Pokémon Dev Chapter 329

Cynthia struggled to lift her head, pushing her disheveled hair out of her face to peer up at the violet figure hovering in the air above.

The mont she saw it, her entire body went rigid.

She was the Champion of Sinnoh, a veteran trainer who had crossed paths with more Pokémon than most people could na, and yet she had never laid eyes on this creature before. Even so, looking at it stirred sothing deep and unsettling inside her, like a mory she'd never actually had.

That's it.

Erald.

She had once caught a glimpse of sothing in Erald, a shadow radiating a pressure so suffocating it had nearly stopped her cold.

She hadn't known what it was at the ti. She'd asked around afterward and eventually learned it was called wtwo, so kind of legendary Pokémon with power that defied easy description.

She just never imagined it was real. Not here. Not standing right in front of her.

"That's... wtwo?"

Her voice ca out unsteady, threaded with disbelief she couldn't quite shake.

Caitlin had gone completely silent beside her. She could feel the psychic energy rolling off the creature in waves, an invisible weight so suffocating it felt like it might crack sothing inside her. Her hands were trembling and she couldn't make them stop.

She had no idea what a wtwo was, but she was psychic herself, and this was the first ti in her life she had ever felt genuinely small. How could anything put out psychic energy like that?

Spiritomb had noticed the new arrival too. Those hollow eyes, which had held nothing but a hunger for destruction, now lit up with sothing sharp and livid.

It let out a grating shriek and snapped its focus entirely onto the newcor.

The ghostly tendrils that had been tearing the ground apart converged into a single writhing mass, reshaping into black chains of dark energy that launched themselves at wtwo from every direction.

There was a bigger threat now. It needed to deal with that first.

wtwo didn't move.

It stayed exactly where it was, arms folded, not even bothering to look up properly. It gave the incoming chains a single cold glance, like it was noticing a minor inconvenience.

A quiet scoff escaped it. The sound of sothing that had already made up its mind.

Then a thin violet barrier flickered into existence in front of it. Almost translucent, almost delicate-looking, and completely, utterly unbreakable.

The black energy chains hit it one after another. Each one was strong enough to take out an Elite Four trainer without breaking a sweat, and every single one dissolved against that barrier like it had run into solid steel, leaving behind nothing but a dull thud and a few scattered motes of fading light.

Blocked. Not even with a raised hand. It hadn't moved at all.

Everyone still conscious enough to watch stood completely frozen.

Will had one hand pressed to his chest, his jaw hanging open, barely rembering to breathe.

Just how strong was this thing?

Then wtwo finally moved.

It lowered its folded arms slowly, and sothing like impatience crossed those violet eyes.

"A worthy opponent?"

"Disappointing."

Its voice arrived directly inside the minds of everyone present. Cold. Flat. Utterly without warmth.

The words had barely settled when wtwo was gone from where it had been standing.

It reappeared directly above Spiritomb an instant later.

No buildup. No flash of light. It simply extended its right hand, palm down, and closed its fingers into a deliberate fist.

Psyforce.

The impact was staggering.

A torrent of psychic energy crashed down from above, bearing straight into Spiritomb's enormous body with everything it had.

The creature that had seed completely unstoppable just monts ago, the one that had brought down a Champion and left Elite Four trainers helpless, now looked like sothing being squeezed in a fist. It had no room to push back at all.

That massive body was driven straight into the ground by sheer psychic force, hitting with a brutality that cracked the earth in every direction and sent debris flying.

wtwo wasn't done. It pressed its palm down further, grinding Spiritomb into the ground again and again.

Spiritomb howled. Its ghostly vapors thrashed wildly as it tried to break free. It opened its maw, a strange violet energy beginning to collect inside as it tried to build up sothing powerful enough to break wtwo's concentration.

Against an ordinary psychic Pokémon, that might have worked.

Not here.

wtwo's eyes narrowed slightly. A perfectly placed psychic strike punched straight through Spiritomb's defenses and detonated at its core.

The light in Spiritomb's maw went out instantly.

That burst of force exploded inside its consciousness, cutting off the attack before it could take shape and leaving the creature montarily paralyzed.

This was the difference that pure, overwhelming power made. There was no back-and-forth here, no clever maneuvering. When the gap was this wide, technique stopped mattering entirely.

wtwo kept the Psyforce locked on, wrenching Spiritomb up off the ground before hurling it into the distance with crushing force.

The entire Ghost World shook on impact, like sothing had just knocked it off its foundations.

From start to finish, Spiritomb hadn't managed a single counterattack.

The sheer spectacle of it left everyone on the battlefield standing in stunned silence.

The trainers who had swung from hope to despair and back again now stared up at that violet figure with blank, hollowed-out expressions.

Another one of these things had just appeared out of nowhere?

On the bright side, it was going after Spiritomb.

On the not-so-bright side, there was no guarantee it was actually on their side. What if it finished with Spiritomb and then turned on them?

Hidden in the shadows nearby, Kairos finally let out a quiet breath.

But the relief wasn't because wtwo had Spiritomb pinned down. It was because wtwo hadn't spotted him yet.

"Marshadow, wtwo can't even find you. That's genuinely impressive."

He gave Marshadow a real thumbs-up.

Marshadow, for its part, was completely lost.

wtwo? The one you keep calling "Drear"?

So that thing actually IS sothing you called over?!

Then it hit all at once, and Marshadow went stiff.

"Wait. You two don't have so kind of problem with each other, do you?"

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"No. Relax."

"Then why did you drag into hiding?! That does nothing for !"

Marshadow grabbed Kairos by the shoulders and started shaking him furiously.

This was not a joke. The energy coming off that thing had nearly made Marshadow feel like it was looking at Ho-Oh itself.

If they had sohow ended up on the wrong side of sothing like that, it was over.

Kairos swayed under the shaking, but his eyes never left the battlefield.

This was exactly what he'd been hoping to see.

After the past few days of training, it looked like wtwo's power had climbed several tis over.

Even so, getting caught right now was completely out of the question.

wtwo wasn't in a great mood. Spiritomb probably hadn't been much of a challenge for it at all. Better to stay put and let things play out on their own.

Out in the settling dust, Spiritomb dragged itself upright.

It looked wrecked. Most of its spectral vapor had been torn away, and the solid shell of its body was riddled with fractures, dark violet energy bleeding out from every crack.

It looked up at the figure hovering overhead, and for the first ti, sothing real and cold settled into its eyes.

Fear.

It wanted to run.

For all its hunger for destruction, Spiritomb wasn't reckless. It knew it had picked a fight it had no business picking.

It began to shrink, trying to slip down into the dark mist below and disappear.

wtwo watched it try to run with complete disinterest. A flicker of impatience passed through its gaze.

"Stay."

Before the word had even finished, wtwo's hands ca together with a sharp clap.

A blinding white beam erupted from its palms, cutting through the air at terrifying speed, and hit Spiritomb squarely in the back without any wasted motion.

Hyper Beam.

The explosion tore across the sky.

Spiritomb didn't even have ti to make a sound. Its body ca apart on impact, scattering into countless black fragnts that dissolved into nothing.

All that was left was a single dark Ghost-type energy core, which tumbled to the ground and lay there with a faint, guttering light, like sothing that had been completely emptied out.

It was over.

Less than a minute, start to finish.

The crisis that had thrown the entire Ghost World into chaos, that had left a Champion and a group of Elite Four trainers completely without options, had been wrapped up without any real effort by a single Pokémon that had appeared out of nowhere.

wtwo slowly pulled its Hyper Beam back, not sparing a glance for the core on the ground. It turned, those violet eyes moving in a slow, deliberate sweep across the battlefield, as though searching for whoever had sent it the signal in the first place.

Its gaze paused on the shadows where Kairos was hiding.

That alone was enough to push Marshadow to its limit. It poured everything it had into holding the disguise, pushing harder than it ever had.

In the shadows, Kairos's jaw tightened.

Even with the cover between them, he could feel that gaze, like it was cutting straight through the space itself and landing directly on him.

The good news was that wtwo ultimately didn't find him.

The bad news was that wtwo didn't do what Kairos had expected and simply leave.

Just as a violet light began to gather around its body and it looked like it was about to vanish, it stopped.

It hung there in the air, those deep violet eyes narrowing slowly, and the weight coming off it, already heavy, suddenly beca sothing else entirely. Sothing heavier and more deliberate than anything it had put out during the fight.

"Just this?"

The voice hit the inside of every person's mind like a stone dropped into still water.

There was no emotion in it, and yet the contempt ca through perfectly clearly, along with sothing that was almost, but not quite, irritation.

Complete silence.

Cynthia, Caitlin, Will, and every trainer still standing froze where they were, wide-eyed, like they'd just been told sothing that rewrote the rules.

This Pokémon had spoken.

Not out loud. Directly into their heads, through telepathy, without asking permission or giving any warning.

The shock of that landed harder than the Hyper Beam had.

wtwo didn't register their reactions. It turned slowly, that sharp gaze moving across the battlefield again. This ti it wasn't wandering. It was deliberate, pressing down on every person present like it was looking for sothing specific underneath the surface.

"You called out here for this?"

Its voice carried across the ruined wasteland, edged with the quiet frustration of sothing that felt like its ti had been wasted.

"Whoever summoned . Co out."

That simple sentence sent a chill straight down the spine of everyone within range.

Will dragged a hand across his forehead.

"So it's... looking for soone? It's saying soone here called it?"

Cynthia's heart was hamring. She looked around, running through every possibility she could think of, and kept hitting dead ends. Aside from their own group, there was no sign of any outsider anywhere in the Ghost World.

Which ant whoever had summoned wtwo was sowhere in this crowd.

"No one?"

No answer ca. The cold in wtwo's eyes went a little deeper. It raised one hand, violet energy crackling at its fingertips, the space around it beginning to warp and bend under the weight of what it was pulling together.

"You used , and you don't even have the nerve to show yourself..."

Its voice rang out low and even, hitting sothing deep in every person who heard it.

It hovered there, hand raised, a blazing sphere of white psychic energy condensing in its palm like it was building toward sothing. Then, the very next instant, the sphere simply faded, as quietly as if it had never existed.

It didn't attack. It didn't leave, either. It stayed where it was, scanning its surroundings, the restless energy in those violet eyes slowly pulling back, replaced by sothing that looked more like focused thought.

From the mont that strange ga interface had appeared in its field of vision, it had been trying to find the source. It hadn't been made by Team Rocket. It didn't match any psychic signature it had ever co across.

And then there had been that mont of being pulled, of feeling its own body respond to soone else's will, just briefly, just enough to be certain. That had told it everything it needed to know: there was a person behind all of this.

But who?

Soone who could reach across the space between worlds, exert their will over it, and build an entire constructed reality like this so-called "ga world"... the implications of that made wtwo feel sothing it didn't experience often. A careful edge of wariness, and sothing that was close to genuine curiosity.

Was that person here right now?

The thought sharpened wtwo's focus instantly.

Its psychic power surged outward from where it stood, spreading in every direction like a net being cast wide and fine, scanning every living presence in the area with ticulous care.

But it ca up empty.

A mont later, wtwo was simply gone, leaving behind nothing but the echo of the pressure it had carried, the only proof that any of it had actually happened.

Just like that, it was over.

In as fast as it had arrived.

Only once wtwo had completely vanished did Kairos let out a long, slow breath.

"That was way too close."

If wtwo had found him, there was no good version of how that conversation would have gone.

Marshadow dropped straight out of the air.

It was finished.

Keeping that thing from sensing either of them had taken every last bit of power Marshadow had. It had been running on nothing but willpower for the last few minutes, with barely enough left to keep itself upright.

"Finally."

Marshadow murmured, wiping at its forehead out of pure habit.

Then its eyes rolled back, and it went out cold.

Completely, utterly spent. That was all it had.

~~~

sp-atreon/lost_magus

(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)