“Huff, huff, he’s got to be here somewhere..!” Pattered noises across the rubble, a leap through the ash and smoke to clear the gap. A Chikorta, simple but pure, screeched to a halt-- a smile brought to their face. “Deoxys! There you are!”
“...”
The Chikorita, with little understanding of what they just walked into the middle of, gazed up on the alien with a playful gaze, and their eyes were the only light left in the dark. “You look really different!”
The alien was almost brought to amusement, but the realization that he was being misseen as Deoxys brought a new level of rage he thought not possible. He reached down, and the Chikorita seemed to think his intention was to pick him up in fondness. Weed was right.. in a way.
“Oh! Um! I- agh- It’s.. It’s hard to breathe!”
Dioxys stared at Weed with a prolonged silence. Maybe, on another day, he would find some semblance of enjoyment out of the irony that this Chikorita- clearly a friend of Deoxys- was seeing its own friend strangling it.
“Huff, hey-- STOP!” Deo’s voice boomed from the rubble with such force that it lifted the debris of the home from his body, scattering boulder-sized pieces of his destroyed home away. His stance up and strong, Deo stood across from Dioxys. Quill was unconscious on the ground, protected from the explosion and debris by Deo’s body.
The worst part of the sight was that Deo and Dioxys knew each other’s thoughts-- their mind one. Their psychic connection was unbreakable, and they knew each of their moves before they even made it. That is why Deo screamed before Dioxys even moved.
Weed was sent soaring with an oppressive force, sent like a skipping rock across the clouds as Dioxys launched the creature with little but a flick of his wrist.
Deo’s intention was to initiate flight-- to catch his friend. However, all Deo would be able to catch was a fist with the use of his despondent, faceless face. Before Deo even hit the ground, Dioxys was there in wait. With an easy catch and swift transition, Deo was put into a front headlock that threatened to remove his head from his shoulders with ease.
The pair of viruses knew simple dismemberment would not kill them, but they were plainly aware of what pain it would cause. It was clear before this even started that Dioxys was going to take his time in killing Deo, with the only method being to crush his orb.
Deo strained in the hold, no way to free himself. His psychic well was weaker than Dioxys’, a distinct difference from their past lives, and his self-idealed pacifism disallowed him any attempt to physically remove Dioxys’ arm from his neck. “Why!?” Deo cried out, “You.. You want me! Just.. Just kill ME! Don’t take it out on my friends!”
“...” Dioxys tightened the hold, his intentions made reality as Deo felt every spasm of simulated pain. “That’s ironic, isn’t it? My own brother- my supposed older protector- is responsible for the death of everyone we knew, my own love, and our planet. Yet, here you are, lecturing me about whose friends we kill? Ironic.”
Purple ink oozed from the pores of Deo’s face, similar in a way to blood being forced out of one’s head from almost being popped like a balloon, and all he could do in the moment was listen. In the haze, as his younger brother held his life in his rightful hands, as Quill lay unconscious nearby, and as Weed was sent hurling to an unknown end-- in all of the madness, Deoxys listened to a voice.
Somewhere safe, far from him, Chai spoke. In the chaos and after the explosion, her older sister, Serenity, found Chai and secured her in her truck before absconding from the area. It seemed they got quite far in a short span of time, and Chai’s prayer was heard.
“Deo... I can't say with confidence that I know the real you... though I would like to get to know you better, from your own words... it's not my place to decide what direction you should choose. I can only hope that whatever it is, it brings you peace in the end. Thank you for letting me get to know you, even for just a little bit.”
Deo stopped his struggle in Dioxys’ grasp, only one phrase in his mind, “Goodbye, Chai.”
“aaaAAAAAAAAAAHHHH- Oof!”
Collided in confusion, a momentary scuffle almost brought the risk of an interrupted flight. Though Weed thought it was just a coincidence, there was an intentional force at play. At exactly the tail end of Weed’s horizontal travel through the air, just as the creature slowed down before a downward pull would have been initiated from gravity, Weed’s body crashed into the soft, puffy feathers of a golden god, midflight.
“ZHEN!” Weed yells, elated, and before the Ho-Oh could even respond or attempt to understand the situation, Weed positioned themself atop Zhen’s head, biting him to get his attention. “HEY! DO YOU KNOW ANYONE THAT COULD HELP WITH SOMETHING?”
Elsewhere, one phone call away…
“What the fuck are you talking about? Hey, Piss Bird, slow down. Who- what!?” Gruff and angry, per his usual demeanor, a man was forced to rouse from his drunk slumber. With a minor hangover, he had even less patience. A jacket thrown on and boots tightened, Roshi stood tall as he attempted to stop barking at Zhen just long enough to find out ‘what the fuck he wants’. Slowly.., he understood why Zhen had called.. Something, something, a Chikorita was worried about a mutual alien.
However, just as he tried to figure out where to go, the line clicked.
The man’s ears twitched, and a cold soreness came over his arms. Like a steel hip in a storm, he physically felt an ache, an omen. His particular sensation told him someone powerful was nearby. With a turn, he expected to find someone of.. well, at least some stature.
An old, hornless Hoopa stood before Roshi, barely coming up to his chest.
“You have exactly one chance to explain yourself. You cut my line, didn’t you?” Roshi growled.
The Hoopa huffed. “Okay, Clifford, calm down. I came here out of my own volition, so you should feel some sort of appreciation. Your.., whatever you want to call him, gave you good context, sure, but you have little way to get where you need to be. So, you are welcome.”
Roshi had half a mind to pummel the Hoopa to the ground, but the proposition forced him to heel. If Deo was really in danger.., he wanted to be there. Outwardly, it was a chance to fight someone even stronger than Deo- a real challenge-, but buried somewhere deep down.., he felt a need to help the annoying, obnoxious alien. “Fine,” he muttered with a mumble, “Ho-”
A bored, uncaring hand waved, and Roshi was gone.
“...” Kujo sighed after sending Roshi away, and he glanced up at the soft clouds above-- voice shaken and barely audible, “You two idiots.. Please..”
A pained cry echoed in the barren desert…
Deo scraped himself from the ground, knocked several miles away from his home. His body was covered in violet ichor, and platinum, star-like energy bubbled from his body as it slowly regenerated itself.
“You know what’s funny about you, Deo?” Dioxys started as he landed just a feet yards away, for he wanted the delay of having to walk towards Deo, giving him a chance to crawl away in fear. “This.. persona you created. It’s easy to pity you, no? You are just, oh so sad, and the public simply loves to eat it up? You make a routine effort to show just how deep your thoughts go, the reality of your spindled truths unaware to those who yuck up what you extend as existential sadness. But, that’s not the truth, is it?”
Deo, however, did not crawl. He knew Dioxys sensed his defiance, and he also knew his brother was surprised. “Tell me, D’..,” Deo managed to egg under his breath, “Go ahead. You already know that I know what you’re about to say, but go ahead. You were always one for theatrics, so tell me.”
“..!” Dioxys’ fists clenched, his satisfaction ripped away from him. In less than a blink of an eye, Dioxys was upon Deo with a plunged fist in a crater freshly made on Deo’s body, right next to where his orb was. If not for Dioxys’ want to delay the inevitable, he could have ended Deo right then and there. “You’re not sad at all, are you? You may feel guilt, and the hurt I inflict on your friends may be isolated moments of concern. But, you are not a sad person at all. You are angry, and you are spiteful. Your true feelings are ugly, and through your little jokes as you dance like a jester for what you call friends, you know you go out of your way to hurt them. In truth, you love to run away and leave holes that can never be filled. Don’t you? You are a monster, and you have always been a monster.”
Deo huffed, and he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care how you choose to dissect what I feel. All I care about is-” His sentence left unfinished by Dioxys’ rageful desire to stop him from verbalizing it, Deo’s head was blown clean off his body. Of course, just a moment later, it began to rematerialize in a blinding, white light of bubbling energy.
Dioxys stood, and he paced.
“D’..,” Deo’s voice called as his body resumed its natural shape, “Listen, I am sorry, okay? I am.”
Before the two could retort one another’s feelings, they simultaneously sensed the arrival of a third party. The two aliens were blown apart, though they also simultaneously caught themselves, almost in exact unison, as they stood parallel to one another on either sides of a freshly made crater in the desert.
“Hey, Blues,” the annoyed but secretly relieved voice called from the mushroom-shaped plume of smoke that was blown into the air from his crashing arrival. Roshi cracked his neck and threw off his jacket as he stepped out of the crater, getting in the middle of Deo and Dioxys. He kept his back to Deo whom he called Blues, but he spoke to his friend while he fixated his eyes on the yellow invader, “I get your pacifism thing, but.. This is life and death.” The Arcanine cracked his knuckles. “If you’re going to stick to your guns then.. Well, just let me take over.”
There was zero fear or doubt in Roshi’s heart, and that was something that scared Deo but intrigued Dioxys.
Dioxys paced, his competitive nature having momentarily overtaken his plans. With a simple sense, the alien could tell that Roshi was unlike most of the others on this forsaken planet, and it brought about a certain.. combative hunger from him. Though, he was able to spin it to match why he came to this planet, “I suppose killing Deo’s friend in front of him is an acceptable detour.”
“WAI-” Before Deo could even finish a single word, chaos erupted before him. Fallen to his knees, he could do naught, for he was unable to raise a hand to strike his brother nor was he able to stop Roshi from fighting on his behalf. His knuckles scraped the ground, an air of despair having surrounded him.
Clashes of fists blasted through the desert, Roshi’s confidence keeping him from seeing the true scope of what he was facing. He didn’t care if the yellow invader was really just an alien or some kind of interdimensional god. All that he cared about in that moment was turning it into a yellow paste on the ground.
Guard thrown up with arms crossed in front of his face, Roshi managed at the last second to block a punch thrown by Dioxys, and though he held his stance and did not waver, the hill behind him was blown away to be turned into flatland. The bones in his arms did not waiver either, but they strained against the force. The worst part was that he knew his opponent was not even close to his limit yet.
Arm thrust to the side to force an opening on the alien, Roshi grappled Dioxys with a speed that actually managed to shock the alien, and with one heavy heave, Roshi snapped his back backwards to drive Dioxys’ head into the ground under them-- though he knew to swiftly get back to his feet. Teeth gritted tightly, he sensed that the alien was amused by the move, and it drove him to a bubbling wrath.
Jaw roared open, Roshi steeled his stance before fire coalesced inside his rippling muscles, the air bending to his whim as it unnaturally flew to him in heavy gusts, and burning the oxygen all at once, a brutal inferno blasted out of Roshi’s jaw [ Flamethrower ].
The ground screamed and cracked under the force and heat before it suddenly changed shades and brightness. A mere flash passed, the ground under his feet was turned to bubbling magma as it all melted away from the oppressive levels of heat.
Dioxys, forced deep underground, disappeared into a bubbling mass, buried in a pool of melted earth.
Roshi huffed. He was no fool. This was not over.
“..!” Roshi’s teeth were forced together to grit, a yellow, muscular fist returning the assault with an uppercut from the melted ground to his chin, his feet elevated from where he stood.
“Shi- ROSHI!” Deo’s throat spasmed as a pained nerve struck in his core, the sight of Roshi being punched to the sky washing a new wave of fear over him. A thrust off the ground, Deo shot into the air as he followed closely behind Dioxys who tailed the soaring Roshi.
Roshi tumbled through the air like he was just punched by a tornado, and he had little ways to catch himself in the moment, though he was somewhat distracted from the realization that he had just soared above the clouds. His body ached, and he had little time to recover-- a yellow streak appearing before him…
“R-Roshi! Come ON!” Deo flew faster than his energy normally allowed him, though it was still somehow useless, unable to catch up to his younger brother. Every time that Roshi’s air time seemed to slow down or turn downwards, Dioxys was upon him, and it was clear how much he enjoyed toying with the Arcanine. Dioxys would strike Roshi with enough force to send him soaring miles horizontally through the sky, and just as Roshi would start to fall, Dioxys dashed back to him and punched him again to repeat the process.
“MOTHERFF-” Having grown tired of his free ticket through the sky, Roshi managed to turn his body just in time to grab Dioxys’ arm before he could strike, and rotating their bodies as his roar scared pure wind away from them, Roshi’s accrescent strength allowed him to send the invader back down with an impossible throw.
Deo’s core ached in an evergrowing state of guilt and grief as he watched where his brother and friend fell. Like two meteors suddenly dropping from above the clouds, Dioxys and Roshi flattened a massive, inactive construction site. Deo thanked whoever he could under his breath as there was no one in harm’s way from their arrival, but he also watched as the highway and other nearby construction projects crumbled down into a heavy dust that washed across the nearby blocks of the familiar city.
“..Huff, huff,” Roshi threw the rubble of half a building off of himself as he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. In one quick motion, he managed to pop the shoulder back into its socket, and it was just in time for his gaze to settle on an approaching, yellow stain.
Dioxys, with theatrical, psychic energy, forced all the dust and smoke to dissipate from the ruined site so that Roshi could see him coming.
Roshi snickered wryly, fists raised, “Round two, huh?” His ears twitched, and he took notice of helicopters who had arrived to broadcast the scene. Annoyed, he hoped Deo could take care of any potential civilian casualties. He really didn’t need that at the back of his mind.
Dioxys called, “I am going to slam my fist against you. Be ready.”
Roshi furrowed his brow, suspicious and disgruntled, but what actually bothered him was that he could tell the alien was being genuine. The Arcanine readied himself, though his eyes went wide.
There were few things these days that felt truly impossible to Roshi in a fight, but he was almost in disbelief at how quickly the alien was upon him. If not for Dioxys’ warning, he might not have had time to react. With all his might he could muster in that split second decision, Roshi screamed and raised his own fist.
The collision of the two fists erupted with such explosive force, such uncontainable energy, that the debris of the construction site was blown to smithereens. The air escaped the explosive radius centered on their fists, and no stone remained. Windows across all buildings in the vicinity- at the end of the explosion- shattered from the reverberations of the blast, and car alarms started to scream across the nearby blocks. The clash created a perfectly open, flat landscape of ruin, and those who stood in it were just the two men in the middle.
Roshi’s fist bled, and he wondered if he had any broken bones, but he did not waver. “Is that all you got?” He challenged the yellow alien.
Dioxys glared at the man, but he was silent in contemplation. He would’ve stayed there in contemplative silence for a prolonged moment, but he also sensed that Roshi thought he had an opening to attack. With a sigh, Dioxys activated the true extents of his psychic well.
“Wha-” Before Roshi even realized what was transpiring in the middle of his next attack, psychic energy surrounded him. With one simple move, Dioxys took Roshi off the board. Using his psychic energy to lift the Arcanine off the ground, the alien launched Roshi with no care of how fast he flew or where he landed. For all intents and purposes, Roshi’s trajectory might as well be on the other side of the planet. He knew the man could take the fall.
Rotated gusts of wind, sights set on.
“...” Dioxys’ thoughts churned darkly, his gaze set on the various choppers surrounding the area to capture what was going on, and he contemplated what to do about the nuisance. It was a thought that clawed his brother out of hiding, and shortly, Deo stood before Dioxys.
He knew everything Deo was about to say, and he was uninterested. A mere flick of his psychic well was all it took to elevate Deo in a strangling, spiral grasp of psychic energy. His older brother’s body unnaturally turned and contorted on itself, it creaked and snapped in odd ways, and Deo was constricted into an elongated, crushed hold like a fist was squeezing him to pop on both ends. “Deo…”
Deo strained in the grasp of Dioxys’ psychic energy, and he simply decided.. that he would not fight back. At the end of the day, in his mind, this was fair.
Dioxys’s gaze turned upwards, but it was not at his brother, nor was it at the sky above them. It was far beyond, beyond anywhere in the current solar system. The annoying sounds of the helicopters and growing crowds at the outskirts of the blast faded away, and the presence of his older brother almost escaped his consciousness.
The yellow invader’s mind was elsewhere.
He was thankful. He could still remember what Cherri’s face looked like. Nothing scared him like the notion that he could one day forget it. The honey-like sweetness of her voice echoed across his mind like crashing rocks against sheet metal, oppressive and deafening, yet he did not mind. If the nightmares were the only way he could hear her, he would accept it.
Though, one particular memory managed to cut through the pain, and it shone through like the light of this planet’s sun illuminating him through the parting clouds. It was so different, yet.. it felt familiar. It elicited that one particular memory, his voice hitched as if he had to swallow down his feelings.
In a past life they could never return to, the Hoopa, the orange alien, the yellow invader, and the scientist sit under the warm sun, the sky eerily blue and bright for the first time in years. It should have been a bad omen, and while the rest of the compound scrambled with the assumption that it was finally the end, the four of us decided to enjoy the brightness.
Cherri was.. What was she like?
Faded, the memory is just a distant feeling. Hazy, some things can never be cleared up.
Her memory might as well be gone with her.
Dioxys’ thoughts were cut short, a scared yet defiant voice bellowed out, and she knew exactly who she was talking to. It brought a greater annoyance to the yellow invader, for he truly, unabashedly hated the woman for no reason other than she understood who Deo really was. She was the only one alive who did.., besides him, of course.
“D’! You have to STOP!” A Clefable was able to escape the clutches of the secured perimeter around the flattened construction site, drenched in sweat brought on purely by fear. Still in her scrubs, the Resident had run all the way from the hospital to be here, a mere coincidence that they landed in her city. “D’, just..” She was yards away, hands up carefully, and she took a single step forward. “Just, wait, okay? I.. Listen, you already read my mind, and you’re allowing me to talk, and that means.. That means there’s some truth to what I’m thinking, isn’t there? You don’t entirely want to do this.”
Dioxys’ gaze drags from the Clefable and back to Deo, and in his own, defiant way to her, he tightened his psychic grasp on Deo which elicited pained screams from the orange alien.
The Resident bit her lip out of so much worry that she drew her own blood, and she took an extra step. She knew Deo could take it. He would just have to persevere. “D’, he’s-” No other words spoken, she was flattened against the ground by psychic energy as blood sputtered from her in a pained cry. Pinned, she couldn’t even move her head to look up at Dioxys.
The yellow invader glanced back up at the broadcasting helicopters, and he sent his voice into their machines and into their networks. Overtaking the stations with a simple thought, his voice boomed across all tvs and radios broadcasting the scene, “To those of you watching that are close to this.. scum,” he growled with a motion at his older brother, “He killed our planet. He killed everyone we knew. Deo and I, we were supposed to be the cure. We were artificially created as vaccines to a terminal disease that ravaged our planet, a disease that brought entire nations against one another, and as millions died daily and cities wiped out from bombs by the hour, Deo and I were supposed to save them. Do you know what happened, instead? Deo, in his rage, unable to perform his duties, he murdered the staff of our scientific facility, and he turned his back on the planet. He left. That is who your friend is-”
In ultimate defiance, and in such transcendence of pure will and love, the Clefable’s voice cut through his psychic well as he was unable to predict or read what she was about to say before she said it. “It’s not that simple! It’s not so black and white!” Her booming voice caused Dioxys to turn his gaze from the choppers and to her, his fists shaking with rage.
The Clefable, however, did not let up. She cared little for however Dioxys wanted to respond or if she was about to turn into a stain on the ground she was pinned to. “The procedures they put you boys through.. Sure, maybe YOU could handle it, D’, but Deo COULDN’T! It was TORTURE for him, can you not understand that? He just wanted the pain to end, and then, guess what, the only way FOR IT TO END was to break himself out!”
Dioxys scoffed, and his aura pressure raged the area with torrents of wind, the air itself cutting buildings and drawing blood from those it scraped. “And, guess what breaking himself out did? He turned himself into a bomb, and he killed Cherri! She died like a dog under the rubble that he caused!” Having vocalized that truth for the first time in his entire life, Dioxys suddenly fell silent. He’s thought about it every day since it happened, but he never said it aloud.
Through the pain of the storming wind, the Clefable yelled back, “He hurt people to get out, and you’re right, he turned his back on the planet.. But, it’s not FAIR, D’, and I think you KNOW THAT!” Tears welled in her eyes, and she tried her best to turn her gaze towards the trapped Deo, “That.. That version of your brother that had to do what he had to do, that’s not him, and I think you know that. When he left your planet, he separated all of those memories from himself. He left your universe as a new person, and his past memories ONLY returned to him years and years later as you got closer to his universe.” Held sobs back, the Clefable’s voice cracks, “It’s just.. It’s not so simple, D’. He’s wrong for what he did, but he’s also mentally not the same guy who did it. And.., D’, you’re wrong too.”
The air goes quiet-- still.
The Resident and Deo are released from their psychic holds as she wastes no moment in running to Deo’s side. She hoists him up into her arms, and she wants to check on him-- to let him know that it was going to be okay. But.., he was silent, and he dared not meet her gaze. She knew he had given up.
Meanwhile, Dioxys’ voice was low, “You don’t get to just walk away from a planet that you could have saved, pretend to be someone new, and suffer no consequences. What about the dead? What is fair for them?”
The Clefable held Deo close, and she rested his head in her lap. Though he had given up, she refused to let him feel alone, and a gentle hand caressed his head. “Do what you have to do,” her reply was content, willing to go down with the proverbial ship.
Dioxys rarely felt the need to express his psychic actions with physical movement, but in this moment, it only felt natural. His hand rose, energy amassing around the Clefable and Deo.
But, the truth was that he was so torn inside and brought to such traumatic memories from the woman, that he did not pay attention to any one else other than her and Deo as he intended to end them once and for all.
That hyper focus on his part led to his hand being frozen in a large block of ice, some sort of beam striking him from the side. It snapped him back to reality, and though he could’ve responded with an equal amount of force, he was curious. After all of that.., who could have come to his aid now?
To his surprise, they weren’t even of this planet, and that particular point was curious. They had traces of psychic energy around them, so clearly someone with a powerful psychic well brought them here.., but who?
A Glaceon male was the one who froze his hand, and with a certain fervor to him, the tired looking Glaceon created a wall of ice in front of the Clefable and Deo. It almost brought a chuckle to the alien invader. What was a teacher doing here? Did he understand how much of an ant he was compared to him?
Dioxys’ thoughts were cut short as his continued, mental distraction clouded his defenses. Several strikes from a pink foot, dashed across in striking flashes of a rapid assault, clattered against Dioxys’ frame. Less out of physical pressure and more out of shock that he let it happen, the alien took a step back.
Landing in front of him in a defensive stance was just.. a simple Lopunny, one wearing a sweater vest that matched the domestic nature of the Glaceon. “Jokull, do you have him!?” Marcin yelled out, his gaze never moving from the floating alien.
Jokull directed the Clefable to hoist Deo onto his back, and though he struggled, he refused to fail now. He only grunted back at Marcin behind the ice wall, and that would have to do. Though he strained, he began to take steps to carry Deo away.
Meanwhile, Marcin raised his hands and tensed his legs. “Okay, pal, you’re not coming any closer.”
In a different land, a TV turned too loud,.., a Shrifty watches the broadcast with worry..
“H-Hey! Where do you think you’re going!” A man in the same room called to a determined Pokémon.
“...” The Pokémon’s mind was elsewhere. He had no time to think. All he could do was focus on the rippling, pink portal that opened in front of him. He could tell by the shoddy construction of the portal that it wasn’t entirely a conscious decision, and it could be a risk. Who knows who’s subconscious was beckoning him..? Well, he did, of course. The determined Pokémon steps into the portal with no hesitation.
Back at the flattened construction site..
Dioxys let himself focus on the Lopunny instead of his own brother. He refused to think about why he let himself delay the inevitable, but he also considered that it didn’t matter. No longer how long it took or who he focused on, today would end with Deo’s death.
Marcin had been spending the last several moments running for his life, though it was all intentional. He was just swift and agile enough to dodge the psychic blasts that the alien fired at him, though he had a lingering concern of why the alien was not using his telekinetic abilities. Marcin knows he’s seen Deo use them a million times, so this guy could easily do just as much if not more. Regardless, he continued to distract the yellow invader, and the few opportunities that presented themself, he took to land a strike or few.
However, his eyes go wide. Dioxys increased the pace of his energy blasts, and with an extra blast put directly in his movement path, a collision was sure to happen. Instead, shards of ice flew to intercept, causing the blast to detonate before it neared Marcin. He threw his sight to the side just quick enough to thank his savior and continued his plan to distract Dioxys.
Jokull and the Clefable moved as fast as they could to drag Deo away, but he was heavy, and he refused to help them..
“Deo, come on.., please,” she begged as he collapsed on the ground, his gaze on the sky above him. “We can still get out of here. Your friends came from so far to help you.”
“...” Deo’s core turned in almost unbearable guilt, and his voice was meek, “They.. They shouldn’t have..”
“Hey!” A new voice called out, only deeply familiar to Deo, and it was one that struck his core so deep that it roused him from the ground. He almost couldn’t believe it, but he raised his upper body onto his elbows to watch as a pale woman in a blinding, white dress knelt next to him.
She was serious, and she wasted no time. She really only had one question, and it was more for his realization than her own.
“Deo.. Look at me,” Reshi ordered as she grasped him by the cheeks of his faceless face, “Just tell me one thing.” If she was not holding him in place, he would have refused her gaze, but her eyes pierced through him like an arrow punctured a shield, “Do you want to live?”
Reshi took a single, deep breath, and she smiled at her friend. She gave him a simple nod of her head and released Deo. If there was one thing he could never do, even beyond all his bottomless power, it was to lie to her. Standing tall, she tells the Clefable and the Glaceon to continue their path as she rushes forwards, directly at Dioxys.
The Clefable, overwhelmed by the strangers but otherwise grateful for the reinforcements, nods at Jokull as they lift Deo to his feet-- Deo finally standing on his own. His mind was blank. More than that, he was confused. Why..
Deo removed his arms from the Clefable and Jokull’s grasp, and their words fell on deaf ears. Deo took a step towards the chaos, towards Marcin and Reshi meeting Dioxys head on. He watched Marcin’s grace save the Lopunny time and time again-- how his bravery landed cracking kicks across Dioxys. He watched Reshi’s master of all fire and heat remove all heat from Dioxys, slowing him down to backup Marcin, and when the opportunity appeared, she took it upon herself to blast the yellow invader with almost dragon-like sizes of flame and infernos.
Deo’s thoughts go wide as yet another shade of his past appears. A small, familiar fairy drops from a portal in the sky, that familiar portal, and the old friend lands on Dioxys’ shoulders, grabbing him like he could distract the alien even further. He hadn’t seen Fae in so long, yet here Fae was..
Between Fae’s distraction, Marcin’s martial onslaught, and Reshi’s passionate infernos, Dioxys had his hands full.
“ENOUGH!” Dioxys screamed, infuriated. All at once, he seized psychic control of all the bodies in the plain. Deo, the Clefable, Jokull, Marcin, Reshi, and Fae were lifted and silenced in psychic bubbles, lifted into the air. The alien’s voice roared, “If Deo and I were strangers to you all, you would be helping ME! You would not hear his tale and accept the fact that this planet killer deserves to be protected!”
“Hey,” a voice interrupted from behind, “Deo calls you D’, right? I’ll address you as such.”
Dioxys cranes his head to look over his shoulder in disgust. He knows who this is. He knows the brotherhood he thinks he shares with Deo. “You.”
“Yeah, me. I’ll be the Roundabout,” a scar-covered Hitmonlee says with a roll of his eyes as he cracks his knuckles, “Anyways, I’ll address you as such.. because it’s the only respect I’ll give you before I paint the town yellow with how hard I’m going to mop the floor with you, D’.”
Deo’s hands crashed against the bubble he was trapped in. He screamed, but his words were unheard.
Dioxys, meanwhile, had his attention hone in on the challenging Hitmonlee. “Do you really think you stand a chance against me?”
“Well..,” the defiant, determined Pokémon hummed. Henry tied a tight headband around his brow and glanced up at the alien, “You psychics don’t really hit as hard as you think you do.” The statement caused his eyes to smile as he glanced at Deoxys, quoting something from long ago on an old, stranded island..
“...” Once again, Dioxys felt compelled to make a physical gesture to accentuate his psychic action. Hand extended, palm open and pointed at Henry, Dioxys summons his energy to easily grasp the scarred Hitmonlee from afar.., yet it did nothing. “..!?”
Unbeknownst to both Dioxys and Deo, the orange alien’s subconscious projected through the bubble, empowering Henry with just enough psychic energy that he could not be manipulated or shut down. If Dioxys wanted to take Henry down, he would have to hit him.
A combination of Reshi’s piercing gaze and Henry’s arrival woke something in Deo, something stirring in him that wasn’t able to be accessed before. For the first time this day, maybe Deo wanted to live, and his subconscious perhaps wanted to help Henry, his best friend, make that a reality.
The races were off as Henry exploded into a volatile sprint, easily dodging a myriad of psychic blasts and telekinetic debris thrown his way. His spring-like ability to leap great bounds in short amounts of time made for an easy way to dodge, and between his superior reaction time and agile nature, he was going to make Dioxys work for any long-ranged attack.
The flat environment was at a disadvantage for the Hitmonlee, but he refused to acknowledge that fact. The only thing he needed to worry about was how to get close enough to the floating alien to actually hit him. He could really only dodge for so long..
Then, the lightning cracked.
From inside her bubble, Reshi pumped her fist and grinned, the word ‘Yes!’ visible on her lips.
High above, knowing he had to keep his distance, Zapdos soared high across a myriad of portals. He didn’t really know where they came from or who made the portals, but he wasn’t able to disappoint. Per Reshi’s orders, he consistently flew in and out of the portals, heaving and dragging large debris and various objects from the portals with all his strength.
Down below, Dioxys ignored the falling debris, knowing they couldn’t hurt him, but that was not the purpose.
Henry’s eyes gleaned with the realization. Sliding under arched rubble, bouncing off of a steel pole that embedded straight up, and swinging himself from falling debris to debris, he approached.
Meanwhile, something caught Deo’s eyes, and though it was almost impossible to turn his gaze away from his brother and Henry, a waving hand forced him to look. However, the second he made the hand’s realization, he diverted his gaze.. At least, until he saw the hand in his peripheral senses start waving even harder.
With a sigh, Deo looked to Reshi who was trapped in the bubble next to his. She pointed at him and then pointed at her eyes, and he was hesitant.., but he allowed his gaze to meet hers. With so few words, the matched gaze feeling as though it lasted for hours, Deo understood what Reshi was telling him. She always knew what to say.. at least in his opinion.
Deo glanced at his other friends in their bubbles-- at Fae who gave him a double thumbs up, at Marcin who placed a soft hand on the wall of his bubble and gave a small smile to Deo, and at the Clefable whose eyes were fixated on Dioxys. He glanced at Jokull who, even though they hardly knew each other, the Glaceon risked life and death to help Marcin.
Dioxys had relied on his psychic well for so long that the threat of a physical attack was nowhere near his mind, and before he realized, unable to read Henry’s mind from his psychic protection, a Hitmonlee’s fist cracked Dioxys, landing the first, real blow against the alien as it cracked his faceless face in one bound.
“RRAAAAAAAH!” Henry yelled as he twisted his body and carried through with the punch, forcing their bodies to jerk downwards, and with one final push and release, Henry’s fist blasted Dioxys from his floating position and crashed down into the ground below them.
Henry, meanwhile, easily landed on his feet. “Get up,” Henry commanded, “You don’t actually bleed, right? That’s fine. You can taste your bruised ego just as well.”
Dioxys stayed on the ground for a moment, but just a moment.
The ground rumbled for one second, and in the third second, the city erupted with psychic energy so powerful that it tore buildings from their foundations, pure rage lifting them into the air as the buildings levitated with creaking, pained moans.
The sky turned pink as the air was filled with latent psionics, turning it oppressive and hard to swallow.
Dioxys lifted, and his restraints were gone. Henry was the last straw.
With a flick of his wrist, the yellow invader trapped Henry and Zapdos in a psychic bubble just as easily as he did the others, no one left to oppose him.. save for one. Dioxys almost could not believe it. He had spent so long tormenting Deo’s psyche from afar, so long haunting his nightmares, and now that he was here, he was able to physically and verbally break him down into a shell of a virus. Yet.., here, now, Deo stood up tall across from Dioxys.
The two brothers of fate watched the other’s movement, both their fists clenching.
“...” Dioxys could no longer read Deo’s mind, but the same was true in reverse. For the first time in a long time, the brothers’ minds were just.. Silence. “...You’re not going to fight me.”
Deo was silent for a moment as well, enjoying the stillness of his mind, but he nodded. “Yeah.”
“So,” Dioxys started with a tilt of his head, every fiber of his body rippling with energy that was ready to rip the planet in two, “What are you going to do?”
“...” Deo glanced up at the Clefable trapped in her bubble, and she glanced at him. She put a gentle hand against the bubble and nodded at him, a sad but confident look in her eyes. “I’m going to do what I’ve always done better than anyone else.. I’m going to run away.”
Dioxys had no time to scoff as he watched Deo suddenly slam his hands into the ground, unleashing his own unrestrained psychic well.
The city turned on its head, bending in on itself as the air cracked, literally. Pink lights blasted throughout every building, every home or street, lighting up anywhere a soul abided in the city, and all at once, the denizens were teleported away to safety, leaving only Dioxys, Deo, and his friends trapped in their bubbles left in the city. Meanwhile, the reality inside the city fractured, shards of it splintering off and repeating into one another. The city duplicated and turned on itself, sharing different axes like one giant revolving globe of intersecting shards of a mirror.
Deo broke reality within the city for one reason, for he knew the second that he acted, Dioxys was going to attack his friends in the bubbles. By shattering the city, he was able to separate them all at once, just as Dioxys sent blasts of psychic energy where their bubbles just were.
The older brother knew Dioxys’ only course of action now would be to kill him. It made his job easier, for all he cared about was teleporting his friends to safety.
A massive beam of psychic energy, disintegrating everything in its path, blasted near Deo as he managed to slide over it as he quickly took in his surroundings. Fae’s bubble was the closest, directly above him.
Dioxys dashed forward, screaming death, as he created a giant psychic hand to grab Deo. The older brother, however, knew his brother well and flipped over and onto the psychic fist, easily vaulting himself vertically. As Dioxys attempted and failed to grab Deo with telekinesis, Deo hugged Fae’s bubble and teleported him to safety, though it created an opening.
Deo screamed in pain as Dioxys vaulted after him, embedding a psionic blade through his chest, and he was lucky. The blade only scratched his core orb, grazing it.
Sliding his body to the side as he let his left arm be severed off by the cutting blade, Deo blasted into a speed with a reverse force that knocked Dioxys away just enough to separate the two. Several blasts were shot upwards as Dioxys fell, and there was only one way to dodge them.
Shrinking into Smalleoxys form, Deo slide between the cracks of the different beams, and as his younger brother gave chase, throwing buildings at him, Deo’s smaller form helped him fly and slide through the slivered openings of the barrages.
Coming out on the other side of a barrage unscathed, Deo increased his normal size so that he could slap Reshi and Zapdos’ bubbles at the same time, teleporting them away to safety. Unfortunately, just as he sent his friends away, a psychic fist grabbed Deoxys by his legs and waist.
“YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY!” Dioxys roared as his voice destroyed the falling debris and spinning buildings around him, and he shot himself upwards with lethal force to Deo.
Only one way to escape, Deo pointed his finger in a gun fashion.. at himself. Destroying his lower body, his gaping dismembered body leaking platinum energy that fluttered like disintegrating butterflies, he made his escape as Dioxys arrived at nothing. Slipped from his grasp, Deo continued to fly.
Dioxys was a monster, destroying everything in his way as the duplicated cities crumbled to dust around him, slowly bringing the entire surrounding area to the point of being a barren wasteland. The skies cracked with pink lightning that burned space and time itself, the places the lightning strikes being frozen forever in time.
With a shoulder bash, slamming one bubble into the other, Deo and his mangled body managed to hit Marcin and Jokull at the same time, teleporting them away to safety. Only two bubbles left..
With a glance down, the sight of Dioxys approaching, Deo devised a swift distraction. Targeting the pink lightning with his psychic well, Deo angled the space in which the lightning would have existed. Angling it as a weapon, the lightning streaks abnormally as it strikes through Dioxys, freezing him.. Though, Deo knew it wouldn’t last long.
He took a moment to siphon all of his energy into regenerating his body, and just as he completed his healing, his younger brother escaped, forcing himself to exist in time again, though his exertion was so intense, so powerful, that his released, psychic energy was essentially that of a small nuke.
The land turned pink, nothing to see but blinding light.
As the light cleared, the city and dozens of miles beyond it were reduced to nothing but flat land.
Dioxys and Deo were sprawled on the ground, tired and heaving, and Henry and the Clefable’s bubbles were scattered, the ‘mon inside safe as the bubbles protected them.
Deo was to rise to his feet, and with a single leap, his hand grazed Henry’s bubble, but he noticed something. His old friend looked at him with.. Disapproval. It was clear.. Henry didn’t want to go.
But, he was teleported away, and as Deo hit the ground where Henry’s bubble just was, the Clefable’s bubble disappeared, releasing her. Her pace is panicked, and she collapses next to Deo, pulling him into a hug.
Deo knew she spoke of.. something about how worried she was and how proud she was.., but he hardly listened. He was just happy. He did what he wanted to do. He was content with how things turned out, and he was at peace.
Her face twisted into that of horror as she glanced at Deo’s face. He was.. Smiling. “Oh.. Oh, Deo, no..”
Dioxys slowly climbed to his feet, his body crackling with uncontainable emotion and energy.
He takes a step, then a second.
Hobbling on unsteady feet, Dioxys takes a third step, then a fourth.
But, Dioxys stops on the fifth step, and he looks up.
Deo and the Clefable do as well.
A portal reemerges in the air, and it is unstable. It’s almost as if.. It’s almost as if something is fighting the portal from within.
Something inside the portal stirs like a wild beast.
Suddenly, the walls of it burst open, and though pink tendrils composed of psychic energy are restraining and pulling the fighter back in, Henry manages to catch himself, holding the walls of the portal with pure willpower as he screams, “DEO!”
The brothers stare up at the unstable portal and the scarred Hitmonlee that refuses to get teleported without speaking, and they’re brought to a speechless silence. That feat shouldn’t be possible.
Though the psychic tendrils of the portal try to drag him in, and though they will soon succeed, Henry temporarily stands his ground to address his old friend, “LISTEN TO ME, DEO!”
“You once told me that, if I pick myself up, if I get better, you would take me off that..- that fucking, isolated island! And, you did! Well, damn it, you’re on one now! Just because the waves aren’t in front of you, and just because you can walk away, it doesn’t mean that you’re not stranded!”
“I don’t care if it’s selfish. I don’t care if you don’t want to live anymore! I want you to live! So.., don’t live for yourself! I’ll be a bad person if I have to, and I’ll carry that burden-- I don’t care! But, you LIVE for me-- for all your friends! You might not believe it, but some of us fucking NEED you, so screw what you want! I’ll carry you on my back until you can stand on your own, two feet!”
Henry is almost reeled back into the portal-- his knees falling as his legs are grappled. He catches the lip of the portal with one hand and holds out his other. “I’ll take your hand, and I’ll take you away from that fucking island! We all will, don’t you see!? We can all figure it out together! We can still see the sky, Deo, we’re not in hell!”
His gaze meets Deo, and as his alien friend doesn’t move, his eyes hone in on him. His open palm turns into a point, and he directs it at Deo’s face, “I’m not going to let you leave, Deo. You live. I’m coming back for you.”
With no more strength left, Henry is sucked back into the portal, finally disappearing.
Deo stares at the space that the portal was, his mind ablaze. He thought he had it all figured out before Henry’s speech.
He thought he was content with the way this was about to end.
He always considered what Dioxys wanted as fair and deserved, yet…
What did he really want anymore?
“...” Dioxys’s face is buried in his hand, his body tense, but he lets out a sharp breath and steels himself. Removing his hand from his face, he is shocked to be seeing out of his own eyes for the first time. He’s shocked at how vibrant colors really are, and the first thing he does is set his new sight on his older brother.
The Clefable screams something, Deo is sure, but everything melts away and falls to silence as he stares at his younger brother. Time seems to freeze as he examines the sharp, piercing, yet regal gaze of the eyes before him. With a simple wave, Deo teleports the Clefable away to safety.
Deo stands, and he holds his arms out.
Though Deo’s face lacks most features, there seems to be an imprint of a wide, bright smile on his face.
One last step forward, a hand raised.
There’s nothing Deo needs to say. Dioxys already knows it. He’s so proud, and he’s happy for him. Deo finally knows that his younger brother has come to a decisive decision, and the pair of brothers are completely content in that fact. He no longer has to worry about Dioxys’ future, for his younger brother has decided to live.
“Goodbye, Deoxys,” Dioxys whispers as his hand lights up with a blinding, white light. All at once, he releases his entire psychic well.
Letting the light and energy envelope him.., Deo just smiles.
Deo, ready, disappears into the light.
[ To be Continued………….? ]
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