Chương 30: Interlude - Heavenfall

It was the eyes, I'd decided. It was her eyes that'd been throwing me off. There'd been something bothering me about my newest pupil over the last couple of days, and I was finally able to put my finger on it. Her eyes didn't follow the battle they were watching. Or rather, instead of moving to follow the fight, they were open wide, cast over the arena in its entirety. It didn't feel like a trainer, watching her partner dueling with another Pokémon.

Rather, her gaze had the air of an officer, taking in an entire battlefront, all at once. Even when her Falinks were whittled down to just the little one and the big one, she had her view covering everything, taking it all in.

"Throttle!" I shouted, focusing back in on the fight. The command told Cutter to prioritize speed control, and the whelp obliged, letting loose one of his signature Scary Faces. I saw the two little Fighting-types slow down.

"Now!" I ordered, putting just enough aura into my command to tell Cutter what I needed from him. The little Axew mustered up a Dragon Rage in his throat. I saw my pupil's brown eyes widen, in shock, or despair. And then the little one moved. From basically a standstill, to almost as fast as I'd ever seen one of her Falinks go. The littlest one sprinted forwards until he was right on top of Cutter. I narrowed my eyes. He'd shrugged off that Scary Face fast. Too fast.

And there was a certain power to his movement that I'd never seen any of the little balls demonstrate before. Defiant, it had to be. The little trooper ducked in low, smashing his horn up against Cutter's chin, forcing the poor Axew's head up. Just in time too, as a font of blue dragon fire tore out of the whelp's maw, splashing uselessly into the air. I'd have to work on that with him. Make sure he didn't lose control of his moves until he was ready to use them, even when under pressure. Something for later.

For now, we still had a battle to win.

"Crush him!" I ordered Cutter, directing the Axew to lay in with his tusks. To my complete surprise, the littlest Falinks dodged, before retaliating with one of his shields. The boosted attack staggered Cutter, who proceeded to eat another Rock Smash to the chin.

"Out!" I commanded. This engagement was going poorly, it was time to make space. I thought the little whelp would follow my command, but Fe's partner wasn't the only one with surprises in mind. Instead of retreating, Cutter pushed in, now glowing with power himself.

"Rivalry," I muttered, as I watched the Axew and Falinks brawl for a few moments. Cutter's instincts had awakened his ability, but at the cost of him following my directions. I considered putting more aura into a command, to snap my newest dragon out of his stupor, but decided against it. Whoever came out on top of the engagement, it would be a good learning moment. Things were looking our way for a moment. Cutter got his snout underneath the ball and sent it up, hurtling away from him with a powerful Dual Chop.

That would surely be the end of the littlest troop. It seemed this particular lesson was for my human pupil. Except then the bigger Falinks finally arrived. He smashed into Cutter with a vengeance, sending the whelp rocking back. The bigger Fighting-type was still slowed, but he too was glowing with power, perhaps inspired by the littler one. My pupil shouted: "You've got this Lance!" while I held my piece, waiting to see what the ultimate result would be.

A beat passed, and then the two Pokémon slammed into one another again. One exchange, two, three. I watched Cutter leave nothing back, and I knew I'd picked a winner. He was rough around the edges for sure, but there was still time. He could make it all the way, if we put in the time and effort. And yet the Falinks was keeping up with him, the two going at it, blow for desperate blow.

Fe had given up on orders, shouting encouragement instead, telling her partner to give it his all, to make that one last decisive hit. I sharpened my aura, let Cutter feel my determination, and share in it. There wasn't any strategy left for either of us to communicate. If either of our partners backed off, they'd lose. The only way was forward, and through. All either of us could do was give them our full belief that they'd be the one left standing. In the end, one of us was proven right.

"I'll be damned," I muttered into my mustache as I watched Cutter collapse. Cutter is unable to battle. Fe and her knights are the winners! The Noivern matriarch announced. A cry of exuberance erupted from my newest pupil. She recalled her Falinks and then released them again immediately right next to her, fussing over them and celebrating in equal measures. I felt a rueful grin on my face as I recalled my own partner, muttering a, "Good work," for the juvenile dragon.

Losing was always hard on a whelp, but it was an important part of growing up, and while I saw glimmers of greatness in him, Cutter had a lot of growing to do yet. Maybe next time, he'd listen more closely to me. He wasn't the only one with growing to do, but I had a feeling that the young girl I'd spent the last few days mentoring wouldn't appreciate the comparison. I watched over her as she celebrated, pulling all of the little Falinks into a group embrace.

The seven of them were quickly joined by the teary fish, who wormed her way into the group, eliciting more laughs from the lot of them. Three matches today, a three-versus-three, a four-on-four, and this final five Pokémon fight. And my pupil had managed to win two of them. What badge level would I place her at? I shook my head. It was a meaningless question. All that mattered was that she'd exceeded my expectations. The only question remaining, would it help or hinder her development if I told her that?

The girl was an odd one, but everyone in this bizarre region felt odd to me. Still, I would bet that most Ferrum kids didn't take to homework as well as Fe did. We'd spent the first couple of hours today reviewing the packet of questions Wisteria had put together. If anything, the girl's results on paper were superior to her actual performance. She'd have made a great lab trainer, if that were a thing that was done in Ferrum.

I had some faint memories of there being an accredited Pokémon Professor in this region, but I couldn't for the life of me remember their name, or their research focus. You seem distracted, Raging One. I heard the Noivern matriarch's telepathy. Just reflecting on the past week, I told her, The young ones grow so fast. I heard what I could only interpret as the mental version of a snort. I've heard other humans say that you're only as old as you feel, t he aging dragon supplied.

Then I am very, very old, I shot back with a mental sigh. The matriarch gave me an evaluating look. Y ou look young to me, s he finally said, before shaking with a bit of contained mirth. But then again, all humans look like whelps to me, small and furless as you are. It was my turn to snort. Old is relative, I argued. To a Butterfree, we're both impossibly ancient. I suppose that's true, the Matriarch agreed with a shrug. And I too am but a mere insect, compared to some beings. Always humbling to remember.

The Noivern pointedly looked at one of the hulking sculptures looming out of the mist, and I felt my gaze inexorably pulled to the Serpent's visage, rendered in impressive detail by some ancient artist. Two such stone monstrosities looped in and out of the crags and stones surrounding the mountain peak, but they were impossible to see either clearly, hundreds of feet away at the range's summit. I'd set foot at that pinnacle only once, seeking treasures denied to me in my home region.

There had been a hint here, amongst these forgotten peaks. Remnants left from eons passed, but not the relic I had been truly seeking. And now here I was once again, just weeks after being defeated by another bearing the very boon I'd sought, all those years ago. The world turned in strange ways. My mind turned back to my first view of those sculptures, in what felt like another lifetime. It was the first of many occasions that I had laid eyes on the Serpent. Or rather, on a reproduction of it.

After all, back home, it was considered blasphemy to render the God of the Sky's form in detail. The archipelago's denizens believed that the Serpent should only be sought in times of great need, and it definitely was not to be worshiped. Cults to Rayquaza had emerged over the long years, and had, without exception, met the same grisly end. An aspect descended, and that was that. The Serpent's message was clear: worship nought, entreat nought, leave well alone.

In the years after I began fielding far from home, however, I'd seen any number of reproductions. Apparently, other regions feared less the wrath of the God of the Skies. I'd even had the fortune to lay my eyes on the real thing, in my capacity as champion. Though, only through grainy satellite footage. The God of the Skies was most definitely alive and real, and by all accounts, had been for uncountable eons. Maybe truly since the dawn of time, like myth suggested.

After all, only one Rayquaza had ever been spotted, and that one only sparingly. It had been centuries since an in-person sighting, which was probably a good thing. The Serpent's attention only ever heralded the arrival of interesting times. I shook my head, freeing myself from my musings. Thanks for refereeing for us. I directed at the Noivern matriarch. Her help had been quite invaluable. It would give the girl a better sense of how battles flowed. It was nothing, the Noivern shrugged with an oddly human gesture.

A pleasant diversion. I nodded in appreciation all the same, and then broke from our parley, walking across the arena to meet my still-celebrating pupil. She'd taken to scooping her partners up and throwing them into the air, before catching them and setting them down again, only to pick up the next one in line. The Falinks were striking various poses as they were at the apex of their leaps, probably competing by some unseen rubric.

"Nice job Fe," I complimented my pupil.

"You've come a long way over the past week." The girl looked up at me with wide eyes, so surprised by my words that I reflexively backtacked.

"Of course, there's still a long way to go. You've begun a long, winding road to mastery, and the path doesn't get easier from here." Instead of looking intimidated, the girl's expression turned eager.

"Now, let's discuss the battle and wh-" I cut myself off, something tickling the edges of my perception. There was something… wrong. Some indelible change, surrounding this place.

"Drake?" I heard my pupil, but I held up a hand, bidding her to stay silent. Whatever was wrong, it was important. Vital, that I put all my focus on it. Marin gradually floated to my side, similarly unsettled, though he didn't have any better sense of what was going on. It was only when Cruiser arrived, swooping in to land on the arena that I figured it out. It was the wind. The air was still. Even the buffeting gales made by my partner's passage were weakened. Understated.

It was as if the very atmosphere itself were holding its breath. After another half-minute, Silvette and Flygon returned as well, similarly alighting on the mountain peak. My partners closed ranks, as I pulled my pupil and her Pokémon into the space between us.

"Something is out there," I growled out an explanation.

"Something strong." For a few moments, all was still atop the mountain. And then, a haunting, keening roar tore through the towering peaks. The lot of us cast about, looking desperately for the source of the noise. The wild dragons had vanished, retreating into burrows and nests, hoping to duck beneath the notice of whatever was coming. All but the Noivern matriarch. She watched the proceedings with a mirthful eye, and a growing, throaty chuckle. The first actual noise I had heard the powerful dragon make.

Another roar drowned out the faint sound, and then a rumbling, the sort of sound that reminded me of standing atop Mt. Chimney, when the Behemoth was feeling particularly tetchy. A crash rang out, like the very firmament of the sky creaking, and then another roar, this one louder than all previous. Loud enough that I felt it in my bones. The noise was impossible to describe accurately, but it sounded almost like an entire pod of Gyarados, letting loose their calls all at once.

In a bare instant, from one moment to the next, the sky was clear. The clouds, the fog, the mist, all dispelled for kilometers around. The open, wild blue sky stretched out before us, impossibly wide and the sort of shining, brilliant azure that conjured memories of my years sailing the Leviathan's domain. You have spent the days testing your student, Raging One, and now, it is your turn to be tested, the Noivern matriarch intoned, as something descended from the infinite expanse of blue.

An emerald shape, growing larger by the second. Long and sinuous, and decorated with shifting, arcane markings that writhed and wheeled in impossible, eye-searing patterns. At the behest of your pupil, human champion, I sought the most powerful dragon I knew. Now, an aspect of primordium has deigned to descend to earth, to determine if you are worthy of your title as Dragon Master. You should be thankful to your student, Drake Genji of Hoenn. For there is no greater honor than this.

In between the seconds of the matriarch's speech, the Serpent came to earth, filling the skies above with endless emerald coils. It peered down at us, golden eyes glowing with the light of the stars, and then it shattered the skies with a roar. - Drake Genji was struck by three thoughts as he watched a god descend. This was the second time a pupil of his had called a living legend down upon his head. This time, it was probably going to be the death of him. And her.

And, If they survived the next ten minutes, he owed the mad child the greatest boon he could conjure. Just laying eyes on the Serpent's majesty was a favor he could scarcely imagine, and this was beyond mere spectacle. Rayquaza roared its challenge out into the world, the still, stagnant air cracking with the volume of its polyphonic cry. The haunting, melodious chorus was met by joyous, uproarious laughter, as Drake's jubilation burst out from him unfettered.

Beside him, Cruiser roared, unbowed by the Serpent's declaration. Marin's trumpeting cry joined his, as did Silvette's song and Flygon's howl. Fe was trembling, the poor girl pale and trembling before the God of the Skies. A normal, sane reaction. Maybe she wasn't as cut out for greatness as he had thought. Ah, but there it was. She took a breath, visibly steeled herself, and when she faced him, she hid her trepidation with passing self-control.

"I asked the Noivern matriarch to find a challenge for you. Something to prove that there are mountains yet unclimbed," she looked over at the Serpent, suppressed a shudder, and then turned back to him.

"So, are you ready to give up battling yet?" The girl's challenging tone elicited another roar from the Serpent above, which now circled the highest mountain's peak, its sinuous form dancing through the sky with effortless grace, giving shame to the now-pale reflections of its form wrought from stone and mortal hand. Drake felt his features pull taught, his mouth set into a rictus grin.

"Ask me again if we survive a god's fury," he replied, causing the girl to further blanche, "and then I might have an answer for you." But now, the time for all conversation and reassurances was over. Rayquaza let loose a final cry, and they could all hear the note of challenge. Fe sprinted for cover, smart girl, scooping up Cutter and her partners and ducking into the stairwell leading into the mountainside. For his part, Drake turned to face the Serpent, undaunted, partners by his side.

He mounted Cruiser's back, and recalled Marin. In just a moment, his three airborne dragons ascended to the highest peak, where he released his Kingdra once more. The five of them stared down a god, or maybe some small part of one. This close, everything about the divine creature was amplified. The perfect, emerald green, the shifting red and gold lines adorning its form, the beautiful, streamlined fins and protrusions, slicing cleanly through the frozen air. None of them had ever seen anything so magnificent.

The Serpent's maw, permanently opened in a predator's grin, widened further, and beams of light began cascading down its form, illuminating the markings covering its body with the same golden glow that suffused its eyes. They could have moved, could have avoided this blow, and they certainly would the next time, but this first attack, this first challenge, they had to meet head-on. It was a dragon's pride and a champion's folly.

Drake sharpened his aura, conjuring spines and thorns and scales and feathers and thick, impenetrable hide. All the things dragons armored themselves in to fend off one another's wrath. His partners heeded his call, summoning layers upon layers of defenses. Auric barriers and cottony down and hovering slabs of rock and impact-absorbing fluid, all twisted together in a swirling vortex of defensive fortification that would put the grandest castle to shame.

The sound of a god's fury and the actual attack itself arrived at the same time. The Hyper Beam, or whatever approximate of the move that divinity employed, slammed into their defenses with an impossibly loud crash, shearing through layers of protection instantly, and then boring down, churning deeper and deeper into the web of protections they'd erected. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

It tore through levels by the second, even as his partners conjured more barriers, more defenses against the impossibly bright beam of ochre light. Just when it seemed like it might not have been enough, just when Drake and his four dragons were starting to buckle under the pressure, a fifth power emerged, thick, cloying shadows, spreading throughout their barriers, gluing them together. With a throaty croak, a teal specter faded into view amongst them, facing towards the incoming threat.

"Rhea?" Drake asked, surprise and gratification coloring his tone.

"Just couldn't keep away, could you?" He admonished the floating dragon. His courier wasn't nearly the battler that his other partners were, but the wily specter was an elite nonetheless, and any help would be appreciated for this battle. For his part, the Dragapult offered a Mareepish shrug, even as his eyes narrowed in concentration, manipulating shadowy energy to fend off Rayqaza's attack.

Drake snorted, and then turned back to the fight, just in time to watch the fading dregs of a god's blow vanish into the air, leaving just a scant few layers of their conjured barriers remaining.

"Our turn," Drake growled low, pushing out with his aura once more. It was harder, harder than it had ever been, asserting his existence against the crushing pressure generated by the Serpent's presence. But Drake's aura was razor sharp, tuned by years of toil and suffering and close calls. And of love. Of connection made to last eons and further. Of bonds so deep they were worn into the grooves in their souls. His intent sliced through the frozen air, and his partners heard it.

Gnashing teeth and rending claws and muscled tails and roiling energy. All the things dragons brought crashing down upon their foes. Five burning comets of orange energy tore out of five maws, and the sky was alight with streaming meteors, an artillery barrage that put anything the champion had seen during the Great War to shame.

The wave of crashing light washed over the Serpent, explosions wracking Rayqaza's form, yet all through it, the emerald god held still, weathering their most powerful blows with naught but faint interest. When the last streaming beam of light had clattered off of the serpent's glittering scales, it let loose another keening cry, and then it was moving, crashing down to earth, descending like an asteroid.

With a whip-quick crack of intent, Drake's team scattered, diving out of the way of the encroaching fury of a god. - From inside the mountain, Fe dared to peer through a slitted window. The room they were covering in was shorn from the stone of the peak itself, a place for people carved from the wild's embrace. Outside, her mentor clashed with the Serpent. With the sky given form.

Five small, vague silhouettes flickered in and out, shadowy after-images blurring against the endless blue and Rayquaza's seemingly-infinite expanse of emerald coils. Flashes of crimson light erupted from Cruiser's back in a cavalcade. The Salamence was the only one of Drake's dragon's fast enough in the still air to avoid the Serpent's fury. Well, him and Dragapult, who vanished every time it felt like he might be struck.

The rest were relying on Drake to recall them out of danger, and release them again, adjusting their positions in the monstrously complex battlefield. The entire sky was hazardous, whipping hurricanes conjured by the serpent's power pursuing each of the flying specks, even as the Serpent itself loosed scintillating beams of light and sweeping, mountain-crushing blows that threatened to demolish the entire range around them.

"What's your plan, Drake?" Fe muttered as she observed the conflict. Just hitting the God of the Skies with mundane attacks wouldn't result in anything. It had eaten five of whatever that orange, comet-like attack had been without flinching. She was sure that any one of those moves would have leveled a building. No, something more was necessary. Fe almost didn't catch it, the moment the plot went into action. It started with Silvette. The Altaria alighted on a mountain peak.

She puffed up, inhaling as much of the stagnant air as she possibly could, and then she let it loose, blasting out a melancholy crash of cacophonous sound that tore through the mountains at the same volume as Rayquaza's cries. The mournful tone made a deep, throbbing headache form in the front of Fe's skull, even at this distance. Perish Song. It had to be. The god's attention turned to the crooning dragon, and waves of air pressure slammed out, seeking to silence Silvette.

But Flygon and Dragapult were there, conjuring winds and shadows to blow against the Serpent's Rage. They defended the Altaria as she concluded her song, but the feathery dragon wasn't done. No sooner had the crushing melody ended than Silvette took another deep, gasping breath, and the mournful tones began once again. For a second time, her Perish Song flowed hauntingly through the peaks, and Fe began to see the edges of Drake's plot.

Rayquaza was no more foolish than a teenage girl, however, and now the full might of a god's fury was being brought to bear on the sweet dragon. A sweeping Hyper Beam analogue was barely dodged as Drake recalled Flygon and Silvette and Rhea vanished in a puff of smoke. Moments later, the dragons were released again, and Silvette restarted her song.

This dance continued for almost a full three minutes, Cruiser sweeping in and out to help Drake reposition his partners while Flygon and Rhea defended Silvette, who crowed out at least five full renditions of her terrible dirge over the duration. It couldn't last. With a crash like a thousand mirrors shattering at once, emerald energy suffused the Serpent, and it tore through the air at speeds even Cruiser had trouble matching.

Flygon and Dragapult dove out of the way, unable to do anything to slow the Serpent down, and Silvette barely had time to sing one last defiant note before the wake of a god passed her by. For a split second, a shimmering barrier defended Silvette, and in the interval, a red beam flew out, trying to rescue the Altaria, but the waves of emerald energy pouring off the Serpent's coils blocked the Poké Ball's recall function for a crucial moment. With a crash, Rayqauza was past and through Silvette's barrier.

The Serpent's emerald body merely brushed the Altaria, blowing past her at impossible speeds, but the barest touch was all it took to obliterate all of Silvette's syn, sending the Altaria in a downward spiral, clearly unconscious. This time, when the red beam shot out, it caught the downy dragon out of the air, recalling her comatose form to her ball's safe confines. Silvette's damage had been done, however. In a flash of crimson, Cruiser disappeared as well.

For a half second, a miniscule human shape was falling from the heavens, and then Flygon appeared, plucking Drake out of the open blue sky. A moment later, Cruiser was back on the field, tearing through the air at tremendous speeds towards the Serpent. Moments before he arrived, convulsions wracked the divine creature, scintillating energy erupting from its body in crushing waves. Cruiser dove in. - Drake eyed the convulsions of a god with steely eyes. This was the opening Silvette had given everything for.

Now, they had to take it. His aura flashed, and Cruiser made impact with the Serpent. His oldest partner's eyes glowed red, and sinister energy flared around him as Rhea fed him consecutive Dragon Cheers. The Outrage took Cruiser, and he rampaged across the Serpent's length, slamming with focused rage into the expanse of emerald coils. Flygon and Marin weren't idle either. The Ground-type beats his wings, whipping up a Tailwind, forcing the stagnant air into our favor.

He struggled mightily against Rayquaza's crushing pressure, but Drake's desert spirit could brew a sandstorm from nought but dust and a dream, and his mastery came into play now, speeding Cruiser's frenzied assault. Marin, for his part, was glowing with energy. The air around him glimmered, the moisture in the atmosphere crystallizing and freezing as pale energies gathered around his snout. Draconic energy raced up and down his form, coursing through him with barely-contained power.

He'd taken cover while Silvette was doing her grim work, biding his time and charging his strength, and now he was at maximum power, Dragon Dance having done its work. The last dregs of Cruiser's Outrage faded, and he sagged, barely able to avoid an errant swipe from the Serpent's claws. Drake recalled his partner, and sent a pulse of aura to Marin and Rhea. It was time. The spectre's encouragement turned to Drake's Kingdra, a mix of Dragon Cheer and Helping Hand powering up the coming attack further.

A wave of cold, somehow visible in the open sky, erupted from Marin's snout, tearing towards the Serpent's convulsing coils. The very air itself flash-froze as the pale blast of energy erupted like a geyser, tearing out of Marin even as the icy power began to freeze the Kingdra in turn. Five years ago, this mastery of cold would have been beyond the seaborne dragon, but Drake's newest Elite Four member had inspired something in the old sea monster.

The crushing ice her blubbery partner had mastered had come closer to than any to felling them, matched and exceeded since only by the Stone child, and it had inspired new depths of power in his old, clever Kingdra. Unfortunately, today, they faced no ordinary foe, but a divinity incarnate. Before the attack could strike true, The Serpent erupted, expelling another wave of energy.

Something in the skies themselves shifted, somehow shunting the convulsing god through the air, in spite of the crackling energy of the Perish Song still wracking its form. This shouldn't have been possible, but the heavens themselves moved to preserve the Serpent from its plight. Drake's heart dropped, watching the expended energy hurrying to rush past the God of the Skies. All their effort, all their preparations, about to go to waste.

He hadn't accounted for his final partner, however, and Flygon was ready to play his part in the plan. Drake's desert spirit threw the former champion from his back and dove forwards at eye-watering speeds, his Tailwind boosted movement eclipsing even the onrushing Blizzard. Drake released Cruiser beneath him, and the Salamence caught him perfunctorily, but neither were paying any attention to the interaction, focusing instead on Flygon's madcap dash. Drake hadn't ever seen his dear friend move like that before.

Like the wind itself was on his side. The skies tore asunder once more, this time at mortal behest. Within the space of a second, the ground-type intercepted the path of the Blizzard. With a howl that put even the Serpent's cries to shame, Flygon let loose his greatest Boomburst, the sheer force of the noise causing the mountain peaks to rattle and shake. The erupting burst of sound caught the wave of cold and scattered it, sending peals of pale energy tearing through the air.

The ice and cold exploded in a maelstrom that consumed Flygon and the Serpent both, obscuring them momentarily from view. All was lost in the flurry for a moment, and then two, and then with a piercing cry, the storm condensed, crushed in on itself by an invisible pressure until it was demolished entirely, leaving only still winds in its place. Marin and Flygon both collapsed, frozen in place by the awesome energies they had wielded.

Drake recalled them both with a flash, barely looking, his eyes instead intent on the Serpent, watching its twitching coils for signs of life. The God of the Skies was covered in a sheen of encrusted ice, not quite frozen, but clearly weighed down by the layers of shimmering crystal. Gradually, the emerald form shuddered, and then tore into motion once more, ice and cold flaking off of the infinite expanse of roiling coils.

The Serpent was slower to be sure, and its movements lacked the easy grace it had displayed earlier in the fight, but the God of the Skies was far from finished, and as it reoriented its body to face them, Drake grit his teeth. Down to just him, Cruiser, and Rhea, and the latter had exhausted most of his energy already. Drake pulsed a bit of aura to the Ghost-type, telling him to backoff. The former champion didn't have the Dragapult's Poké Ball on him, so he couldn't risk the spectre's safety here.

The teal dragon hesitated for a couple of seconds, but Drake sent a hard look his way, and the Ghost-type acquiesced, fading away from sight as he fled the battlefield. Drake didn't begrudge him. The spectral dragon wasn't a fighter, and he'd already done far more than Drake could have possibly asked of him. With a sigh, the dragon master turned to his oldest partner. Drake patted Cruiser on his thickly-muscled shoulder, running his hand up and down the Salamence's hardened scales.

"Almost there," he lied.

"Our comrades have gotten us this far. Now we just need to get over the finish line." Cruiser let loose a keening cry, acknowledging the sacrifices that had brought them this far. And then, he tore into motion. The ensuing dance took them in and out of the mountain peaks, Draco Meteors and Hyper Beams obliterating rock and stone as the combatants wove between the earth's jagged teeth. The ground trembled, and the sky bled violet as draconic energy cascaded through the jutting mountaintops in tidal waves.

Kilometers below, the sea boiled, and wild Pokémon looked up at the howling spectacle with trepidation and awe. For one, lovely, eternal moment, a balance was struck. The dance of dragons in its most perfected form. But one side was mortal and the other divine. Even weakened by the sacrifices of the rest of Drake's team, Rayquaza was simply too powerful. A single blow from the God of the Skies would tear them asunder, and of their attacks that did land, the Serpent shrugged off with casual ease. It wasn't enough.

They needed more. Something. Anything. Drake dug down, deeper and deeper, arms tightening around his oldest partner's neck. His aura reached out, finding the burning, flickering flame buried in the azure dragon's heart. He felt it, that same impossible determination that had seen them through thick and thin, that had gotten them to the very top, to the very heights of championship. With a start, he realized that same determination roared in him yet as well. Even now.

He had worried that their defeat at the hands of Steven Stone had doused that flame. The former champion had spent weeks wondering if he still had the drive in him, the smoldering desire to tear down the heavens in pursuit of greatness. Now, facing the very skies themselves, Drake Genji found the fire burning in him once more. Something atop the Dragon's Nest glowed with power, resonating with their combined auras. It pulsed through them, the sensation familiar, even decades removed.

Drake felt the fire in his chest ignite, and he used it to stoke the burning flames in his closest partner's soul, setting them both alight. Two became one, and Drake and Cruiser erupted into a shining, rainbow glow. - When they emerged from their cocoon, they found the world the same, but themselves changed. Hide, condensed into armor, limbs minimized to cut optimally through the air. Tail, tweaked to add just a bit more propulsion to their flight. Wings, swept forwards in a bleeding crescent of crimson might.

The world was a blur, and rider and dragon were one. The landscape smeared, the unclouded view obscured by impossible speed. They blazed with power, burned with strength, and they let the world feel their might, blasting their aura through the mountain peaks. It was met by the impossible pressure of the skies. Emerald coils blurred through the stagnant air as the Serpent, in defiance of all that seemed right with the world, sped itself to match them.

Azure energy surrounded their perfected form, and with a flash, they tore ahead of Rayquaza, before wheeling around to face their divine foe. Something flashed in the Serpent's eyes. Rage? Acknowledgement? Disdain? Joy? It was impossible for mortals to understand the mind of a god, but in that moment, they felt all that and more emanating from the Serpent's gleaming, golden gaze. And then Rayquaza's was shrouded in emerald energy, and two titanic forces plowed into, and then past one another.

They felt pressure against their aura, impossibly vast and crushingly strong, but their combined energies fought off the foreign power, and they wheeled around, another Dragon Rush ready. They were met by the Serpent once again, their energies colliding into and across one another. Over and over they clashed, crimson azure and golden emerald lighting the sky with blurred streaks of draconic power. The Serpent let loose its polyphonic roar, and they matched it with a burning, two-tone cry of their own.

They raced to meet once more, their final clash head-to-head. The partner's armored skull crashed into the Serpent's rictus maw, both dragons separated only by the scintillating energy pouring off each of them in waves. They strained against one another, fighting desperately to gain the upper hand as the trainer fed all of his aura, all of his being into his partner's soul. And then, a wave of green, descending from above.

The Serpent's coils splayed and strung, its tail stretching up and up, and then down and down. It crashed into them, the divine being forming a perfect circle of emerald might in the air as its tail blew past its own head. The blow sent them flying, spiraling into the side of the highest peak.

They crashed into the mountainside, rattled and dazed, and they barely had enough time to get up a barrier to protect themselves before the Serpent was on them once more, its gaping jaws splayed wide as it rammed its head into them, pushing them further against the rocky craig. Two voices roared their defiance as one, as a stream of meteors tore from their throat. The Serpent took the explosive power to the jaw, and it staggered back for a mere moment, before surging forwards again.

It pushed through their barrier, and its arms reached out, pinning them to the rock. The Serpent's crimson maw split wide, and a beam of energy charged in those bleeding depths. They struggled futilely against the immutable limbs binding them, but found themselves unable to tear free from the arms of the divine. One half of their union reached out, grasping for a white and crimson sphere. In the miniscule moments before a god's fury tore them asunder, a teal body apparated in front of them.

Rhea looked at them with a determined gaze, and then, somehow, a wink. The wave of power tore out, slamming into the specter as the draconic ghost pulled deep from the well of Distortion sustaining his incorporeal form. Phantom Force normally allowed a Ghost-type to traverse the space between worlds, the distorted realm of spirits and monsters. For the very best, the most powerful, it could also be used as a gate, to conjure forth horrors untold, and to bring unwitting visitors into a realm of nightmares.

A flash of memory struck the pair. Of a talented young woman, playful yet determined. A girl, really, one who reminded them of the whelp that had put them in this position. She had challenged them once, and though she had fallen short, she had helped them understand their partner better. Given them the clarity they needed to set Rhea free, letting the Dragapult pursue his own life. That girl was a master of all things ghost, and apparently, she'd been giving their former comrade lessons.

With but a whisper, a god's blow disappeared into the impossible depths of Distortion housed within a spectre's form. Rhea's incorporeal body swelled, his very being bloating with the burning energy of the divine, struggling to tear through even the space between worlds. He let loose a keening croak of determination, matched by the furious chirping of his Dreepy. The Serpent's power trailed off, and a god panted with exertion, watching the distended Dragagpult with wide, almost disbelieving eyes.

The spectre had the temerity to grin, before his form erupted. Power burst out from his open jaws, as Rhea conjured another portal, venting the anathemic energy he had shunted into Distortion back into the waking world. It slammed into the Serpent, a deity's own power, turned back on itself. The God of the Skies reeled, blown away by the eruption of its own divine might. With a satisfied belch, Rhea collapsed, his form unspooling into dregs of ectoplasmic energy as the Dragapult fell from the sky. He would be fine.

Ghosts were hardy, they tried to reassure themselves. They didn't have time to focus on their comrades' plight. Not if they wanted to use the opening he had gifted them. With a roar of unadulterated rage, they tore themselves free from the mountain. Azure energy surrounded them once more, as they poured whatever scraps of power they had remaining into one final, blazing Dragon Rush. The two of them burned like they never had before.

Not when they had fought in a war, not when they had taken the championship, not when they had defended that crown. They were growing still, climbing still. The heavens were right there, and together, they would tear them down. They crashed into the Serpent, bearing its convulsing form down to earth. With an almighty crash, a mountain lost its peak. Cascading waves of stone flowed down the now-shorter summit.

They bore further still, driving the Serpent deeper, deeper into the earth, pulverizing rock and stone as they matched the pressure of a god with their own aura, using everything they had to wrench the divine from its very skies. Eventually, their energy was spent. Azure light faded, and then with one final glow, the transformation faded, and one became two once more. - I looked down from atop Cruiser's back. With a pair of titanic wingbeats, my oldest partner landed atop the shorn peak. Had we done it?

Had we defeated a god? We both sucked gasping breaths, fighting to inhale the stagnant air. The Serpent's supine form was obscured, covered in layers of stone and dust. And then, like a gasp from the skies themselves, the wind moved. Air blew past us, wiping away the obscuring haze surrounding the recumbent deity. Golden eyes stared out at us, inscrutable and unreadable, but just as clear and present as they had been at the start of this battle.

With stuttering movements, the Serpent pulled itself free from the wreckage of the mountain summit. WIth one more deep breath, Cruiser and I fell back into readiness, exhausted bodies prepared to battle once more. Flashes of light tore out of my coat, and our comrades surrounded us, worn and battered, but defiant still. Marin, still coated in a thin sheen of ice, barely floating but ready for battle. Silvette, throat swollen and raw, her charming song turned to a gargling cry of war.

Flygon, wings weighed down to his sides, a sandstorm of newly-freed wind whipping up around him. Even Rhea, wispy and faint, barely visible, clinging to our plane by sheer determination alone. And Cruiser. Always Cruiser, steadfast and determined, ready to fight god and everyone by my command. I had never been prouder of my comrades than at this moment. Never been happier to stand by their side. All was still but the whirling winds as the seven of us squared off. Until. Finally.

The silence was broken by a quiet cry from the Serpent, so different from the polyphonic roars it had been loosing with abandon. With the faint sound of shattering glass, the God of the Skies dissolved, motes of emerald light returning to the wide, infinite blue, ascending back to the heavens. We watched, slack jawed and open-mawed, as the parted clouds revealed, for only the barest of moments, a serpentine length.

The barest hint of an emerald coil, stretched impossibly long across the sky, incomprehensibly vast and blindingly huge, filling the horizon from one end to the other. And then, the divinity and its aspect were gone, reclaimed by the heavens, and leaving nought from their passage but open sky and a gleaming, scintillating rainbow. And a pair of glimmering spheres, deposited amongst the wreckage of Rayquaza's final descent to earth. With heavy steps, I approached the glowing rocks.

I had to suppress a groan of exertion as I stooped to collect our prize, picking them up with reverent awe. The two perfectly spherical crystals glowed with an inner light, one crimson and azure, and the other all the hues of the rainbow above. I chortled, and then I chuckled, and then I threw my head back and guffawed. All these years, in pursuit of this. And when we were finally ready to give everything up, finally ready to cease in our search and lay it all down, finally ready to be done. Here it was.

Truly the world worked in unfathomable ways. As some distant part of me heard Fe shouting my name from a nearby peak, I reflected. It looked like I was in fact going to have to give Steven Stone a call. The heavens were open above me, and as it turned out, I wasn't ready to stop chasing them just yet.