Chp 38: Historian

"Here we go... number three." Seth said, mentally getting himself pumped up before the elevator arrived. This time, his team consisted of Soul, Sky, Star, Mewtwo, Daim, Tiff, and maybe himself. He was feeling good, at least compared to the previous day. Sleeping under a heated and happy typhlosion had done wonders. He was a bit sore, but he could feel all his parts. He had overused the technique, like he told the girls. But there was more. 

It started by forcing as much aura out of the body while concentrating the remainder in the critical organs. This resulted in most of his body going numb and unresponsive. By using his control of the aura, he could still move himself. Most of his body was technically dead, with the remaining parts trying desperately to stay alive. The vast majority of the move was mental, including the motions. He used his aura to force his body to move, almost like a puppet. Then the rest, nearly eighty percent of his life force, could be used for offense. The cost was that his body had to recover from this state slowly. When he tried to recover immediately, it put him into a day long coma. If it hadn't been for his hybrid abilities, he would have been stuck in the hospital the entire training week. The idea for the technique came from the memories of the latent aura of Iron Island and his attempts to use more and more powerful aura moves. 

His other technique he had learned, the rapid transformations, was much easier, though it did have risks. Ever since he had discovered his abilities as a hybrid, it had been getting easier and easier to transform. He was down to seconds to fully change. But changing to different pokemon was harder. He hadn't changed into chimera form and he hadn't felt the loss of control that came along with it. He was able to do it without going from pokemon to human and then to another pokemon. What seemed to cause that dangerous transformation was picturing himself as more than one pokemon. When he transformed, he imagined his body as a lucario, then the transformation took hold. Then if he were to turn into an absol, the risk came from having both the lucario traits and the absol traits at the same time. Mentally, he went from fully lucario, then fully absol, instead of thinking about how his body would change. He had discovered a risk to his hybrid nature as well. The more he abused his transformations in a short time, the harder and harder they got to do. At some point, he lost the ability to do so entirely for a period of time. The other risk was chimera form. The constant fear of that happening had helped him to avoid it. Once he felt as though he was losing control of himself, he could purge it by reverting to fully human. On top of all that, he could use aura while human as effortlessly as he could as a lucario, which also translated to his other pokemon forms. 

During training with Reginald, something he had suspected for a long time had been proven true. No matter what form he took, he was subject to moves. A normal human would feel little to nothing from a passive pokemon, but would receive physical harm from an aggressive one. A human getting a playful ember from a growlithe would just feel a little heat. An angry growlithe could cause third degree burns, depending on its strength. But Seth would have felt the stamina drain from a passive growlithe, just like in a usual friendly battle. It also meant he was subject to area and status moves, like Tiff's fiery explosions or Soul using attract.

He had also gotten Soul and Sky to further explain their new abilities. Sky’s mental powers had gone up to top tier, and she could create all sorts of constructs that she could control in great detail. Illusions, barriers, offensive blunt force, clones, it all depended on what she could think of and had time to form. Soul had achieved what she called mastery of moves. She was able to combine any two moves together to create a new one. Alongside that, her natural abilities were mastered as well. She could easily pick out an opponent's weak points and aim for them, as well as have a near perfect awareness from her horn. This made it seem like she was obscenely lucky. 

The elevator doors finally opened. Each ride was taking longer, likely as they were getting higher up in the building. When the door was all the way open, he did a double take. It looked like a house. It really looked like he had stepped through the front door. Something about the design seemed familiar. He walked forward, passing into the living room. There was a doorway leading to a kitchen and one leading to a hallway. There was one more thing though. A large sliding glass door that led into what had to be the arena. 

As he approached and opened the door, there was a flash of light at the opposite side of the arena. A familiar woman appeared from it. There was another flash as the alakazam  teleported away.

"Cynthia?!"

"Ah, give me a moment..." She muttered, looking away. "Shaun? No, Seth." 

"Seth. The hybrid, you met me-"

"No need. I only forgot your name. My apologies, I meet so many trainers that it gets hard to keep track of." She smiled. "You've made it this far. To think you showed up almost dead on my doorstep one day."

"So... I thought you said you were retired?" Seth asked while he looked around the ballroom styled arena.

"You look confused." She said. "Allow me. When the champion is defeated, each elite four member goes down a rank. The previous champion becomes number four, number four becomes third and so on. People can also fight the elite four in an attempt to join them. The current number four defeated me, but failed against the champion, thus knocking me down to three. So I stay in the elite four, but otherwise I'm done with adventures. I'd hate to have to release my team, and I wouldn't want them to be bored doing nothing. Very few trainers make it this far, so at most I have to be here a few hours a week. A psychic type can teleport me here anytime. As for the replica of my house, I didn't know how to style me floor. A museum would have looked nice, but that's not the place for battles. With this, my daughter can watch me battle sometimes. Speaking of, Lucario is at home taking care of her."

"I see. Is number four gonna be somebody I know too?"

"I cannot tell you. He is monstrously strong though."

"I'd expect that. So, shall we get this over with so you can go home?"

She smiled, lifting a hand to her head. "Don't expect this to be easy. My rule is what I call stand ground. Once a pokemon enters the battle, it cannot be swapped out without being considered disqualified. You can either devote one pokemon for each member of my team, or you can keep each member of your team in for as long as possible. Also, instead of releasing at the same time, we alternate who goes first, starting with me."

"Isn't that Lucian's trick?"

"He's still among us? No, I suspect not. I guess he had something like one on one matches to test your entire team?"

"Yep."

"I thought so. No, mine serves a very different purpose." She effortlessly and elegantly drew a ball from her belt and tossed it out, revealing a rock. 

"Uh..." Seth muttered. The rock started to shake as a thick purple mass emerged, forming a spherical face. Seth quickly drew his dex and scanned it, revealing it was a spiritomb, a dark and ghost type. He frowned. The dark type was a problem. Half his team was psychic. Daim would have been the best, were it not for that ghost typing. Star, based on her occupation, probably knew a fairy type move or two. With that, he grabbed Star's personalized ball and threw it out, releasing the latias in a rain of shimmering multicolor stars.

"Well, I see you've been making some friends. A legendary cannot be captured without their consent. Their power simply overwhelms the pokeball's mechanism."

"Yep." Star said happily. "Seth's a good buddy." 

Spiritomb made a loud noise while the ghostly mass of its body rose higher into the air. Suddenly, Star disappeared, leaving only a brilliant red trail that led to, and then through, Spiritomb. An instant later, a sonic boom crashed through the air and Star was floating near the ceiling on the opposite side, the trail leading to her. The red streak, made of pure energy, began to dissipate quickly. Spiritomb began a ghostly roar of pain

"What?!" Cynthia shouted. "Could..."

"Dark types? No big deal." Star snickered. She threw her short arms forward, launching a mirror like ball. Spiritomb tried to move out of the way, but the ball followed his movements. It exploded right on him, creating a shower of shimmering feathers. 

Spiritomb quickly recovered, his misty form rising higher into air. A purple wave of air came off of him, aimed right at Star. But when it impacted her, her body exploded into more feathers.

"I wonder what this thing is?" Star asked. She appeared out of thin air, right next to the stone on the ground. She picked it up, while Spiritomb moved towards her in a hurry. Before she was attacked, she threw it back down onto the floor.

The rest of Spiritomb retreated into the rock, which then quivered a bit. "Spiritomb, a rare and powerful species of pokemon, with a drastic weakness." Cynthia explained. "Most pokemon ignore his real body. Quite clever to discover the trick so quickly."

"Star? You staying in?" Seth asked. 

"Yep! I'm not even tired."

"Then the choice goes to me." Cynthia said. She drew her next ball and tossed it out. It was a glaceon. The battle began instantly, as he shot an ice beam. It impacted Star, encasing her in ice, causing her levitation to fail and her body to plummet to the ground. Glaceon shot another ice beam, then another. Star didn't move in her icy prison. It eventually crumbled, leaving the dragon unconscious.

Seth recalled Star and took out the next ball. She may have been strong, but her inexperience in combat showed. He opened the ball to release Daim. She immediately began to look around. Across from her was her icy male opponent. And behind him...

She turned around and looked at Seth, eyes wide and whiskers twitching. "Is that..." Seth nodded. "She's my idol." Daim said. She turned back to the field. "I'll do my best!" Her stance dropped lower to the ground, while her arms raised in front of her. 

The battle began with Glaceon flash freezing a chunk of ice and throwing it right for Daim. She responded by swinging her arm, a loud crack sounding out as her arm fur snapped like a whip, cleaving the ice down the middle. The two halves crashed into the ground behind her. With her other paw, she formed an aura sphere and shot it forward.

Glaceon responded by forming a quick wall and diving to the side. The ball smashed right through the defense, exploding just on the other side. Had Glaceon not jumped out of the way, he would have taken it to the face. With a leap followed by a low spinning motion, Daim was on the move again. As she spun, instead of a leg kick, she used her arm, causing her long sleeve like fur to whip around in a circle, slapping Glaceon as he landed. The blow wasn't that powerful, as the fur wasn't moving very fast, but it was still a fighting type attack, shattering the ice type.

Glaceon was sent rolling on his side, spinning three times before he managed to stop and get up. He raised his head and let out a howl, causing a dark cloud to quickly form above the arena. Daim remained back, stretching her arms and letting out restrained breath. "It's been a long time since I had to really fight."

"You're doing good!" Seth cheered her on. "Keep it up!"

She took another deep breath. "Right." Hail began to batter her, but she barely reacted to it. 

Glaceon launched a ranged attack again, firing an ice beam. Daim aimed her paw out, but instead of forming an aura sphere, she began to spin her wrist. The spin caused her fur to swirl, while the speed turned it into a blur. The ice beam hit the spinning wall of fur, a covering of ice forming quickly. The moment the beam tapered off, Daim charged forward, still spinning her fur, now resembling an icy flail. She leapt into the air and brought it crashing down onto Glaceon. The ice shattered and brought the full force of her attack right onto him.

He was knocked flat onto his belly. Daim already had her other paw raised, but he didn't move.

"You have raised your pokemon well." Cynthia complemented.

"They aren't my pokemon. Just some friends helping me." Seth answered.

"Then you are lucky to have such dependable friends." Cynthia drew her next ball, releasing a togekiss onto the battle field. Daim's whiskers drooped. She knew just as well as Seth how outplayed she was.

"You can go ahead and forfeit." Seth said. "No way you can beat that."

"No. I'll stay. Learn what you can about the enemy and use that to beat them." Daim said, assuming her combat stance.

"Alright. Just don't hurt yourself." Seth told her. 

"Hah!" Togekiss roared. It might have been intimidating, if his voice didn't sound like he inhaled too much helium. He stretched his fat body, spreading and flapping his wings to seem bigger.

"Now he's just mocking me..." Daim muttered. 

"Am not!" The pudgy bird shouted. He flapped his wings again, this time casting a wave of wind forward. The speed turned the air into blades that slashed her as they blew past. She barely had time to react when Togekiss came flying forward with the wind, crashing right into her. She did block, but that did little to weaken the powerful attack. She was sent flying back, sprawling out onto the ground. She rolled out of the way just before Togekiss came slamming down, embedding his face into the floor. With a flip, Daim was back on her feet, where she quickly flung her sleeves out. They skillfully wrapped around Togekiss' rotund body. 

Daim moved forward, grabbing Togekiss with the extra grip, before leaping into the air. Once up, she kicked off the ceiling, plummeting back down. Togekiss' head smashed into the ground, while Daim kicked off and landed on her feet. Togekiss flailed his feet and flapped his wings. Despite this, Daim had embedded him deeper into the crater he had made with his first attack. Daim was taken by surprise when his body let off a blinding burst of fairy energy. The blast ended in an instant, knocking her off her feet and onto the ground. Just as she rose, an aura sphere exploded in her face. It sent her skidding back. When she came to a stop, she didn't move to get back up. 

"Stay." Cynthia announced.

Seth took out his next ball after recalling Daim. It popped open to release Tiff onto the field. The moment she materialized, she took a deep breath, her chest puffing out as she held in the growing power. She moved her arms wide and let out a powerful roar. Fire burst from every part of her body, cascading in a violent wave. The ocean of fire flowing forward almost resembled lava with the way it burst and churned. Just as it crashed into Togekiss, who had just managed to right himself, she fired a gigantic fireball. It moved fast, breaking through the wave and exploding. The entire attack was obviously powerful, but Seth couldn't help but think she was showing off. 

The flames died out nearly as spontaneously as they had been made. In the aftermath, Togekiss was out cold, face down. Tiff was left panting while she recovered from the overexertion.

Cynthia smiled. "Your turn."

"Tiff?"

"Yeah... just whew... gimme a sec."

"Stay." Seth said.

Cynthia continued to smile as she drew her next ball. It seemed almost devious as she did. "Garchomp!" Once Garchomp was on the field, She swept her long blonde hair aside to reveal a keystone attached to an earring. There was a belt with a similar stone around Garchomp's waist. The combined energy of trainer and pokemon built up and exploded outwards. She swung her scythe shaped arms, causing a powerful wave of air to carve through the air, right into the Tiff. Even at this great distance, the slashes formed two massive white cuts in the air when they hit her.

Tiff gasped and fell to her knees. She was unconscious before she even hit the ground.

"Shit..." Seth muttered. Not even he wanted to step in against that. Mewtwo was no doubt strong, but... he had no guarantee of that. Soul... That settled it. He took out her ball and released her.

"Bout time. I was starting to... oh, I get it." Soul said as she inspected her intimidating opponent. "Save the big boys for me. Makes sense. You know how big I like 'em." She snickered.

"Actaully, I am female." Garchomp growled.

"Doesn't matter." Soul raised her head and howled. She burst with energy as she too mega evolved. The battle began then, as it usually did, but this time, Garchomp was ready. As Soul came hurtling through the air, Garchomp raised her scythe, swinging it and catching Soul in the side. As she was knocked off course, her aimed night slash went carving off to the side harmlessly. Before Soul could correct her course, the other scythe cut into her other side, this time carrying her and slamming her into the ground. Soul closed her eyes for a brief moment from the blow. When she opened them, all she could see was dust.

The course sand blowing around the room easily caught in her fur. It was annoying, but not as much as the exposed skin that got scratched. From the yellow fog, Garchomp came hurtling forward at blinding speed. One scythe raked along the ground, dragging a trail before she swung it upwards, sending Soul flying into the air. With a flap, Soul righted herself and swung all four paws, sending four simultaneous night slashes downwards. Garchomp launched herself upwards, blasting right through the attacks. A cloak of purple covered her as she hit Soul squarely in the chest. Soul let out a powerful dark pulse in response. The radial wave crashed into Seth, making him stumble a bit.

Soul fell to the side, her wings flailing in a futile attempt to slow the fall. Garchomp came hurtling back at her, another powerful attack occurring as she blew by. She seemed like a purple comet as she came for Soul again. This time, Soul was ready. She let out a howl. The air around her began to freeze, crystals of frost forming on her fur and the sand in the air. As Garchomp closed in, the crystals formed on her too. She roared in pain, but was moving too fast to be stopped. This time, she smacked Soul down instead of up. 

Soul slammed into the floor, cracking the tiles. She quickly rose, shaking off the cold shards of ice on her. She squinted through the sandstorm in an attempt to find Garchomp. That triple combo of blizzard, ice beam and perish song had been strong. She could feel it herself. With Garchomp’s serious weakness to it, that had to have slowed her down.

Underneath her, the floor cracked as Garchomp's star patterned nose broke through the earth. The powerful dragon tore up through the ground, knocking Soul aside as if she were a doll. Soul rolled a few times, beating her wings against the ground for extra distance. Before she could even make the attempt to get to her feet, Garchomp was upon her, stabbing both scythes down into her. The blows seemed like they would pierce the skin, just from the sheer power. Soul cried out, her wings flaring fully behind her as waves of dread pulsed from her body. Garchomp barely flinched. 

Something changed suddenly. If a mega evovled pokemon's powerful life force was a spotlight through aura, Soul's became like looking into the sun. While his second sight may have been blind, his eyes were not. Garchomp also sensed this change and backed off. 

"That's it." Soul growled angrily. Her voice sounded noticeably deeper. "No fucking tricks. You're done."

Garchomp shook her head. "Doesn't matter. I have decades more experience, vastly greater power, and-"

"Shut up!" Soul shouted. She sounded genuinely angry. "You don’t..." Soul bit her lip and looked back at Seth. "Doesn't matter." Soul raised her head and howled, like when she mega evolved. This time, her body exploded with golden energy. It was almost smoky in appearance, wispy strands of it flowed around her while the rest left a gold sheen on her fur. 
Garchomp lowered her head and kicked off, launching like a rocket at Soul. Soul calmly raised her paw and slashed her claws down. A titanic crescent of darkness energy blasted out form her, cutting straight through Garchomp. It continued on, carving a deep gash through the floor and ceiling along its path until it cut into the wall. The entire path was cleanly cut, speaking to the highly concentrated power of the attack. 

Garchomp continued flying, but the wince of pain caused her to veer off course, skidding into the floor and created a large trail of rubble. She quickly gathered her strength and rose, turning and roaring at Soul. Only she was met with Soul tackling into her gut. A veritable fountain of darkness exploded out from them, obscuring everything with the pure black power. A radial pulse of energy came out of it, coming hurtling right at Seth. 

He took it in the chest. It passed through him, taking all his strength with it. The force of it sent him flying a few feet back, where he landed painfully on his back. He just barely managed to maintain consciousness. He heard noises, but when he tried to raise his head to look, he couldn't do more than twitch. 

Garchomp raised her head and roared in agony. She was strong. The strongest. Only that freak of a champion and the battle obsessed fourth could even hope to challenge her might. Bred for power, with experience to match, and the form to use it. Even with all that, this upstart absol was better. She swung her claws sloppily. Soul dodged it easily and unleashed an upwards slash with her horn. 

Soul grimaced. Garchomp was pushing herself way too hard. No doubt that she was past her limits. She had to be causing damage to her body. Soul drew one paw back and thrust it forward, a powerful lance of darkness emitting forth. Soul leapt back as the energy tore through Garchomp.

And still Garchomp stood. She took a shaky step forward. "Garchomp!" Cynthia shouted. "Enough. You did excellently." 

"But I-" She growled, a faint bit of blood falling from her maw.

Cynthia silenced her with the use of a poke ball. "Seth? Are you alright?"

"Yeah... gimme a bit." He groaned.

Soul came into his field of view, her body normal again. "Sorry about that. Had to go a little overboard."

"It's fine." Seth grunted as he sat up. “Since when did you get so strong?"

"I take it this is a new development then?" Cynthia asked. "In the Alola region, there are powerful pokemon known by the locals as totem pokemon. Not much is known about them at the moment, but that display was remarkably similar to the power they exhibit."

"Soul?"

"I dunno nothin." She rolled over onto her side and let out a huff. "Go on without me."

"Alright. Who's turn was it?"

"Mine." Cynthia reached down and drew another ball. Inside was a Milotic. 

Seth reached for Sky but hesitated. Mewtwo remained the only one yet to fight. For number four, he had to know what his entire team could do. His mind made up, he switched to her ball and released the legendary. 

"A mewtwo? A clone of the legendary Mew? I continue to be impressed by your team." Cynthia complemented.

"Is that my opponent?" Mewtwo asked. She held up a three fingered paw, which glowed with psychic energy. Milotic was lifted into the air, before being forcefully squeezed into a ball. The energy broke and Milotic fell onto the ground, out cold. "It is finished."

Cynthia's mouth hung slightly agape for a moment. She cleared her throat and changed out her pokemon in short order. Next up was her Roserade. Mewtwo repeated the process, though with less crushing. The other pokemon couldn't mount any form of resistance. 

"Well. I would say you have proven yourself." Cynthia said as she recalled her last pokemon.

"Yay." Soul muttered as she raised a paw limply into the air.

"Thanks. Before I go, have some time to talk?" Seth asked.

+++

"I see." Cynthia said once Seth finished explaining recent events. "And where is this orb now?"

"My backpack, in my hotel room."

"There are tales of powerful objects that enhance specific legendary pokemon. Perhaps it is one of those. As for the locations you mentioned... Terminus cave is very far from here. But Stark Mountain... and that place you went, no doubt it was the Sinjoh ruins. And you've been to Snowpoint temple. All three of those locations are sites of an ancient culture. There are two other places. Sendoff Spring and Spear Pillar. The ancients worshipped legendary pokemon as gods. The remnants of that can now be seen in Originism." 

"And what about the unown?"

"Those pokemon are unnatural. They do not originate in this dimension. You see, according to the best estimates of science, there are two parallel dimensions to our own. We do not understand much about them however. There is the Reverse Dimension, where Giratina resides. According to legend, it was banished there by Arceus. The other is the unown dimension. Those are the only ones we can prove to exist, but I suspect there may be many more. It could explain the absence of certain pokemon from history. Such as Arceus. There is no physical proof in this world that the creator pokemon existed, but with all the references throughout time, there must be something. With a pokemon such as Mew, we know that such a creature once existed, as Mewtwo is a clone of it. There is documented proof of it from researchers. But we do not know of any who exist at this time, if there are any at all." Cynthia stopped to take a breath. "Sorry. I get passionate about history."

"It's fine. The unown must be related to the legendaries in some way. Mewtwo called them messengers. She even told me that Arceus actually exists. If that's true, it must be separate from our world. Once I'm done here, I'm going to chase down the trail left by the unown. They did call me the chosen one."

"Yes, but chosen by what?"

"Hell if I know."

“Seth? Why? Why do you do what you do? Why do you battle? Why do you push onwards? And why do you want answers to this mystery?”

“Uh... geez what kinda question is that? I guess it's the same as its always been. Be with the girls and keep them safe.”

“Then why do you want to chase down the legends of old? Surely you have enough money to settle down for a long time.”

Seth looked upset. “I did stop adventuring for a while. But then several people close to me were killed. We came to Sinnoh to try and break my depression. So maybe I’m scared. Maybe I just have an adventurer’s heart. I don’t really know.” He let out a sigh. “I’ve never been good at decision making.”