“Oh shoot! Did we overdo it, Espy?”
Both Nina and Nitey winced at the sheer destruction they wrought. anwhile, Espy just side eyed her with a look that scread “You think?!”
“The barrier doesn’t seem to be fading though…” Looking around, Nina could see that the forcefield was certainly weaker, as evident by the massive fissure that broke when Bruno’s ga Lucario slamd his opponent ga Aggron against it.
The break in the barrier was healing but slowly, which would have allowed enough ti for a good number of the League’s trainers to slip through, if they weren’t too preoccupied by their own struggles.
“Es.” Espy pointed down into the hole with a pulse of intent.
“The power source is down there?” Nina humd in consideration. “Is it Infinity Energy, maybe?” It would make sense since there seed to be an abundance of it in the area.
Nina felt an urge to just bomb the hole and see what would happen. The thought emanated from Nitey and was quickly tempered by the more cautious Nina.
An instantaneous string of exchanges occurred as the pair synchronized their thoughts and ca to an accord — a benefit of their ga Evolutionary bond.
“wtwo should be powerful enough to survive a bombardnt, or at least clairvoyant enough to dodge it.” Nina mused, voicing Nitey’s thoughts and earning them both disapproving frowns from Espy. “And, Ash is Ash. So his plot armor will see him through.”
“Es!” Espy admonished.
“Yeah, I guess Ilex Forest was a bit of an exception. But it kinda worked out…?”
The Espeon rolled her eyes and shook her head in exasperation.
“Alright, fine. We won’t Death Star the sinkhole!” Nina had always thought that part of the movie was a little stupid anyway. “Which leaves only one option…”
“Niiiite!” Nitey affird and flapped his ear-wings, feathers twirling in the air as he dove down into the hole.
The air cracked in a thunderous boom and the noise of battles faded. Then, in a single burst of Extre Speed, Nina and her companions found themselves surrounded by darkness and flashing red lights. Until finally, they ca to a stop by a roiling crack in reality, like a starry, pitch black eye of obsidian staring into their souls.
“Dra…” Nitey groaned and so did Nina as they fought an invisible battle against the forces pulling at their veins, threatening to suck up every drop of Infinity Energy powering their ga Evolution.
“Ngh… Let it go, Nitey. It’s not worth it!” Nina could already tell that it was a losing battle and that if they persisted with their resistance, they risked losing more of their waning vitality than necessary.
“Niiite…” With a reluctant cry, Nitey relented. And in a feeble flash of light, his form reverted to that of a tubby, standard and orange Dragonite as the rift in reality crackled and widened ever so slightly.
Along with that reversion ca a bout of weakness. The Dragonite’s wings faltered and it was everything Nitey could do to avoid getting physically sucked into the Ultra Wormhole.
“We need to land, Nitey. Ash and wtwo need our help!” Because while they were being distracted by the wormhole, there was a violent conflict happening right underneath them.
Ash was surrounded on all sides by his Pokemon; Pikachu, Dragonite, Greninja, Lucario, Sceptile and Sirfetch’d. All of them engaged in battle with a cadre of Pokemon being directed by a red-haired woman who Nina recognised to be Ariana.
And on the other side of the rubble, right underneath the Ultra Wormhole, was wtwo who was clutching his head in agony while being sneered at by the ever insufferable visage of a smirking Giovanni with a Dark Ball in hand.
“wtwo!” Nina cried out in distress and tossed a trio of Pokeballs towards Ash’s direction. “Clody, Brucey, Rinny! Help Ash deal with Ariana! Nitey, Draco Pulse on Giovanni!”
“DRAGOOO!!!” Nitey howled and unleashed the last scraps of his reserves in a pulse of purple-flad fury.
anwhile, the rest of Nina’s team erged in a flash of light to bolster Ash’s defense while Espy jumped off Nitey’s back to go defend wtwo against the contingent of chanically modified Magnetons that were surrounding him with a cage of debilitating radio waves.
Nina recognised the symptom. It was the sa reaction that the Rock Pokemon she encountered in Union Cave had towards the Ruins of Alph. “That was probably what Team Rocket used to agitate the Gyarados in the Lake of Rage as well. They figured out a way to weaponise the unique wavelength of the Unown…”
“RHYYYY!!!” A Rhyperior erged from the rocky cavern floor and intercepted the impotent Draco Pulse. Followed by a Persian slinking through the broken debris and pouncing at Nina’s back with gleaming sharp claws, only to be thwarted in its ambush by Azzy erging from the shadows.
“Gen!”
“Thanks, Azzy!”
“ddling twerp!” Giovanni scowled and directed his Garchomp to assault Espy, but Nitey threw his bulky orange fra against the shark Dragon’s Rough Skin in defense, sending the two tumbling against the ground. It was everything Nina could do to dismount in ti and avoid getting caught up in the lee.
“Ack!” Nina winced as her arms scraped against the rocky terrain, landed with the wind knocked from her lungs and in a tangled ss of limbs. But before she could catch a break, the ground trembled and the gaping jaws of a Hippowdon erged from underneath her.
“Shoot!” Nina scrambled on all fours to get away from her encroaching doom, those powerful jaws and tombstone teeth rumbled, threatening to snap shut on her delicate fra.
However, before they could, a hastily erected pink barrier encased the girl and held firm against that crushing pressure.
“Espy!”
“Es…!” The Espeon cried out in strain, as she endured the pain of being electrocuted to save her human.
Thankfully, her intervention provided enough of a leeway for wtwo to overco the assault on his senses and break through his encirclent with a Bulldoze against one of the Magnetons.
At the sa ti, Nina’s shadow stirred as she found herself yanked into Limbo by a familiar pair of stubby hands and deposited so distance away from battle.
“Good work, Azzy! Now go and help Espy!” Nina instructed, only to be denied by a shake of the head from her Ghost girl.
“Gen! Gengar!” Nina’s bodyguard cried, just in ti to intercept yet another ambush from a haggard looking Persian, who was now assisted by a Gliscor cackling maliciously in the air as it swooped in with a Swords Dance empowered X-Scissor targeted at Nina.
“GEEEEN!!!” Azzy roared and ensnared the Flying scorpion Pokemon with a web of Cursed Thorns to halt its advance.
“Dammit!” Things were not looking good. And checking back on Espy, Nina could also see that her princess was being ganked on all sides by a duo of Magnetons and a Krookodile while wtwo was barred from Giovanni by the rest of the persistently Screeching Magnetons and a Nidoking.
“wtwo’s looking weak. He must have had his ga Evolution forcefully cancelled, just like Nitey...” Nina mused. Arceus knew she herself was only persevering through sheer grit and adrenaline at the mont. The aftereffects of having her and Nitey’s vitality stolen was no joke — severe enough that even her soul was reeling from damage.
All the while, as the chaos ensued, Nina caught Giovanni steadily inching closer and closer to the bottom of the Ultra Wormhole in the corner of her eye.
“Oh no you don’t! Espy, call back the rest of the team!” Nina cried out at the sa ti as she threw an Ultra Ball towards Giovanni’s direction. Ash would just have to fend for himself, and the girl was beyond the point of any moral quandaries when it ca to Giovanni’s livelihood.
“Dhelmise can feast on his soul for all I care! The bastard needs to be stopped!”
Unfortunately, the trajectory of the black and golden sphere was intercepted by a swooping purple blur as Gliscor dove against it with a Tackle, releasing Dhelmise prematurely and getting the Gliscor all tangled up in the eldritch seaweed’s ravenous hold.
The good news, though? Dhelmise’s anchor ca crashing down on the Nidoking holding wtwo at bay, allowing a brief opening for the Legendary Psychic to pierce through in Extre Speed and bear down on Giovanni with vindictive glee.
“Crap!” Giovanni’s mask of indifference crumbled as he floundered clumsily to get away in vain, his frantic retreat stymied by wtwo’s tri-fingered hand clamping down on his throat.
“Any last words, WRETCH!” wtwo’s fiery rage and unbridled joy was so palpable that Nina could almost feel it in her bones. He was so impassioned, in fact, that he completely failed to notice the abnormality surrounding the Giovanni in his grasp.
“Wait, wtwo! Sothing’s wrong! That’s not Giovanni!” Nina yelled.
The Psychic froze, his eyes widening in belated realisation as the man he was choking let out a nervous chuckle.
“H-Hey, man… Chill… We, uh… We can talk about this. Ain’t no need to get all handsy like this. Haha…” ‘Giovanni’ stamred.
“When?!” wtwo wrenched at the man’s face with a wet squelch, only to be t with the purple-haired visage of Petrel, one of Giovanni’s executives.
“ARGHHHHH!!!” wtwo roared in fury and broke Petrel’s neck with a violent snap, his bloodshot eyes desperately scanning the vestiges of the quaking cavern for any signs of his true quarry, right as a dark blur shot out from within the rubble.
“Brucey!” Nina called, having noticed the anomaly just in ti.
“Cro!” Nina’s Crobat, who was already on his way to her, shifted in his flight and charged into the escaping silhouette, to reveal the viciously glaring face of Giovanni atop a Honchkrow.
“Don’t let him escape!”
“Kukuku…!” Brucey’s mouth opened to smother his catch with Poisonous sludge. But before he could act, Giovanni’s crimson red Aura flared as he kicked his legs, not against Brucey, but against his Honchkrow’s back to use as a platform and propel himself further towards the gaping Ultra Wormhole.
“GIOVANNIIII!!!”
Brucey and Honchkrow exploded in a deluge of Poison as Giovanni soared. Behind him, the earth cratered in the aftermath of wtwo’s surge, his arm straining to reach his nesis.
“Heh!” Giovanni smirked then, with an off-handed toss, threw a spinning Dark Ball towards the pursuing wtwo.
“No!” An angry pulse of Psychic Energy smashed the black spiralled sphere aside, but also slowed him down enough that his fingertips just barely grazed the cri lord’s ankles as Giovanni disappeared into the starry black void of the Ultra Wormhole.
“Boss! Wait! Don’t leave behind!” Ariana cried out in anguish, distracting her just long enough for Ash’s Lucario to move in and smash a Force Palm into her abdon and crumpling the villainess into an unconscious pile on the ground.
“wtwo! No! You can’t go after him by yourself!”
“Know your place, human!”
anwhile, Nina was struggling against the weight of the oppressive Aura bearing down on her as she tried and failed to approach the seething wtwo hovering in front of the Ultra Wormhole with his fists clenched.
“He escaped! You promised vengeance and he escaped my grasp once more!! ARGHHHH!!!”
“Urgh…” Nina groaned against that Psychic fury pounding at her skull and fell to her knees. “Giovanni’s gone! But he’s all by himself — no lackeys, no Pokemon! He won’t survive out there in the fold of reality for long. If you go after him now, you might not be able to find your way back. Please, wtwo!”
“NO! I will not let him get away! Giovanni must die by my hands!”
“Riiin~”
“Cloood!”
Nina breathed in a sigh under her Clodsire’s protective Aura and leaned against her Primarina’s for support. A million thoughts and the million implications of Giovanni's escape coursed through her mind, ultimately coalescing into one singular conclusion; “This is all my fault.”
She should have acted sooner in fulfilling w’s calling. She should have never let Giovanni out of that tiloop. She should have gotten more involved instead of trusting a neutered Pokemon League to keep Giovanni in custody. A million thoughts and a million regrets.
“If you insist on going, then I’m coming with you.” The girl declared, earning her a startled yelp from Rinny and a considering gaze from wtwo.
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