Chapter 35: Don’t You Know That You’re Toxic

It was going to be a repeat of the dreaded Herbrides Lines tree. A treepeat, in other words. Noctum was absolutely sure of it the closer the ship’s hull got. Another concussion. Possibly worse this time. And he had Seifer with him, to boot.

Except the metal was more like the sponges Noctum used to wash dishes back at the academy. His momentum effortlessly carried him through multiple surfaces that should’ve hurt, but didn’t. It ended when he finally managed to dig his arms into… whatever strip of metal was underneath him and skid to a halt. He was still dizzy. The black charizard wasn’t sure if he was on the floor, a wall, or the ceiling.

It didn’t help that the ship was tilted, either. A result of its capsizing, obviously.

“Mrrgh. You okay, Noctum?”

“Dizzy.” Though the lack of nausea concerns me. Noctum squeezed his eyes shut. At least Seifer was okay.

… Wait, was the keldeo okay?

“How about you?” Noctum was getting his bearings back. A few more deep, stinky breaths would do it. God, this place reeks.

“Unharmed, but a bit… compromised.”

The spinning faded fast. Noctum opened his eyes. Seifer lay to his left, tangled in a mess of blankets, pillows, and broken wood.

“Uhh—”

“We must’ve landed in some of the crew’s quarters,” Seifer explained, struggling to get the blankets off of him. “Hey, swing your tail around. It’s too dark in here.”

The room had a red tint to it thanks to a couple of tiny, cracked lights overhead. It wasn’t that helpful, though. Noctum swung his black-scaled tail left. The violet flames mixed with the red lights to cast an even more ominous purple glow over Seifer.

“Thanks.” With the extra light, the keldeo easily wriggled free. As soon as he did, he slid down the inclined floor until he caught against the broken remnants of a bunk bed. “Okay, I guess we ought to go back out and tend to Yuna, right?”

“Ah!” Noctum’s tail flame sparked in alarm. He spread his wings and jumped to his feet. His pink apron now had dirt and slime covering most of the flowers, but that didn’t matter. Yuna needed backup. She—

“Guys, don’t leave me! Help me! Hel— blaaauuggubble!”

Noctum and Seifer shared astonished looks. Neither had to speak to tell what the other was thinking: the ship had people on it!

“What do we do?” The charizard looked worriedly between the door below them and the hole in the wall. “Should we split up? I can go back to Yuna and you can investigate the ship.”

“Absolutely not.” Seifer’s horn sparked. “I need your tail for light.” He glanced at the door. “Besides, if this is really a waste management ship, it might have something in it that can deal with all the poison outside.”

“But Yuna…” Noctum couldn’t leave her again. It had happened too many times already.

“She has the Sages. And Quetzal,” Seifer sternly declared. “Different look or not, I trained him myself. I have the utmost faith in his—”

“Commander!”

The orange zapdos in question dashed through the hole in the wall. Skorp clung to his back feathers. Noctum imagined Seifer would’ve facepalmed if he had hands.

“What are you doing?” the keldeo barked. “Get back out there! Yuna needs—”

“She told me to come here!” Quetzal squawked.

“What?” Noctum was about to push past the zapdos.

“She thought you guys might’ve found something.” Quetzal awkwardly shuffled his gangly legs. Noctum briefly wondered if he or this “sneasler” critter had lankier legs.

“And we did. There are people on board.” Seifer pointed his prosthetic horn toward the broken remnants of a doorframe. “Who we have a responsibility toward.”

“Great.” Noctum clapped his hands together. “You can take your bird friend and I’ll go back to Yuna.” He lifted his stubby right leg. “And if things get too dark, he can light the way with his weird leggy energy ball attack,” the charizard added, cutting off what he assumed was Seifer’s counterargument.

To his delight, the keldeo’s shoulders sagged. “Very well. Stay on your guard.”

Noctum smiled. “Same to you.”

Right as he was about to push past Quetzal, however, shrieks filled the hole in the ship’s hull. For a moment, there was a familiar silhouette. Then dragonfire filled the area. Noctum fought back with a Flamethrower of his own. When they collided and kicked up green and red smoke, Noctum turned to the others, eyes damp from the ash.

“Had a change of heart. Move, move, move!” He grabbed Skorp off of Quetzal’s back and flew through the shattered door. The outside hallway was, thankfully, spacious. The ship must’ve been built with even larger pokémon than a charizard in mind. But everything was still slanted and poorly lit by red emergency lights.

“I don’t suppose either of you were on a ship like this in your, uh, guard duties?” Noctum scratched his head.

“Actually, I have taken assignments on waste management ships before!” Quetzal chirped. When Noctum turned around, the zapdos and Seifer had blocked the doorframe using rubble from the other room.

“Great!” Noctum glided forward. Brown rust patches spread across the metal floor. The further Noctum went, the more holes started to pop up. Pink and purple light filtered up through the holes. The noxious smell from earlier was worse. Thank goodness Noctum hadn’t eaten in a while.

“Then please tell me you can get us to higher ground.”

Thumps came from behind the quartet. “Can we hustle our bustles a bit, eh?” Skorp tightened his grip on the shoulder straps of Noctum’s apron. “I think Kelly’s gonna break through any sec—”

Noctum wasn’t ready for the floor in front of him to explode, however. Rusty metal shards scraped his delicate wing membranes, but he managed to shield his face. That was what mattered most.

“Run for your lii— aiiiuggggggh!“

The charizard lifted his right wing to see an oddly fuzzy wartortle head disappear through the new hole in the floor. He couldn’t even react properly, because two more holes appeared in front of him. Slimy purple tentacles popped out of the holes and smacked against the walls and ceiling. Their squelching rang in Noctum’s ear frills as they painted the walls with noxious purple ooze. The urge to dry heave was overwhelming.

“Don’t just stand there! Attack!” Seifer bellowed.

Sizzling water stung Noctum’s right shoulder. He reflexively grabbed it with his left hand.

The Scald struck the right tentacle, which exploded in a burst of slime. A burst of rotten air brought bile up in Noctum’s throat. He spat some clear stomach acid at his feet.

When he looked up, white, fuzzy patches spread out over the spots the tentacles hit. The surrounding metal turned from dark to brown. It bubbled like fresh stew in one of Aeon Castle’s cooking cauldrons. Burnt and rusted metal mixed with the pungent rotten egg smell already in the air. Noctum tilted his head to stave off another attempt at spitting up bile.

“Is that… mold?” There was a tremor in Seifer’s voice. Even with his claims of diving into the distortion in the past, he must’ve never come across something like this.

“Sure looks like it,” Quetzal said.

“Some of the dead trees in the bayou normally have them,” Skorp explained. “But they don’t eat through metal. Or smell like the world’s biggest sulfur plume. Peeyew!”

Screeching echoed from behind. “Gawk later,” Seifer hissed, face scrunched in disgust. “We have to press on!”

“Right.” But when Noctum tried to fly ahead, the remnants of the floor burst apart. Two wiry, slime-covered arms reached for the charizard. He backpedaled in midair, spewing a Flamethrower on instinct. The flames washed across a moldy garbodor’s face, who sank back through the floor. A fresh burst of rotten air buffeted the charizard, who covered his snout with his hands.

“S-S-S-Swamp monster!” Skorp hollered. Noctum’s neck jerked back.

“Ow! Please don’t tug my apron,” he whined.

“Get down!” Seifer cried.

Noctum landed on the floor and an Aura Sphere singed his cheek. It sailed into Garbodor’s slimy right arm, which burst apart into purple tentacles that shot toward Noctum and Seifer. The charizard wanted to Phantom Warp, but remembered his passenger. With a deep breath that almost made him hurl, Noctum shot as large a Dragon Pulse he could manage. The blue bolt swept through the tentacles, slicing clean through them. A Scald from Seifer took care of the remaining three.

“Gu—ys!” A grunt interrupted Quetzal’s cry. “Kelly’s here! We’re getting pincered! What do we do?”

Noctum looked to Seifer. The keldeo’s eyes darted about before looking toward the ceiling. “We go up.”

“What?” A flurry of swipes from Quetzal’s right leg dispelled Kelly’s dragonfire. The orange zapdos followed up with a powerful kick to Kelly’s head that left a thunderous boom echoing through the ship.

“The ship’s integrity is giving way,” Seifer explained. “It should be a breeze to smash through the ceiling.”

“Ah, good point!” Noctum had painlessly crashed through the ship at the start of all this. He and Seifer looked up. The ceiling swelled like a boil under Noctum’s Flamethrower. Seifer’s ensuing Scald blasted clean through it. And not a moment too soon, as a roar told the team that Garbodor was ready for another go.

“Move!” Seifer blasted water from his hooves, shooting through the hole. Noctum looked toward Quetzal, but the zapdos bent his lanky legs and leaped up far higher than the black charizard expected.

“Hurry!” Skorp yelled.

Garbodor was halfway out of the hole, eating away at the floor and plastering white, fuzzy mold all around it. Every squelch its rotting, mold-filled body made echoed in Noctum’s ear frills. As did the bubbling and gurgling from its bloated torso. Things were wriggling underneath the mold. A wartortle shell here. A silicobra tail there. Heck, Garbodor’s body sucked in parts of the ship, adding to the bitter, burning metal mixing with its sulfurous stench.

It almost reminded Noctum of home. Just not in a good way. Why couldn’t he have gone out to help Yuna?

… Oh, right. Kelly.

Noctum spat some dragonfire at Garbodor’s face, then quickly flapped his wings. He passed through the ceiling hole and found himself hovering beside a door. Something clanged against it. Purple juice filled the tiny circular window. An agonized cry followed.

His violet tail flame grew in alarm. “We’re not safe here, either!”

“You’re telling me!” Quetzal pointed his stubby right wing forward. A second wartortle lay slumped and unmoving in the corner of the hallway, covered in mold from head to toe. There were two other mold piles next to it. Whatever they were… Noctum couldn’t tell anymore.

And seconds later, Garbodor’s left hand burst through the floor. Its moldy fingers curled around the downed crew members, filling the hall with echoing gurgles and bringing back the rotten odor from the floor below.

“Keep moving up!” Seifer ordered, though he sounded far from sure of himself. He stuck a forehoof into the hole and blasted another Scald, drawing screeches from below.

“Ohhh, poor Kelly!” Skorp blubbered. “We can’t let that moldy garbodor get its grubby hands on her, eh!”

“Why is it so big, anyway?” Noctum whimpered. “It’s slurping up pokémon like it was nothing!”

“I’ll bet it’s trance,” Seifer whispered. He shook his head. “Never mind that, though. Our safety… is what matters most now!”

It hurt Noctum to admit, but Seifer was right. He couldn’t risk himself — and, by association, the princess — for a feral. The black charizard flew up into the hole, but quickly threw himself into the wall to dodge slimy tentacles shooting up after him. They burst apart and Seifer and Quetzal hopped up through the hole.

“We can’t keep this up,” Quetzal said. “And what about the crew? Is anyone still in one piece on this—”

“Oh, thank Zacian! It’s Commander Seifer!”

The keldeo froze, tail shooting up. Noctum followed the voice, across a giant metal room filled with dented pipes and tubes. A rhydon with a torn white uniform was on his hands and knees in front of some giant glass tube peppered with cracks. Gray liquid sloshed around in it. The machine’s whirring was almost… relaxing compared to the shouts and slimy blubbering from the floors below.

But that begged one question: what was this thing? There were a few other pokémon around it, mostly bulky steel-types like bronzong and steelix. No wonder this is such a big ship.

Noctum shook his head. “You guys have to get out of here! There’s this… this crazy big Garbodor! And it’s coming for us!”

“You mean Teddy?” Rhydon lumbered to his feet just in time for one of Garbodor’s hands to appear through the hole the group had gone through. “Ten o’clock! Fire!”

The bronzong beside Rhydon levitated a hose and squeezed the trigger. Some of the gray juice burst out. It effortlessly ate through Garbodor’s moldy arm. Noctum’s ear frills quivered from the sizzling and he buried his snout in his apron to avoid another burst of moldy air. He hastily shuffled closer to the big glass tube.

“Is… is that thing part of the crew?” Seifer asked, shakily catching his breath.

“Yeah.” Rhydon ran his right arm across his forehead, wiping away oil. “We were… working with Minister Tesla. To decontaminate Venish’s water supply with his antitoxin.” He glanced at the glass tube. “But all of a sudden, the distortion where the Needle used to be pulled us in and we capsized!” He staggered back and forth, probably for dramatic effect. “Poor Teddy tumbled off the ship and then emerged looking like…”

“Like something out of my worst nightmares!” Quetzal shrieked. Multiple indents popped up on the wall behind him. Noctum got one look at a poster of a blissey and a sylveon in a hard hat with the caption “At Polaris, safety comes first!” before it burst apart alongside the wall it was attached to.

Garbodor’s roars were as fierce as any kommo-o battle cry Noctum had ever heard. Its body jiggled like jelly, shaking the metal shards, wooden debris, and mold-covered crewmates stuck in the slime. And that nauseating odor was even worse than before! Noctum was sure his nostrils were burning now.

His violet flame shrank. “Shoot it with the antitoxin!” he begged. “Hurry!”

“We’re trying!” Bronzong cried. Gray fluid splattered across Garbodor’s white, fuzzy chest. The mold bubbled and sizzled. White smoke drifted toward the grated metal ceiling. It toppled over, flailing its arms and splattering corrosive slime all around it. Seifer and Quetzal backed away, forming Protect shields. The other crewmates fled for the other side of the room, Bronzong included.

“We’ve already gone through half our stock keeping Teddy at bay!” Rhydon shouted. “We thought Teddy was gone, but he must’ve roamed around the ship and eaten half the crew or something. He’s so much bigger!”

Garbodor was back on its feet, roaring its displeasure. Seifer looked back at the crew “Then evacuate, damn it! We can’t take this thing on our own!” He raised his forehooves and blasted huge water jets from them. Garbodor pointed two moldy fingers forward. Water collided with poison. The force sent Seifer skidding back toward Noctum. He caught the Keldeo, who ceased his attack.

“Evacuate where? There’s a toxic swamp all around us!” Rhydon protested. Garbodor opened its mouth wide. It filled with purple slime.

“Quetzal, trip it up!” Seifer cried.

Eyes darting about, the zapdos frantically flapped his stubby orange wings. When it looked like Garbodor was going to flood the room with a mouthful of poison, Quetzal stomped the floor repeatedly. Noctum grabbed Seifer and flapped his wings. A tremor ran across the ground, upending Garbodor. It coughed the poison up into the ceiling. Metal sizzled and boiled away. Rusted metal overpowered Garbodor’s rotten aroma.

Pipework shards and chunks of the ceiling came crashing down onto Garbodor. Noctum dropped Seifer and turned to the machine.

If there was just a way to make what they had more effective. More effective. More…

“… explosive!” Noctum’s tail flame doubled. “Cyril! Cyril, where’s Gene?!”

“Calm your pecs, Zardy! I’m outside.” Static garbled Gene’s voice slightly, but it still brought Noctum no shortage of relief. “Just tending to this crazy cat lady. I already told her I don’t swing that way, but she can’t keep her claws off me— heeyee! Goodness, that was close.” He laughed nervously. “What’s the problem?”

“Calorimetry!” Noctum looked between the antitoxin vat and Garbodor. The latter’s body was slowly absorbed all the rubble that had it buried. “I need you to do calorimetry again! We have a vat of antitoxin here and—”

“Antitoxin?” Gene muttered several curses. “Speak up sooner next time! You could’ve saved me, like, a half-dozen close calls.”

“We were a bit preoccupied ourselves,” Noctum huffed. “Just hurry over.”

“Fine, fine. Lemme get everything in place.” Some ragged breaths followed, then, “Hey, Exodeez Nuts! Catch me if you can!”

“Wait, what?!” Noctum’s tail flame grew. “Why are you bringing her here?!”

But the charizard didn’t get a response.

There were very few times in Yuna’s life she was thankful for her tiny size. This was one of them.

As many Poison Stings as there were, she didn’t find it that hard to outmaneuver them. A quick ascent got past the first onslaught. The she u-turned in midair and dove down to avoid the next wave. The dozen skorps lining the edge of the island were charging up for another volley, so she rolled right. The wall of mutant skorupi gave way to brown mud and crabby gray grass.

“Thine adversaries art not the sharpest tools in the shed,” Rayquaza scoffed. “Mayhap being controlled by that foul witch is throwing off their aim.”

He had a point. The skorps were sluggish to turn and meet her. They couldn’t naturally be that slow, could they?

To test that theory, the dreepy whizzed right past them, flying over the purple swamp once again. Sure enough, they lowered the limbs they were in the process of raising. Yuna allowed herself a glance across the island. Artemis had swapped places with Valkyrie, allowing Nikki to easily cut loose with dome-shaped bursts of lightning that downed the skeletons the moment they reassembled.

Valkyrie took the opportunity to try and snipe Exodes from afar with a blue-purple bolt straight from her mouth. The sneasler caught sight of the attack and jerked herself right. This left her wide open for Gene, who struck her with tiny psychic orbs from every direction. Hissing in pain, she dropped to her knees.

“Princess, look at the skorps!” Rayquaza cried.

An invisible force awkwardly yanked the skorupi into the air. If they didn’t have the blankest expressions imaginable, Yuna figured they’d be panicking.

“This is our chance!” Reshiram declared. “Go! Get to Lugia!”

Yuna shot forward; a tiny green dart through the hazy air. Despite the weird, purple barrier encasing her, Lugia’s features grew clearer. And they told Yuna something was very wrong.

What was that dark circle she was curled around? Was it—

“… ye gads! Dame Lugia is… clutching an egg?” Rayquaza exclaimed. “What manner of witchcraft is this?!”

All Reshiram could manage was startled squeaks.

It wasn’t just that, though. Yuna abruptly stopped right before she would’ve collided with a dozen skorp voodoo dolls. They floated in front of the barrier, each one connected to it by a purple tendril. A familiar aerodactyl doll whizzed past them, also stuck to a tendril.

Yuna looked over her shoulder, where Exodes failed to strike Gene with her extending claws. The strike was clumsy. Gene’s lips moved. A mocking taunt, perhaps? That hardly mattered.

It’s her. She turned back to the broken Needle. “The daemon… she must be siphoning Lugia’s power to puppet everything!”

As if the barrier heard her, it flashed red. “Thine adversaries art firing, Princess!” Rayquaza warned. Yuna shot up and watched the ensuing Poison Stings strike the voodoo dolls themselves. That finally got pained cries from the skorps.

“I bet she wasn’t expecting us to get backup from the others,” Reshiram surmised. “Now her attention’s split between fighting Gene and staying connected to Lugia. I don’t think she can handle it.” He clapped his illusory wings together. “Let’s blast away these silly bugs and free Lugia!”

“No!”

“What? Why?!” Reshiram’s white, fluffy head popped out of the Soul Dew. “We can’t let that creep hurt Lugia anymore!” He looked at the barrier. “And that weird, space-colored egg…”

Yuna winced, but had to roll right to dodge another Poison Sting barrage. “But you saw what happened to the skorps when they got hit by their own attack!” Her gills drooped. “If… if I attack the dolls, it’s going to hurt them!”

She tried to look back toward Gene, but caught flashes of purple. The Poison Stings were a bit faster this time. Some nicked the end of her tail, but she flew away from the brunt of them. The dolls had followed her, however, forming a protective square in front of the barrier. How was Exodes even managing this while contending with Gene?

To make matters worse, Reshiram was halfway out of the Soul Dew. “They don’t matter here! Lugia matters!” His blue eyes blazed with anger. “You promised!” He pointed a shaky wing at her. Tears glistened in his eyes. “You promised to free all the Sages! You… you can’t back down now! I won’t let you!”

Yuna squished Reshiram back into the Soul Dew, then dove down under more Poison Stings. “But I can’t just risk all the skorps to do that! What if we turn them into Phantoms?” She could never live with herself if that happened.

Reshiram would have none of it. He fully manifested from the Soul Dew, his tail engine burning bright.

“Make a choice!”

The cold, authoritative tone was unlike anything Yuna had never heard from Reshiram.

“What art thou doing, Sir Reshiram?” Rayquaza’s words wouldn’t reach him, though. Because the black serpent was still in the Soul Dew.

Reshiram glanced at the dreepy. “When there’s no clear path to victory, you have to make sacrifices for the greater good.”

Yuna had no time to process that, as Reshiram spewed a torrent of blue fire at the dolls. The moment the attack struck, the skorps screamed. Blue flames engulfed them. Reshiram was poised to follow up with a Dragon Pulse, but the dolls detached from the purple tendrils and fell to the ground, where the muck and mud snuffed out the flames. The actual skorps then followed suit while the barrier’s tendrils flailed about like balloons someone had just untied.

Inside the barrier, the egg shuddered. A crack splintered across its astral, blue and gold shell.

The dreepy’s gills shriveled from that and the sizzling she heard on the ground. The hazy air filled with the stench of charred chitin.

Her gut constricted, nearly up into her head. Yuna’s vision flickered.

Reshiram said that. Reshiram did that.

But Bahamut… preached compromise. If there wasn’t a clear path forward, one had to make it.

He ignored that. A Sage ignored that.

“LUGIA!”

Yuna’s head snapped up. The egg cracked in two more places. It trembled between Lugia’s wings.

Reshiram flew straight for the barrier… and it raised two tendrils to intercept him!

She thought she had talked sense into him earlier, but she was wrong. Now she was about to lose him. Lose Lugia. Lose the egg.

Innocent people were hurt — possibly turned into Phantoms — for nothing.

Because she wasn’t strong enough. Because she wasn’t forceful enough.

Yuna’s vision went red. Her arms were darkening, but she didn’t care. Rayquaza called out to her, but she couldn’t make anything out.

With a squeaky roar, Yuna thrust her arms forward. They expanded in flashes of purple. Two large, ectoplasmic wings grabbed hold of a squealing Reshiram. He flailed in between six red spikes, but Yuna didn’t care. She forcibly pulled Reshiram back, narrowly avoiding the tendrils, and slammed him back into the Soul Dew.

Its golden glow felt… familiar against her shadowy wing. Yuna wasn’t sure why. And she didn’t care. She yanked Rayquaza out.

“Keep the tendrils at bay,” the dreepy ordered. A strange haze fell over Rayquaza’s red eyes. He turned and whipped up sharp wind currents, blowing all the tendrils to the other side of the barrier.

Yuna made her move. She darted toward the barrier, roaring her frustrations with all of this. Yuna whipped the newly-formed wings back and slammed them into the barrier.

White-hot flames rippled through her entire body. The wings shrank back down into her usual, nubby arms, but Yuna refused to let up. She pressed harder. She dug her arms into the barrier. She slammed her forehead into it and screamed.

And the dreepy’s screams… grew deeper. Her body was burning even hotter than before! Had Reshiram mixed in his power?

… No. Rayquaza was who she was channeling. This was her voice.

Yuna shoved her whole body against the barrier, redoubling her roar. She thought she heard an explosion in the distance. It didn’t matter.

The burning intensified, but Yuna refused to let up. Her arms… were getting longer. Her torso… was expanding. Light green turned to yellow and blue. Tiny, nubby legs kicked against the barrier.

“Let her out!” Yuna roared before banging her much heavier head against the purple wall in front of her.

Then Lugia’s eyes snapped open… and the barrier engulfed Yuna in golden light.