane - Salt water

I hated to leave her alone once again, but I knew she could never be happy again if she couldn’t spend the rest of eternity in peace and comfort if this was allowed to continue. And after they had done so much for me, how could I leave them behind to die without any purpose behind their survival after the first war? I wasn't going to just give it all up here. I've come way too far for that.

“The prophecy mentions nothing about this,” Sita told me, looking down for a moment and then looking back up again, “but I have realized that not all things that are meant to be are written down on paper. There are thoughts and feelings that we have that show we are the ones in control. So please, Juno. Don’t worry about me. The very presence of you within their company will be more than enough to bring back their spirits. Despite being so far away from you, I'll find a way to help you however I can.”

There was a part of me that didn’t want to leave this place behind, but finally I put that feeling aside, and then grabbed the will and courage that had prepared me to finally depart, and say goodbye once again to the one that had been so close to me.

“Head to the Opal Fields, Juno,” Sita instructed me. “There you will find the Well of Harmony sitting in the middle of a vast garden. That well can take you anywhere, as long as you have your mind set on the location. All you need to do is concentrate, and then plunge yourself into the water.”

“I will miss you Sita, but I won’t forget about you,” I told her, preparing to climb upon Blazewing’s back. “But please, don’t grieve while I am gone. There will be a time when we can finally rest in peace. Look forward to it in the future.”

Once I was seated comfortably upon Blazewing, I said a final goodbye to Sita, and then, we had taken off. It felt awful to leave her behind yet again after having only just spent a few minutes with her. Still, as much as the thought burdened me, I couldn’t let her stay in this kind of pain. It was just heart-wrenching. And the same thing for all the friends and allies I made while I was at Kivistal the first time. To think that they had gone through so much hell only to fall to yet another adversary was unbearable. In my eyes, the war was not over, not when my comrades were still fighting.

The journey to the Opal Fields was a long one, one that I didn’t expect to take to last for so many miles. For the first time, I entered deep into what this Utopia was supposed to be. We saw nothing but miles and miles of tranquil fields, tropical forests and peaceful mountain ranges. There was an endless feeling of peace here, and I couldn’t help but want to taste it for just a moment. Still, I had to restrain myself and focus at the task at hand. I didn’t know how long it would be before I would see this place again, but for now, I was going to have to leave it behind. The allure to stay here was hard to fight, however. I could see why very few Pokémon who had arrived here would ever consider going back to a life concluded.

Finally, we had arrived at the Opal Fields, which were vast and seemingly endless plains of glittering white grass. Trees were only occasional, but their leaves were also a pure white and they also glittered in the colorful light of the sunset sky. As we flew overhead, we also passed rivers of water that were so clear, the stone channels and the ripples of the water’s surface was the only indication that there was actually water there.

Miles and miles passed until we had arrived at a golden well, which I figured must have been the Well of Harmony. It was smaller than I thought it would be, only being twice the size of a normal well. Still, there was just enough room for Blazewing and I to dive into the water together.

“So there it is,” Blazewing had told me, even though I pretty much figured it out already. “There is an inscription on it that says ‘the Gateway to go anywhere the heart wants to go.’ It’s the only real exit from this place.”

“Then let’s go,” I told her, steeling myself against the sight of what Kivistal had become. “All we need to do is concentrate on the place we need to go. Just remember what Kivistal used to be, and with any luck we should be able to reach it.”

“Hopefully…” Blazewing replied, a bit skeptical, “Well, hope you’re ready, because I am.”

"Go for it," I told her, preparing for anything.

Then she charged forward at a very fast and furious speed toward the well. I could feel the wind rushing past me furiously as she picked up the pace. Then, when she had picked up enough speed, she flew upward into a back flip U-turn and then headed downward directly toward the well. I then shut my eyes, and tried to remember the world of Kivistal, and how it used to be. Even though it was still ten years ago, I managed to get a clear picture of what Symarix used to look like, with its giant metallic buildings, busy streets, and all its splendor. And then all of a sudden, I felt the rush of water all around me. Even though I was unable to breathe, I still focused on that picture in my mind.

And then I lost consciousness of everything…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 5
Dark Surroundings​

I wasn't sure how much time had passed since we entered the well, but when I had awoken, I found myself lying in some ashy, gritty soil. I then looked up, and instantly I felt like I landed in Hell itself. It was the most suddenly abrupt transition I had ever felt. The first thing I saw was the sky, and it looked like a river of blood in the air. Words couldn’t describe how much of a macabre thing it was to wake up to. Meanwhile, to accompany this grim sight, the only thing I could hear was a faint howling sound that never seemed to cease. However, as bad as it was, it felt far too real to be a twisted nightmare.

When I finally sat up, I saw the ground, charred black from what I guess must have been a long exposure to fire. I could still see the remains of several trees, only now they were twisted, bare, and lifeless, like black, nightmare hands reaching up and yearning to snatch something out of the horrific and dismal sky. Scattered around were several carved stones and pillars, which looked like they could have once been true pieces of art now left in ruins. Once I stood up, I felt the cold air blow past me more closely now, and when I backed up a bit, I bumped into something hard and firm behind me.

I quickly spun around in fear, and realized it was another stone, covered with soot and ash. The oily, black ash had deeply layered the stone mount and the small tribute statue itself. I took my paw, wiped away the ash, and for a moment, my breath was stolen from what my eyes had beheld…

I then came to the shocking revelation that the very place where I now stood was in fact my gravesite. Nestled above the stone mount was a stone statue of a valiant Pikachu riding upon a faithful and loyal Latias, only pieces of them were missing. Carved into the stone mount itself were the words, “Juno, the hero of souls. We remember-” and then the rest of the description was broken off.

And I was surrounded by the ravaged remnants of it. All the fallen pillars and stones, and all the work that had been put into this place was all for me, a tribute on behalf of the Silver Apex to thank and honor me for all that I had done to save their nation. Only now, it looked like twisted, misshaped catastrophe of its former self. The entire gravesite had been desecrated by the forces of the Black Onyx Imperials. Meanwhile, Blazewing looked at me, feeling seriously uneasy…

“This is…?” She said, quivering from the sight.

“I can’t believe it…” I told her, never thinking I would stumble upon such a thing. “It's... my own gravesite… and now it's gone…”

I could only barely manage to look at this place. Never once did I think I would one day look upon the location to see where I was buried, only to see it scorched to the ground and fallen apart. I turned around to look at the stone once more, and suddenly I heard a noise in back of me. Then they started to come from all around, and then we turned around, and were exposed to yet another hideous sight.

It appeared to be a group of soldiers, all Pokémon wearing black uniforms and carrying long silver rifles. The one in the center, an Azumarill, appeared to be the squad-leader of the group, which I assumed since he was wearing more medals than I could count. Blazewing had taken cover behind the stone to stay out of sight, but I only realized we were being watched when it was too late. However, since they only saw me… they couldn’t make the connection as easily…

“Well, well, well,” The Azumarill stated in a pompous tone. “What do we have here? A completely naked Pikachu. You must be from the Silver Apex, mustn’t you?”

I could smell evil a mile away, and this twisted soldier was absolutely reeking with it. I could already tell these were the same fanatics that had attacked the people of the Silver Apex, probably on a patrol to hunt down anyone still remaining. I didn’t even want to look at them. If these maniacs were really the Black Onyx, the thought of having to deal with their wretched filth was enough of an overburdening tribulation I was hoping I wouldn’t have to endure.

“I am the Elite Commander Cythan of the Golden Diadem League,” The highly-decorated Azumarill introduced himself out of egotism. “Tell me, ruffian, what is your name?”

I was silent. Instead, I looked away a bit at the other soldiers. Among them was a Magmortar, a Dewott, a Heliolisk, and a few others. I also caught sight of three Altaria, which looked like they were used more for aerial mounts with all the ordinate leather riding gear that was wrapped around them.

“Are you going to answer me or not!?” Cythan shouted, looking very impatient and aggressive. “Look at me, you hideous creature!”

I couldn’t help but look into his angry eyes. After I looked deep inside them, I could tell he had already slaughtered countless members of the Silver Apex and I could almost hear their unanswered screams and cries. I could almost feel their lost souls screaming from within the hatred in his eyes, yearning for retribution and revenge. Meanwhile, he looked into mine, and then he looked at me differently.

“Well, I’m surprised you even made it this far into our territory,” Cythan stated, almost chortling sarcastically. “We’ve already caught and killed several of your kind at this same site, praying to some lost soldier you call Juno. If you’re here for that same purpose, you’re about to find out you only just wasted your life coming here.”

I then looked up to him, and the stared coldly into his eyes. He didn't really know who I was, nor did he probably think resurrection was even possible.

“Wasted my life, you say?” I asked him, watching him very carefully.

“What are you saying?” Cythan asked, having no clue as to what I just said.

Recommended Listening: TimeSplitters: Future Perfect - What Lies Below - Attack

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I looked at the other soldiers, who just stood there confused with their guard completely down. I then turned to them, and focused hard on the world around me. Suddenly, they seemed to move like they were wading through thick sludge. I then leapt toward them, flying toward them with excessive speed. I flew toward the first of the soldiers. I charged my fist with electric power and then slammed my fist into Dewott’s face, and suddenly the rifle was released from his grasp completely in shock and pain from the vicious Thunderpunch. I quickly grabbed it, and furiously fired upon the other soldiers. As they tried to fire upon me, it wasn’t very hard to dodge the slow moving bullets.

But after some time, I realized there was a lot more than I could handle at the moment. I then headed back for the large headstone, and took cover behind it. I couldn’t fight them all off at once, since there were far too many of them. As their bullets struck the stone, I then took a deep breath, emerged from behind the headstone and returned fire upon them, watching the path of every bullet as I aimed for the most vital areas. Within only thirty seconds, I had the entire squad downed, except for Cythan. I then quickly turned around, aimed the rifle at him, and then I released my focus. He tried to take aim but then I shot his own rifle out of his hands, causing him to stumble back. Time quickly returned to normal, and now I found him at my mercy. All he could do was step back, completely in shock. His rifle was not only damaged, but it was too far away for him to grasp. He would only stand there, completely unsure of my next move.

“You've angered me,” I told Cythan in a firm tone. "Not a very good idea."

“You...” He replied with uncertainty. “Who the devil are you?”

I had then signaled to Blazewing, and from beyond the stone, she had emerged and swiftly flew before me, scattering the fallen ashes as the wind rushed around her. She then looked at Cythan with her angry topaz-colored eyes, and suddenly he knew that the one that had been buried at this very gravesite now stood before him and showed him what he was perfectly capable of…

“It can’t be…” He stated coldly, only now making the connection between myself and Blazewing the Latias. “No… this is impossible! What… what are you, some kind of ghost!?”

But, after some cold moments, his disbelief was slowly fading away. He shook his head, realizing that I was more than some specter out to haunt him. What he saw before him was a soul that would refuse to rest until all calamity had come to a complete end.

“They had clear and evident proof you were killed ten years ago!” He shouted furiously, trying to find ways to doubt what he saw before him. “They found your body burnt to a crisp! Even your own people think you’re dead! How... how did you fool them all and fake your own death!?”

It seemed the whole prospect of resurrection was beyond Cythan's grasp. I couldn't deny, there was something about Utopia that would seize anyone's heart and make them strongly consider ever heading back to the ravaged and troubled world of the living. I could only suppose I managed to accomplish it only because I wasn't entirely a Pikachu, and second, I still felt somewhat detached from Juno and these worlds of Pokémon, having only died very recently as Jake Kossak before coming here.

“It is true that I gave up my life to protect the Silver Apex,” I told him, looking down upon the charred ground of my gravesite. “They wanted a life of peace for so long. I gave that to them, and then heard you and the rest of the Black Onyx decided to pillage them in their time of weakness and reconstruction, basically undoing everything I did the first time. You really didn't think I was going to react to that, did you?"

He blinked twice, but then he couldn't help but smirk shortly after. That cold, dark moment was suddenly shattered with his sudden outburst of hideous laughter. He then looked at me with disbelief, and couldn’t help but smile.

“Even if you are Juno, you’re already too damn late!” Cythan cried in amusement. “Your magnificent Silver Apex has fallen to the ground in woeful shame. It was rather easy considering they were so weak and wounded from the war with the Crimson Stars. What were you doing in the meantime, watching the whole spectacle with your betting chips on the table? Ha! Ha! Ha!”

He really had no idea. He never would have believed the truth, so I never answered any of his questions, not like he would have ever understood anything.

“Very funny,” I told Cythan sarcastically, thinking he was being inane by laughing at his own idiotic jokes. “Tell your leader, whatever his name is, that I never want to see you, him, or the rest of your deranged posse around here again. And trust me, I’ve dealt with more than you could ever imagine. You have really no idea what you're dealing with.”

But, he refused to listen. I didn’t understand why he didn’t even want to heed my warning, but it didn’t take much to see that avarice had clouded him along with the rest of his army. I could see that countless victories and triumphs had made the Black Onyx Kingdom horrendously arrogant and haughty, and that right now, they believed they were simply capable of anything.

“Juno, the Black Onyx Kingdom is far more powerful than the Crimson Stars ever were,” Cythan laughed. “But, I think it would only be fitting for one of our finest soldiers to have the greatest honor of slaying the legendary Gold Rider. For real this time. After all, no one alive holds that title. You’d make us very happy with that, Juno. It would do a number for our morale. And you would do well to be a good mutt and not try to resist and make the situation even worse. But in the end, I still believe you cowardly faked your own death. No one is capable of resurrection. Not even you, coward."

He turned his back on me, and at that moment, I took aim and tried firing the rifle to make him pay for that mistake, but after a few clicks of nothing, I realized it was completely out of ammunition. In annoyance, I threw the rifle down, and turned back toward Cythan. Then, Cythan turned to one of the awaiting Altarias, paying no attention to me. As much as I wanted to use an electric attack on him, I wasn't sure if Blazewing and I could take on an Azumarill and a pack of Altarias by ourselves.

“Come, Laglacia,” Cythan requested, summoning the Altaria to him.

After the blue dragon bird had spread its cotton swab wings and gently flew to Cythan, he climbed on the Altaria’s back, and then looked back to me.

“I'll give you this one warning, you wretch.” Cythan told me as he prepared to leave. “Go back to whatever cowardly hole you came from. Your people are already dead. You can’t do anything about it by yourself. You have no purpose.”

And then, the Altaria spread its wings, and then took flight into the air. I watched as the other Altarias began to follow him. After I saw them disappear, Blazewing and I were left alone.

No doubt, I expected him to spread the rumor to his comrades and commanders that I had cowardly been in hiding this whole time after faking my death. I figured there could be some benefit in letting him spread misinformation. He didn't know anything about Utopia or the life of Jake Kossak. I figured it was better kept that way. Maybe I could use that ignorance to my advantage.

However, looking around me and then back at Blazewing, I had a strong, gut feeling that we had our work cut out for us this time…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 6
Harsh Misery​

Recommended Listening: Fallout 1 - City of Lost Angels

I knew that probably wouldn’t be the last time I saw Cythan. Looking around, it really did seem like nothing had changed since the last time I was here. It almost made me ask if there really was an era of peace, or if one calamity just jumped right into another. Whatever happened, it was pretty clear whatever happened to the Silver Apex was nothing short of total destruction. And here I was, surrounded with the presence of death, even my own as Blazewing and I stood among the ashen remnants of what had once been a memorial for the two of us.

I slowly walked away from that charred gravesite, feeling the hard crust of the blackened ground below my feet. I knew there was danger everywhere accompanied with this constant pressure of lost hope. All I could think about was my purpose here. Revenge just seemed like a dead end objective. It honestly felt like I was going to have to go deeper than that.

I wasn't even sure if it was possible for the Silver Apex to make a comeback from a position even worse than before to fight an enemy so many times stronger? It seemed so unlikely, since at their current state, they had nothing to fight back with. No weapons, no manufacturing plants, and only a few surviving soldiers. I knew this would not be the same war as the one against the Crimson Stars. As bloody and as brutal as that was, we didn’t even have that luxury. Heck, this wasn't even a war anymore. Just a covert ops against a slaughterhouse of an adversary. I didn't have too many ideas when it came to trying to make this have any semblance of success, but yet I still felt the need to carry on. Maybe, if I was resourceful enough, I could work something out.

We were alone in that barren land, not sure of where we were going in that great black desert. The air around me changed from warm to cold in only a matter of seconds, while the wind continued to beat us. It seemed like this was supposed to be the lands of the Silver Apex, but nothing about it seemed recognizable, and I wasn't ashamed to admit that it had been years since I was last here and didn't remember everything about it.

"Where should we go?" Blazewing asked me, looking around. "I'm not even sure I remember this place."

"I don't either," I told her, trying to look ahead. "Maybe we'll find our way by flying."

After Blazewing allowed me to climb upon her back and ride her, I could see for miles around, only there was nothing to looking at except for a sea of black shale around me, with a blazing sky above me that looked like blood and tar swirled together. The air up here was rancid for some reason, like it consisted of some terrible gas. It made me wonder how Cythan could have flown on his Altaria in this. But then again, maybe he took a different route only he knew about.

Blazewing continued to try and fly, but I could tell the rancid air was weakening her as well. We decided to try and fly lower, but the gas I had already inhaled was quickly making me queasy and nauseous.

"Ack, what was that... up there?" Blazewing coughed, looking ill.

"Feels like... tear gas," I muttered, not even sure if Blazewing or anyone even in this entire planet knew about tear gas. "But... worse."

My vision was blurring, my throat was dry, and I was suddenly drained and exhausted, stumbling on my two feet just trying to get around. I few times, I looked to Blazewing, who seemed to be on the verge of vomiting. I tried to walk it off, but after my foot had struck the shale awkwardly, I tripped and fell over, finding myself lying on my back, and looking directly up at the sky, immediately feeling sick and dizzy, looking up as if I was being hung upside down and being lowered into the fiery magma of a volcano. Meanwhile, it felt like the ground was spinning like some sick, hellish merry-go-round that didn't stop.

"Ohh, someone make it stop..." Blazewing muttered. "Juno, I... I..."

I was pretty sure the hacking and gurgling sound that shortly followed was her throwing up. I decided against taking a peek and asking her about it.

I then just shut my eyes, knowing looking up at that chaotic mess of an atmosphere would only make things worse. I just tried to breathe, regardless of how rancid the air was, but I still didn't feel like getting up to move.

"I..." I tried to tell Blazewing, but could barely speak any words. "I'm... so tired."

Maybe it would have been better to just rest it off. With the way my body felt, that was pretty much the only option.

* * *​

Recommended Listening: Half Life 2 - Nova Prospekt

When I finally came to my senses, I was looking down at a red carpet, with my arms being forcefully held up. First thing that came to mind was... the carpet. That just seemed like an odd thing to be suddenly looking at. It almost made me question if what had happened before was a dream, but the way my stomach and burning eyes felt clued me in that was not a dream.

I felt so weak and tired, and I could barely move. I just wanted to fall to the ground and rest, but something or somebody was holding me up. I already knew I wasn't outside, but where I was... I almost didn't even care. I just wanted to rest. But something was pecking at my mind.

I then grabbed the strength to look up, and I saw I was in a highly decorated throne room, with ordinate furniture made of cherry wood and a floor that was made shiny marble. On the left side were giant windows, with crystal clear glass and an ordinate gold frame. All around the throne room were soldiers, dressed in the familiar Black Onyx military uniform I had seen from before. I looked to my sides and realized the ones holding me up and dragging me along were a Combusken and a Charmeleon, also obviously from the Black Onyx. Then, when I looked in front of me, I came face to face with the very king of the Black Onyx Imperials himself, an Ampharos dressed in very ordinate silk clothing. Standing around him were the rest of the Elite Guard Commanders of the Golden Diadem, also in uniform. I saw a Cinccino, a Raichu, a Weavile, a Grumpig, and last but not least, Cythan the Azumarill, who I had only met a few hours ago. I couldn’t help but look down in shame. I hadn’t even been back for more than an hour, and already I had stumbled my way into a failure. I had gone from being deadly sick to now totally embarassed.

“Truly pathetic,” Cythan remarked in a disgusted pompous tone. “I say we just execute them and get it over with.”

“Not so fast, my dear Cythan,” The Ampharos responded with a similar pompous accent, “I think that would be acting much too hastily. I want to have some fun with these two first. Let’s make an example of them. I think they would be of better use to us broken, not dead.”

I really didn’t need this. After grabbing the sliver of courage I needed to look up at his face, I stared up at him for the longest time, and I hated the way he was looking at me like I was some lower life-form. I looked to my side and there was Blazewing, being restrained by a hefty Aggron and a Beartic, who both of a firm grip on each of her wings. She was strong, but I doubted she'd be able to wrestle herself out of their grasp. Not to mention, she seemed pale and even sicker than I was.

“Welcome to the Black Onyx Kingdom,” He told me sarcastically. “My name is King Skepter, and these are my loyal commanders. But you can call me ‘your highness’ if that would suit your fancy.”

He then arose from his throne and walked toward me, not at all afraid or even mindful of whom I was. He bent over and looked at me with a slight look of disgust, as if he was looking at a squashed bug. I had spent only a few minutes with King Skepter and already I hated this guy.

“Tell me, vagrant,” He continued, speaking in a lower tone now that he was closer to me, “You really say you are the legendary Juno, who defeated Zander single-handedly? That’s what my compatriot has told me, but I still find it hard to believe. You and this dragon bird of yours... just don't seem like the caliber. I mean look at you both! You both reek of weakness. So, are you really Juno?”

I was silent. I knew it would probably send them all on a roll of laughter if I told them the truth, and the last thing I wanted was for them to be happy and merry over this. I kept my silence, figuring I didn't even really want to give him the satisfaction of answering his questions.

“Tell me, dammit!” He shouted, growing angrier. “If you do not, it will only be making things worse for you.

“He is, your highness.” The Weavile quickly confirmed, looking at me with crossed arms.

Immediately, all eyes had turned to him, and he was silent for a few moments. Skepter then turned toward the Weavile, and looked at him with curiosity.

“Really?” Skepter asked, looking quite surprised, “How can you be so sure?”

“Because back when I was part of the Silver Rebellion, I worked with him face to face,” The Weavile had told him. “I saw what he was capable of back then. But now, he looks pretty damn pathetic. I recognize him, but the Juno I knew wouldn’t let himself get so easily captured. We also thought he was dead after his fight with Zander. I know the rumor that he faked his death but... I don't know what to make of it. He's a mess, and if you ask me, maybe he did cower out after all.”

I realized who that Weavile actually was. I felt a very sick and hard feeling in my throat as I remembered Vice, who had helped me back at Macomb, back when he was a Sneasel. But, it was clear to see he was a sellout now.

“Hmm…” Skepter replied, thinking about it as he turned back to me, “if that’s true, how can he still be alive? Those Silver Apex fools were convinced he was dead, enough to build an entire garden for his burial place. Sickens me though. Not even my ancestors were given that much. But, looking at the both of them now, they seem weak, foolhardy, and stupid. Traits of a coward, I'd say.”

I figured we might as well let that rumor linger. And I was only sick because of whatever cloud of gas was up there when we went flying was obviously not supposed to be there naturally. It was nothing more than a simple wrong turn and mistake, and I knew once I got better, I'd be capable.

“Just why did you fake your own death?” Skepter asked, looking at me curiously. “Tired of the fighting, I suppose? Maybe you became lax and slothful, figuring life is easier without expectations. Or maybe you were bold to take the silent guardian approach? Whatever idiot thing you two did, you simply let your people become exterminated. Ha, some guardian hero you are. So, why come back now? Did you suddenly wake up and realize what happened?"

“Something like that..." I muttered, figuring I might as well let them believe their own concocted lie. "I... wasn't around when you attacked. I only got word of it... just recently."

He laughed, and I felt embarrassed, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. But, he believed the coward and faked death rumor and I was fine with that. But, in the end, all I could do was stand there, suspended and held upward like I was crucified. And I had no choice, it was either look at him or look at the floor.

“Well, welcome back, Juno,” Skepter snickered with delight. “I’m glad you could join us. I’d hate to say it, but we’ve already won the war. You seem to have arrived a bit too late. It's a shame you overslept, because I know you would have had so much fun watching it all happen.”

I didn’t want to believe that he and the rest of this army really did win the war, but it seemed like there wasn't a single remaining Silver Apex soul out there besides Blazewing and I. If we were really all that was left, this whole mission didn't stand a chance. Especially with the two of us stuck like this.

The hardest part of trying to tolerate everything about this was being aware of the fact that there was nothing I could have done to change this around, even though they thought I could have. They didn’t know I was separated from what was really going on as I lived on as Jake Kossak, but I knew they would never believe me if I told them that and I truly didn’t want to. Right now, I couldn’t understand why I had returned home as the human I obviously no longer was. If only I had been able to watch from the skies of Utopia before all this had happened, I would have seen this happening before the situation got so helplessly beyond reclamation and I might have been able to do something about it. Now, forget it. Like he said, it was too late.

“Fine, we’re done now,” Cythan replied impatiently. “They're a menace to us and he should be executed. Juno killed my command squad and I don’t look upon that lightly at all.”

“Not yet, my dear friend.” Skepter replied to Cythan, looking at him from the corner of his eyes, “That would be too easy. Plus that would only make them look like a martyrs again if the Silver Apex ever found what we did to them. I want to see them at their worst.”

Everyone around him was looking at Skepter oddly, like it would only be normal for us to be executed on the spot. Even I was surprised that he didn’t just shoot us there and then. But then, the unexpected happened.

“What do you suppose we do to them?” Vice asked Skepter, looking at him with a strange expression. “We can’t let them go free...”

“Get me Cadbury.” Skepter requested gently as he returned to his throne. “I need him for a few moments.”

“Yes, your highness.” Cythan had acknowledged, leaving his position.

I really had no idea who Cadbury was, and I could tell from the look in Cythan’s eyes that he had no explanation as to why Skepter even wanted this guy, whoever he was.

While Cythan had left the room, I had looked at everything around me in dismay. I looked out the window with a much clearer view, and I was astounded at the size of the massive and beautifully ornate city that lay just outside the window. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but as soon as I started to comprehend what was going on, I heard an odd uproar.

“Well hello, hello, hello, my highness!” a cheery call had voiced out. “What kind of trick would you want to see today?”

I suddenly turned around to where the voice came from to see a Mr. Mime standing only ten feet away behind me, dressed in a colorful jester’s outfit and smiling cheerfully. Every time he moved just a little, the bells on the tips of his jester’s cap, around his gloves, and on his shoes jingled a bit. He looked at Skepter with a happy expression, ready to entertain his master. Yet, oddly enough, Skepter wasn’t smiling…

“I want to see you dance.” Skepter replied in a firm tone.

“That’s all?” Cadbury asked, seeming a bit surprised, “Well, sure thing, my Excellency!”

And then, he started dancing back and forward merrily while the bells on his outfit jingled even more. I watched him for ten seconds, thinking the entire performance was idiotic, but I didn’t say anything. Why King Skepter had specifically requested this, I really had no idea.

Then, when I least suspected it, Skepter had pulled out a black pistol that was in a small cubby besides his throne and pointed it at him. I then held my breath, just before the handgun had blasted out and spat a bright burst of flame. When I turned to the Mr. Mime, I saw he was struck perfectly between the eyes with ridiculous marksmanship, leaving a large bleeding hole in his forehead with a massive gaping exit wound torn through the back of his skull. Only a second later, Cadbury completely collapsed to the red carpet I was standing on, totally still and lifeless as a growing blood stain gathered around his head. Everyone just stood silently and stared at his dead body…

“Well, that finishes off that miserable excuse for entertainment,” Skepter had remarked bitterly, putting the black pistol back where it belonged. “Instead, I want Juno to be our new jester.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Vice replied in disbelief. “Why do you still want him to live?”

“Simply enough,” Skepter replied, looking off to the side with a small smile on his face as he fantasized, “I want him to entertain me. I want him to share all his wonderful adventures with me, about how he defeated Zander, faked his death, and what careless folly happened to him after that. But the main important part is… I want him to look like a complete fool while he does.”

Now this was insane. All I could do was look at Cadbury’s dead body, and just watch the blood seep out of his head and soak into the red carpet right under him. I couldn’t imagine myself doing what he used to do. This was what he wanted me to do now? I had a hard time trying to figure out what was worse and more humiliating, this or the overgrown Bellossom flower nonsense and dress I had been slapped with while I was in Randy's world.

“Plus, I think Juno would be a much more appealing jester than that hideously stupid Mr. Mine,” Skepter stated as he looked at the dead Cadbury. “I never laughed once with Cadbury, but hearing what Juno has to say should send me falling off my seat screaming hysterically.”

To say the least, it was an incredibly sick and horribly deranged thing to do. Rather than kill me, he wanted to send a dark message to the little that was left of the Silver Apex by stabbing my credibly, honor, and pride in the heart. Then, I got to thinking what might happen if the coward rumor reached the Silver Apex and I never got the chance to explain or prove that wasn't actually true. I just looked down and shook my head. Not even Zander would have sunk to this level…

Not very long after, we were taken to a prison cell, and were told to stay there and keep quiet. I was happy at least they decided to feed us, even though it was just table scraps of what everybody else didn’t want at the evening feast. To them, we were their dogs and they were enjoying every minute of it.

"What are we going to do?" Blazewing asked me. "There's like no way to ever get out of here."

"Right now, I don't see any way about it," I told her, totally out of ideas. "We need time. The more I learn about this place and this King Skepter, the more I can figure out a weakness and some kind of plan, but until then, we just need to focus on not getting killed."

"I hope you're right," she sighed. "I don't know how long I'm going to be able to take this."

Hours later, they had separated us and dragged me to some dressing room after a long network of ornate and fanciful hallways. The room itself was basic, nothing more than a repurposed storage area that Cadbury had probably used before he was killed off. Then, the Charmeleon and Combusken came back with the jester’s suit and cap I was supposed to wear. I hated the sight of it, being totally in bright rainbow colors. Once they forced the suit and jester's cap into me, I really didn’t feel like putting it on, but considering they put me at gunpoint, I wasn’t about to argue. After a deep sigh, I grabbed the courage and put everything on, they then put on the white face paint, and when they were finished I felt like a total idiot. I really didn't want to look at the mirror. At last this wasn't Cadbury's old uniform. I would have hated to wear his blood all over me.

“Go get his Latias,” The Charmeleon demanded from the Combusken, still gripping his rifle.

Damn, now they were going to do this to her too. This was bad. I wasn't even sure how I was going to even try to entertain this tyrant.

"What now?" I asked them with a sigh.

“King Skepter wants to see you fly around the throne room with her.” The Charmeleon continued as the Combusken left the room, “We need to put make-up on her as well.”

I figured as much. As much as I would have liked to fight my way out of there, that was impossible. I had no idea where the exit was and we'd be dead before we even made it down the hall. Damn, I sure was hoping Sita wasn't watching this. I could only hope Blazewing would forgive me for deciding to play this out long enough to come up with a solution.

After waiting for a few moments, the Combusken came back while the Aggron and Beartic from before assisted him with bringing Blazewing to their intended destination. Once they arrived, they threw her on the ground in chains, and only then did they take them off.

“Ow, watch it!” She protested. “What's wrong with you, huh?”

She got up off the floor and then she looked at me, and her eyes went down sympathetically, but decided not to say anything about it. Then she turned to the Combusken and the Charmeleon and realized she was going to have to through the same thing. I knew she would hate being made a mockery of, but we had no choice if we wanted to buy enough time to find a way out of here. Trying to fight our way out now without knowing what we were dealing with would just be a completely reckless suicide.

“Is this really necessary?” Blazewing asked, looking down upon the Combusken. “Both you know and I know how ridiculous this whole idea is. Talk to him, I'm sure we can be reasonable about this."

“You should consider yourself very lucky,” The Combusken corrected her. “Every one of the Elite Commanders of the Golden Diadem thought for sure you and Juno were going to be executed. I myself thought so as well. I wouldn't be trying to suggest alternatives if I were you.”

She sighed hard and then she was silent. I knew she didn’t want to go through this, and neither did I, but at that moment, she looked like she had given up as well. But while this was going on, there was only one thing I could think about…

Was this really better than being executed?

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 7
The Flight of Shame​

Only about an hour later, they had completely gutted Blazewing’s pride. She looked down in dismal sorrow after she looked into the mirror, seeing herself surrounded with colorful make-up with strings of flowers, streamers, and ribbons attached to her. She just looked away, unable to bear the sight of it.

“You had better not look that miserable when you go in front of King Skepter,” The Combusken warned. “He’s supposed to be laughing when you guys are in there. And if he’s not laughing, you’ll end up just like the last guy did.”

Trying to smile at a time like this was easier said than done. How was I supposed to smile in front of the one who murdered almost everyone in the Silver Apex, made me feel like an idiot, and who didn’t believe anything I would ever tell him? Somehow, I was going to have to find a way out of here if there was to be any hope in making a comeback, even though that too seemed totally unlikely. I just had to remind myself I was buying time.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t given that much time to think about it, and it wasn’t long before we were taken to the front door of the throne room, where inside, Skepter was stuffing his face with the evening dessert, loafing and reclining that that throne of his. I didn’t like it either and I really didn’t feel like making a joke about it, but I needed Blazewing’s cooperation for any hope to pull through this. I knew the last thing we wanted to do was entertain this tyrant after what he did, but we weren’t left with much choice…

“Just remember,” I softly whispered to her, “one of these days, we'll turn the tables. We've done it before, we can do it again. We just need time. Just remember that.”

“I’ll try…” Blazewing replied in a soft whisper.

Soon after, the doors were thrown open, and immediately Blazewing took off into the throne room. We flew upward and then around and around the room, right above everyone as they watched us from their seats. We cheered in mirthless glee, throwing away everything we ever believed in and worked hard for just for a chance to survive this humiliation. We tried to do as many tricks as we could think of, from flips, last second turns and barrel rolls.

We made up a stupid song completely from spontaneous whim, did a few more minutes of nonsense aerial acrobatics, and just when I felt like I was giong to be sick again, I told Blazewing that we had probably done enough, and I told her to land before Skepter. Then, she flew down and then stopped when she reached the red carpeted floor, and I stepped off of her, facing Skepter as he was eating a piece of chocolate mousse pie, still giggling at the theatrics. I then noticed an obviously-pampered Flaaffy standing right besides Skepter, and I already knew who that was.

"Greetings, your majesty," I told Skepter with a cheerful and casually relaxed smile and composure. "I trust you've been well?"

“This daft Pikachu is your new jester, father?” The Flaaffy asked Skepter in a snotty accent and pompous adolescent tone. “He looks like a real idiot.”

That immediately caused Skepter to burst into laughter, dropping his fork, causing it to rattle on the plate due to the lack of control. After a long and hideous laughter, Skepter managed to calm himself down after laughing hysterically for a few seconds. He then looked to the Flaaffy and smiled, trying to contain himself.

“Actually Bartholomew,” Skepter told his son, containing his laughter for just a split moment, “this is Juno, the legendary Gold Rider, and his loyal mount... Blazewing.”

And then even his son started laughing in the sudden shock and surprise as his father burst back into comical hysteria once again. He looked at me and stepped back, covering his mouth with his hand to hide the giggles. I couldn't help but just roll my eyes at all this.

“Them?” Bartholomew asked in disbelief. “The one who led the destruction of the Crimson Stars and defeated Zander? Father, you can’t be serious. Look at them, they look more stupid than a drunk Psyduck.”

“I know, I know, they look very, very stupid,” Skepter responded with a chortle, understanding his son’s viewpoint. “We found them nearly poisoned death in the middle of the desert after they had idiotically flew into some blatantly obvious Plague Smog. So instead of killing them, I decided they would be much better as entertainers. You were entertained by their antics, were you not?”

As if having to deal with one of them wasn’t bad enough, now I had Skepter and his little bratty son to worry about. And this whole entertaining thing was making me sick. I was supposed to be a warrior, not a clown. Damn it, this was really pushing it.

“He needs a better finish, father,” Bartholomew responded, taking another bite out of his chocolate mousse. “It was good, but a little too good. He performed all those tricks perfectly and something... seems a bit off with that. He needs to have a fault somewhere along the line. I’d like to see him… crash into something. Something very gooey and messy. Like a mud pie, same as this one, only much bigger. At least enough for him and his stupid bird to crash into.”

“That can be arranged,” Skepter responded, smiling at the thought of it. “In fact, you’re right, I would fancy seeing that myself. And it should be big. I want to see him crawling out of it with his face dripping and his body smothered with chocolate pudding.”

“But he needs get rid of that stupid outfit,” Bartholomew continued, taking another bite. “I hate it. He looks nothing like the real Juno, just more like some random idiot Pikachu and his loony Latias. It would be far more amusing to see the real legendary Juno and Blazewing the way they're supposed look be the one to fly around in all their former glory… only to collide with a giant chocolate cake.”

Really? Skepter was going to let his spoiled kid start deciding on the nightly entertainment? As if I thought this couldn't get worse. While I was more than happy to lose the outfit, I could tell this was not going to go into any better direction. All this just so some war criminal and his bratty son could find amusement in my misery.

“You can see it tomorrow, son,” Skepter said to Bartholomew as he tried to comfort him. “It’s late and you should be heading off to bed. Tomorrow is a busy day.”

“But father!” Bartholomew whined to Skepter. “Just another hour? Please…”

After many complaints about nothing, Skepter’s bratty son Bartholomew was finally sent up to bed and then put to sleep. Shortly after that whole matter was taken care of, Skepter then just turned to me, and smiled as he looked into my eyes.

“You know, I’m quite glad I decided to spare your miserable little life,” Skepter told me, giving me a solid stare. “You’re a lot more useful as broken puppets than I thought. And far more amusing on your first day than Cadbury ever was. You’ve made me happy, Juno and Blazewing. I’m sure you can live up to my expectations for many years to come.”

Years. I really hated hearing the sound of that. Still, I was silent and managed to keep that dopey smile on my face. After that, we were taken out of the throne room and then thrown into a shower stall where we finally got the chance to take off that annoying suit and wash away that irritating make-up. After we washed up, we were simply taken right back to the prison cell again. I tried to comfort Blazewing as she slept on the floor while I was on the suspended wooden bed, but she was tired and didn’t feel like saying much after that. I then just pressed my head against the single pillow I was given, and then drifted off to sleep.

Even in the middle of the night, the two of us were awaken all of a sudden by that same blasted Charmeleon and Combusken, telling the two of us to get up. My eyelids still felt heavy and my vision was blurry, but still, I managed to get up before they did something violent.

“We’re moving you to the dressing room,” The Combusken told me. “Come with me.”

“Exactly what for?” I asked, wondering why he would want us to sleep in there. “And who the hell are you two anyway?”

“The name is Borkan, and this is Mavrik,” The Combusken told me, introducing himself and the Charmeleon. “And don’t question your authority next time. You should be happy that King Skepter actually likes what you do. He wants you in a closer location to the throne room so he can see you perform more often.”

This was a real joke. The two of them pulled us out of the room without any care how we felt. I tried to walk around, but I was awfully tried, and as soon as we reached the dressing room, I didn’t care if there wasn’t a bed around, I just collapsed to the floor and immediately fell to sleep.

I didn’t even consider what hell I would have to go through that next day…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 8
A Voice From the Outside​

Blazewing and I had spent that whole miserable morning in front of King Skepter, dressed in that same stupid outfit again. His son may have hated it but he wasn't around at the moment, off at school from what Skepter told us. Just watching him giggle while eating a syrup-saturated French toast was one of the many things I truly hated about him.

“So you two…” Skepter interrupted, swallowing down a mouthful of his breakfast, “How did you two fake your own death?”

The whole objective was to keep everything whimsical and keep Skepter entertained. That was what Blazewing and I had agreed on. We decided to handle this in the form of a song and dance. We had to be ready for anything Skepter asked and come up with a whimsical song to go along with it.

"Funny you should ask!" Blazewing sang to him with a whimsical smile, flying about in a whimsical fashion as we made up a believable lie that rhymed.

"But we were up for the task!" I chimed in with a jig.

"Juno was supposed to have been burnt," Blazewing sang while she performed a somersault before looking upon Skepter, "according to that tale."

"But using the body of another dead Pikachu..." I chimed in as I spun around, "was a trick that wouldn't fail."

It all had to be impromptu.

"But how did they believe it was you?" Skepter asked.

"Juno planted the gun, right by that rodent's side," Blazewing sang in a devious tone.

"Just before we dashed away to hide!" I sang, doing a little tap-dance to illustrate that.

"His body burnt, just like the myth!" Blazewing sang, flying about in a fanciful fashion.

"Perfect height and perfect width!" I sang, using nutty hand gestures.

Skepter couldn't help but snicker at the deception. That... definitely would have been a devious plan if it was actually true. I doubted the Silver Apex would have been able to figure it out if most of the evidence on the body was burnt and he had been found with my specialized rifle. Meanwhile, Blazewing and I seemed to be winging it well, able to conjure up a rhyme and a false story at the same time. It was not easy...

"And what about you, Latias?" He asked, laying on a tougher question. "Surely you couldn't find a double of yourself to fool them."

We looked to each other, and nodded. Thinking of a believable lie and putting it into song was just brutal. I did a few seconds of dancing before coming up with a response.

"Oh, my lord, but surely you know it's possible," I sang to him again.

"Because a Latias can turn invisible!" Blazewing sang, using her down to refract the light to actually illustrate that.

"Slipped out of the hearse on the way to the grave," I sang and danced.

"No one suspected me to misbehave!" Blazewing sang, suddenly reappearing before Skepter once again.

"Oh, they buried an empty box and a no-name louse!" I comically chanted with a little jig.

"Fooled to think it was I, the dragon bird, and the mouse!" Blazewing sang and laughed, rolling comically in mid-air.

"Then it was off to the shore," I sang the story, whimsically dancing away, "us two tricksters off for a dip."

"The idiots back home never thought we'd give 'em the slip!" Blazewing laughed comically.

"And so ends our song, this dastardly, devious thing," I sang and danced with a sneer smile.

"So great was the ploy of the mischievous Juno and Blazewing!" She sung and laughed, finishing the rather loony song we managed to conjure.

Skepter started laughing out loud, clapping at our performance. After he calmed down, he simply looked away for a moment, and then looked back to me.

“Oh, you two are sly, little devils, aren't you?” Skepter told me, letting me go for the morning. “Clever... devious... diabolical. Oh, they never did suspect it out of you two. Oh, I love it. Brilliant. Now, off with you two. I... have some other matters to attend to.”

And like that, we left, cleaning ourselves off again and spending the rest of the afternoon doing absolutely nothing but waiting in the dressing room. Blazewing kept asking me when we were finally going to get out of here, but I kept telling her that I hadn't seen much of an opportunity again. Ending up in the desert again like I did last time wasn’t going to help us, and this "Plague Smog" Skepter mentioned earlier was not something I was familiar with. Not to mention this city was enormous and would be difficult to escape from without help. And I knew they weren’t going to give me a second chance if they found me again…

It was very easily discovered our only purpose here was to entertain Skepter, and do nothing else with our time here. Whenever we weren't performing, Blazewing and I tried to work out possible ideas and performances. When the evening had arrived, we were pulled out of our room again by Borkan and Mavrik and was told to wait by the front door while mounted on Blazewing. Ironically enough, they didn’t want me to get dressed in that stupid jester suit this time. I realized that could only mean one thing…

“They’re... not really going through with this, are they!?” Blazewing asked in shock, thinking before it was all a joke. "That mud pie thing... that wasn't for real, right?"

“Hey!” Boris exclaimed, not liking Blazewing’s tone of voice. “Keep it down. You already know what you have to do, but Prince Bartholomew has a special request.”

I couldn’t imagine what. For a moment, I felt like things couldn’t possibly get any worse, but once again the Black Onyx was going to prove me how wrong it was to think that way.

“And what’s this?” I asked Borkan, wondering what the Skepter’s little brat of a son wanted me to do now.

“He wants to hear you shout ‘for freedom!’ just before you crash into it,” Boris instructed. “He has just as much power over you as the king himself, so you’d better make him happy. And if you don’t, you’d better start working on that scream of yours.”

I honestly couldn't see how these antics could get worse, but the last thing I felt like doing was jinxing myself. Moments later, the doors were thrown open again, and we immediately took off, flying around the room the same way we did last time, only without wearing the stupid jester outfits.

When I finally caught a glimpse of the chocolate cake we were supposed to crash into, I couldn’t believe my eyes, totally baffled at how they managed to make such a thing in record time. The whole thing must have been at least fifteen feet tall, large enough for even a Latias to get buried in it, which I was sure was the point. Meanwhile, everyone was just watching us closely, just waiting for the inevitable moment…

“This is ridiculous,” Blazewing remarked, just before we performed another loop around the marble pillar in the front of the room. “That thing is a monster…”

No, I couldn’t deny that either. The whole thing was parked in the center of the room, where everyone could see it while they stood a nice distance away so they wouldn’t be struck with the splatter once we rammed right into it. We performed a few more flips, turns, and rolls before I realized we needed to finish this off soon before everyone started to get impatient and suspicious. They still had us on a tight leash and until we found a way to loosen it, trying to bite back was foolish suicide.

“We’d better just get this over with…” I told Blazewing, seeing that performing a few more flips was only going to delay the inevitable. “Any longer and they’re going to get annoyed…”

"Alright..." She sighed.

She then she flipped around once more, heading right for the chocolate monstrosity.

“For freedom!” I shouted, feeling very idiotic while saying that…

And then, we forcefully slammed into the chocolate tower, right in the middle. The biggest surprise was thinking it was all just chocolate breading, when really the inside of it was filled with thick chocolate fudge and pudding. I couldn’t see anything as the top of the cake simply collapsed upon us, burying the two of us in a mountain of cold and thick chocolate sludge. I had struggled to swim through it just to get my head up so I could breathe again. And when I finally came up, already everyone in the entire room was roaring with laughter. Moments later, Blazewing's chocolate-slathered head had emerged, and she looked completely humiliated. Meanwhile, I looked at my hands and body, and realized there wasn’t a single inch of me not smothered with chocolate fudge.

“That was priceless!” Bartholomew screamed in laughter. “Ah father, it was truly, truly splendid!”

Skepter would have responded if he could have stopped laughing. When he could finally speak again, he quickly ordered us to sing the Silver Apex’s Song of Justice and Freedom, a suddenly unexpected request just to take another stab at my heart for his own amusement. I had no idea where he found out about it, but the only thing I could be thankful for was that it was short. I don’t know how I managed to remember it after all these years, but I supposed that was mainly because it was short and had more music behind it than lyrics. It probably would have been even more humiliating to suddenly tell Skepter I had forgotten it.

We then just started quickly, singing the whole thing while still standing in the cold, chocolate goo pile. Singing this was fifty times even more humiliating than the “for freedom” request...

“When you see the fading light
And the darkness shadows cast
Stay true to the light, my friend
The blackest night will pass

Fires can only burn the skin
And the knives can only tear
Let nothing bring you fear
As our hearts will still be there

So have courage in your heart, my friend
With the dawn comes another day
Let justice be your friend and ally
Hope will always be here to stay.”

We sung it a little bit faster than usual to get it over with sooner, because I truly believed I had already done enough damage to my name for one night. We had finished, and the sad irony of the whole situation was the fact it was a song of hope being sung when so much of that had been lost for the Silver Apex. To King Skepter and the rest of his court, it must have seemed like a complete joke of sadistic, comical irony..

After I had finished and sent everyone on another roll of laughter, we climbed out of the chocolate mess and were taken to the showers again to wash off the chocolate goo. I couldn’t believe how miserable I was.

Nothing changed for an entire week. I found out the hard way that Prince Bartholomew was a playwright, and he wanted me and a few others to act out his stupid and mostly unfinished plays. Every morning we would perform in front of them while they ate breakfast, trying to act out the idiotic and uninspired storylines the prince wrote. And since Prince Bartholomew and King Skepter “absolutely adored” my miserable experience last night, they wanted to see it again, only with a vanilla and strawberry cake instead of the chocolate one.

And then the evening after that, Skepter wanted me to sing and dance the Ballet of Springtime Flowers, dressed as a Lilligant while throwing flower petals around while Blazewing had to improvise playing a giant harp, which she had never done before.. It didn’t get any better than that, since every evening he wanted me to do something even dumber than the previous night. And for some stupid reason, each and every evening I was somehow involved with either landing or crashing into the evening dessert one way or another. Or that one night where we didn't see it at first and it crashed down on us. Skepter himself told me that all good sensations should become traditions. That was a clear sign of what to expect if we continued to stay here.

However, Prince Bartholomew got awfully greedy. To my surprise, he wrote a play about the Silver Rebellion invasion on Jasandax, only we lost this time, “very miserably and shamefully” as he described it in the script. Ironically, he didn’t realize that if we had actually lost that battle, the Black Onyx never would have had the chance to eliminate the Silver Apex themselves, since the Crimson Stars would have completely obliterated us. But, in this scenario, he was trying to get the best of both worlds for him.

He had me as the lead role, but the problem was that he needed other soldiers to play out the other parts. And I was even further surprised upon learning he went as far as ordering the capture of two of the scarce remaining Silver Apex soldiers to fulfill those roles. Both of them were Storm Riders, a Meowth by the name of Echo and a Totodile named Frost.

I didn’t expect to see anyone from the Silver Apex here, but as soon as I realized who I was working with, I had decided now would be the time to act…

I had already spent more than enough time here…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 9
The Unexpected Act​

As if I thought Bartholomew’s actions couldn’t get any more careless, we had all met in the same dressing room that morning. Needless to say, Echo and Frost nearly passed out upon seeing me, still alive and being held captive. Still, I couldn’t say much with Borkan and Mavrik still around. They watched us with sharp eyes like a paranoid Fearow, so trying to scheme anything wouldn’t have worked.

“Are you really Juno, the Gold Rider himself?” Echo asked me, still in disbelief about my presence.

I had only nodded. I was sure she was wondering what was going on, but this wasn't the time and place to explain it all.

Just about the only prop I was allowed to use this time was a fake plastic gun, which really looked nothing like the actual rifle I had even used on that day. It seemed a bit more advanced and a had mid-range scope as opposed to just iron sights. Then, I became curious and looked at the rifles Boris and Mavrik were holding. I got a glance at them, and realized there really wasn’t all that much difference between the fake gun and their real ones. So the question I had to ask myself was… would anyone ever notice if they were by chance swapped? Considering the distance we would be in the air and the speed we would be flying around the room, the answer was simple...

No, they wouldn’t.

My next plan was trying to figure out how to kill Borkan and Mavrik without having them fire once. If they fired at any time, forget it, everyone in the building would hear i, then we’d have the entire Black Onyx army in here and we’d be done for. I was still at the dressing bench while they were at the door, and I needed for them both to come over here so I could grab their necks without making too much noise. I pulled out the script again, looking through the pages and trying to look confused as I went through them…

“Are you almost ready?” Boris asked, looking at his watch and realizing we were running out of time, “How much longer is it going to take?”

“I’m just not completely sure what the prince wants us to do while saying these lines in the fourth act,” I responded, pretending to read the script in confusion. “I'm having a little trouble reading his handwriting, but I want to make sure I get this right.”

Meanwhile, even Echo and Frost didn't suspect anything, simply carrying on as they knew nothing about the plot that was going through my mind. Then, Boris came over and looked at the script. He too, was instantly confused having never read the thing before. I tried not to laugh, since Bartholomew’s scripts must have seemed more confusing to him than a calculus exam would seem to a third grader.

“I don’t know either,” Boris admitted as he gave a shrug. “I can’t tell Act 4 from any other act in here.”

“Let me look at it,” Marvik said as he rolled his eyes, thinking he was obviously smarter than Boris, enough to tell us exactly what Bartholomew wanted us to do.

Then he had a go at it, and I realized now was our chance to act, since both of them were right next to us and very distracted. I looked to the table, and found the craft knife that I had left there earlier. I then grabbed it, and before either one of them could notice me, I drove the sharp knife into Marvik’s neck when he least suspected it.

“What the hell!?” Boris stepped back in bewilderment.

I then kicked the gargling Marvik aside, and tried to grab Borkan’s throat. Once Echo and Frost caught on to what I was doing, they also assisted me, and Boris found three sets of hands around his neck, squeezing the life out of him, unable to even shout. While Boris tried to use his own hands to slash at us, Frost and I held down his arms with the two hands we had left, leaving him with no way out.

“You’ll… never… win…” Boris gargled, unable to breathe.

“This may be one small victory for the Silver Apex today,” I told him before he was about to die, “but it will become our triumph over the Black Onyx tomorrow.”

And then, he fell limp in our hands, and we let him go. Already the first part of our escape had been done correctly. But now we needed an actual way out. I imagined that no one would be checking this room for a while, but still, our time was limited.

"Sweet mother of mercy, that was close," Frost spoke, still a little shaken by the confrontation.

“What do we do now?” Echo had asked, looking at the two fallen guards. "There's nowhere to hide them in here!"

“There's no time either,” I told her, picking up Boris’s rifle. “We need to get moving, because we're almost late. We'll just keep going along with the play and act like nothing happened. Then, we’ll use the central window in the throne room to escape. We perform the first two acts, and right at the part where Bartholomew wants us to pretend we’re retreating, we fire at the window and fly through it.”

Echo and Frost thought it over, and it seemed like a feasible plan, but they wanted to expand upon it.

“But why not kill King Skepter and his son before we escape?” Frost asked, wondering why we couldn’t take them out as well.

“Once you fire those guns, you have about three seconds to get out of there before they begin firing upon you.” I told the two of them, knowing how fast Black Onyx soldiers are to react, “Trust me, you try to kill them and you’ll only get killed yourself. You would be lucky to even hit either of them at that distance, never mind kill them both.”

They both sighed in disappointment, but I already knew we were running out of time. I quickly handed them the two rifles, leaving myself with nothing. But I knew I didn’t need a gun to be able to fight back.

“Come on, we need to get going,” I told the two of them, grabbing a fake gun to use for the acting. “If we don’t hurry to the throne room, someone is going to think something is up.”

Then, we headed to the doors of the throne room. Once we arrived, two handlers, a Scizor and a Typlosion had been standing by with the Pidgeots that belonged to both Echo and Frost. Once the chains were removed, the Scizor and Typlosion left in a hurry, their minds too preoccupied with something else to notice Borkan and Marvik were both missing.

Once we were all set and prepared ourselves, we threw open the doors, and we flew inside. After the doors shut behind us, we then started the acting, performing Act 1 just the way Bartholomew wanted it. I knew that in order to get their guards down, they needed to believe everything was normal.

“The enemy is upon us!” Echo shouted out, acting out her lines.

“We need to keep moving forward!” I shouted to the both of them, acting like I was actually shooting something.

Most of the time during the play we were in the air flying around, pretending we were fighting an invisible enemy. But, given the situation, the props, and the fact the throne room was definitely not at all an ideal stage, it never once felt like anything even close to the actual battle itself. Regardless, Bartholomew just watched us from below, smiling at the way we were acting. So far, everything was going well, and no one suspected anything of our plan. Despite the fact Bartholomew had written all of us completely out of character, we still managed to make the sloppy play convincing… which was definitely not an easy task.

Then Act 2 came around, which was mostly my part. To no surprise, Bartholomew wanted me to look like we were failing to even get near the walls of the imaginary Jasandax Base, and that we needed to call in more reinforcements. In truth, the way Bartholomew had written this, it seemed like Frost, Echo, and myself were the only ones attacking that day. Either that, or the rest of the Silver Apex army were nothing but invisible lemmings that were completely hopeless at fighting.

“Come on!” I shouted, acting desperate. “We can’t fall behind now!”

“But this is suicide!” Frost complained, flying around wildly as if he was being shot at from all directions. “We need to retreat! We can’t go on any further!”

That was the end of Act 2, and then I said the one line that wasn’t at all in Bartholomew’s script. But the funny part was no one knew about it except him and us…

“I guess you’re right!” I admitted, as if I was continuing the play. “There’s only one way to escape now.”

Then, the three of us flew toward the central window. Frost and Echo quickly opened fire, and everyone nearly jumped out of their seats upon seeing and hearing that the guns they were carrying were actually real. Instead of trying to attack us, they were immediately on the defensive, giving us just enough time to make an escape but nothing more. Just seconds after the central window was shattered into pieces, Blazewing and I flew outside, with Echo and Frost close behind. After we flew out of the building and among the rest of the buildings of Monaraca, the Black Onyx capital city, I realized Frost and Echo were flying south, likely where the last remaining forces of the Silver Apex were stationed.

We were out of the cage for the moment, but we still had a long way to go before we were out of enemy territory…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 10
Inner City Pursuit​

Recommended Listening: The Matrix Reloaded - Mona Lisa Overdrive

We flew briskly above the many skyscrapers of Monaraca, trying to fly through the city as fast as we could. I didn’t know if the Altarias of the Black Onyx Kingdom were faster than the Pidgeots of the Silver Apex, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would find out…

As we flew through the massive metropolis, I couldn’t believe the sight. Unlike the dark skies of the Silver Apex, the Black Onyx Kingdom still got perfect sunlight, just like the skies I had seen as Jake Kossak back in Orre. Meanwhile, the streets below us were infested with vehicles and traffic, while hundreds of flashing and flickering neon signs and television screens overhung outward from the lines and lines of office and apartment buildings. Every building was huge, most of them being hundreds of stories tall. Still, we didn’t pay much attention to anything, just on the path ahead that would lead us out of the city as soon as possible. It was clear that by looking at Monaraca, not only was the Black Onyx Kingdom rich and powerful, but they were more advanced with technology and resources.

The chances of taking Jasandax was between nil and slim. The chances of taking Monaraca was clearly impossible...

We flew a good ten minutes through the massive city before we encountered our first wave of resistance. I was beginning to think no one had been told we escaped until I started hearing gunfire behind us, from two Altaria riders, a Watchog and a Diggersby. So much for getting away unseen…

“Infidel!” The Watchog shouted between firing blasts, “You will not escape!”

I turned to him, and focused my energy. My red cheeks then flared with an intense amount of electricity, and I directed the blast of thunder right at the Altaria he was riding on. However, the blast missed him by only a few feet, just because I didn’t compensate for the usual speed. Trying to hit an Altaria was much different than trying to hit a Skarmory. They weren’t as fast as the steel birds I had been so used to striking down. It seemed the Black Onyx kingdom favored elegance over aggression.

“Aim for the mounts!” I shouted to Echo and Frost as we tried to dodge the incoming fire, “They can’t fly without their mounts!”

Immediately, Echo and Frost returned fire, first on the Diggersby rider’s Altaria. The head of his Altaria was struck five times before she threw the Diggersby forward from the lack of control, only to send him plummeting three thousand feet into the busy traffic below.

“Damn you!” The Watchog shouted in fury, trying to return fire.

Echo and Frost dodged his incoming fire by slowing down unexpectedly, flanking him on both sides. Before he had the chance to react and choose his target, they both opened fire, and Altaria was shot viciously in the face and sides from the incoming fire, immediately throwing him off his flying mount. I watched him sail through the air, hopelessly waving his arms and legs, screaming loudly just before he slammed into a flashing green and red “Star Saffron” neon sign, and was horrifically electrocuted seconds later as the sign exploded, throwing sparks in all directions.

Still, despite the conflict, we kept surging forward, even though we could still see plenty of buildings ahead of us for many miles ahead. We still had a long way to go before we free, and already things were getting hectic. I could only imagine King Skepter back in his throne room, infuriated beyond imagination as he was directing his forces to pursue and eliminate us. But in the meantime, we had no idea where or how they were mobilizing, and that's the part that had me concerned.

Three more minutes of furious flying passed, and we continued to move quickly through the buildings, hoping we were hard to track down and notice. And then, seconds later, I had realized they set up a blockade in front of us, with five Altaria riders just waiting for us to arrive. However, the only problem was we were moving too fast to make a quick turn, so our only choice was to head forward.

Immediately Echo and Frost opened fire, and I used my concentration and focus and suddenly I could clearly see all five riders. I then prepared another Thunderbolt, and sent the destructive fork of thunder and lightning at one of the riders, a Panpour who hadn’t even opened fire yet. Instantly both he and his Altaria were blasted with an extreme amount of power, throwing them both in opposite directions and then falling all the way down to the streets below.

Frost managed to wipe out one of the targets he was aiming at, but Echo had only missed by a little. Still, all three of us managed to fly right past them, leaving only three of them behind us. They hadn’t prepared for us to be so fast, so it took quite some time before turning around to chase us and grabbing the strength to finally catch up.

When they finally did, both Echo and Frost fired before they even had the chance. The first to go was a Treecko and his Altaria, but then we instantly ran into a very bad problem…

“There’s no ammunition left!” Echo shouted, trying to fire her empty firearm with nothing coming out.

And I imagined Frost likely only had a little left before his rifle spat out the last bullet in the magazine. That left us with no rifles, two angry Altaria riders behind us, and miles and miles of Monaraca still ahead of us.

“Head downward!” I shouted to the two of them, already making the descent myself, “It’s the only way to fight back!”

The two of them didn’t ask questions, and immediately we found ourselves flying up and down, trying to avoid all the suspended poles, traffic lights, and neon signs of the Monaraca streets. We flew only a few feet above the trucks and other vehicles below us, often sending one car banging into another from the confusion as we flew through each intersection, risking life and limb every second we rushed through the traffic, hoping our evasive and quick maneuvers were better than our pursuers.. I had looked behind me for a short instant to watch as one of the Altaria riders had forcefully slammed right into a container truck just after it turned through the intersection.

We kept moving through the lower part of the streets, just narrowly avoiding the busy traffic and flashing neon advertisements just over the streets. There must have been at least twenty Altaria riders behind us now, having a hell of a time trying to avoid all the inner city traffic while attempting to shoot us. But then the sight that really got me tense was seeing a massive, heavy armored assault vehicle storming its way through the streets. To me, it looked like a black fire engine covered in heavy plating with a massive chaingun attached to the top. I knew trying to avoid the incoming fire from a chaingun like that would be like trying to dance in the rain without touching a single drop of water.

“Move faster!” I shouted to Echo and Frost, who were already quickly descending to avoid a large neon sign.

“We’re moving as fast as we can!” Echo complained, already avoiding so many incoming obstructions as once.

"Hang on, guys, it's only going to get rougher!" Blazewing called out to both of them, trying to fly as fast and as well as she could.

Frost looked back for a second, and then he nearly screamed, just before he looked forward again, actually trying this time to move faster than usual.

“Holy crap!” Frost shouted in a panic, “Echo, there’s a Mox Assault Engine right behind us!!”

I could this heavily armored tank of a machine, notably called the Mox Assault Engine, was definitely the subject of fear for these remnants of the Silver Apex. Right now, we didn't have anything even remotely close to the kind of weaponry we needed to fight it. The best we could do was hope to fly away as soon as we possibly could.

Echo quickly turned back to check Frost's warning, and I heard her swear out loud just before she turned around to continue controlling her Pidgeot. Meanwhile, no matter how fast we tried flying, the Assault Engine just kept drawing closer and closer, often smashing any vehicle or obstacle that got in its way, caring nothing about collateral damage. We could head upward again, but then the massive amount of Altaria riders behind us would have perfect clear shots at our backs and I didn't want to try much luck against their training to shoot mobile targets. And we were going much too fast to turn down another street and head in another direction. Slowing down to make any turn would have been far too risky.

Suddenly, I noticed the traffic below us was growing much more congested, and then I realized what was ahead of us. I saw that only half a mile in front of us was the entrance to a tunnel that lead out of the city. The Mox Assault Engine kept ripping through every vehicle that got in its path, sending every of them skidding onto the sidewalks wildly just after it smashed each and every one of them to look like crushed aluminum cans. Still, despite the massive damage it did to those vehicles, the armored MAE hadn't even taken a scratch. It still kept pressing forward relentlessly, showing no reduction in speed despite the massive amount of vehicles it kept smashing into.

We drew closer and closer toward the entrance to the tunnel, our only possible escape to avoid the wrath of the Mox Assault Engine. However, I knew that once we were inside that tunnel, it was going to be a living nightmare to avoid all the traffic that was moving about through the tunnel. Still, we didn’t have a choice…

Just when the engine made it to be only three hundred feet behind us, the turret based on the top suddenly opened fire, roaring and filling the streets with deafening blasts as the chaingun on the top fired furiously upon us. The gunner didn’t even care about ripping his own Altaria-riding comrades to pieces, they only wanted to kill us…

…at whatever the cost…

The amount of incoming fire was insane, but the three of us had made it inside the tunnel just before to became too much to handle. Inside, the tunnel was dimly lit from the florescent lights, just barely illuminating the white tiled walls. Now, the traffic was moving faster, seemingly trying to escape the wrath of the Mox Assault Engine.

Just moments before the MAE had entered the tunnel, the entire turret based on the top of the vehicle had been ripped off from being too high to make the tunnel clearance. The result was an ear-piercing shriek from the ripping of metal as the turret was uprooted from its metal mount. Still, the loss of the engine’s main weapon and gunner didn’t keep the driver from his insane rage. And the cars and trucks the engine ran into had nowhere to go but be crushed like cardboard boxes against the sides of the massive vehicle. And to make the damage even worse, the twisted metal remains of the turret were running against the ceiling, tearing it apart while unleashing a cascade of bright sparks.

Still, we kept flying furiously, being able to avoid most of the traffic now that there weren’t any Altaria riders behind us. Still, the situation was far from comfortable.

“Will nothing stop that thing!?” Echo asked out loud, looking behind her as the engine continued on its insane path.

But it didn’t stop there. The Machoke based in the passenger seat had smashed the side window, and had attempted to open fire using his own rifle. Still, the insane speed barely gave him enough slack to even hold the firearm, let alone trying to maintain a good accuracy. However, as bad as that sounded, it was the very least of our problems…

Suddenly, all the lights in the tunnel had flickered on to red, filling the tunnel with an eerie red glow, and suddenly, the message boards mounted on the ceiling started flashing a warning message. Just when I thought it was impossible, everything had just gotten fifty times worse.

INITIATING SECURITY LOCKDOWN

Every sign displayed it with fierce, bright red lettering. It then became clear to me they were going to lockdown the exit of the tunnel, the only way we could escape. Still, there was no way in hell we could ever just turn around and head back into Monaraca where there were more Altaria riders or possibly even another one of these hideous Mox Assault Engines just ready to try and hunt us down. If we couldn’t get out this way, there was no way we would survive the massive amount of fighting we would have to do to get out of the tunnel. And even if we got that far, there was no certainty that the next exit we attempted to take wouldn’t be locked down either.

Regardless, we continued to tear our way through the tunnel, now having an even harder time now that the traffic was completely stopped. Obviously our only way out was cut off with the traffic being totally halted, but that didn’t stop us, nor did it stop the Mox Assault Engine from slamming aside every single vehicle in the tunnel aside as it continued rampaging toward us. I could only guess as to how many civilians that thing must have killed in its rampage.

Then, my worst fears came true. Suddenly, I caught sight of the end of the tunnel, but instead of seeing light from the exit, the way out was completely shut from two steel doors large enough so that they took up the entire end of the tunnel. We stopped at least three hundred feet away from the tunnel, knowing it was useless to continue moving forward.

“We’re trapped…” Echo gasped, looking at the locked doors. “There’s no way out…!”

“We don’t stand a chance if Skepter gets his hands on us again!” Frost stated, spellbound by the size of the massive doors.

That’s if he got his hands on us again. We would have to make it out of this hell alive if even that was going to happen. And considering the way they were after us, they wanted us dead right now, there were no other excuses. I could imagine Skepter and his son Bartholomew didn’t want to see us perform dismal plays or smash into giant chocolate cakes anymore. They wanted blood.

I looked at the doors, and then the incoming Mox Assault Engine came forward. It was raging toward us furiously, and closing in very fast. I knew there was only one way to avoid having it slam right into us and crushing the three of us against the metal doors.

“Pull up into the corners!” I shouted to Echo and Frost, “That’s the only way we can stop it from crushing us against the wall!”

Immediately, I motioned Blazewing to head toward the lights, situated on the top left and right sides of the tunnel. Just when we were finally in position, I told Blazewing to move as close to the wall as she could.

Then, seconds later, the massive assault engine flew right past us, not even noticing we were hovering right above it. Shortly after, it slammed into a squad of cars located toward the end of the tunnel, stopped due to the fact they couldn’t move with the doors shut.

It was then that the back axel of the Mox Assault Engine was destroyed, and the massive vehicle flew right into the doors, unable to stop from the high velocity. Just as the vehicle crushed itself and the cars in front of it against the door, it immediately exploded, filling the back of the tunnel with furious fire and flames. The whole tunnel was lit up, and we shielded ourselves from the pieces of debris that flew in all directions. An entire car went flying past us completely consumed by flames, heading back down toward the end of the tunnel after the explosion pushed it back.

After most of the fire had cleared, I then looked back toward the tunnel, and saw that the explosion had torn a hole in the doors. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing we could finally escape and not risk our lives heading back toward the city.

“Come on,” I told the other two. “I see a way out.”

Blazewing and I then headed for the opening, flying past several flaming, crumpled cars and metal pieces of debris everywhere. The whole end of the tunnel was nearly pitch black except from the glow of the fire and the small opening that was cut through the tunnel. Just as I approached the opening, I saw the ruins of the assault engine, now divided into two flaming pieces with the cabin crushed inward.

After I had flown through the hole, I saw a road leading out of the city and away from the main urban area. The area around it was covered with lush forests, clean lakes and vast plains. Strangely enough, it didn’t even seem like we were still on the same planet after seeing the dark skies of the Silver Apex. Soon after, we began heading west, away from Black Onyx territory… for now.

We had flown for nearly an hour, hoping no one was following us. When it became clear we had escaped, I breathed a sigh of relief, finally glad we were far, far away from that miserable place. I was sure the Altaria riders had lost all sight of us, and they had essentially nothing to use to follow our trail.

"That... damn, that was too close," Frost muttered.

"No kidding," I replied, feeling like I nearly had a heart attack from all that. "These Black Onyx people are way more well-equipped than I thought."

In truth, the situation was even worse than I thought. Far worse than last time. The Silver Apex was reduced to just fragments, while Black Onyx commanded elite forces with incredible weaponry and ferocity. I wasn't exactly sure how or when I would be able to even gather up enough forces and equipment to take something like that to the fight. I had to think... was I really buying time for a solution, or was I just delaying the inevitable?

Meanwhile, we continued to fly through the skies, which seemed so crisp, clean, and clear as opposed to the environmental disaster that we had seen earlier. It just didn't make much sense though. How could the Black Onyx even control the weather? Or had they used a weapon so disastrous that it did that kind of extreme environmental damage to what used to be the Silver Apex?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Echo asked me as we flew through the air next to each other, “And it’s just as beautiful as it is unfair. We live in a nightmare compared to this place, one that never sees the light of the sun or has a single a single tree growing throughout all of our country.”

“I still can’t believe you actually came back…” Frost had said to me, still amazed at what he just saw. “There’s nothing in the prophecy that even mentions this. How is it even possible? Did you simply go into hiding after the first war?”

Blazewing and I were silent for a moment. I knew it would seem hard to believe that Blazewing and I had actually resurrected. We had fed Skepter a total lie, but I couldn't do that to Silver Apex soldiers.

"The story of Utopia..." I told him, remembering it so vividly, "...it really does exist."

"Wait, you really did die!?" Echo asked, totally in shock, "But... but how could you have come back from the dead? No Pokémon has ever been able to just resurrect themselves just like that!"

There were many possible explanations, but deep inside, I knew the answer. Juno and Blazewing were not ordinary Pokémon. But telling them that we were both the material of a human boy's imagination come to life into reality would have been opening up a whole other story. And then again, it made me wonder what was the real story behind the Well of Harmony in Utopia. Could anyone use it to go back to the world of the living, or was there something about the two of us that made it possible for only use alone to pull off such a feat?

"It's true," I replied to Echo. "There is a place in Utopia that can take you anywhere you want to go. But most Pokémon... would never even dream of leaving Utopia once they laid eyes on it. We couldn't rest when we realized what had happened here."

"Oh Juno, I'm so sorry..." Echo muttered, looking downcast. "Listen... things... have only gone downhill since you were gone. I'm not going to sugarcoat anything... a lot of what we had is totally gone. I'll show you if... you have the stomach for it."

"Yeah..." I sighed, feeling a bit depressed. "I need to know who and what we still have to work with..."

Echo nodded, and led the way. She was silent after that, and as we flew on, the sky itself slowly turned sick and twisted, little by little, as if we were making it more miserable by continuing our journey back home. It wasn’t long before we had arrived back at the place that I had once known as my second home, a place I once thought I would never again see or return to. It was then that I finally caught sight of Symarix, the now fallen city that was once the heart of the Silver Apex.

Sadly, instead of bringing back peaceful memories of nostalgia, I was overcome with remorse as I gazed upon the ruins. Buildings had fallen over, hollowed out, large and giant skyscrapers were now just burnt out shells and husks, and the courtyards had become vacant lots filled with debris, rubble, and twisted metal.

The streets were torn open, vehicles were haphazardly laying everywhere in all directions, and most of what had been its civilians were now simply dusty, dry bones laying among the rubble, metal, and destruction. Meanwhile, still floating in the air were ashes, papers, and dust, carried by the lonesome, ghostly wind that carried its way through the city.

My soul had never felt so cold…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 11
The Gray Hour​

There wasn’t very much left now. I had guided Blazewing to head for the ground, and once we had reached the ruined streets, I dismounted, and we simply looked upon the gray remains of what was once a bustling capital of life and prosperity. In every direction, there was rubble in the streets, holes torn into the asphalt and ruined buildings with large pieces torn out of them. Only a small few still had all four sides attached, but still, like the others, they were burnt inside out and there wasn't any sign of life besides us.

It was then that Frost had approached me, looking downcast as well.

“There are only a few survivors who still live here,” Frost had informed me, looking toward the ground. “Most of them are underground, but some of them still try to make shelter out of the fallen buildings. However, sometimes the Black Onyx comes by every two or three months and does a search. Anyone that they find, they usually kill…”

I was silent. We had nothing left to fight with, and I could see the only way to survive now was to live like a rat, buried underground with the only intention of mere survival. Meanwhile, the Black Onyx basked in their luxuries, hunting us down purely for sport. They knew they had won, but they still persisted just to make a sick pleasure out of shedding blood. As downcast as I was, I felt hopeless, overcome with the feeling that even my presence here could not solve anything. The Black Onyx was an enemy that far surpassed the power of the Crimson Stars, but now we were going to have to find a way to defeat an even stronger foe with a very limited number of forces, much less than what we had used to fight the Crimson Stars. I already knew it would be clearly impossible to do it using conventional means.

“What ever happened to Sinis?” I asked Frost, looking up and gazing into the gray dust of the ruined city.

“He’s still alive…” Frost replied, staring into the distance. “He doesn’t talk very much anymore. Skepter’s been trying to kill him for the longest time in order to disperse us, but we’ve kept him alive. For what… I don’t know though. He's been sick for quite some time, though.”

It wasn’t long until I had done a search. I had walked down ruined roads, sometimes having to crawl over a mountain of rubble just to continue. And then, for one dark moment, I stood there with Blazewing besides me, totally silent the entire time. I was at the center of an intersection, a completely open area where I could even still make out the traffic lines on the asphalt. Several ruined vehicles lay over turned and scattered in various places. But nothing felt more painful than being in a place of death, something that was supposed to be overflowing with activity and life was now nothing but a graveyard of the past. Symarix had become just a mere memory, something that could only be relived in my dreams and imagination. It just seemed impossible for us to find a way to turn on the tables.

As I stood there, I knew that starting an uprising against the Black Onyx at a time and state like this would only be a disastrous suicide and would be sacrificing the only thing that was keeping the remnants of the Silver Apex alive. My only thought would be to gather everyone in the same location, and assemble whatever resources we had left. An overwhelming part of me felt like saying that we should just live the rest of our lives like that, and hide underground in a place that hopefully the Black Onyx would never find. But as I stood in that ruined intersection, surrounded by the memories of the past, I believed there was still something that could be done. But it involved making a choice, and a decision to give up a lot.

“Look, it’s not safe to stay here, Juno,” Frost had told me, finally catching up. “There’s really not much we can do about it, and Black Onyx patrols have always been unpredictable when it comes to combing through here.”

“Frost…” I replied in a soft voice, “I... would like to meet with Sinis.”

“I’ll take you to him…” Frost answered with a solemn voice, “but… please don’t be shocked if he doesn’t seem to be the way he used to be.”

We then abandoned Symarix, and headed west, even thicker into the stormy despair of the Silver Apex. After several miles of flying across a dark, arid and seemingly hopeless desert, we then arrived at a formation of rocks, which I never would have guessed was the entrance to an underground cavern. It wasn’t long until Frost and Echo had headed to the formation as I closely followed them.

Once we had arrived and landed on the ground, I had seen Frost make his way toward one of the rocks. After he had moved it out of the way, I had seen that there was hole underneath it with a metal ladder heading downward. Frost was the first to go downward, and I soon followed with Echo behind me. After she had moved the rock back into place after her, I soon found myself in an underground cavern, very dimly lit with a few burning lanterns suspended from the ceiling. It was clear to see this cold, underground, hidden cavern was the only home the Silver Apex seemed to have left.

Most of the remaining members of the Silver Apex stayed in the rooms away from the hallways, all of them very silent and very downcast. I was almost surprised to see that even though Blazewing was right next to me, they hadn’t even looked up to see her. We had made our way down a long hallway carved out of the dirt, with several open rooms along the sides. I had seen that several pieces of furniture had been saved and had been brought to this underground tunnel, such as chairs, bedding material, carpets, lights, cabinets, and several other items to help make living down here easier, but I knew it could only do so much.

Frost then took me down to the last room down the hallway. After we had stepped inside, I had immediately caught sight of Sinis, lying down on a bed as several soldiers and a Chansey caretaker stood by his side to comfort him. It didn’t take very long until I had seen that Sinis was missing both his legs and his left arm, which I could easily assume was the result of combat. The three of us had stood by the door, and I had looked at him moving and aching as if he was an elderly man on the verge of passing away.

“Come now…” A Mawile had told the three of us, “The last thing he needs is for a crowd to start coming in here.”

“I need to talk to Sinis.” I told him, trying to justify my purpose in being here. “There’s something I need to tell him.”

Still, the Mawile wasn’t convinced. He gave me an annoyed glace, and put his right hand on his hip.

“Yeah, and just who are you anyway?” He asked, giving me an inferior look.

I was alarmingly surprised for a moment. Blazewing had stood right besides me, and yet he couldn’t make the connection. But maybe that was because he simply thought I was dead.

“This is Juno, Kaz.” Echo had replied to the Mawile.

And then, Kaz gave me an even more inferior look. He then looked back at Echo and stared at her like she was crazy.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Kaz told her in a sharp tone of voice, “You obviously don’t know anything, do you? Juno died many years ago and we found his body burnt to cinders. I don’t know who this Pikachu is but I highly recommend not wasting my time like this.”

“It's true…” I replied to Kaz, looking at his feet, “I know it may be hard to believe.”

“I don’t believe a word that any of you are saying,” Kaz replied, starting to look aggressive. “We don’t have time for your stupid games, Echo. I swear, you never take anything seriously.”

Blazewing and I just looked at each other, almost shocked that this Mawile and no one else in the room ever made the connection. Did he really think we were someone completely different? As far as I knew, Blazewing was the only Latias to ever live in Symarix and who also had a Pikachu as a rider. Or had things gotten so hopeless that they had been blinded because of it or truly believed I was incapable of coming back? I could only suppose that with how grim things had become, any trace of hope seemed beyond all possible grasp.

I had softly approached Sinis’s bed, looking at the badly wounded Zangoose. I could still recognize traces of his former self, but so much had happened to make even the familiar look foreign. It was horrible to think that after so much had happened, this was the only reward we had gotten for such a brutally hard struggle.

As I stood by Sinis’s bedside, I thought he had suddenly become paralyzed or was completely unable to notice I was even there. Then, he had rolled to his side, and for a moment, he stared back at me with his seemingly vacant eyes. I couldn’t tell if he could see me at the moment, but as I continued to look back, he opened his mouth.

“I…” He said very slowly and very weakly, “I… remember… those eyes…”

I was silent. I already knew I didn’t need to tell him who I was. Even if no one else here recognized me or believed I was actually Juno, I knew that at least he would remember. So long ago, we had accomplished so much together. Most of that was gone now, but I still felt there was a way to bring it all back.

"Sinis, I'm... sorry all this happened..." I told him, struggling with the words. "I never knew what was going on until it was over."

“Juno…” Sinis replied, still very weak. “We… lost… everything…”

Only moments after Sinis himself testified that I was Juno, Kaz had looked at me and the Latias completely spellbound. The older soldiers in the room also were silenced, and could not keep their eyes off of her. Then, Kaz had looked at me, and at first I didn’t understand his reaction…

“You… you are really Juno?” Kaz asked, looking at me in question. “How is that even possible!? No Pokémon has ever resurrected from the dead, so how could you!?"

I looked down, trying to gather my thoughts and figuring out what I should really tell them all. I figured... they needed to know.

"Blazewing and I are... not ordinary Pokémon, Kaz," I told him, confessing some of my most deepest secrets. "There's a reason why the Silver Rebellion discovered us and why there's no record of us living here on Kivistal as children. We're born from dreams. I've seen other worlds, and I've even seen the place where all good Pokémon souls go to rest. Utopia itself."

"You're kidding!" Kaz exclaimed in such shock. "Dreams? How is... something like that even possible?"

"It's a long story, but it involves a human boy who used a sorcerer's necklace to conjure up his own imagination into reality," Blazewing informed him, letting him know the truth. "Another human by the name of Jake Kossak managed to break the spell by becoming the boy's most desired Pokémon companion... a Pikachu named Juno, dreamed up to be far more powerful than normal. The soul merged with the dream and I spiritually bonded with Juno. When the spell was broken, everything of the boy's imagination was gone, except for the two of us. We are elements of his dream that had become real."

But still, Kaz seemed perplexed, although everyone else in the room seemed spellbound by the whole story.

"What... are these 'humans' you refer to?" Kaz asked, having never heard of them before.

"They're like us in some ways, living in a world far away from this one," Blazewing told him. "When Juno died here, he was forced to live out the human life he had left behind before coming here to save the Silver Apex. Sadly... the humans are not without their own wars as well. While the Silver Apex was struggling against the Black Onyx, Juno was fighting in his own war and was also killed in combat."

"Killed... twice..." Kaz muttered, having problems wrapping his head around that. "That's... a hell of a story, Juno, and I hate to say it, but the only thing you're going to get out of coming back here is a third chance to die. Dreams or not, unless you can pull off some kind of one man army miracle here, the situation's hopeless and even beyond what you're capable of."

Problem was he was right, I didn't have anything. As Juno, I was capable of feats and powers that went beyond what most Pokémon could pull off, but not in this situation. Even if I could somehow pull of the kind of power I did in Zander's arena, which seemed impossible here, that wouldn't be nearly enough to stop Skepter's battalions. One way or another, their overwhelming firepower could bring down what I had used there.

“I haven't given up, Kaz,” I told him, closing my eyes for a moment as I stood besides Sinis’s bed. “Every passing day, I'm learning and discovering things I didn't know I was capable of. Resurrection was just one of those things, but I don't know if there's a limit to how many times I can do that. Maybe... there's something else about being born of dreams that has a hidden secret that I have yet to discover."

"Well, here's to hoping you find something, and fast," Kaz replied, looking very doubtful. "I find that whole story hard to believe, but hey, you got us this far, didn't you?"

I could tell that implication expressed how futile the whole situation had become, and how hollow of a victory we had earned against the Crimson Stars. His comeback was met by silence. Still, even without a response, I felt that I had been given an answer. Dreams or not, Blazewing and I were put into a place that was even behind what we started off with.

Regardless of my presence, there was little hope to be found in those caverns. There was no spirit left in the Silver Apex, and as I looked around, I became more and more overcome with that thought that most of the inhabitants felt that something like this was supposed to happen, and this was supposed to be the end. Meanwhile, Sinis was barely hanging on.

“There's... nothing left... for us here...” Sinis replied, still very weak, “The people... are starving... and every day... we see more... of us buried. Our city... gone...”

“I’m going to help you get it back.” I told Sinis, hoping he could hear me, “The Silver Apex is not gone. It never will be…”

He didn’t respond, but I knew he was trying to hold in there as much as possible. Still, I knew time was running out…

“Juno…” He told me, trying hard to breathe, “You… command them… now. You be… their leader.”

“Sinis…” I said softly, holding his hand. "Sinis... don't... don't go..."

“Watch… after them…” Sinis continued, looking into my eyes, “The way… a father looks… after his children. Please… do it… for me…”

Then, his hand went limp in my grasp...

Normally, I would have been overcome by sadness and tears, but my heart told me he was away from here now. I had seen Utopia, I knew what that feeling was like and what a blissful release it really was. He would be fine there, and now I had to carry on where he left off.

At that moment, the entire destiny and future of The Silver Apex rested totally upon my shoulders. Where would we go, and what would we become? I didn’t know the future, but I knew I would do whatever it took to protect the last remainders of the Silver Apex, already knowing of the sacrifice I made to eliminate Zander many years ago.

But we were beyond desperate. Only a day later, we had laid Sinis to rest, buried in the dark soil of the land that was once known as the Silver Apex, a place where we had all traced back our roots. Sinis was only given a short funeral, for we knew that if we stayed out of the surface too long, others would soon be coming with him. After that had happened, it was up to me to decide what our next action would be.

“What is it you plan on doing, Juno?” Kaz pressured me, thinking I already had a clear cut answer.

“We need to relocate,” I replied, looking directly at him. “The only chance we have to get ourselves out of this mess is to move elsewhere.”

“Move!?” Kaz shouted at me in shock. “Are you kidding!? Juno, you yourself should know that this is our homeland. We can’t just leave it behind and forget that it even existed.”

No, I didn’t like the idea of it either, but I knew for a fact that sitting here with the Black Onyx forces still coming around to wipe out everyone wasn’t going to give us much slack to even get out of the ground and start living on the surface. And fighting against those patrols was only going to result in even more forces coming down here to tear us to pieces. It was only a matter of time before they found the cavern and wiped everyone out.

“Kaz,” I told him honestly, “The Silver Apex is a black and lifeless desert under a consistent amount of merciless fire. I know what it used to look like, and that's definitely not home out there. If we don’t relocate now, then every one of us is going to die a very slow and very miserable death.”

Kaz then looked off to the side, looking annoyed and very disappointed. In a way, he was right. We didn’t have much anymore, and even if we did relocate, we would have nothing once we got there. I didn’t even know where to relocate to, but anywhere had to be better than this hostile environment.

I immediately looked at a map that had been provided for me, and I tried to find a spot where we could retreat to and hopefully recuperate. We didn’t have many allies and according to Kaz and the others, most of the opposing nations had been wiped out already, but there was one that had caught my attention. They were very small and only partially developed, but I already knew we would be far better off there than here. To the south were the Azure Islands, a small area that had not been ransacked by the Black Onyx. I figured maybe there was still hope if we planted ourselves elsewhere in a place where we could rebuild.

“Why do you want to retreat to the Azure Islands?” Kaz had asked me, wondering why I had decided on that location. “We haven’t communicated with the Midnight Gemini in over twelve years. They might not even exist anymore…”

“We don’t have too many options here, Kaz,” I replied to him, knowing he wanted the impossible. “We can’t stay here.”

“Juno, this is the land of our fathers, the land which you died to protect,” Kaz continued, trying to get me to change my mind. “Why do you want to abandon it now, and lose everything we’ve ever fought for?”

I was getting tired of this. Yes, we were abandoning it, but for a very good reason. There was nothing left here. The Black Onyx would never let us rebuild, and I knew that in time, they would find this place and eliminate the little that we had left.

“Kaz, either we move out of here, or we stay here and die like everything else,” I told him seriously. “We cannot hope to recover here when we’re under constant repression. We need to move to somewhere safer. Maybe then we can hope to recover enough to gain back our territory some day, just like the way it used to be.”

After that, it was my decision that finally overruled his. I immediately sent a request for the members of all three camps to head over to the one where we were currently located, to discuss plans to move to the Azure Islands located far to the south. Some others didn’t like the plan either, but there were far many more who could understand why it was only suicide to say here.

It wasn’t long until the last remaining dispersed members of the Silver Apex had finally gathered. I was very shocked to see the number of remaining citizens and soldiers was narrowed down to only a few thousand, but there was no turning back now. It was true we had suffered, but we weren't dead.

I could only hope that the Midnight Gemini were merciful, compassionate, and they would accept us into their nation. It was a sad and depressing thought to leave our homeland behind, but it was a decision that we had to make, regardless of what was going through our minds at that moment…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 12
A Solemn Path​

Recommended Listening: Half Life 2 - Particle Ghost

In all the years of my life, leaving behind a nation that had supported me and had done so much to remember every act I did only to decay at the hands of a heartless enemy was quite possibly the most demoralizing decision I’ve ever had to make. My image set in stone had fallen, once created to remember the past only to be struck down by the hopelessness and tyranny of the present. I was now even the little that remained totally behind to be forgotten. Still, our homelands were lost, gone in what could possibly last forever. Despite all my conflicting emotions and feelings, I felt I wanted the people of the Silver Apex to be remembered in their roots of who they would become in the hopeful future, not be remembered as the once rising legacy that now lay in the sands of demise only to be forgotten as a lost civilization.

Among the twisted metal and layered rubble, we arose from the wastes of our homeland. The journey had to be on foot, and we took everything we could carry. Everything else, we left buried with the legacy of what was once here. Those who were sick or were injured had to be carried by someone else. And for all that was too heavy to carry, we left it behind for someone else to salvage. Our only intention now was to submit to the Midnight Gemini, regardless of their goals or purposes, hoping they would have mercy and understanding on us where others didn’t. Likely, I would lose my leadership position over the Silver Apex, despite the fact I would only have held it for a few short moments. But if it meant peace and survival, it was an easy sacrifice.

The caravan continued south, regardless of the desolate windy desert weather that seemed to endlessly blow around us and seemed to carry the whispers of the forgotten dead. Many of our remaining solders stood on guard, prepared to fight if the Black Onyx should attempt to tear us apart yet again. The journey took several days, and never once did we see sunshine. Despite being surrounded by sand, it was never scorching hot. Instead, we were surrounded by the cold winds, the dark sands, and the abysmal remains of the destroyed sky as we treaded slowly across the vast wastelands. Regardless, we continued, and like a small hope suddenly becoming larger and larger, we eventually left our ruined homelands and entered the outside world. Slowly we could see the real sun, unveiled before our eyes.

However, the trip had not gone without its costs. Regrettably so, there were many sick and injured members of the Silver Apex that didn’t survive the journey south. Our only choice was to bury them in their homeland, say a brief prayer in their name, and move on shortly after word. Still, I couldn’t show regret for my decisions. For every member that had fallen and never got back up, Kaz continued to give me stares of doubt and disbelief like their death was my doing. Still, I tried not to look at him during the brief funerals. They were depressing enough…

Regardless, there were many that had survived the journey out of the Silver Apex homeland, and across the vast and fruitful plains of Conda. Thankfully, we had found enough water and food to continue our journey. While the lands of Conda appeared to be very inhabitable from the outside, I already knew it was the stage of many natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, far too much to be ever consider settling upon them. It was hard to continue for days through the desert with only little food, but thankfully the region of Conda had plenty of wild fruit that we used to help us survive the journey. Had it not been for that, the death toll would have easily been higher…

Once we had reached the coastline, we then came across one of the first wooden outposts that served as a watch station for the rest of the tropical Azure Islands. I had really no idea if anyone was still there or if it had been abandoned long ago. As I got a closer look at it, I could still see it was well maintained, so there had to be someone still here.

I tried to look through the many palm trees that were scattered in various places to see if I could find anyone near the outpost. I then decided to walk closer, and in the distance, I caught sight of a marina and a tiny harbor docked with many boats of various shapes and sizes. Not surprisingly, some of them were armed with mounted weapons…

At first, I had thought the whole place had been recently abandoned. I thought the only thing we could do now is to take some of the boats out to sea and see if the other islands were just as vacant. But, as soon as all of us had arrived at the wooden outpost just before the marina, I quickly learned this place wasn’t at all abandoned like I thought it was…

I couldn’t believe how badly ambushed we had become. As we simply stood on the beaten path leading to the marina, nearly two hundred heavily armed soldiers in black clothing emerged from the shrubs and palm trees from the two sides of the path. I quickly turned around to see many members of our groups pulling out their weapons in what thankfully only became a standoff rather than a reckless slaughter.

While we easily outnumbered the entire group, no one opened fire. Still, at any moment’s notice, a hideous massacre could have started with almost everyone glaring at each other aggressively even before any sign of conflict had arisen. I was relieved that no one had opened fire, but still, there was a lot of explaining that needed to be done.

“Which one of you is the leader of your group?” I heard a voice in back of me ask.

I quickly spun around, knowing whoever had spoken was definitely looking for me. When I turned around, I saw a Mienshao standing before me, wearing a thick flak jacket and pointing what looked like a massive machine gun right at my face. That… was definitely not a sight I really wanted to see…

“That would be me you’re looking for,” I replied to the Mienshao, wondering if he was actually the leader of this pack. “I take it you’re the leader the Midnight Gemini?”

“Them?” He quickly responded, still not looking at all happy about my presence. “They’re long gone. Thanks to that senile King Skepter and his abysmal armies. They have ripped everyone around the world to pieces, even once mighty empires I never dreamed would ever fall to the ground.”

I definitely knew he was talking about us, but I didn’t think there were even more countries that Skepter ruined just for the delight of his own benefit. But still, as I looked into the Mienshao’s eyes, I saw deep inside that he was really no different than we were.

Perhaps... perhaps this could be the unity that both of us needed to survive…

Shortly after all that had happened and we had been finally let in, I told the Mienshao everything that had happened, who I was and why we were here at the Azure Islands. I didn’t care if he didn’t trust me at the moment, that was the last thing on my mind. All I was asking for was acceptance at any price. I didn’t care what he wanted me to do in return, I was willing to do it. I would rather work until utter exhaustion for a stranger rather than humiliate myself to death in front of my enemies for their own pleasure. We had members that could work, and we had surviving soldiers that could help defend the settlement. Hopefully that would be exactly what he was looking for at the same time.

When I had finished, the Mienshao told me his name was Aries, the commander of the Southern Tempest, probably the first step toward gaining that final trust in proving we wanted to help him in return for his support.

“I found it interesting how you knew about the Midnight Gemini when they were hidden for so many years,” Aries had told me, looking at me with curiosity. “They had held this area for quite some time before they were taken down by the Black Onyx, and this whole place was left to rot with corpses thrown everywhere while the ground was saturated with blood and sinew. Unlike the Silver Apex, they made their death quick, rather than to keep them in a desperate bondage like what they did to you. I suppose that was only because if they completely eliminated all of their enemies, full domination might have become awfully boring.”

In some ways, I was glad we really didn’t die in the long run, despite how painful the last few years had been. There was no reason why we had to live a legacy of woe and despair. I didn’t want these times to always be remembered when we thought our history.

“How many enemies does King Skepter have left before there is no one left to oppose him?” I asked, just wondering exactly how many allies we had in this conflict.

“As far as I know…” Aries replied, looking off to the side a bit, “...not many at all. Skepter has ripped every nation and unity he could find to pieces, sparing no nation. His empire consists of essentially nothing but slave nations, oppressed Pokémon, and spoils. The reason why the Silver Apex was left to live was to be an example for all other nations, to see a once mighty empire now shrivel within the clenched fist of the Black Onyx.”

Power, dominance, and greed. That’s all that was left in Skepter’s soul in the long run. Still, the chances of us winning any battle would be so minimal, it almost seemed he was completely unstoppable. I knew there couldn't be that many other nations out there left that could raise up any forces. Black Onyx had stronger weapons, they were in better health, but worst of all, their numbers were far more massive than ours. Still, I couldn’t give up hope, and neither could Aries. I had to accept him as both a brother and a master.

“I must thank you for accepting us into the Southern Tempest,” I told him, expressing my gratitude. “We'll find a way to stop Skepter together, even if it seems distant right now.”

Aries looked away for a moment, seemingly in a moment of despair. After a few moments, he looked back up at me, still with the feeling of doubt.

“I’m afraid Skepter has already won the war, Juno,” Aries told to me in a hesitant voice. “Look at us. We’re nothing compared to the power that he has at his command. He’s torn every country, every empire, every adversary he’s ever had to pieces. My only hope is that he never finds this place, so we may live the rest of our lives in a small moment of peace after the pain we have embraced.”

I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t want to openly admit that he was right about all that, but from any view, whether it be from his or mine, it just seemed completely impossible to ever be a real threat to Skepter. If he were to discover we were here, it wouldn’t be long before everyone was wiped off the face of the planet, leaving Skepter to bask in delight from the merciless actions of his own cruelty. I didn’t want to think that any hope of justice now was just a fool’s hope.

“Just lay down your weapons and anger, Juno,” Aries told me honestly. “There is no reason to fight now. I’d rather drown in my own blood than be forced to be a slave for Skepter.”

If he only knew what I had to go through during my time there, he’d probably understand my feelings. Still, even unlike Aries, I had seen just one of the many massive cities that Skepter had at his control. That, as well as his massive weapons and countless Altaria riders ready to unleash at any moment. I was beginning to think that perhaps fighting Skepter directly was not the solution, since it was impossible for any of us to prevail against such an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. And unfortunately, for every idea that I had, a sense of doubt came over me with the feeling that any attempt of such a thing would only result in failure. Maybe… maybe this wasn’t worth fighting over. The odds… the hope… and all facets of morale had melted into the oblivion, and nothing was left. The death toll was far too high already, and I didn’t want to think of it becoming higher once again.

It pained me to think our only victory now was to simply hope he would never find us here, and let him believe that every enemy of his had been eliminated. Despite my abilities, I could never go up against his massive and unstoppable empire alone. But I didn’t want to believe it was all for nothing. That was the real pain that was tugging at my heart this whole time. With all those victories against the Crimson Stars, and all the fighting we had endured, the destiny of the Silver Apex was simply to fall at the feet of Skepter and his Black Onyx empire like a whole-hearted victory was never deserved.

It didn’t matter how long it was. Even for weeks after that meeting with Aries, it still kept me awake for so many hours. And there was Sita, up in the sky waiting and wondering why, for the first time ever, I’ve felt so helpless even after proving my strength time and time again even against the impossible.

Sadly, for the first time… my faith was really falling away…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 13
The Bleeding Shadows​

To most of the Silver Apex, time no longer had any meaning. As expected, the Southern Tempest had given us tasks to do our part in raising the food we needed to survive. Still, in a way, I felt like I failed my mission to stop Skepter. Already I had seen the fields of Utopia, and to waste my time away resting here would make my whole second coming for nothing. But still, I didn’t have a solution this time. Nothing seemed to be in my reach. In the fields, I kept thinking over the situation, but nothing came to mind. Between the Southern Tempest and the Silver Apex, we simply didn't have nearly enough to challenge Skepter. For days, I had tried to go over ideas for covert operations to sabotage Black Onyx's assets and strategic position, but the risk was difficult and we had little experience with such a thing.

And as the many months went by, I did my share of the work, which was nothing less than brute labor I had never expected to take part in. Still, there was no time for warriors now. The defenses of the Azure Islands were nothing. No one was even on guard anymore. We had truly beaten our swords to plowshares. Sure, we kept a few weapons around, but in all, most of them were completely neglected. Very disturbingly so, we knew that any attack upon us would be the last one. We didn’t stand a chance either way. Even if we finished off one patrol, we would only prolong a full scale assault that would undeniably be the end. As much pain as it brought me to say, I would rather be killed by a simple Black Onyx solider than have to live long enough to be brought to Skepter himself once again. And I knew this time, my execution cry would only be heard by those that will relish it.

In my spare time, when my share of the work was done, I spent my time in the library, which was a pretty large and usually empty underground circular cellar. There must have been tens of thousands of books in there, but usually I found myself alone in the dim light, reading to myself all this time. The only one who would visit me on rare occasions would be Aries, sometimes wondering why I spent so much time down there. Still, it was very rare for someone else to be in there with me.

But during that time, I had plunged myself into some of the stories I’ve read there, seeming to escape the thoughts of hopelessness by delving into knowledge and lore. Most of them were fiction and fairy tales that I would read late into the night. I got quicker and quicker at it too. Usually I would go through three books a day, and after several months had passed by, I was convinced I had cleaned off the shelf on the far left, but even then, I still have plenty more to read. Many of these books were so old and sometimes they were in pieces that had just been kept together. Others were slightly charred in some places, almost looking like someone had tried desperately to save them from a fire of some sort. Some were missing a hard cover, but I read them anyway. Still, it was rare to come across one that was in very good condition.

It very easily became an obsession of mine. Realty was constantly being harsh to me, and for even a short moment, it granted me time and effort to escape and see the world through someone else’s imagination. And oddly enough, whenever I went out to the field to work in the morning, I had tried to tell others about my time down there and tell them about some of the stories I’ve read there, but no one seemed interested. And hours later, I quickly hustled back down there, again to be alone for some time. At first, Blazewing didn't understand why I decided to spend so much time down there, but after I had told her about some of the things I read, she joined me at times, reading the ones I thought were best.

And during my time there, I had found plenty of interesting stories that had amazed me, but nothing so struck my heart so vividly as one book I had found, completely neglected for a long time. While the cover was scratched and damaged in several places much like all the others, it wasn’t what was on the cover that hit me the most. But after opening the cover, there it was, a small pencil-drawn image that took so much of my breath away. The small drawing depicted none other than a Pikachu, standing besides a very loyal and cheerful Latias right in the main streets of Symarix… when it was still standing. Right above the hand drawn image were the words, “The Coming of the Redeemer Juno.” Never once did I think a single book upon these shelves would ever have any mention of me. All I had to do was turn the page, and then it began, just like all the other stories in that library did.

I had quickly discovered that yes, indeed this was written by someone who had been in Symarix even before I had arrived. Everything was in vivid detail, such as the description of each location, and what Symarix was like, as if the author was creating it themselves from their own imagination. As I read through the first few chapters, I realized what life was like before my arrival, with Jamac and Achilles in power. It also followed the roots of the Divine Prophecy very closely, and every citizen of Symarix knew its words almost by heart, which wasn’t a surprise considering how well Sever had recited its passages the moment I met him. But still, it described that the coming of Juno the Gold Rider was just but a whisper at the moment. There was no time set in stone for his arrival, and so there could be no expectation for it.

And then, the author described in absolute flawless detail what my arrival in the city of Symarix was like. For an odd moment, it didn’t even feel like I was even reading a story about myself, and that this was someone else in a made up fairy tale. Again, then came my arrival before Achilles and Jamac, and the massive uproar that it had all caused. And on and on it went, describing every battle, and every hardship and pain I had to endure. It totally shocked me how well the author knew who I was, and knew about even some of the events that only a very few had known about. And the part that had plunged my heart in this story even more was the vivid detail in the battle of Jasandax. I could tell that whoever wrote this had very well been in that battle himself to be able to account for everything that happened. All I had to do was read the words, shut my eyes, and I was there again, fighting along so many loyal comrades at what was our finest moment. In all the disasters I had been, that was probably the one moment where I felt the strongest.

Shortly after came my last sacrifice to destroy Zander, and finally give the Silver Apex the chance of peace it finally deserved, and the giving of Juno’s last requiem. Apparently, I had read that even my own funeral had been an awful time of sadness, but to others, it was a time of hope and understanding. And then, just like that, it ended. Never once did it describe how mutilated Symarix had become due to the actions of the Black Onyx, or the bitterness that had happened after word. In my opinion, I wouldn’t have ended it any other way. And as I turned to the last page, it all came crashing down, like a massive and majestic skyscraper crumbling because of one horrible mistake. My admirations were suddenly crushed to dust.

Upon that last piece of paper, I had seen who had written the book after all, and who had decided to be the caretaker of my legacy this whole time.

It was Vice, the very same Weavile who had risked his life to help me back in Macomb, only to leave and scorn everything he ever believed in to follow the reason why the Silver Apex was just a memory bathed in misery. Suddenly, it felt like the book itself was a heavy deadweight on fire. I couldn’t even hold it anymore, and I had to just toss it from my tiny hands to tumble upon the floor. I had to shut my eyes again, and once more I felt those fiery tears sear along my face. I had felt so cold and sick for a moment. Then, after trying to put that sadness away, I just looked at the fallen book on the floor, looking like it was just a dead animal.

The quiet stillness in the room was like death. For some reason, the room seemed darker than usual. And yet… I was no longer even thinking about the book, even though its presence probably would exist forever in the back of my mind. I quickly stood up out of my usual reading chair, and for a moment, I felt sick and nauseous. I couldn’t understand why either, maybe it was just this stale air I had been breathing for so long finally getting to me.

"Are you okay, Juno?" Blazewing asked me, looking up from the book she was reading. "You look so pale. I hope that wasn't a horror story you just read."

"It was...much worse..." I muttered, knowing that was certainly the truth. "Let me... I'll be right back, I think I just need some water."

I knew I needed to get my mind off of that book, but it was not going to be easy, and I already knew I was likely going to lose sleep over it.

I tried to walk toward the metal door that led to the outside, but suddenly, I heard a violent knocking on it. I knew I had never heard that type of knock before. Yes, some Pokémon opened the door without it, while Aries always took a calm approach to knocking on the door. But after I heard that violent banging, I realized it was no one from the Azure Islands...

Someone was trying break their way in...

"Who the devil is..." Blazewing muttered, suddenly alarmed. "No, it can't be..."

In the darkest hour, they had come. All I had to do was shut my eyes, and for a dark moment, I could hear screams even through the steel and rock that surrounded me.

"Blazewing... find cover," I told her, knowing I had dreaded this moment.

We quickly found a place to hide behind one of the shelves, and just waited there. After a few more violent bangs, the door was thrown open, sending it crashing against the wall. I tried to focus on the air around me. I sensed their breaths, and their footsteps down the stairs. My guess was that there were two of them. And they neither asked if there was anyone here. I could tell they were here to kill and silence anyone who was here. I was completely unarmed, and there was no blunt object anywhere for me to use as a weapon…

One took the left side, and the other took the right, coming closer toward me. They were definitely rushing this, thinking the room was pretty much empty from the silence. Slowly, the one of the right crept around the bookcase, and I saw him with my own eyes. Again, my assumptions were correct. It was an armed Chespin in a Black Onyx uniform and carrying one of their rifles. It was clear today had been their day of arrival, and already I could sense this would finish off any semblance of hope that could possibly be left. I didn’t want to imagine what kind of massacre was taking place on the surface, but if they made it this far already, I doubted they were having trouble up there.

For a moment, he looked at the fallen book, and immediately his attention was cut off. I had to act now, and if I took any longer, it was going to be over and they would find me...

I quickly crept up behind him, and at the right moment, I wrapped my arm around his neck. Instantly, he was in shock, but as I tried to choke him, I sent a lethal amount of electricity searing from my blazing cheeks right into the back of his head, and quickly into his brain, instantly inflicting a lethal blow. My only problem was the glow from the thunderbolt. It was definitely bright enough to be seen by anyone else in the room…

“Who’s there?” I heard the other question, not knowing at all what happened.

He was across the room, way too out of the reach. I quickly grabbed the Chespin’s rifle, and got in back of the bookcase again. Slowly but swiftly, I tried to get away from the fallen Chespin as possible. Already I could hear him on the other side of the room, slowly moving along the left side toward where he found the glow. He was definitely cautious now. I stopped for a moment, but he kept on moving until he stopped at the Chespin’s fallen body.

Still, he only stopped for a second, muttered something inaudible, and then he kept moving around the bend, now coming up upon me from behind. I then decided that trying to sneak up behind him wouldn’t be a good idea, since he seemed to be more aware than his companion. And meeting him head on would be incredibly risky. So, I tried another tactic. I immediately took the gun’s strap, threw it around my neck, and quickly climbed the bookcase itself. There was plenty of space between the inner ring of bookcases, but hitting the ground would leave me trapped in there. Patiently, I waited, just hanging over the edge in back of the bookcase trying to limit my breathing.

Soon enough, I heard him walk right past me, never once being able to catch a glimpse of my tiny, yellow fingers over the top of the bookcase. Patiently, I waited for him to pass another fifteen feet away from me. I could only imagine what he would be thinking, seeing his companion dead, knowing there was someone else in the room, but having no idea what became of them, like it was a ghost who killed him and suddenly just vanished.

I heard him stop for a moment, and then continue another five feet. Then, slowly, I pulled myself up on the top of the bookcase, and then grabbed the rifle. I immediately saw who I had been after this whole time. Again, it was another solider of the Black Onyx, a very paranoid and uneasy Noivern. Quickly, I took the rifle, aimed for his head, and without another moment passing, I attempted to pull the trigger, but the Noivern quickly slapped the barrel of the rifle away, causing the gun to fire several times. However, the shots only connected with the stone ceiling.

"You maggot!" The Noivern snarled, towering over me as he prepared to deal a deadblow. "Eat death, you wriggling, little-"

He never saw Blazewing sneak up behind him. One fast and furious strike from her claws into the back of his head, and suddenly his eyes were overcome with a vacant stare, just seconds before his body tumbled to the ground, revealing the deep gashes that were in the back of his neck. Blood quickly pooled around him.

"Looks like I owe you one... again," I sighed in relief, appreciating Blazewing's life-saving support.

"Hey, that's what friends are for, right?" Blazewing winked.

I slowly got up off the floor, and looked around. For now, it seemed the coast was clear, although I was quickly reminded of the current situation. I took the Chespin's rifle while Blazewing took the Noivern's, and we headed for the door that had been thrown open. I didn't know what to expect when we stepped outside, but I figured it was anything but good.

Already, we had seen the lower cellars had been raided and dismantled. All that was left was a single flight of stairs to the surface. I had no idea what was out there, but still, it wasn’t the size of the attacking force that was concerning me. It was seeing how much damage had been done while I was away.

Slowly, we made my way up the stone stairs, gripping the rifle in my hands, as well as keeping my sense of hearing and sight extremely sharp. Stair after stair, we had slowly come to the surface. Plenty of black smoke was everywhere from the little of the sky I could see. Three more steps, and I saw the fires where they were coming from. And scattered all over the place was body after body. I didn’t see anything living, not even the Black Onyx forces themselves. Most of the buildings and the fields were burning now. As hideous as the sight was, I saw this day coming.

"Strange, I didn't think we were down there so long for them to do this..." Blazewing whispered, shocked at what she saw. "We were down there for maybe an hour."

"Leave it to professional murderers to make quick work of killing and pillaging everything," I told her, figuring they were probably used to this by now.

"We step out there and it's really over..." She told me, knowing we had to think of another way besides throwing ourselves at death's door. "You know we can't fight them all just by ourselves..."

I sighed, knowing she was right. Looking at the havoc that was outside, it was clear there was likely no one left to save. The library was probably the most secluded place in this area, so I figured by the time the Black Onyx forces got to it, they had likely ravaged everything else.

For hours we had waited in the secluded ground level chamber, seeing the occasional Altaria rider fly across the sky to make one last check for life through a very tiny circular window. And then, there was nothing. The fires had consumed all that was in their reach, leaving only dying embers now. Meanwhile, I saw no one living from either the Southern Tempest or the Silver Apex.

Once we were convinced the coast was clear, we slowly made our way out, getting a bigger picture of the slaughter that had happened here. Whatever we had left was clearly gone now. I didn't know how the Black Onyx forces managed to track us down, but somehow they did, and now there was nothing left.

To the Black Onyx, they likely believed this was their final victory. For them, there was nothing left to conquer. Every enemy of theirs had been punished, killed, or had given up all hope to join their ranks out of cowardice. All that was left was a burning field of all that had stood in his way. As I shut my eyes, having a hard time absorbing the reality of the destruction that was around me, I kept thinking about Utopia again. They may have been killed here, but at least now they were free. Going there would release them from the horrors they had seen here, although I was always hoping I could have given them at least a chance to live out the rest of their lives in peace without having to die for it...

When we was convinced the area was clear of any Black Onyx troops, I got on Blazewing's back and we quickly checked every island in hopes of finding at least a few survivors who might still be alive after the attack. We had checked the first two islands, only to find nothing but bodies, blood, and destruction. The crops we had spent so much time raising were nothing but fields of black ashes now. Houses had been burnt to the ground, and I saw dead bodies slaughtered in some of the most vicious ways I had ever seen. It seemed the Black Onyx forces weren't just satisfied with victory anymore. They needed to defile and desecrate everything as well.

We made our way toward the third and fourth islands, the places where most of the remnants of the Silver Apex had been staying. They too, were given no mercy or compassion. Those that had survived the escape out of our fallen empire had lived only to die in this nightmare. I had only hoped that their final days could be peaceful ones, and in a way, I was glad they were, for as little as that time had lasted. Still, through every burning house we checked, and each body that looked like there could be some chance of life still flowing through their veins, we checked for a pulse only to discover for ourselves that their heart had already stopped beating. Most of the bodies were clearly lost and gone from the amount of destruction that had been let loose upon them.

And lastly, we checked the last of the islands, only to discover that we were alone now, a feeling I had grown so used to. I didn’t know how we were going to survive in this kind of misery, or if I even wanted to embrace the harshness that was to come through this pain. The legacy of the Silver Apex, as glorious as it once was, had truly let out its last breath now. For a moment, I didn’t understand why I was supposed to still live in this world, and all the misery that bathed it in the flames and screams of others.

"I... I don't understand..." Blazewing muttered, distraught over what happened. "I thought... at least someone should have survived this."

"Nothing..." I sighed, feeling like crap at that moment. "I... I've never felt this lost before... ever..."

We were all that was left. Both of us had given our lives to save the Silver Apex, only to be the only ones left at the end. Every ally of ours was gone, and those who had once been by our side had turned their sword against me. But to Skepter, we were already dead. For now, I shut my eyes, letting him believe that was burning to nothing alongside my comrades. Let him believe that we were no longer a threat, and no longer capable of bringing any more pain to him. But if I was to suffer, die at the sword of the Black Onyx and be punished like the rest of my people, I would rather explode against his kingdom as a blazing fireball of destruction and sacrifice than to be simply killed like a lamb asking for death.

 

[Avenger Angel]

PART II – THE SHADOWS THAT WALK

Chapter 14
The Call of the Night​

We spent the rest of that afternoon just trying to gather and salvage whatever supplies and equipment that was left intact into one area. Sadly enough, one of the many things I found that hadn’t even been used were the firearms. Obviously, the Black Onyx hadn’t found the forward weapons cache, but it was useless considering we never even got to use it. Still, Blazewing and I weren't going to need a whole pile of fifty firearms. Three rifles at once was the maximum I could carry, and I doubted Blazewing wanted to be treated as a munitions mule for no reason. And regrettably so, our rifles weren’t nearly as powerful as those of the Black Onyx Kingdom. Still, I took both of the Black Onyx rifles I had found, and a slightly outdated sniper rifle that originated from the Southern Tempest. I had wiped the scope and cleaned out the rest of the rifle, but I still had no plan on how I was going to strike the Black Onyx Kingdom and inflict as much damage as I could. Half of me was so demoralized at the moment that I wasn’t sure if I was so up to it.

"I'm glad you still want to fight," Blazewing told me, seeing as how I wouldn't be prepping weaponry if I was simply going to cower in the corner and weep about what had happened.

"Well, if there's nothing left to save, we can at least do as much damage to them as possible," I told her, figuring I could do at least that much. "Also, they didn't wipe out the Silver Apex entirely. They missed two members."

"Ooh, big mistake on their part," Blazewing replied, flashing a small smirk. "We're going to make them wish they searched a lot more carefully!"

At this point, neither one of us had anything left to lose. I wasn't sure if this was actually going to be a tactical advantage or just a reckless blaze of glory for both of us to die a warrior's death, but we figured there was no sense in giving up. If the souls of the Silver Apex were looking down upon the two of us now, we could at least give them quite a show before we went down.

After looking at a map I had managed to save, apparently, it was no joke that Skepter pretty much ruled the world now. His cities were everywhere, except where the land wasn’t fertile enough to support a town.

"Looks like his junk is everywhere," Blazewing told me, realizing the map simply confirmed we were going to have to be picky about what we wanted to destroy. "What do you think we should sack first that would hit him the hardest?"

Right now, I wanted to inflict as much damage on Black Onyx as possible. Some would consider these actions to be reckless revenge, and maybe they were, but not inflicting some kind of vengeance would be an injustice to the rest of the Silver Apex.

I looked at the map again, and after looking around, an idea came to mind.

"Let's destroy a power plant," I told her, thinking that might stir up some trouble. "Somewhere that might cause problems. Hopefully in a place that Skepter really needs."

Destroying every power plant in the entire kingdom was impossible. Not to mention Skepter wouldn't suspect us knocking out the first or even the second power plant, but he'd definitely catch on quickly. We needed to set our sights high and start on top of the food chain when it came to Black Onyx's resources.

By now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Skepter had already started downsizing his guard patrols if he even had any at all. They probably felt there was no one left to attack them. As for now, there was no chance of a rebellion forming against Skepter. It could take another few decades before others realized how much of a maniac he really was. And finding any last remaining survivors could take a lifetime. I wasn’t going to wait that long.

From what I could see, the Black Onyx Kingdom was separated into six parts. It would take us forever to shut down every power plant they had, and even then, after three attacks, they would start catching on to my pattern. Still, we had to make my strikes unexpected. I could tell the first would be relatively easy to make its total destruction look like a freak accident. Maybe even a second one if I could get creative enough with it. But a third strike would alert them that there was still a threat out there. Regardless, I didn’t care. I wanted to mow down at many of his weak points as possible, regardless of how hard it was going to be. I knew Skepter’s cities couldn’t live without power, and rebuilding power plants was going to be a heck of a task. Every power facility I struck down, thousands of buildings would be without power. I couldn’t think of any better fate than to plunge them all into their own self-created darkness.

Evening had come, and we had selected my first target. In what used to be the remains of the fallen industrialized nation of Crescent Moon now lay a whole industrial center that belonged to the Black Onyx Kingdom, likely manufacturing everything they needed while keeping in all in a place where the mass pollution wouldn't bother civilians or King Skepter himself. In the center of it was their Synth power plant, possibly their most important one in the whole kingdom. Without it, that whole area might as well have blown up sky high, that’s how useless their factories and industrial assembly plants in that area would become with no power to run them. Still, there was no way we could just walk in there and expect to tear the place apart with no resistance whatsoever. Like with Macomb, we needed to pretend we were one of them, and use one of their uniforms. However, the walk would take me months, and I had no real way of knowing if I would be able to find enough to feed myself on the way there.

What separated me from any other Pikachu that belonged to the Black Onyx Kingdom were my abilities to react quickly and almost slow down time itself, as well as my accuracy. And for some unknown reason, my eyes themselves had some means of revealing my true nature from what it seemed to others around me from what Sinis told me, but other than that, all it took was a uniform and no one would ever suspect that I would be walking among them. To them, I was dead for all they knew. Even if Skepter didn’t have a bullet-ridden corpse named Juno in front of him to defile and torment as much as he wanted, he wasn’t going to mind believing that I was killed and burned at some point during the slaughter. And I doubt anyone who attacked us kept track of who they killed in that massacre.

We counted up the food I had acquired, and from the looks of it, we had about three days worth before everything else would spoil. Meanwhile, I headed back to the library and had removed the corpses of the Chespin and the Noivern that had belonged to the Black Onyx. I saved the Chespin’s uniform, since I was going to need it if I was going to have any chance of infiltrating that Synth power plant. It was almost a perfect fit for me, the only problem was the back was a little tight. Still, it would have to do. The Novern’s uniform was soaked in blood, and knew there was no way either of us could even get into that thing. We had to minimize my light usage on the surface, so we thought the best idea would be to sleep in the cellar library.

Before we headed down, we made sure I had everything packed and prepared. As I looked around me, I felt so ruined from how badly I missed everyone. There was nothing more I wanted than to just wake up from this nightmare, hoping to find myself in bed and suddenly realize everything was okay. But no, that was not how it was meant to be, despite how dark and surreal it all seemed.

After we gathered our things to prepare for tomorrow’s trip, the two of us headed to the underground library that I had been using for a long time. It was cold and quiet down here, but thankfully, the Black Onyx had no reason to look here any longer. After laying my bedroll out and climbing in, Blazewing gently lied down to go to sleep. I wasn’t sure what tomorrow would bring, but I could only hope it wouldn’t be for nothing…

With my head on the ground, I closed my eyes and allowed sleep to carry me away…

* * *​

Recommended Listening: Half Life 2 - Lab Practicum

I had a choice.

I held the book in my hands, standing on a cold, metallic bridge almost a thousand feet above the water. All I had to do was let go, and no one would ever see it again. Likely, it would fall to the bottom of the gulf, and just deteriorate without anyone ever looking at its pages once again. But I thought to myself, maybe it wasn’t that bad. Vice may have written it, but what did it matter? No one would ever know about it. Oh, who was I kidding? Really, who else would ever read it besides someone from the Black Onyx anyway? They would probably find it, strip it and defile it, and ruin my history for all future generations to wince at. They would tell their children that Juno was murderer and a defiler, and one of the worst war villains that had ever lived. I shut my eyes from just the bitter thought of it.

I took my grip off the book, and like that, it disappeared from my hands. Vice's book tumbled and fluttered its way down from the metal bridge I was standing on and plummeted into the water with a tiny splash. As I watched the pulsing ripples slowly disappear from the slash site, I knew it was done then. My grave was crumbling, my homeland torched with its cities turning to dust, and now this, this final link to my legacy written by a traitor, the only part of it all that could ever live on, was cast to the bottom of the gulf like its own burial at sea. For once, being forgotten was worse than even death itself, but it was a price I had to pay. Being forgotten was better than being remembered and hated for endless generations. This was the sacrifice that I had to make. Better a lost truth than an immortalized lie.

My past was beautiful, my present was my worst torture, but was what was my future? It was all unanswered for now. I looked down toward the metal supports that held up the bridge to see the Wingull flying. Just from watching them, I could only wish I could fly myself, and join them and forget about everything else for even just a few moments. I didn’t even know where I was. And then, the oddest thing happened. One of the Wingull had flown up toward me, and perched itself on the railing next to me. He looked at me with an interested eye, and then something strange happened…

“Jake Kossak is dead, Juno,” The Wingull told me, speaking sympathetically. “Miss him. Miss him. Miss him…”

“I saw him die,” I heard myself say to him. “I was there. I saw him die and I felt his pain.”

“The mourning space is only a few feet, Juno,” He spoke again, looking down toward the water. “Only a few feet. Upon that cross, there is no name. No name. No name.”

He was right. Yes, just like the other soldiers, he was a forgotten memory. Nothing. But then again, so was Juno, only he wasn’t dead yet, but it would only be a matter of time. The prophecy was fulfilled and gone, and now the book of my past was gone. And anything else of it was either dead or gone too. While Jake Kossak couldn’t have been remembered if he wanted to, Juno was once known as a savior. But in the end, they followed the same path, and both became forgotten. I guess this is what they meant when ashes turn to ashes, and dust turns to dust.

We truly had power over nothing.

“I wish I could be remembered,” I heard me tell the Wingull, hoping he would understand. “I wish I could fly like you, and just forget about my troubles. You seem to know of them quite well, actually.”

“I’m a bird, Juno,” The Wingull confessed. “Just a bird. But you are born of dreams. You can chase stars, Juno. You go beyond all birds. All birds. All birds.”

“I don’t have that kind of power,” I heard myself tell him, saddened but hiding it with a casual chuckle. “I never could fly and I never will.”

“Chance,” The Wingull whispered to me, bending over and trying to speak closer as his demeanor suddenly changed completely. “You have one chance. You can find it around you. Around you. Find it before they burn it to nothing. Nothing. Nothing.”

It didn’t make sense to me. What was he talking about? There was nothing around me. Only water and metal pillars. A bridge that seemed to carry on forever into the fog. Nothing but sea for miles. There was nothing for me here but emptiness.

“What?” I heard myself ask him as I detected a sudden impulse of impatience in my voice. “What does it mean? What will be burnt to nothing?”

“You know,” The Wingull continued on, relentless. “You feel it. A darkened white like a cloud before a storm. Just beyond your reach. Your reach. You can see it but you cannot touch it unless you climb to catch it. Catch it.”

“But… why?” I could sense myself ask him. “Why are you telling me this?”

“We're like brothers,” He told me, looking at me closely now. “We're both dreams, but I'm different. I'll be gone… forever. For unlike you, my time will vanish, and I will be gone. You walk among dreams and survive. Where you find the link to your past, you find the link to your future. Your future…”

And then, he flew away, and left me standing there. And suddenly, I saw blinding light around me. I didn’t understand it for a moment, and then suddenly I felt like I had been struck in the back with a defibrillator.

And then I found myself, lying on the floor of the library…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 15
The Search in the Depths​

Recommended Listening: TimeSplitters Future Perfect: Siberia

I didn’t understand any of it. Usually I never remember my dreams or they’re utter, chaotic nonsense that I simply cast away and forget, but this was different. I tried to think about the location of the dream, and there was nothing that I could find a match with. I already knew it was a place I had never been to, but that didn’t rule out the possibility that such a place existed.

As I noticed Blazewing was still sleeping, I had quickly stood up and found some blank pieces of paper on a desk and a pen, and I tried to write down as much of it as I could remember. I felt strange about it at first, thinking this dream was probably nothing, but something in the back of my mind was telling me otherwise. I wrote it all down, everything the Wingull said, and everything that I did in that dream. Even the means that had forced me to wake up I had scribbled onto that piece of paper. But even when I read it all again and was sure I had gotten everything, it still didn’t make any sense. Again, it still felt like he was talking about a spirit. And if that was the case, I still couldn’t see how that would ever help me. But then again, maybe it wasn’t supposed to.

Half of me felt like it was just a silly dream and that I should probably get back to sleep and focus on the synth power plant attack that we were going to try. But I knew it was running circles in my mind, and I doubted I was going to get any sleep over it.

I looked over the first pieces of the conversation. Again, it was just the death of Jake Kossak. Well, so much for that. The only thing I got out of Jake Kossak's death was knowing what it felt like to be shot and killed by a M2 Browning machine gun.

But then came the part about wanting to fly, and how the Wingull felt I was already “above all birds” and “could chase stars.” I still didn’t get it. I’ve never been able to fly my entire life, only Blazewing could ever do that and I had always depended on her for that. Still, I tried not to think of it in such a literal sense, which I figured was throwing me off. All of it… it still felt like a puzzle or a riddle that might not have had an end or an answer, and now I was throwing myself into the maze of it. Still, I tried to have at least a little faith in it. At a time like this, any answer would have been appreciated.

Then it was about “chance.” I remembered exactly that he told me I had “one chance” to find it, and warned me about it “being burned to nothing.” Again, I tried to think of it in a variety of ways, both literal and figurative. Still, the more I thought about it, the more I realized he definitely wasn’t talking about a spirit. I looked at the paper again, and remembered he described whatever he was talking about as a “darkened white cloud just before a storm” and said “I needed to climb to catch it.” Still, I wasn’t making any leads with this riddle. And then, I read the last line he said just before the dream ended. He told me “that he would be gone,” which I figured was because he was just a part of the dream, again in a literal sense. Then, came his very last line, just before he flew away and the shock I had felt after the light had appeared.

“Where you find the link to your past, you find the link to your future.”

I then threw down the pieces of paper in my hands, and they lay there completely still as I suddenly realized something. I remember what I myself had even called “the link to my past,” and then I suddenly grasped what he was trying to tell me…

He was talking about another book in this very library.

I suddenly felt cold and still as an eerie chill crawled up my spine. I turned back and started looking around. Somewhere in this room was the answer I needed. “Burned to nothing” was the risk of not finding it, and that was true. No doubt the Black Onyx would soon be all over this place, and every last book in these quarters would just become ash. Having read so many of them, the thought of years of work and inspiration being burnt in yet another holocaust was enough to make me sick.

I held the pieces of paper as I looked at each of the shelves. Slowly, my eyes traced along each of the shelves, but still, there was no one book that stood out from the rest. I then looked back down at the pieces of paper in my hands…

“You feel it. A darkened white like a cloud before a storm. Just beyond your reach. Your reach. You can see it but you cannot touch it unless you climb to catch it. Catch it.”

Climb to catch it. He was talking about a darkened white book that had to be at least on the third shelf, “just beyond my reach.” My eyes quickly traced along most of the shelves, and I had seen that almost none of them were even near white. Still, I kept moving along and checking each of the shelves. I was feeling a rush of anxiety and anticipation as I slowly moved through the library, looking at the third and fourth shelves for a white book. And then, after finally making my way around the bend, I had seen it. There it sat on the third shelf, almost in the middle. It was definitely a very light gray, but I could still tell it used to be pure white but was discolored by age and dirt.

I already knew it was a book I had never read before, being all the way on the right side of the library. I finally put down all the pieces of paper I was carrying, and began to climb the shelf. I then finally reached the third shelf of the bookcase, and managed to pull the light gray book out before jumping down to the floor. As I held the book in my hands, I realized it was fairly old and slightly damaged, but it gave off a strange an almost otherworldly aura. The words on the cover were totally illegible, but I could still make out a few letters and some sort of crest that had been engraved into the cover, like an emblem of sorts. But as of now, this book looked just like all the others. I wasn’t about to start having doubts now, however.

As I had prepared to sit down, Blazewing had awoken, seeing me with the book in my hands. She seemed a little curious, wondering what I was doing.

“What is that you have there?” She asked me, wondering how I came across it.

“I… don’t know,” I told her honestly. “I had this dream that… guided me to it...”

"A dream..." Blazewing spoke in surprise, looking curiously at the book itself. "That's... wow..."

Like the book that Vice had written, I sat down, and opened it to the first page. Meanwhile, Blazewing looked over my shoulder, glancing down at the book as well, curious to see what my dream had led me to find. Upon flipping over the front cover, I immediately saw the pages inside were slightly soiled and dirty, but still, the first page showed to me what was supposed to be on the cover but was worn out with old age. “The Scathing of the Shadow Phoenix” was the book’s title, and the emblem was a very disturbing image of a majestic black bird with broken wings, surrounded by fire, and screaming out in pain. I turned back to the cover, and yes, the parts that were still visible looked just like the ones on the first page. Still, I couldn’t see what this had to do with me in anyway. Regardless, I turned to the second page, and immediately it began with “The Death Manifest,” with a very unsettling pencil drawn image of a large temple being slowly swallowed up in darkness.

“Looks pretty ghastly if you ask me…” Blazewing remarked, looking at the rather macabre images. “Sure you have the right book?”

“‘A darkened white cloud before a storm…’” I recited from the dream, beginning to doubt if this was it. “There were… other messages in the dream that guided me to it, but I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.”

We still had some time. The Black Onyx thought we were all dead, so in a way, there was no real hurry as long as we didn’t spent the next few decades down here. Knowing Skepter and how he would regard what we had as a last stronghold against his army, I knew he wouldn’t be expecting much for spoils of war. He had riches, lavish possessions, and slaves in countless numbers. I was sure he wasn't exactly excited and ecstatic to get his hands on a few musty, old books.

After pushing that out of my mind, I turned back to the book and began reading out loud:

Damned and woeful are they who rise up against the one who is forged from stars and dies by fire. The darkness of their life after death is manifest, for they stumble in the shadows of their own ill created darkness. For they are lost forever, doomed to never reach the salvation they have so longed for, only to be locked in the pits of destruction and waste below which they have created for themselves. For it is here where they face their regret, and their woeful contemplation of their lost chance and their stupor of valuing their arrogant lives before their eternal construction. Abandon all hope for them, for their voice can be no louder than a whisper in the wind, and their vision a mere flicker in the night.

“That’s rather… unsettling…” Blazewing remarked, looking surprised at how grim and foreboding the book seemed to be.

The whole first twenty pages were just as disturbing. On and on it went about the ceaseless tortures, corruption, and total destruction of the cruelty rich and the wealthy. Oddly enough, the whole thing sounded so prophetic, definitely not like the other books in this library. Still though, anyone reading this could have easily mistaken it for just another fictional story. Eventually it all stopped, and began with the “The Waking of the Shadow,” and began a whole new chapter. Again, there was another pencil drawn image right under the chapter title, and it was then where I saw the link between me and this book.

It was more than enough to suddenly catch my breath and make Blazewing snap out into attention with a horrified gasp.

It depicted a Pikachu screaming in pain, surrounded by fire in what appeared to look like a brutal holocaust. A death by fire, exactly how Zander predicted it all. That was no ordinary unfortunate Pikachu in that picture. That was me, the moment before I died. I looked at the cover, and very strangely, I could see a very close resemblance between what must have been the metaphorical “Shadow Phoenix” and myself in the fire. But what did this mean?

“That can’t… be a coincidence…” Blazewing remarked, barely able to speak at the sight of it.

“No, it can’t,” I agreed with her. “What does this mean though?”

Still, I turned back to the text, and began reading it out loud again:

For he gives himself in sacrifice, the blessing of his nation, the walker of his people, the key to the door of hope. Against the knowledge of his death he fights until his time. He sees the future death of himself, but does not let it cloud his will. For he dies by fire in the final, brutal battle, and vanquishes the foe with his voice and trust. The passing of them both comes, while one falls to the world below, he is risen up and his eyes are opened. Meanwhile, the burnt offering of himself is laid to rest, and his people mourn at his loss but anticipate the joy of a new hope. They anticipate… but remember. He is given the burial above kings, one that is justified.

For those precious moments he sees the splendor of Utopia, but those days are short lived upon his transition into his own world, the threshold of where his essence was created before his soul merged with the creation of the dream walker, Juno, before his struggle for his people. For there is no one else that can achieve what Juno can, born from desperate dreams, given power that can only be dreamt of to become real. Through Kossak’s offering to give Juno a vessel to escape the dream's end, Juno survives the dream to become the one force that Zander could not expect. To fight against one who was created through imagination, and who survived the fragile fabric of the dream instead of fading into the dust of the mind. It is that which makes the Gold Rider prevail and survive what others can’t. Juno is made of stars, but dies by fire.

“Who could have written this?” Blazewing asked, looking pretty shocked.

I just nodded, having no idea. It knew everything, and I couldn’t understand how or why. It was as if some guardian angel of mine had written the whole thing and knew of every circumstance that I had encountered. Even Kossak. I never would have dreamed that anything in this world would even know that Kossak was in fact my alter-ego at one point. But really, how could have this all been predicted? I quickly looked back to the cover. Was it really age that wore this book down so much…?

Or was it something completely different…?

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 16
The Path Revealed​

It wasn’t making any sense to us. I was dying to know who wrote this and why they wrote it. I was surprised that they knew so much, and were able to get so much down on paper, leading me to believe they must have been a prophet or oracle of some sort. Still though, this was making me question whether my destiny this entire time was governed by prophecies and whatnot. Regardless, there was only one way to find out. I turned to chapter three, and again, another interesting sight came to me.

“Chapter 3: Kossak’s Final Fall” with a pencil drawing of myself as Jake Kossak once again, fighting in the trenches of Orre alongside Captain Davidson and Corporal Harrison. I knew it was them, their faces were unmistakable with the detail. And I swore that whoever wrote this had to be there themselves, but it just... wasn't possible without some kind of clairvoyance or some other mysterious power. Every word I read on those pages made me feel like the person who wrote this was simply breathing behind my back every passing moment. Out of slight paranoia I stopped reading every now and then and looked around for a brief moment around the dark library, thinking someone was really watching me. Either they knew this was all going to happen from a vision, or they were with me every passing moment. That's what made it truly unsettling.

It is he, Juno, who lives in the world of men as Kossak, for it is Juno who can walk between worlds unlike others. But upon the fields in this world, war is no different, and Kossak is a mere ordinary soldier unlike his majestic bearing of the title “Gold Rider” in this world of Kivistal as well as the leadership he holds for his people of the Silver Apex. No other man fighting alongside of him knows anything of who Kossak really is, and what really lies beneath the fabric of his skin. Like before, he plunges himself into the heat of battle, being far more familiar with it than others. They fight long and hard, and make decisions they regret, but they draw closer to their goal. However, he and his fellow comrades of men perish in the trenches of this foreign land known only to Juno and no one else. While his comrades lift their souls up to the clouds of heaven, Kossak’s name, body, and memory faded into dust as he ascends back to his true form in the sparkling waters of Utopia.

It was chilling to read it all. Whoever wrote this managed to capture every event so flawlessly, and it made me wonder if anyone else had read this previously, or if we were the only ones who had ever picked it up. The trenches of Orre… how on earth did they know I was there? It was impossible. Everyone I knew along this path didn’t know this much about me to be able to write this kind of thing. No one was with me all the way from the beginning to the end. So who could have even written this?

Then it moved to “Chapter 4: Juno’s Second Promise,” with a picture of me leading the survivors of the fallen Silver Apex out of the ruins of our homeland. What really made me wonder was… did the author actually predict I would be reading their own book? Regardless, I kept reading, watching events that only happened a few months ago begin to unfold. All the while, Blazewing was spellbound by what we were reading, no longer questioning the authenticity of this book.

The selfless Gold Rider returns to the waste of his own grave to encounter the very treacherous pillagers of the Black Onyx who defiled his people, his grave, and consumed the world under their fiery tongues. After destroying them and proving to Cythan who he really is and sends him cowering away, he finds himself, fallen in the desert. The darkness swallows him, and he is taken by his oppressors to their lord Skepter. They torture his mind, make mockery of his accomplishments, but it is their own hubris that gives Juno the chance to escape to return to his people in their time of desperation. Upon the death of their leader Sinis, it is Juno who commands his people once again, and who leads them out of their homelands through the plains of Conda and to the paradise of the Azure Islands to spend the rest of their days in splendor rather than in sorrow. But those times are short lived as they are soon discovered by the Black Onyx yet a second time, and it is here where the once mighty Silver Apex is burned to cinders, along with the rest of whatever forces could stand against the Black Onyx.

It is a time a great celebration in the Black Onyx Kingdom now. All of their enemies have been put to death, and parades will be held for days. However, there is one who rises from the ashes of his fallen empire like a forgotten Phoenix, and who will walk among them like a shadow. To plunge them all in their own darkness, and to stop the heart that keeps their people alive. Let there be riots in the streets, and anarchy to those who are restless.

For I see him now, holding my own written text in his hands as Blazewing stays besides him. While he is lead to believe otherwise, I cannot see the future, my accounts are only from what has been. In the back of his mind, there has always been a solution, otherwise his grieving would overwhelm him to the point of suicide. What lays before them is a taxing trial, one that would require an almost infinite amount of bravery and fearlessness.

"How in the...?" Blazewing asked, suddenly captivated by what she read. "How could they have written that when... it only just happened?"

My heart was racing. This was real, there was no way this could ever be a lie to me. There was a way… yes. I was ready to believe there was one, and not just in name only. I had turned the page, and saw both pages were suddenly blank, and didn’t have a single word on them. And then, something happened that nearly made me jump.

“Whoa…” Blazewing suddenly gasped at what she was seeing.

Words were suddenly being written on the pages, right before our own eyes. I was right, there was something watching over me. Still, I looked to the words, and read them despite how unusually freshly written they were… and how they were suddenly appearing before us.

Your intended path leads to the ruins of the Crescent Moon to wipe out their industrial center. To plunge them all in darkness. Indeed, they dwell in shade and confusion. The only way to bring your people to light is to shut out the light for your enemy, and it has become your role. Indeed, by now you have realized that you are in fact the Shadow Phoenix himself, the one who rises again from the darkness as a sword of bright retribution against the night of your enemies.

There is a dark cathedral there in the fogged presence of their industrial city, one that ordinary civilians have ignored for decades. The doors cannot be opened when there is light shining upon the great seal that is engraved on them. Only those with the darkest powers of the night and shadow have been able to smother the entrance with their doom energies enough to allow them passage. However, by plunging the industrial city into pure darkness, you will simulate enough of the effect to grant you passage.

There is a stairway inside that building that leads as far down as you can imagine, into the bowels of the Abyss itself, the method to access it from our world without the requirement of sin and death. You cannot show fear or despair upon your journey through those darkest caverns. They will know you’re not supposed to be there. You must travel as long and as hard as you can until you reach the City of Dis, the home of the damned. In its dark and bleeding streets you will find a single, black building housed among the gray graveyard of a city you find there. This is the Temple of the Damned, a building that is solely meant to confine those who have been confined to the City of Dis. However, you must enter, despite the fact that once inside, it will be impossible to see due to the infernal darkness. You must navigate inside using only your other senses, for the windows to your soul must remain shut.

Inside you will find the Stone of Dusk, a smooth gray stone disc bearing no markings. Besides it you will find the Dagger of Despair, a sharp, twisted blade that bleeds black blood. You will only be able to feel them, for you will be unable to see in those dark and twisted halls. Once you have found the stone, you are to hold it as close to your heart as possible. At that point, you must realize there is only one way to escape the Temple of the Damned, as well as the City of Dis. You must take the Dagger of Despair and drive it through your own heart. My only warning is this: the death will be one of extreme and almost unbearable physical and mental pain. Regardless, you must keep the Stone of Dusk as close to you as possible. Leaving it out of your grasp will only cause you to leave it behind, and will only result in your own failure. There will be no way to get it back again if you leave it out of your hand…

Once the horror of your most violent death is over, you will find yourself in the sanctuary of the heavens, the Ivory Gardens of Utopia with the Stone of Dusk still with you, a sight that even you haven’t seen yet. But even in this realm of tranquility, there are threats against your mission. Even after the unbearable pain of the Abyss, you cannot let yourself be tempted to stay in those serene halls despite the comfort and placidity that surround you. You must tell yourself that this will all be for you some other day. You must carry on through the familiar tranquil fields you have seen before to the City of the Horizon, yet another location you have yet to visit. There is a secret garden there that houses the Fountain of Purity, one that flows with pure, untouched water than has never been past anyone’s lips. Mounted on the top bowl is the Blade of the Dreamkeeper, a knife that was put there after bringing destruction to countless evil, with edges that are beyond razor sharp. You must then take the Stone of Dusk, and carve three symbols into it in a triangular formation using this very blade. The symbol that is on the bottom left is of yourself, the Gold Rider, the Shadow Phoenix of Juno. The one on the bottom right is that of your people, the Silver Apex and all that is used to represent its glory. Lastly, above them both in the center is the symbol of Utopia itself, and all that represents the peace and harmony that only those who do good in their life will ever find. Once the three symbols are in place, you are to take both the Stone of Dusk and the Blade of the Dreamkeeper, and head back to the Opal Fields to the Well of Harmony. Like before, plunge into its waters and head back to the world you came from. Because only you can do this whereas others cannot.

At the moment you stand alone before your enemy amasses before you, use the Blade of the Dreamkeeper and cut your hand with it. Every drop of your own blood shed by this blade will glow a brilliant white. At that moment, take the Stone of Dusk and draw a circle through the three symbols with your glowing, white blood. The very stone from the abyss itself will become pure, and will shine like a massive flare in the night, recreating it as the Stone of Dawn. Only at that moment will the heavens open, and all will await your call.

My faith lies within you, Juno. Only you will ever go so far.

My path was laid before me. But it spoke nothing of the real challenges I would have to face on this mission. I could see what the three symbols were supposed to be. The one of myself was an outline of a Pikachu with two flames besides it. Meanwhile, the one that represented the Silver Apex was that of a monolith in the above the setting sun. Finally, the last symbol, the one used to represent Utopia itself was a castle in the clouds.

Then, just like that, I had shut the white book, and to my sudden surprise, it was suddenly lit on fire and burned to nothing in my hands before my eyes, never once letting me know who the mysterious stranger who seemed to follow me through every passing moment was. Still, I felt that in time, there would be a moment for me to discover that truth.

“That was... definitely something else...” Blazewing told me as she tried to give me some encouragement. “We can do this, though. I know it sounds rough, but I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“Alright,” I told her, unable to hold back a smile as I strongly felt I could give hope a fighting chance with this. “Let’s do this, then.”

I was just about to leave the library until I found the book that Vice had written. As hideous as it was to imagine every book in this library would be burned in a holocaust, I couldn’t let that one be destroyed, even if it was written by a traitor. Despite the message of my dream, I had a strong feeling that this book would never end up in the hands of the Black Onyx Kingdom for them to butcher and lie with.

And finally, we had left that library, and had come up from the ground, bound for what was left of Crescent Moon. Weapons strung around my shoulder, hope in our hearts, and our eyes set on the path ahead, we prepared to leave what was left of the Azure Islands and our fallen people in the hope of pursuing the only means to bring them back.

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 17
Shadows of Memory​

Wearing the Chespin's Black Onyx uniform was not an experience I wanted to remember. Putting it on gave me an idea of what it felt like to be one of them, and it was not a feeling I was particularly fond of. If given the option between this and the stupid jester outfit Skepter made me wear before, I would have gone with the later, although in a realistic sense, there was not much difference between the two.

We were alone now, with a still silence around us for company. Still, for once I felt like the eyes of millions were upon us, but I was overwhelmed by the feeling of being alone. Still, among the smoke around us, I still felt life around me, and hopes in the slight gusts of wind. To me, they all lived, but none of them ever really died. I could still hear their voices every now and then. I didn’t know it if was actually real or if I was actually just hallucinating things…

For now, Blazewing was my only source of companionship, and would likely have to be there by my side for every challenge I would have to soon embrace. She was the only one alive who I could really trust now. No one has been through more with me than her, and I was glad she could still be here with me despite these desperate times.

She too, was also born of Randy’s long lost created dream world, and had powers similar to mine. She too was born of dreams and “could chase stars” and “fly with me” if she really wanted to as that strange dream had told me. Skepter may have brought down every other living member of the once mighty Silver Apex empire, but to defeat us, it would take more than he could ever imagine. We were walkers among worlds, and have seen and experienced things that Skepter couldn't even imagine. We weren't done until we had gotten some payback for what happened.

The Azure Islands were gone now. All I saw around me was smoke, ruins, and death, a sight I was beginning to get used to having seen it so many times. I had seen it before with the war involving the Crimson Stars, and I had seen the fields of death in Kivistal. Even as the late Jake Kossak, I had seen a ruined and ravaged Orre, and by now, the fields of destruction and ruin were common to me. In the meantime, I never did find the bodies of Aries, Echo, or Kaz, but I did find Frost lying face down in a ditch in one of the fields. It was a shame I really didn’t know any of them for that long, not like how I knew Sinis at one point. He died the death of a warrior, but sadly, I didn’t want to see the last of our warriors die as farmers, without weapons or any kind of defense. Still, it was time to leave it behind. The road ahead of us was going to be a long one, and now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

“I checked one last time, but it seems they got all of them,” Blazewing whispered to me mournfully, “I was hoping there would be at least someone… just one other like us that had survived, but there was nothing. They must have killed even the wounded.”

“I wish it didn’t have to be like this,” I told her, looking out to the setting sun. “We’re really the only ones left. Still, I have hope, even if the odds are ridiculously against us.”

Then, I pulled out my map out of the small gray pack I was wearing. I showed her exactly where we needed to go, right toward the heart of Crescent Moon in the Far East. No doubt, I would have to have her land on the outskirts so I she wouldn’t be seen. But thanks to the uniform I was wearing, there shouldn’t have been a problem with me getting inside. Meanwhile, Blazewing could pull off her invisibility trick. That was definitely a handy, little skill she had.

“That’s a pretty long distance away…” Blazewing told me, showing to where I was pointing to.

“Well, Skepter doesn’t even know we’re still alive.” I told her, looking right at the location on the map, “No one will be after us, but we can’t stay here. There were many bodies neither of us could find. With that in mind, Skepter won’t know if we were included in this holocaust pyres or not.”

“Hopefully he never finds out…” Blazewing replied as she looked out to the road ahead.

Hopefully…

I then climbed upon her back, and only a moment later, we took off, and I quickly realized how long it’s been since I’ve last flown through the skies with her. We flew past the smoking ruins of the Azure Islands, and then over the land of Conda once again. Still, I just couldn’t even take a glance to admire the scenery with all the thoughts in my mind. The very idea of walking through the Abyss itself was a bit unsettling, never mind what I would have to go through to shut down the Black Onyx Synth power plant.

We passed through miles and miles of sky, and every minute brought the sun down even further. For most of the ride, we flew across the ocean to help us avoid even further detection, but for the first time, even the sky seemed to be colder than usual. The sea was black as oil, the clouds were gray as smoke, and it seemed like the closer and closer we drew toward Crescent Moon, the less life there seemed to be.

Recommended Listening: GrayLightning - Machina Anesthesia

And then, as soon as I saw land, time seemed to slow to a crawl. It suddenly opened up before us, and the first thing we saw was the harbor. But even that alone was massive with sprawling dockyards, massive frigates and carrier ships, and miles of cranes, shipping containers, and other seaport structures, and that wasn’t even the heart of the city. All I could do now was tell Blazewing to head off to the side, away from the massive industrial center so that she could land and I could move through the city on foot. No doubt, most of the workers would be away from their workstations due to the fact it was the beginning of the evening. However, the Synth power plant would probably still have a few workers up and around to make sure everything was running correctly throughout the night. Still, this was nothing like what Macomb was many years ago. But then again, this wouldn’t be the true test of my faith either.

Blazewing had landed softly in a large, crevice that held nothing but a lot of dead and sickly-looking vegetation that were losing the fight against the pollution. I looked around us and noticed we were about a mile away from the industrial center. In the distance, it looked like some twisted-looking mountain range with a black clouded sky above it from the continuous pollution of the smoke stacks below. Jagged buildings, smokestacks, and other industrial features gave the industrial city ahead of us a very twisted and macabre appearance.

"Now might be a good time to hide yourself," I told her, stepping off of her back. "Keep close, but I wouldn't recommend saying anything louder than a whisper."

"Gotcha," She nodded, quickly cloaking herself.

Looking back at her, I smiled. It was borderline impossible to see her. It was definitely nice to have a guardian angel like her around.

I turned around and headed down toward the industrial complex with my three firearms besides me. The walk to the power plant would be long and far through a mass of dirty, unkempt and rotten buildings, but it would have to be done. With every passing step, I drew closer and closer to it, passing plenty of factories that had shut down for the night. Others looked like they closed up permanently only just recently. All it took was a little peek to see their firearms and assault vehicles nestled inside, no longer needed. But most of the factories and assembly plants looked clearly like they were up and running causing an unchecked amount of pollution to be laden over the city. It definitely looked like Skepter had overcompensated and built a mountain of troops and machines he wouldn't need. But then again, warmongers can't be expected to change.

I could feel it in the air now, almost a bizarre sense of tranquility. They were fearless. Completely fearless with their victory over the world, and marched on without a trace of oppression. And King Skepter, king of the world, retiring most of his army as the fanfare of his parades carried on through the streets. No longer did he find Silver Apex forces still hiding among the rubble of Symarix and all its former splendor. And there was no trace of the legendary Juno, most likely burning in the same pile as the rest of his comrades. I saw them for a moment. All of Black Onyx, joined together in jubilation and feasting from their successful massacres around the world. Wine drinking, parties, and thanksgivings to King Skepter himself as he bathed and showered in the praises of his nation.

Let them rejoice today, I figured. They'd get careless, reckless, and stupid. If there was anything to be learned about greedy, warmongering tyrants like Skepter and his buddies, it was knowing sooner or later they'd end up turning on each other when someone grabbed without asking or took more than they were entitled to.

When evil turns on evil, it's not just justice. It's Christmas for the good guys.

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 18
Diving Underground​

The only source of illumination came from the dimly lit street lamps hanging overhead. There was barely any light coming from anywhere else. We traveled by ourselves for hours, with not another soul on the foggy, gray streets that were an obvious result of the smog and pollution. For now, everything was either shut down for the night had been closed on a permanent basis. Meanwhile, everyone was gone. Still, I looked in all directions, making sure no one was near me as I walked past huge factories that didn’t have even a flicker of light in their square windows. I could only see about three hundred meters in front of me on the ground from the severity of the smog and pollution. Even if I was seen by someone else, I would only appear to be a black silhouette walking among the mist, dressed in the clothing of their comrades. In truth, I almost began to question if there would even be a risk if Blazewing decided to forgo the invisibility.

I drew closer and closer to the largest building in the entire industrial park. Yes, unlike the others, it was still up and operating, but the number of actual personnel would probably only be limited to a few considering how late it was. Still, among its maze of pipes, vats, and oddly-shaped buildings, there had to be a way to shut it down completely in preferably a destructive meltdown. My only problem was I had no explosives on me, and I knew nothing of how Synth power plants actually operate. I couldn’t help but think about what I could have done if only I had one last Inferno Grenade with me at a time like this. Just one and I could possibly get this entire industrial park to burn the same way Macomb did, possibly even worse due to the fact each factory was closer in proximity. Still, I wasn’t going to waste time with wishful thinking…

Finally, I had arrived at the two, solid steel doors that had made up the entrance. The size of the Synth power plant was sickening. I didn’t even know where to start when it came to destroying this massive complex, let alone trying to make this look like an accident. Still, even if I managed to get outside with the power off, I had no idea how dark it would be even in the streets with those street lamps off. But I couldn’t worry about that now.

"What a place..." Blazewing whispered to me, still hiding even in plain sight.

I nodded, and figured just in case we were being watched on security, I opened the door by the metal pull handle, and gave Blazewing enough time to fly on through while I followed her into the building. If anyone was watching, chances were good they would only think I was totally alone, likely a guard doing a routine check.

The inside was only dimly lit with small overhead lamps, and plenty of pipes and wires all over the walls and ceiling. Still, the room was a huge, massive lobby with many different passage ways leading out from it. The metal floor was dirty, cold, and firm, and every step I took could be heard echoing through the hall. Thankfully, Blazewing could float through the air and remain totally unseen. All she had to do was just make sure she didn't bump into anyone or anything.

We kept moving, knowing that whoever was inside would not suspect anything about a Black Onyx soldier even if I was seen, and Blazewing and I would still get the element of surprise. At the same time, the Black Onyx were still very much in belief that every last enemy had been eliminated and security didn't need to be so tight. I supposed now would be the perfect time to remind them why no one should ever think that way.

We came to the first room, this time a little more brightly lit, but still, almost as dim as the Azure Islands Library was. The hall continued leading to an even larger room while two elevators were on the sides. The door to the stairs was off to the side, and I quickly took a glance to see if the stairs went down any further. Chances were that whatever kind of reactor core this place had would likely be on the most bottom level. As I peered through the window, indeed the stairs kept going down, but for how far, I really didn’t know. Regardless, I opened the door for Blazewing, and then headed inside myself as we made our way downward at least five flights. When we finally reached the fifth sublevel, I saw the stairs kept going…

"That's... a long way down," I whispered to Blazewing, knowing she was still near me. "Better just go with the elevator."

"Yeah..." Blazewing whispered in agreement.

We had no other choice about it, I was going to have to take the elevator, regardless of whatever risk was involved considering there could be security cameras or monitoring devices in it. It would be impossible for me to climb all these stairs in time to evacuate the building if something was going critically wrong. I just turned to the door, and peered out the window. Again, the elevators were there with another hallway leading to another large metal room. Oddly enough, the only light that illuminated the room was coming from a single red light positioned over the hallway portal, flushing the room with an eerie, red glow. Still, there were no signs of life anywhere…

I opened the door, gave time for Blazewing to head in, and then I quickly entered one of the elevators after pressing the call button. I was surprised how deep this building went underground. Nine sublevels was pretty deep, but I could only guess the main reactor had to be kept this underground due to some kind of sensitivity or safety issue. After pressing the “9B” button, I simply waited, and watched the digital readout display as the elevator crept lower and lower underground. Finally, it had arrived, and the two steel doors opened.

The ninth sublevel was nothing like the rest of the power plant. For the oddest reason, the floor was covered in clean, sleek white tiles, while the rest of the walls and ceiling were pure, cold metal. As soon as I stepped off the elevator, I instantly got a very cold sensation. Strangely enough, I doubt I had ever been this deep underground before.

The hallway led to only one pair of sleek, metal doors down a long, long hallway. Yet, the hallway was incredibly well lit, almost like a laboratory. Contrary to the rest of the power plant, this hallway led down in only one direction, and so I continued, slowly making my way towards the doors. I didn’t know what would be behind them, but I prepared for anything…

After a long walk, I had arrived at the doors, and I simply grabbed the cold metal handle, and threw the door open, and then stepped inside. Quickly, I had discovered why this had been built so far underground. The chamber was a massive nine story shaft, filled with a pulsing blue glow. And in the center of it all, hoisted above the ground, was a bright glowing sphere of energy, floating in the air while two claw-like projections above and below it were gathering the energy from the forks of electricity that the sphere was shooting off. Meanwhile, I looked around and saw there wasn’t a soul around. For the looks of things, it looked like this aspect of the power plant was made to run on its own. Plenty of humming computers encircled the glowing sphere, all on and running plenty of processes.

I just looked at all this mess and was totally baffled. For starters, it was plain and simple that going anywhere near that electric sphere would easily be fatal. So, I walked up to the computers, and looked them over. Mostly all output monitors with lines and lines of bizarre digital readout and bytes of data, and yet barely anything to actually input any commands. I must have spun around the entire ring of computers until I finally find a console with a keyboard and a three button control stick. Meanwhile, the monitor that was right in front of it was huge. I simply just looked at it, hoping to make sense of it all.

"This is... I'm not even sure what to make of it..." I quietly told Blazewing, admitting I was a little lost here.

"Yeah, no kidding," She whispered, probably looking up at the glowing sphere. "I didn't even know Pokémon were capable of building something like this."

Couldn't disagree there. I turned back to the computer, already realizing the input keyboard and the mouse were different from what humans used. Some keys that were used more often were bigger than the others, while the mouse was actually a trackball and the cursor on the screen was more like a crosshair rather than an arrow. It was different, but it was easy enough to get used to.

The operating system looked easy enough to navigate through and understand. I looked around on the system to find out what kind of processes the computer was running, and there must have been thousands, all given names that don’t mean anything in particular. Still, I knew it all must have been in a very delicate and fragile balance to keep something like this stable. All I needed to do was find a way to disturb that balance, and hopefully make it significant enough to destroy the entire power plant. All easier said than done though…

At first, I picked a few random processes and tried to mess around with their settings. However, everything I tried to do was blocked by some security program called “H Barrier.” I must have tried seven times before giving up and looking more into the H Barrier program itself…

Obviously, it didn’t let itself get deleted even though I gave it a wild shot anyway. Trying to corrupt the program by messing with its coding didn’t work either. But then, I took another look at it. It was installed on its own drive called “S,” probably for security purposes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remove the S drive physically since all the wires led into the metal floor. However, I did think of another possible idea…

I then tried to restart the system. Surprisingly enough, it couldn’t even let me do that with all the processes running. So, I tried pulling the plug on the power to the main console. Surely enough, the screen went blank, and then some of the other monitors around the console displayed warning messages. However, shortly after, a message came up on each of them that a back up system was kicking in. I didn’t even know where it was, but shortly after, everything went back to normal even with my console off. So, I turned my console back on. First came the screen for the motherboard display. When I saw that, I immediately requested to enter the motherboard BIOS program. Easy enough, I managed to get there without entering the operating system. From there, I went to the drive manager. I got a list of drive names, and so I went down to select the S drive. With a few clicks, I managed to set it so the S drive never had boot priority. Interestingly enough, it let me save the settings and went straight to the operating system. So much for that H Barrier security program they had running.

"You... well, at least you look like you know what you're doing," Blazewing whispered, a little perplexed about the kind of screwing around I was doing with this thing. "I never would have suspected you were a hacker, Juno."

Ha, ha, this wasn't really hacking. I'll admit, it much have looked pretty geeky to someone not really into this kind of thing, but it was basically finding another way to screw with their system.

"Not surprised they beefed up the security on this thing," I whispered as I worked, smirking a bit from Blazewing's comment about me 'hacking' it. "They definitely didn't want anyone screwing around with it, but I might know a way around."

"Well, go for it, kiddo, but I can't say I'll be of much help here," Blazewing replied.

Once everything in the operating system had booted up, I then proceeded to go the process list. Now, it was actually letting me tamper with the reactor processes because the H Barrier program on the S Drive never got initiated. For the first few processes, called DYN and PRL, I put the settings from a neutral state to a maximum state. I had no idea what the terms were talking about, all I wanted to do was upset the balance and overload... at least something. However, even messing with those two did essentially nothing visible…

FC was my next choice, and I later discovered it stood for “Fusion Control.” There were lots and lots of settings all over the place, so I played around with them like a kid at a pinball machine. “Internal Isotope Feed” seemed like a good setting to alter, so I set that to its highest. Plenty of other commands with very complex scientific vocabulary came up, and I screwed around with those too, setting everything to its highest. I saved all my settings, and then they immediately went into effect.

And by doing all that, I essentially opened up Pandora's Box on this thing.

Everything had become unstable. The whole metal floor literally trembled, shaking violently with a loud rattling sound. Several of the computer monitors had fallen over, and burst into a shower of sparks upon smashing into the ground. Meanwhile, all I had to do was look up to see the entire glowing sphere discharging off more electricity than it could handle.

"Ho boy, you definitely did something!" Blazewing exclaimed.

"Let's go, let's go!" I told her, bolting away from the computer console.

We immediately ran like hell for the doors, and every passing second, it only kept getting worse and worse. The glowing sphere was flaring violently by the time we got to the doors. Blazewing quickly turned off her invisibility and I quickly got on her back. Not wasting another second, we flew down the hallway as fast as we could. Now that every second mattered, the hallway felt like it was miles long, and even the thick metal doors that I had shut only a half a minute ago were thrown off their hinges. When we finally reached the elevator, I quickly jumped off Blazewing's back and hammered the call button, and immediately the doors opened. We rushed inside, and swiftly pressed the button for the ground floor. I could only hope the elevator would survive long enough to take us there…

"Come on... come on..." I muttered, impatiently waiting as the elevator ascended upward.

"Oh geez, I really don't want to die like this..." Blazewing panicked, hoping we'd have a chance at getting out of here before some cataclysmic event happened.

Quickly, it ascended upward, but I could still feel the tremors coming from below. There was no going back now, all I could do was wait and hope. Suddenly, my heart stopped for a moment when the elevator’s light went out, but I had realized it was only the bulb that likely shattered from the shaking. Only two floors left to go, and already the digital readout in the elevator had been shut off. The shaking was only getting worse, and by the time the elevator reached the last floor, it just stopped. The doors didn’t open, and I nearly grew furious at how close I had gotten. Something had been jammed…

"No, no, come on!" Blazewing shouted, trying to rip the door open herself.

I then reached for the emergency release level, and quickly threw in down. Almost immediately, the metal doors were pried opened from the emergency back up system, tearing them through the metal walls and leaving only a small opening to slip through. We quickly took advantage of it, and had already seen that the ground floor was shaking and falling apart piece by piece.

Only seconds after we left the elevator, the two metal doors were suddenly twisted violently, and the elevator fell all the way back down its shaft, never to be seen again. If we had been five seconds too late, we would have fallen down with it to our doom. Still, I took the thought out of my mind and I quickly got on Blazewing's back.

"Hang on!" Blazewing told me, giving me only a split second to hold onto her wings before she dashed like crazy out of there.

More debris was falling everywhere, and the whole ground was constantly shaking, but thankfully, Blazewing's ability to float made sure that wasn't a problem, or I'd probably be on the floor unable to even move. The metal panels of the ceiling and floor were being twisted and pulled out, but Blazewing quickly flew around the collapsing parts of the building. When she finally reached the door, she pushed it open, but to my surprise, the entire door suddenly fell down.

We found ourselves in the streets, looking back to see the power plant falling down upon itself. But even out here, the rumbling was still going on. Whatever was happening to the sphere had to be very severe if it was shaking the ground all the way up here.

“Go!” I shouted to Blazewing. “This whole place is going to blow sky high!”

Quickly, she jetted toward the sky as high and as fast as she could go, probably tens of thousands of feet into the smoggy, polluted air. We took the fastest way out of the industrial park as we could, and once we were convinced we had gone far away enough from the city, we turned around and just looked at it all, wondering what kind of effect all of this chaos was going to have.

Whoever said it would wipe out the entire city was very much correct. I couldn’t believe the size of the explosion, smothering the entire industrial park with a massive, white, cataclysmic blast that tore everything apart. Even just the shockwave caused a massive earthquake, ripping every building to the ground while the white ball of fire incinerated it all split seconds later. Blazewing just looked down, totally in disbelief at the massive chaos that was just caused, but we quickly had to shield our eyes from the massive amount of light. Suddenly, even the dark world of Kivistal was lit up for a moment, making me wonder if this kind of ultra-bright mayhem could be seen even from space.

I had realized what I had done. Normally, the glowing sphere was set to release only the amount of energy that was needed to power the entire city, nothing more. However, I had set it to release far more than that, putting enormous strain on it and causing it to discharge more and more. So, it only kept getting bigger and bigger until it completely exploded, sending forward all the energy it ever had out in one, massive blast. In a massive, chaotic rush, the white explosion simply consumed everything, relentlessly obliterating anything and possibly anyone that had been within its blast. Both of us kept our eyes shielded, not sure if looking at it could result in permanent blindness.

When the dust had cleared and the anarchical noise had finally stopped, we opened our eyes and had seen the industrial park of the Crescent Moon, now a twisted, apocalyptic wasteland. Everything was simply eradicated, leaving the entire city totally cleansed of just about everything. Even Symarix was in far better shape than this place.

Looking around, there was barely anything left, leaving only a few shards of walls still standing among many piles of twisted, liquefied metal. Blazewing slowly flew closer, not sure if it was totally safe, but for now, things seemed okay. The piles of metal still looked white-hot and even now, some of it was still melting, but it seemed that as long as we didn't touch it, we'd be fine.

Among the ruins, however, I soon caught sight of another building, protruding out from the darkness among the fallen city. And I quickly realized what that building was, the only building to survive the massive anarchy.

It was the cathedral that had been described in the book I read, the place where I needed to go now. I motioned Blazewing to fly down toward there, but even she didn’t have any idea what it was, or how it managed to even survive the massive explosion. The closer we got, the more I found it odd how it wasn’t even affected to the slightest degree by the blast, when dozens and dozens of other buildings around it had been reduced to scrap metal. That, was definitely unnatural.

When we finally touched the ground before the foreboding cathedral, I stepped off of her, and just looked at the cathedral and the massive and very odd seal that was upon the large black doors. Yet those too, showed no evidence of being even touched by the explosion. And even more strangely were the stained glass windows, something that should have definitely been torn apart in that mayhem. However, they were perfectly intact, definitely protected by some strange, unnatural force. It was the strangest thing, and I had no idea how to explain it. But, all that I could do now was move forward toward what would be the hardest and most difficult part of my entire journey.

“This is it…” I told Blazewing, looking into her bright eyes, “Once we head in there, there’s no turning back. I don’t care what’s down there, I want to see this through.”

“I can’t believe… the Abyss itself is through those doors…” Blazewing told me, looking a bit anxious. "Are you ready for this? I have no idea what even such a place looks like..."

“We’ve got to be ready for anything…” I told her, even though I had no idea what the path ahead would be like. “Considering the little that I’ve heard about this place, we really can’t be too surprised with how tortured, miserable, and soulless the surroundings appear to be. Just... be ready to endure a real horror show.”

And there was still the part I hadn’t forgotten about. At the end, we would have to die while we were down there. It would be the only way we could make it back to Utopia’s shores to continue the journey. I dreaded the thought of it, but I had faced death twice before, and Blazewing herself had faced it once before on the fields of war during the assault on Jasandax. It seemed like even though the blackness of death was no longer our fear, the pain, the agony, and the suffering was what we were most anxious about. Both times, I felt pain that made me long and hope that it would just be over soon. It was a pain and an agony that truly reminded you of the price that comes with death…

Regardless, for the entire trip, I knew she would be with me, by my sides at all times. And Sita would be there with us in spirit. And all allies we had that were unjustly killed from these horrific wars, I knew they would be with us as well, even if they had forgotten the pain of this world and instead found refuge in the shores of Utopia above.

Their sleeping hope and our resolute will would drive us through all the way…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 19
The Bleeding Depths​

Once I put my hands on the door, I pushed forward, and slowly, after a lot of effort, the door opened. Dust and dirt dropped like rain as the door moved from position. Meanwhile, I looked up and could see the seal itself was in fact a locking mechanism to brace the two doors together. However, at the moment, it was completely unlocked. It was strange to think this lock operated by light and darkness, but then again, that was only one small feature of this strange and enigmatic cathedral.

Even just pushing the heavy, metal door took a lot of effort, even with Blazewing and I working together. When there was just enough room for us to slip in, we took advantage of it and deftly slipped inside. I had just barely managed to get my tail through the door before it completely slammed shut, dropping more dust from the portal opening. No doubt when the sun came out, the door would be locked again until nightfall. That gave us quite a lot of time, but that was even if they suspected me to even be in here. Again, like my first thought, the Black Onyx Kingdom might easily mistake it for a freak accident. Any proof of us being in here was obliterated. My worry was the fact now the cathedral was the only building left out of this graveyard of factories, and they might investigate it, unless they already knew about this thing. But then again, it wasn’t that I was really afraid of…

“Wow, what a place,” Blazewing remarked, looking at everything around her. “It's strange, but it seems like it's not that much different from any other church. But...”

Inside, the cathedral was very small, maybe only good for no more than fifty occupants. Still, it was incredibly dark and cold in that room. Only faint glints of light were coming in through the stained glass windows, softly illuminating parts of the black-tiled floor and the lined up pews, the two dusty chandeliers on the ceiling, and parts of the wall, which once looked like they had murals painted on them. The floor felt incredibly dirty and cold under my feet, almost what an old Egyptian tomb would probably feel like. However, there were signs that someone had been here recently. I could see some disturbance in the dust and dirt on the ground, which suggested that while someone had been here not too long ago, this place definitely didn't see very much activity at all. It made me wonder, was it Black Onyx forces, or someone else?

We moved past the old, wooden pews, which probably hadn’t been used in centuries. Still, it was very quiet inside, enough to hear my own heart beat and every one of my breaths. As we approached the altar, we realized there were two passages leading to an area behind it. I couldn’t see anything past that though, the light from the windows didn’t even touch there. Slowly, we walked carefully toward the left passage, using my hands to avoid bumping into things in the dark. As we walked through that narrow passage, I felt my hands touch the cold, firm surface of the walls as we walked through pitch black darkness for just a few moments.

After a short length from the main room, we finally reached the room in the back, obviously making up the rest of the cathedral. It was a small, stone room that was dimly lit, with the only light that illuminated the area coming from the last two stained glass windows. And in that tiny, stone room, I saw the stairway that the book had described, the only physical way down into the Abyss. Oddly enough, it looked like any other staircase, there was nothing even remotely distinct about it that would make anyone believe it led to such a dark and evil place. The only difference was the stairs simply disappeared into the pitch-black darkness.

“It's going to be that pitch black the entire way down?” Blazewing asked, looking grimly at the staircase that was take us to the Abyss. “I think my eyes are going to forget how to see.”

I hadn’t expected this either, but it wouldn’t have been the first time I’ve had to deal with unforeseen circumstances. And I knew it wouldn’t have been the last either. Still, I couldn't help but admit I felt a little worried about going down. We had no idea what we were going to be in for.

“We’ll take it slow just to get used to it,” I told her, hoping this wouldn’t be too hard after all. “If I start to tumble, please try to catch me. I really don’t want to fall all the way down…”

“Ouch… no kidding,” Blazewing replied, shuddering a bit just from picturing the kind of pain someone would go through falling down so many steps. “I’ve got your back, don’t worry.”

“Well, here we go,” I told her, approaching the first of the many steps it would take to begin our descent.

I started at the first stone step, and made my way down step by step with Blazewing closely following me from behind, lightly floating behind me. Darker and darker it became in very little time, and I quickly found myself fumbling downward completely in the dark once again. I looked back up the stairs, and soon enough, there was only a pinhole's worth of light behind us. After looking forward again, I didn’t find it odd at first, but after a long while, my fear started sinking in. No matter how much I continued, it was still pitch black down there, it was cold, and it was impossible to see if we were in fact making any progress. I wasn’t sure if I should go back up and try to get a light source, but then the other side of me just kept telling me to keep going. So, I continued down, hoping I’d be able to see something soon.

“Are you doing alright, Juno?” Blazewing asked me in the pitch darkness.

In all truth, just hearing her voice brought me incredible relief. I took another breath, and continued on, still feeling some bits of anxiety inside me.

“The darkness is kind of getting to me,” I told her, a bit anxious. “It’s the thought of what’s at the end of all this, and how neither of us know what to expect once we get there.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean…” Blazewing replied, revealing she was anxious as well. “Bravery is a luxury when you think about it…”

"Let's... just keeping going and not think about that," I told her, just trying to relax and keep the spirits up.

Further and further we went, and out of curiosity's sake, I was wondering if a little electrical discharge from my cheeks might light the way a bit. I tried it, letting out a little jolt from my cheeks to see if it would illuminate something, but all I got was a faint and very brief flash of stone steps and the outline of the staircase for just a second, which was no surprise. I didn't expect to see much else. Still, just being able to tell I hadn’t become blind by some mysterious power was enough of a relief. It felt like we had been fumbling downwards in the dark for about three hours now. Going back up would just take another three, and I would only be wasting time, not to mention making it worse on myself.

Another two hours had passed, with nothing different at all happening. The stairway seemed so empty and endless, almost creating the illusion that we had stumbled into a timeless, infinite loop. Blazewing and I tried to keep a conversation going, which helped in the beginning, but then only revealed how increasingly scared we were becoming together. It was hard to keep the spirits up, and I thought trying to add some humor to the situation might make it seem less intimidating.

"Well, it could be worse," I tried to smile weakly. "We could be having to go up the stairs instead."

"Or... be stuck being the ones to do all the masonry," Blazewing added. "Ouch, imagine that."

And as much as I wanted to chuckle at that, we just couldn't. Neither of us found the ability to even just snicker at the comments. Instead, we simply just sighed, and continued. It was hard to find humor given all the circumstances we were facing...

I tried multiple times to change the subject, but it seemed so inane, and after a while, it almost felt like both of us were losing our sanity at the same time. The fear and the stress was intensifying. Never before had a plunge into the unknown had been so unsettling. Quickly, I decided to go back to small talk, just to stop thinking about the Abyss, Skepter, the stairs, and all the other things that were surrounding us.

"So... uh, want to hear a joke?" I asked, hoping that could get my mind off of this thing.

"Eh..." Blazewing replied, not really sure if she was up for it. "I guess...?"

"Okay," I told her, figuring I'd tell it anyway as I headed down each stair. "So, a guy sees his house being robbed, and he calls the police, but the police say all of their officers are already out, so she hangs up on him."

"Okay..." Blazewing replied, assuring me she was listening and taking in all the details.

"The robbers are still going through his house," I continued, "so he calls the police again, and simply tells the operator he shot them both and he's okay now. The operator suddenly panics and soon the police and ambulance soon arrive at his house and they arrest the two robbers, but they wonder why they haven't actually been shot. And then the owner tells them 'hey, I thought you said you didn't have any cops available!?'"

"I..." Blazewing replied, a bit speechless. "Hmm, I guess it's a little... funny?"

I took that as a "not really." I simply continued down the stairs, wondering what to say to get my mind off of this mess. If we didn't talk about the stairs or the Abyss, it just seemed like the discussion would sway to something else that wouldn't be so uplifting.

"Uh... hey, I have one," Blazewing told me. "Why was six afraid of seven?"

"Yeah..." I nodded with a smile. "Because seven ate nine. I've heard that before."

"No..." Blazewing replied. "Numbers are not sentient and are incapable of feelings."

That... well... I couldn't say I saw that coming. But again, I couldn't really laugh at it.

"That's... heh, well, not what I was expecting," I told her.

"I know..." She replied, not sure how she meant that.

And then... silence. Down another stair. And another. And another. I didn't really know what else to say. I tried the electrical discharge thing again to just light up the stairs for a brief instant before it went dark again.

Hours passed. I wasn't sure how many, but I didn't have the watch to track them. Meaningless drivel of conversations were exchanged. I found that fear was really soaking in now, and simply just talking it out wasn't helping. It kept pecking at my mind. We're heading to the Abyss, the Hell of Pokémon. We will need to die down there. And we have no idea what kinds of horrors we're going to run into while we're there. The worst things you'll ever have to see will be just waiting for you. All of those were swirling around in my head, turning my sanity into soup.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." I muttered as my mind was racing, talking to myself simply just talking for talking's sake as I headed down each stair. "That's just fine. Totally fine. Soon we'll be... ... yeah..."

"Right..." Blazewing replied to the utter nonsense, almost sounding like someone else with her altered tone of voice. "Keep going... nowhere. Heh, look at that."

We were totally losing our minds...

As more time passed, we were ready to scream, and now my electricity was almost completely diminished from just trying to light up the stairway for whatever reason. Blazewing was weeping behind me and I could feel her pain, feeling as if both of us had walked into a trap would be locked in eternity of doing nothing but descending down this dark and horrific staircase. It was at the point where we believed it wouldn't even be possible to go back. Other times, she muttered nonsense.

"Am I still here?" Blazewing asked, muttering impulsively. "I'm here, right?"

"You..." I replied.

And that was all I could say. I wanted to say something, but it probably only would have been gibberish. I even almost thought of just counting out loud or reciting something I remembered ago, just to do something.

Regardless of our plight, it was definitely too late to go back, and now I was quivering in the dark, thinking this had to be some kind of demonic trap and we were just going down further and further into infinite space, with no light to be ever seen. My feet were aching, my hands were tired, but I still wanted to keep going until I could at least see something, anything, I didn’t care what it was. Even the very laughing face of madness would be a welcome sight. Both of us felt our sanity was on the brink of collapse. To be trapped in this cycle forever more... we wouldn't need to worry about pain or suffering. Our minds would be so far lost into insanity that we might as well have been psychotic, drugged zombies, reduced to mindless shells of our former selves.

After one more terrible half hour, I finally saw a faint red glow, and I then saw the stone stairs once again. Part of me wondered if it was just an illusion, like my mind was simply being mislead into believing I could see something. Or maybe it was something trying to give me hope only to destroy me with a delusion. But as time passed and reality checks confirmed I was still sane and conscious, it assured me... it could be seen.

I didn’t understand myself at first, I had actually become excited that we finally reached the Abyss and could see how horrible it really was. We went down further, and the glow suddenly became stronger.

“Is… this the end?” Blazewing asked, barely able to speak. "I... can you see this too?"

“Y-yes…” I replied, nearly choking on my own fear. "I... I think... we're here."

Recommended Listening: Godspeed You Black Emperor - Providence (String Loop Manufactured During Downpour)

Then, we had finally come to the end of the stairway, which led to a larger opening. Once we got to that point, the room suddenly opened up, and a massive stone cavern with a dark, red glow was revealed. Molten lava was rushing through the channels, and the area distinctly smelled like blood rather than ash. I then realized the walls… the walls were in fact bleeding, slathered with glossy, crimson liquid that distinctly reeked of the metallic sense of blood. Meanwhile, the floor was a wreck, ravaged by chasms that would make crossing it nearly impossible. We continued down the staircase until we reached the cavern’s floor. Regardless of how bad and miserable the area was, I needed to stop for a moment, and rest my feet and hands. I felt like they were on fire from the pain.

Blazewing and I were covered with so much dust and filth that we were almost gray, like two shadows that had completely lost their way. Meanwhile, the heat was making our eyes dry and itchy. The circumstances to this place were simply... impossible. Bleeding walls, magma, and this unnatural, strange sense to it all.

“I’ll fly through while you ride on my back,” Blazewing told me, looking at the cavern’s floor and knowing it would be difficult for me to cross over. “I think it's way too easy to accidently take the wrong step and wind up taking a really hot bath…”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” I told her, definitely agreeing with that after taking a closer look at the unstable terrain ahead.

After climbing on her back, we softly and carefully flew along. However, it didn’t take very long until we started noticing that there were small puddles of blood on the rocky terrain below, mostly because it was dripping down from the ceiling. At first, it wasn’t too difficult for Blazewing to weave her way around them, but after a while, it became impossible to avoid them. Drops and trickles of blood fell upon our heads and back, mixing with the dust and the dirt we already had on us.

Down below, the situation hadn’t gotten much better. More pools of lava and boiling blood were below, and I saw multiple cases where if it hadn’t been for Blazewing, I would have had to jump into them. Still, the terrain below was no way to travel.

"Sorry for the... drivel while we were going down that staircase," Blazewing told me apologetically. "I... I was losing it..."

"You and I both," I told her. "I think we're just... anxious. We didn't know how long it would be, so it's no surprise we freaked out a bit."

"Yeah..." Blazewing nodded, looking ahead.

We continued through that cavern, having no idea how long our journey through this morbid and forsaken realm would be, but at least we could see now. Despite the fact this was the Abyss, the souls that had been damned to this place were nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, now Blazewing and I were half-covered with the gray dust from the dark stairwell while the other half was blood. Truthfully, both of us looked like undead zombies, which was ironic considering we were the only two that were actually alive in this realm.

“I honestly don’t want to ask if the Abyss gets worse than this…” Blazewing muttered, looking grimly at the bleeding, boiling caves around us. "Because this is already quite bad."

“I’m almost certain it does,” I told her, quite certain there were fiercer horrors beyond excessive heat and being splattered with blood. “Hopefully it won’t be too much longer…”

We carried on for a few more minutes until the pools of blood and lava soon became more of the uneven rocky terrain, and even the walls had less lava and blood coming down from them. Instead, the rocky walls had burning depictions of twisted, satanic images and symbols accompanied with what I believe sounded like chanting, though I had no idea who or what that could be. I could tell they were twisted pictures and words, but they were so scrawled and distorted that it was simply an indistinct enigma, but I could still sense there was evil and terror behind them. Still, Blazewing kept moving, knowing it would have been pointless to turn back, not after we’ve come so far already.

Eventually, the walls of the cavern closed in, and we were able to narrowly make our way through the passage until we soon arrived at a lit opening. Once Blazewing flew through it, the whole world opened up around us.

I saw before me what looked like a vast, torched desert with absolutely no sign of life anywhere. Meanwhile, the sky was dark, red, and possibly uglier and more hideous than a bleeding scab. As for the ground, the only thing recognizable was a simple asphalt road, which I swear could have been meant for cars if there were any. Even that didn’t make sense. Who or what would pave a road in the Abyss? And why did it look like we were outside now? This place... it could have only existed in paradox or be something entirely supernatural. Logically, it should have been impossible, but it seemed like nothing here even cared about defying that.

We then left the tunnel, and stopped for a moment outside, just looking at the scorched earth and feeling the hot and sickening wind whip all around us, blowing swiftly through my long ears and tail. And I just looked ahead at the road, knowing it had to head toward the City of Dis. Blazewing and I exchanged glances for a moment, and then looked into the distance as we both thought the same thing…

Truly… the Abyss was Hell for Pokémon…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 20
The City of Shattered Souls​

It made me wonder how we could be underground and outside at the same time. As I trudged along that broken down and pitted road as Blazewing lightly floated by my side, I couldn’t help but look up at the flaring sky, feeling more alone than ever before. The road ahead of us seemed to stretch for many miles into the horizon among this warped and arid wasteland. Still, I continued anyway, and as I looked back, I had seen that the tunnel we had come from had disappeared in the distance.

There was still no sign of Dis anywhere, though in a place like this, I didn’t know whether to be eager to see it with the hopes that we could get out of here soon, or with the dread of wondering how abysmal it would be considering what we’ve seen of the Abyss so far. Meanwhile, Blazewing looked around her, a bit baffled at how chaotic this realm really was. Still, having her by my side was a relief, and I knew if she hadn’t been there, I would have felt like a lost, forsaken soul totally unaware of where I was or where I was even going. Already, this place went beyond paradoxes…

“It really does make you wonder...” Blazewing told me, philosophizing for a moment as she looked up and around her. “If every last evil Pokémon out there saw this place and were told this is where they'd end up if they continued being bad, wow, you'd see everyone suddenly jump into kindness, generosity, and compassion everywhere!”

“Imagine that...” I told her truthfully, figuring that's what Utopia was for..

I couldn't help but wonder though. Would it be convincing enough to change Skepter? Or perhaps Jamac and Kamax? Maybe... or maybe not. There were times that I was convinced there were both people and Pokémon that were evil enough to the point where the consequences didn't even bother them.

“Juno…” Blazewing told me softly, suddenly snapping to attention as she quickly looked up to the sky. “Juno… I... think it’s raining… blood again…”

I felt it all of a sudden. It was like normal rain, landing randomly with a soft pattering sound. Only now… it was a scarlet red, leaving visible streaks of crimson liquid as each drop rolled down our bodies. It then started to rain harder, covering both of us with it, and even making the two of us look like we had been horribly wounded. My yellow fur was now soaked in it, dripping with the blood as the landscape around us became something out of a nightmare. I looked before me, seeing the wasteland now layered with puddles and rivers of blood, most of it appearing to look as black as death.

And then, a vicious crack of thunder had burst out, only this time it was black as oil and instead of illuminating the sky, it only shrouded it in darkness, suddenly making it darker than death for a few seconds before allowing the morbid illumination to return. All the while, the entire ground was being soaked with blood, like a battlefield without bodies.

I quickly jumped onto Blazewing’s back, and then grabbed on tight.

“Come on, we’d better get out of here.” I told her, showing her the road was the way to go, “The City of Dis should be just down that road. As long as you keep following it, we’ll be fine.”

“Alright, hopefully we’ll get there soon.” She replied, ready to take off. "So far, we've seen two areas of the Abyss, and I can't say I'm thrilled about either of them."

We were only within seconds of getting off the ground when suddenly I felt like something struck me in the side of my face and sent me spinning randomly. The whole world suddenly became a blur spinning at a million miles an hour, and then I felt the hard impact of landing on the asphalt road again. I crashed and an instant surge of pain shot through me, which soon was reduced to merely an ache. Only seconds later, Blazewing had landed right besides me, also struck by the same mysterious force. I screamed out, not sure if we were being attacked of if this was some other ill effect of this horrific place.

Suddenly, I was disoriented for a moment. When I got off my back and I could see again for a moment, I was greeted with another fright…

The road to Dis… was everywhere. Rather than a single road coming and going, I suddenly found myself in the middle of crossroads, now with ten other similar looking roads shooting out in all directions from my position. There was no way to tell which road was the real road heading toward Dis, and which ones were fake. They all looked the same to me…

And then, with another blast of thunder, I suddenly heard a loud and hideous mechanical laughter echo outward as the dark scarlet rain continued drenching us. I didn’t know if we were still in the same place or where we were even heading beforehand. The amnesia that was crippling me was beginning to make my mind go in circles.

“What on earth was that!?” She yelped in fear, totally disoriented like I was…

“Someone or something is trying to stop us from reaching Dis…” I replied, trying to look for some kind of way to tell which road was the correct one.

But then, I noticed something. The original road was straight, and from where I was sitting, many of the other roads weren’t perfectly aligned with the counterpart on the other side of the star-like formation of crossroads I was sitting at. I quickly hopped on Blazewing’s back, knowing just how to tell which road was the right one. The only risk now… was being sent right back to the tunnel where I came from. But that was far less dangerous than being sent to the middle of nowhere…

“Try to head upward.” I told her, holding on tight, “The other roads aren’t perfectly aligned, and seeing the junction from the sky will give us a better idea which road is the correct one. It has to be a road that cuts through the intersection without any skewed angles.”

"Hmm, nice thinking," She replied. "But who the heck was that... laughing?"

"No idea..." I told her, feeling a little apprehensive as I kept looking around me.

And so, Blazewing headed upward, and I looked below. Surely enough, only one road at the entire junction cut through in a perfectly straight line. All the others were at skewed angles, heading toward the horizon. However, I doubted they would lead to anywhere worth seeing.

“Do you see it?” I asked her, hoping she was following the same pattern, “Just follow that one road that cuts through the junction in a perfectly straight line. The others have to be fake.”

“Alright, I got it.” She replied, immediately heading down the correct road before it could be altered again.

And then, we flew down that asphalt road, hovering above it to make sure we stayed on the correct path. I could only imagine that things were only going to get harder in the path ahead. And neither of us knew just how far away Dis really was…

After a long and treacherous flight of getting smothered by more blood rain, we finally caught sight of something in the distance. Slowly, the twisted and dilapidated city of Dis emerged from the hideous scab-colored sky. We were getting closer now, but I had a feeling that this was going to be the hardest part. For now, the city was massive, and I could already tell it might take some time to find The Temple of the Damned in this amass of fallen skyscrapers. I didn’t even know what the temple looked like or how big it was. Even worse, I didn’t even know if it was still intact or if like the rest of these buildings, it too was nothing more than ruins.

The closer we got, the more hideous The City of Dis seemed to become. It appeared to be a dark and thriving metropolis, bathed in a hellish glow. Oil-black buildings made up the skyline and distinctive wailing and hideous laughter could be heard echoing through the streets. Apartment buildings were slathered with twisted graffiti, broken windows, and signs of neglect while the office buildings and jagged skyscrapers represented oppressive greed and evil. Trash, neglect, and hate made this easily seem like the most crime-laden city that ever existed.

Slowly, the blood rain was starting to stop and let up, and by the time Blazewing had reached the front entrance, it had totally cleared up, leaving pools and puddles of blood scattered everywhere.

“Is this… really Dis…?” She asked, looking around, “I swear I’ve never seen a place so wretched…”

“And it makes you wonder why so many Pokémon live such an evil life when the stakes are as high as being eternally punished into a place like this…” I replied, just baffled at the sight of it.

I quickly got off her back, and felt my two feet land directly in a puddle of blood, immediately soaking them yet again and sending the murky red liquid splashing in all directions. However, by now they were so soaked with blood that there was hardly any difference from before.

By now, I was feeling exhausted, and I could sense Blazewing was feeling weary herself. The whole time, we had been pushing ourselves, hoping to make this trip quick and as painless as possible, driving ourselves at a grueling pace. However, it was definitely catching up to us. I sighed, however, not too convinced that resting and sleeping in the Abyss would be such a good idea. I highly doubted we would ever find a safe place to rest in this twisted nightmare.

As I stepped forward, my right foot landed on something cold and metal, and when I looked down, I had seen it was a sign, half covered in blood. I picked it up, and wiped away the blood, and saw it was shaped and colored like an ordinary green sign someone would see on a highway. I looked at its bright white lettering, and just read it…

Abandon all hope, all you who enter these doors. Welcome to the City of Dis…

…Juno and Blazewing.

I could have sworn I just saw our names suddenly appear on the sign, and then suddenly the entire sign felt boiling hot. I threw it down furiously out of shock and pain, and watched it land right into the puddle of blood. Oddly enough, it was hot enough to make steam even out of the blood…

“Are you alright!?” Blazewing shouted shock, never suspecting that to happen. "How did that...!?

“I’m… fine.” I told her, shaking my paws in a rather pathetic way to cool them off and neutralize the burning sting of pain.

Still, we had to keep going. Blazewing and I looked around, and suddenly, we noticed the strangest thing. There was a much... darker torture to this place.

Everything in the City of Dis... hated us.

It was such a dark realization and the strangest thing I think I've ever seen. Neon signs in the storefronts, flashing the most wicked and condescending things about us. I saw "eat death, Juno" and "your friends are dead, your friends are dead" and "how did it feel to watch them die" along with thousands of other spiteful messages. Mounted on the rooftops and sides of buildings were billboards depicting Blazewing and I as a bloody mess and pointing mockery about it. There was another that showed us without heads and a caption of "you'll never get ahead, ha ha ha" and a third that played a macabre animation of us melting into puddles... over and over again endlessly. All the while, wailing, laughter, and shrieking was in the air.

"Eww, who came up with this grizzly marketing campaign?" Blazewing muttered, seeing past the illusion that it was simply trying to demoralize us.

"Really, all this just for us?" I asked, finding that a little strange. "How would this look to anyone else that's here?"

And then I saw the graffiti on the walls… all spelling out how we were the worst thing that ever slithered into this miserable town. I couldn't go five feet without seeing some hateful and spiteful message or image about berating the two of us. Another "Juno, the failure of flesh" and "hope is dead, Juno, hope is dead." And that… that was just the beginning.

I turned around and was greeted with another horror…

“Eternal damnation never looked so fine, eh, rat?” I heard his belittling voice.

Kamax the Vigoroth, exactly the way I remembered him just before I shot him to death, was now standing above me, smiling about it. I quickly reached for one of my rifles, hoping it would still work even after all that blood it had been soaked in. Surprisingly, the automatic rifle roared to life, blasting fire and carnage right into Kamax’s face as each spent ammo casing was ejected out of the side. But… it did nothing. I just stood there, gaping in shock.

“What… the… hell…” I questioned, wondering why nothing happened…

“Are you really that stupid!?” Kamax laughed, totally in disbelief, “I’m already dead, you idiotic roach! How the hell do you think I ended up here in the first place?”

As much as I hated everything about him, he was right. He was a ghost now, and no bullet was going to make a dent in that. I just threw the rifle aside, knowing it wasn’t worth the metal it was made out of for as long as I was here. In fact, I was totally defenseless. Everything here was either dead or was part of the overall eternal misery.

“I really do have to ask…” Kamax continued snickering after I threw the rifle away, “Why did you two come here anyway? Things that bad in Kivistal right now?"

"Ha, yeah, like we need to tell you anything," Blazewing scoffed at him. "That's our own business. You're just a dead traitor, Kamaxy-boy. Go buzz off and leave us alone."

"Don't make me laugh, stupid birdbrain," Kamax spat back at her. "Let me guess... you’re not actually dead… are you? I can tell.”

He took his claw and suddenly attacked her with a vicious, nasty swipe. She suddenly jumped from the shock to try and dodge it, but his claws were able to still lightly graze her side enough for the skin to be cut. It was only a light wound, but still... a wound nonetheless. If she hadn't backed off as quickly, it could have been much worse.

"Ow, you schmuck!" Blazewing shouted at him. "What was that for!?"

"Ha, ha, are you really asking that!?" Kamax laughed. "What do you think that's for!?"

Blazewing opened her jaws and unleashed a vicious Dragon Pulse attack from her mouth, impulsively attacking Kamax with a vicious shock wave of blazing, fiery draconic energy. However, the attack went right through him and did absolutely nothing, just like the rifle bullets I had shot at him. Blazewing seemed totally shocked, unable to grasp the reality of the situation. Neither of us could do anything, and weapons and Pokémon attacks were useless in this situation.

Something about it didn't seem right. How was Kamax's spirit... able to wound Blazewing? He was able to hurt us, but we weren't able to hurt him.

And that drove me to consider another question. It was clear... we could be wounded here because we were still alive. But if we had been killed by Kamax or anything else in the Abyss before we reached the Temple of The Damned… would our souls be able to escape… or would they be stuck down here with the rest of them…?

I didn’t hang around to find out.

“Let’s just get out of here!” I shouted to Blazewing, quickly jumping upon her back.

Without even a nod, she quickly flew away, leaving the damned Vigoroth in the distance. For a moment, I felt as if I could have seen a dark smile beam across his face… a disturbing sight that would probably end up as one of the many dark memories in the archives of my mind…

"This doesn't make the slightest bit of sense!" Blazewing shouted, totally baffled about the situation. "He can hurt us but we can't hurt him? How dumb is that!?"

"Yeah, I don't get it either," I told her, unable to figure it out. "I know we're still alive in body, but how come he was able to hurt you only as a spirit?"

Despite having any logical answer, I threw away my other two rifles to remove some of the weight on my back. They wouldn’t do anything for me, even after all the walking I had done to get them here. As Blazewing flew through the dark streets, I saw more streets full of paraphernalia that hated every last thing about the two of us. I caught sight of another billboard on an office building, showing a picture of me dashed into bloody pieces, with the words “No, Juno, just die” on the top. And then there was another with Blazewing and I skewered through the chest with the same pike with the caption "Try a Double Kill Kabob!" No doubt, this had to be our own hell, specially crafted and customized just for us to feel miserable. But it left me with a nagging question. This couldn't have looked the same for anyone else entering this place, did it? Or were we really that hated by the entire Abyss that they'd do all this just for the two of us? My theory was the entire city was adapted to look like it singled out anyone who walked into it. Still didn't make it feel any more welcoming, though.

At the same time, the city was huge, and the Temple of The Damned could be anywhere in this jungle of concrete buildings. Worst thing was… I had no idea where to begin looking. And I highly doubted that someone here would be so happy to give me a map and directions to the place considering how much this entire town hated us to the high heavens. Meanwhile, the city itself seemed to be lightly populated by dead Crimson Stars soldiers. They shot us angry looks and offensive gestures, and some of them even tried to attack us. We simply tried to avoid them, knowing we couldn't kill them but they could still kill us...

Even though I wasn’t too crazy about Blazewing flying through the middle of the streets, there didn’t seem to be too many options. The sudden and abrupt presence of Kamax only a few minutes ago didn’t leave me convinced we weren’t being pursued. Problem was, Blazewing wasn’t really sure where to go, simply taking street after street, hoping by luck and chance we might find something that could be what we were looking for or at least guide us in the right direction. However, I hadn’t seen anything like it, and unlike Crescent Moon's industrial area, I wasn't sure how to blow this whole place up. We were lost and I wasn’t sure if there was any quick solution to this problem. Instead, we just came across more dark and intimidating inner city streets, and more anti-Juno and Blazewing propaganda all over the place in various forms. It was quite easy to get sick of seeing it.

If I had run into Kamax, I had a feeling any old enemy of mine could be running around out there, the Crimson Stars, Jamac… heck, perhaps even Zander, though I had a feeling since this was the Hell of Pokémon, I could at least be saved the misfortune of running into him. But the horror of the reality was I couldn’t fight any of them, but they… they had everything they needed to kill me and perhaps keep me bound to this miserable place forever. And if not that… it would be enough to make me fail my mission to get to the Stone of Dusk in the Temple of The Damned, the whole point to us being here in the first place. And if I failed that, I would be forgotten, King Skepter would rule all of Kivistal, and the Silver Apex would just be dust. I couldn’t allow either to happen…

I was very paranoid at the moment, and Blazewing also kept an extremely watchful eye, ready to fight to the death at any moment. I knew that if the Temple of The Damned was totally submerged in darkness, it had to be a building without windows to avoid letting in natural light, although looking up at the dark, twisted sky, I wasn't even sure what was illuminating anything here. But the fact the temple wouldn't have windows didn’t give us a whole lot of leads though, nor did it give us a direction of where to start looking. Still, searching every inch of this city wasn’t going to work either, we would easily be killed before I got to that point.

For now, I just kept watch, looking around for both the Temple of The Damned or anything that might be considered a threat while Blazewing dodged the groups of angry Crimson Stars soldiers that were prowling about. However, unless we found something to help us, we could be searching this macabre city for years and never find it…

 

[Avenger Angel]

Chapter 21
Under the Veil​

Recommended Listening: TimeSplitters 2: Hospital

More and more, we carefully crept through the alleyways, past stuffed trash dumpsters with newspapers, bottles, cigarette butts, and other trash scattered about randomly. Again, I found more spiteful graffiti, more hatred of us dashed all over the place, but I ignored it. Still, while this undercover route was keeping us hidden, we were blocked from looking at the streets, which meant we couldn’t even see the Temple of The Damned. We could be passing it right by and we wouldn’t even know about it…

But even then, we mistakenly bumped into a familiar face. Not a friendly one… but perhaps one that was not as hostile as the others…

“Uh huh…” He snickered, nodding his head, “My, this must be my lucky day.”

Frank… but in his younger years… for some odd reason. But now, I would imagine that he’d be an adult by now, so this wasn’t making sense. Meanwhile, even Blazewing seemed perplexed by his sudden presence.

“Frank…” I stated, lowering my eyelids in disgust, “Frank Meyers. Never thought I’d see you here…”

“Haw, never thought I’d see the day Jake Kossak would rather be a cute lil’ Pikachu instead.” Frank laughed, “Oh wait, that’s right. He’s dead now. Heh heh, dead. Bet you're feeling butthurt about that right now.”

Blazewing looked at him strangely, having a good idea of who he was, but it was obvious something in the equation wasn’t making sense. I nodded at Frank, shoving that one little detail that I would have liked to put behind me aside. But then, I realized something, something that didn’t connect. It just didn’t make sense…

“Mind if I ask you one thing, Frank, before you turn me in for this great Juno hunt?” I asked him, knowing that was obviously his intention, “Exactly what are you doing here in the Abyss anyway? Your real self really shouldn’t be dead yet, the real you is much older and still alive now, and after all, this is the afterlife of damned Pokémon, not humans.”

And then… he just looked down, suddenly not so happy anymore…

“Eh… guess you’re not as stupid as you look…” Frank whimpered…

And suddenly, just like that, he faded from sight. There wasn’t any trace of him, as if he had never been there. But then… suddenly I watched the City of Dis switch to an entirely different state...

"Whoa... what's happening!?" Blazewing exclaimed.

I was just speechless as the dark city of Dis seemed to change from a menacing, urban travesty to suddenly look like it had been totally bombed out. Dark skyscrapers had turned into blown-out building shells, apartment rows were reduced to rubble and burnt husks while the black office buildings appeared to be broken and derelict. At that moment, the entire City of Dis looked totally ruined and dilapidated. Most of the buildings had been reduced to just broken walls and rubble, and only a few were even still standing.

"How did this happen?" I asked, seeing Dis suddenly look like something taken out of a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

And then it just started to flicker between the dark metropolis illusion of Dis, and the ruined version. Come a few seconds later, it returned to its normal, dark metropolis state. Blazewing and I looked at each other for a moment, and I knew we had seen the exact same occurrence.

"So wait, is the city wrecked or not?" Blazewing asked, looking around. "And why... ugh, this place is such a brain-fry, really."

It was the oddest thing, but something about the city being specifically anti-Juno and Blazewing seemed to be a clue that maybe the dark version was perhaps just an illusion. It made me really think that to any damned soul who entered Dis, the city would be custom-built to look like it hated specifically them, housing all their worst enemies and nightmares. But… unlike a trapped soul meant to be stuck in a world where they are hated, I was in physical form, which meant I could still alter and affect the environment around me. It then hit me. To keep Dis in its ruined and true state, I needed to not only think that the dark city was a fake, custom-built illusion…

I needed to act it…

I immediately looked to the wall on my side. I knew that brick wall with its malicious graffiti and torn posters weren't really there when we saw the ruined city. So… I walked to it. Then, I held out my hand, and moved my hand forward so it went right through the wall…

Instantly, the entire city switched back to the real, post-apocalyptic version of Dis. And there it was, nothing but the rubble of the same building before me. Yes… this is what I needed to do to find the Temple of The Damned. In the ruined state, the number of buildings even still standing was low, so the temple would be easier to spot. I knew I had to keep the real Dis lasting for as long as possible, long enough to find the temple, which had to still be intact. After all, the interior couldn’t be in complete darkness if the roof or walls of the building were damaged. That only meant it was still standing in even the real version of Dis.

“Look at that…” Blazewing gasped, surprised to see that happen. “Wow, this place is really… really strange.”

“It seems the real Dis is nothing but ruins, while the illusion is the custom-designed torture designed to torment whoever walks through here," I told her. "But, in both scenarios, the temple still would need to be intact and standing. But I know it would be way easier to find it if all the other buildings appear as rubble and just burnt shells."

"Yeah, your guess is as good as mine," Blazewing agreed. "Hopefully this puts us on the right track."

Following the example, we both went forward, now no longer moving in the streets or alleyways, but through the buildings themselves, rushing through the walls and flying over the debris of the city. The interiors of the buildings were nothing but the broken ruins of a post-apocalyptic city, while the illusion made it appear as if the city was actually still alive and thriving. As long as we kept doing this, it was impossible for Dis to return to its illusionary state since we would be flying through the walls at a constant pace.

As we moved through the ravaged city blocks, we quickly ran out of buildings to fly through as we reached the end of the block, we saw we would have to cross a street. Blazewing went full speed ahead across the street just as we left cover. But, before we made it to the other side, Dis flickered back to its illusionary dark city form, but it would only be for a few moments. A movie store selling nothing but DVDs of us being mocked and tortured stood before us now, but Blazewing simply flew right through its door, and again, it all disappeared back into the ruined City of Dis. Meanwhile, I kept an eye out for the temple, now it was much easier to look around with only ruins to look through rather than a full fledged city.

“Whew, it looks so much like we would just end up crashing right into it!” Blazewing exclaimed, almost with a laugh. “Still, I hope no one saw us.”

“I hope not either…” I told her, looking behind me. “Still, keep a look out for the temple. There may be a lot to search through, but I’m quite sure the building would have to still be intact.”

I decided to stay on Blazewing’s back, moving through the rows of apartment and office buildings was our safe area, but it was the streets that were a problem and there were times when we had to cross streets and avenues to keep moving. We could still be seen by the spirits of my enemies, enemies like Kamax, Jamac, and whoever else could want us dead and possibly keep our souls stuck down here. Still, it seemed like whenever we were inside the ruins of the buildings, we were totally cloaked from sight, but as soon as we left cover and dashed across the streets, the spirits of our enemies suddenly snapped to attention as they saw us. I guess to them… the dark metropolis illusion was all they could see and the real ruined version was beyond fathomable to them. Meanwhile, I wasn’t even sure if these were the real souls of my enemies, or if they were just another part of the illusion. Regardless, Kamax did injure Blazewing, so my guess was these were the actual souls.

We had to fly across three more streets, making sure the coast was clear while we did so. On and on it went, and after a while, we made our way through the ruins slowly, rather than fly the entire distance. I couldn’t believe how big this place was, and yet still no sighting of the Temple of The Damned. And yet… judging by how much more of the city lay ahead of us, there was still quite a distance to go. Even then, I still had no idea what the temple looked like or how big it was. It could be as small as one of the convenience stores or a very large cathedral the size of a gymnasium. There was no way of telling.

"Oh man, this is still not easy..." Blazewing muttered, knowing even with this lead, there was still difficulty. "How big is this joint?"

"I don't know, but we've got to keep looking," I told her, still feeling optimistic about this. "We'll find it soon, it can't hide forever."

Another street came before us. Like usual now, I checked both left and right, not only to look for spirits, but to also check for the temple itself. Right across the street was the ruins of a fallen skyscraper, leaning on the ruins of buildings besides it. Once I was convinced the coast was clear, Blazewing sped across the street while I watched our sides and made sure we weren’t being pursued..

Soon after, the city returned to its illusionary state, and I saw what that skyscraper really looked like, at least until Blazewing flew right through the glass front doors of the entrance. Once I got there and the city returned to its real state, we simply continued, but we weren’t sure how much more area we would need to clear before we found the temple.

The line of buildings was “L” shaped this time, so I encouraged Blazewing to follow the line for as long as possible until we reached the end again. Once again, checked left and right, but for some reason, this area of the city was awfully crowded…

More spirits, some from the Crimson Stars, a few others from the Black Onyx. I also saw a few other familiar faces walking around. Vorox the Scyther was there, the old leader of the Crimson Star Wind Strikers… until we killed him, of course. Still, he was looking at the other spirits, as if it was some kind of assembly in the middle of the street. We kept quiet and listened in, something about this seemed strange.

“We have a very interesting situation on our hands…” Vorox snickered, now sounding a hell of a lot more sinister than when we last saw him, “I know most of us never thought we’d ever get this chance, but that chance is actually here…”

At first, I thought he was talking about some way to leave the city, but that seemed doubtful.

“He’s here…” Another spirit had stated.

I looked toward him and saw Vexcel, the Dragonite that betrayed the Silver Apex along with Kamax. I really wondered who else I’d be running into in this miserable place…

“I don’t know why, but Juno is somewhere in this city.” Vexcel continued, looking at the other spirits, “And he has that damn Latias with him too. I know you hate his fat, yellow hide as much as I do, but let’s not get too hasty. There’s obviously a reason why he’s here, and the sooner we find out what it is, the sooner we can make him suffer for everything he’s done to each and every one of us.”

Surprisingly enough, somehow word was spreading around…