Chapter 61: In Thirty Minutes or Less

Phenomenal affirmation.

It’s a phrase I’ve heard a couple of times across some of the dimensions I’ve visited. Still don’t quite get it. Sounds like a whacky concept where someone can, like, manipulate fate itself. Like it’s something a person can mold and shape.

Completely stupid, if you ask me. Fate isn’t clay you toss into a kiln or anything. Even the dimensions involving heroes who stopped incarnations of the Bittercold and have those weird Worldcores only had the human heroes give themselves the power to travel between specific worlds. That’s giving yourself a special power, not manipulating fate.

… Right?

This was bad— no, worse than bad! They struggled enough with the Seekerskorch, but now they were stuck on a pizza truck chasing after a train.

“Scarlett, are you there?” Noctum said. He couldn’t remember if the dragonair kept her X-transceiver on. “We have another giant robot situatioooooooon!”

The black charizard’s last word got drawn out when a blast struck the back of the pizza truck, knocking it briefly into the air. Noctum tried shooting a Flamethrower at the robot, but its left head blocked the strike with a well-aimed Dark Pulse.

“What are you hitting up Scarlett for?” Valkyrie growled. “You’re not in a position to wormhole her here.”

It was true. They were moving too fast. A rift would just drop Scarlett behind them and leave her at the mercy of the robot hydreigon. “Well, I’m open to any ideas!” He shot fireballs at some of the Gunners, but again Dark Pulses from the robot brought a stop to his attack. Noctum didn’t even have time to sigh his frustration, as the pizza truck suddenly swerved toward the train tracks and took off over them. Ice crystals peppered the ground where the truck had been seconds ago.

“Damn it! We can’t keep going like this!” Cyril hissed. And Noctum agreed. Attacks from two sides would bring them down in an instant.

“Are you going to slow down and take your chances with the robot?” Valkyrie scoffed.

“Iron Jugulis,” Cid cut in.

“What?”

“It’s what my Dyna Scan is telling me,” Cid elaborated.

“Whatever!” Cyril said. “No, I’m not taking my chances with the robot! We’ll have to go faster!”

“Faster?!” Noctum sputtered, and indeed the wind grew even fiercer against his snout. The black charizard couldn’t stop himself from snorting up dust particles. “Oh no…”

Hold it. Fight it. Not in the super scope lens. He couldn’t afford to—

“WAHCHOO!”

Noctum didn’t realize what direction he was facing until the super scope filled the air with orange flames… and yellow snot.

“Agh!” An Eternatus Gunner sputtered in midair. “I’m hit! Someone get me a squeegee! The rebels are bathing me in lizard germs!”

“I’m a dragon!” the charizard squeaked in protest.

Iron Jugulis wasn’t the least bit phased by the Gunner’s plight. Its mechanical heads glowed bright white… only to stop suddenly when the snot-covered Gunner crashed into its torso. Jugulis’ metal heads flickered and it lost a bit of altitude before it managed to regain itself and resume its charging.

“Guys, I think I know how we can stop this thing!” Noctum said, trying not to lose control of the firing platform in his excitement. “We’ve gotta knock the smaller guys into the big guy!”

The pizza truck sharply cut away from the railroad tracks. Cold air rushed past Noctum and the super scope.

“Easier said than done, dweeb,” Valkyrie growled. “We’re taking fire from both sides!”

“Can’t Noctum open a rift back to Casaroja?” Cid suggested. “I think you’ve done all you can there.”

Noctum saw Iron Jugulis’ heads glowing again. “Left! No, right!” he yelped. “Your right, my left!”

Cyril banked the pizza truck back toward the train tracks and avoided the huge Hyper Beam that scored the ground where it had previously been.

“All right, that’s enough,” Igneous hissed. “I’m putting a stop to this stupid sandwich.”

“Ow! Hey, what are you doing?!” Valkyrie said.

Noctum spun the firing platform around in time to see Igneous’ volcarona wings appear in bursts of orange fire. He flew toward the train while Yiazmat covered him, distracting a couple of genesect with Flamethrowers shot from her horns.

This was dumb. This was reckless. The same recklessness that cost Igneous so much. But he couldn’t leave. Not if the cloud daemon was on the train.

He rolled away from an Ice Beam. Finally, the grovlazzle was close enough to see a silhouette on the roof, closer to the front of the train. Had the cloud daemon conjured it? Was it some new monster working with Xeromus?

Another Ice Beam. Igneous retaliated with a Flamethrower, then used the resulting steam to drift left in the air.

But the figure’s aim held true. This time it was a Psybeam. Igneous dipped underneath it. He focused on his fiery wings. Bursts of orange and red sparks propelled him further, toward someone vaguely… ponyta-ish.

“I don’t know what you are!”

The Psybeam headed right for him. Igneous rolled right. He was over the train now, only a car away from someone who certainly sounded like Shimmer. But the flowing white hair and nine, snow-white tails were wrong.

“But I won’t let you disrupt this shipment! My people need these supplies!”

My people? It really was Shimmer, then? And this idiot thinks we’re trying to attack the train!

“Wait!” the grovlazzle shouted, swooping in for a landing. A Psybeam whizzed over his head seconds later. “This is a misunderstanding!”

“Misunderstanding?” Shimmer pointed his larger horn at Igneous’ head. “Your little ensemble isn’t blasting my guards out of the sky while those funny little machines keep them distracted?”

“No!” Igneous waved his arms in front of his face. “Those aren’t ours!”

“And the big movie prop?” Shimmer pointed his right foreleg forward.

Noctum chewed on his dragon comment for all of a second after Igneous flew off. He focused on the Malice Crystal and let its energy wash over him. Even in the confines of the super scope lens, he was able to mega evolve. The next Flamethrower was much larger, striking a genesect and knocking it into Iron Jugulis’ central neck. It whipped back, electronic face dimming.

“It’s working!” the mega charizard chirped, flapping his jagged wings briefly. “Val, if you mega evolve, your attacks should be strong enough to blast the little bots into the big one!”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Valkyrie snorted. “It’s like playing billiards. Except garchomp can’t hold pool cues.”

“Not ours, either!” Igneous growled, leafy tails crackling with embers. “It’s from inside Eternatus, like the smaller guys your troops are fighting.”

“As opposed to you and your… weird piplup machine?” Pink light glistened around Shimmer’s horn. “You look like you wandered right out of the distortion.”

“Says the pot to the kettle,” Igneous countered. He would’ve continued, but he got the sense Shimmer didn’t recognize him. And he wasn’t about to give himself away. “What’s with the bad ice ninetales cosplay?”

Shimmer shot a Psybeam in response. Igneous flopped to his belly, but the pink beam grazed his tails. He dug his claws into the metallic roof, resisting the urge to hiss.

“I’m doing what’s necessary for my people. For my kingdom.”

“Right! No, left! Sorry!”

Noctum squeezed the firing platform tightly while the pizza truck sharply banked and dodged an intense burst of wind from Iron Jugulis.

“I have rearview mirrors, you know!” Cyril barked. “I don’t need you giving me directions when you’re facing the other way!”

The mega charizard didn’t know what that meant, but chose to fire at an Eternatus Gunner. His Flamethrower struck true, but Iron Jugulis had gotten wise to his strategy. It pulled its right head out of the way. More Dark Pulses shot toward them. Noctum shot large blue fireballs at them. Yiazmat added Dragon Darts and that proved enough.

“What do you rebels think you’re doing?”

It was Paradox’s voice. Coming out of Iron Jugulis’ head— no, heads.

“Why are you attacking a supply convoy?!” Yiazmat said, shooting Dragon Darts at an Eternatus Gunner who had its blasters trained on her.

“I’m doing what I can to free the Benefactor from its confinement.”

“No you’re not!” the dragapult growled. “You’re hurting innocent people!”

“Stop talking to the robot,” Cyril hissed. “Radar says we’re less than five minutes out from the bridge!”

“Listen to me!” Igneous hissed, scrambling to his feet. “None of us want to stop the convoy. We’re trying to keep it safe… and stop you from making a big mistake!”

Psychic energy gathered around Shimmer’s horn again. “Explain yourself.”

He couldn’t belittle Shimmer. Even though the ponyta was psychic and should have sensed that cloud daemon on board the train.

“There’s a stowaway on the train,” the grovlazzle said. “A very powerful Phantom. And if you let the train make it to Venish as is, then that Phantom will wreak more havoc upon the city.” He slowly held his hands up. “Is that what’s necessary for your people?”

“Gah!”

Noctum’s head banged against the right part of the super scope lens as the pizza truck spun out again. The air grew choppy all around him. He instinctively curled his tail up by his side.

It didn’t make any sense. If Iron Jugulis was based on hydreigon, why wasn’t it using Dragon Pulses or raining Draco Meteors from the sky? That would have been a surefire way to really wreck the truck.

“Noctum, what are you doing?” Valkyrie snarled. “Keep firing!”

“Sorry!” the mega charizard squeaked. He spat fireballs as soon as Cyril got the pizza truck under control. But clumps of earth white beams snuffed out his attacks.

“Stubborn little pests, aren’t you?” Paradox scoffed. “You understand you’re nothing, right? Your feeble little acts are worthless!”

Harsh wind blades raced toward the pizza truck. Despite Cyril’s attempts at swerving, the pizza truck suddenly buckled. Noctum’s horns banged against the top of the super scope.

“Gah! What happened?!” He tightly gripped the firing platform while the pizza truck spun out. Spun out and slowed down.

“Damn it! He got a rear wheel!” Cyril growled.

Igneous glanced over his shoulder. “Well?” He kept his arms held up to try and signal he wasn’t a threat. “Train’s getting close to a bridge. If that thing fires on the train when it’s going across the bridge, then you’ll lose all the supplies and everything will crash down on the village there.”

Shimmer briefly pivoted, then looked back at Igneous. His horn flickered. Uncertainty was sprawled across his face.

Harsh winds whipped up a dozen meters away from the caboose. Igneous’ wings reflexively flared to life. He was about to turn and head back to help deal with Iron Jugulis. There was no other option for him. Killer robot trumped clouds sitting in the train doing nothing.

“You’re right.”

Igneous froze. Shimmer was agreeing with him? Great! Then they could—

The icy pontya’s eyes glowed blue. “But I can handle this myself.”

Next thing the grovlazzle knew, something invisible had yanked him into the air… and flung him off the side of the train!

The moving ground rushed up to meet Igneous. Then flames erupted from his wings, steadying him. He flew beside the train and grabbed hold, digging his claws into the metal train wall and clinging for dear life. There was no point calling for Shimmer, since he was probably the one who tossed Igneous off the train.

But as long as he was here, he could try to take a shot and find the cloud monster, right?

Igneous concentrated on the strange flames crackling along his back. In a red-orange fwoosh the empty honedge appeared beside him… and slammed into the wall in front of Igneous. It punctured through the metal and, at Igneous’ command, dragged itself down until it had managed to carved out a hole for Igneous to dive into.

This better wor—

“Augh!”

Berry juice and wooden splinters covered Igneous from head to tails. He had tossed himself through a supply crate. A crate of sitrus, judging by the smell. He was inside the train. Sticky, but inside the train and sitting on a pile of unbroken crates.

The grovlazzle looked around. No cloud monster. Wrong car, then. And this was a freight train, so there wouldn’t be connections between the cars like on a passenger train. Delightful. He looked right, then left. Nothing but stacked crates and a single narrow space in the center of the car. Do I go forward or back?

Igneous flipped a mental coin and landed on forward. He summoned the honedge and it sliced a pair of holes leading to the next car. Fortunately, no supplies spilled out of it. There must have been a traversable part in the center there, too.

He dove through the holes without a second thought.

The pizza truck had a hover mode. Because of course it did. Cyril had turned it on and took the truck airborne before it totally wiped out. That didn’t stop Iron Jugulis, though. It quickly trained all three heads on the truck and blasted Dark Pulses at it.

“Sheesh!” Cyril banked hard left to dodge the black beams. “Machine or not, the thing it’s based on isn’t supposed to be able to have the three heads operating independently. We’ve got to be missing something!”

“Ice coming in!” Valkyrie cried.

The pizza truck slowed and veered even harder to the left, practically going sideways. Noctum managed to stop himself from rotating around and saw a huge ice lance fly through the air. A couple of Eternatus Gunners tried to stop it, but got wrecked for their troubles. Iron Jugulis trained its middle and left heads on the lance, but was too slow to react. The lance struck the left head, encasing it in ice. The ice spread down its mechanical neck… and that’s when Noctum caught what they’d been missing.

“The little heads aren’t connected,” he said. “Guys, the smaller heads aren’t connected! They’re functioning independently!”

“What?” Cyril said. “So they’re drones, then?”

“Doesn’t matter what they are!” Valkyrie growled. A super scope-boosted Dragon Pulse lit the air up bright blue and purple. It struck the frozen Jugulis head and shattered it.

“Hey, that worked!” the mega charizard cheered, only to yelp from a sudden volley of Hidden Power fire. Noctum spat fireballs to counter as many as he could, but a few hit the back of the pizza truck and made it spin out in midair.

“You really think you rebels can keep this up?” Paradox sneered. “I’ve got you outgunned and outmuscled. Stand down and your deaths will be quick and… minimally painful.”

But the air chilled again and an even larger ice lance headed for Iron Jugulis.

Igneous hardly had a chance to roll up to his feet and get a sense of his surroundings when he was back on his knees. His vision flickered and his ear frills rang. God, were his insides rattling? It was like someone had stuck a blender in his torso and set it to frappe.

Breathe. In. Out. Was the air getting thinner?

“Punarjanm.”

“W… what?”

Gibberish. The grovlazzle was hearing gibberish… in the ringing.

Blink. Breathe. This was the cloud daemon’s doing, wasn’t it?

He looked over the top floor of a massive tower while an armored lucario charged a red Aura Sphere. The trembling ice vulpix looked at an unconscious Xeromus-like creature with its tails frazzling in panic.

“Nnngh.” Igneous grabbed his head. Another vision? Like when that damn fire butterfree went inside of him? “Stop,” he rasped. “Go away! Go… away!”

The ringing only intensified, as did the pressure on his head. No… in his head?

“Punarjanm. Punarjanm.”

A woman in a lab coat stood in front of him, blonde hair obscuring part of her face. She gestured to him proudly while a group of humans stared at him. Tourists, maybe? But there were machines and computers around them!

Igneous managed to grab his head with his hands and shake it. He had to find that fiery power. Fight past the rattling and ringing. Fight, damn it!

“Sach punarjanm sach.”

Louder and louder. The ringing wouldn’t stop. It just. Wouldn’t. Stop.

Find the fire. Find the fire. The stupid powers kept popping up when the grovlazzle didn’t want them, so why couldn’t he get them now?

A giant moon bat burst forth from a pile of rubble with a great twister resembling Rayquaza. The machamp standing in front of him shrank back, arms ready to grapple.

“Stop it!”

Amidst the rumbling in his torso, Igneous found the spark and grasped it. The flickering in his vision faded as Honedge appeared in a gout of orange fire. Igneous hurled it forward. It went right through the wispy, yellow cloud creature in front of him, but struck the far wall. Igneous hastily flicked his wrist and Honedge carved a hole.

“Sach. Saaach!”

The cloud tried inching toward Igneous, but the rushing forward of the train sent it drifting back toward the newly-made hole in the wall. Cloudy tendrils tried to clasp some of the supply crates, but all they did was phase right through them. The cloud daemon slipped through the hole and vanished.

Igneous waited one moment, breathing heavily. He stumbled to the hole as Honedge vanished. He glanced out the hole. The cloud daemon was nothing but a wispy puddle on the dusty ground.

The grovlazzle slumped over, sighing in relief. “It’s done,” he wheezed. “The cloud monster… is off the train.”

Silence. Igneous slowly slid his right hand up to his head and pressed against the X-transceiver. “Guys, did you hear me?”

Iron Jugulis broke through the giant lance, but it wasn’t long before another one headed straight for it. That, too, however, didn’t reach the machine.

“If that’s really Shimmer up there, I can’t believe he’s actually doing something useful!” Valkyrie said.

Noctum was more preoccupied with how strong the attacks were. Was this the power that Radiant nobility held? It concerned the mega charizard.

“Help him, then,” Cyril barked. “We’re less than a minute out from the bridge!”

Noctum and Valkyrie focused their combined firepower on the machine. Eternatus Gunners raced to try and protect it, but they got swept away by genesect.

“Foolishness!” Paradox sneered. “This armor is the finest we can craft. You got one lucky shot in, but it’s not happening again, you filthy rebels!”

Iron Jugulis filled the air with a bevy of Air Slash crescents.

“Gah!”

Several peppered the pizza truck and Cyril growled, trying to keep it steady in midair. Noctum managed to hold his position and spewed as much fire as he could through the super scope. It didn’t strike Iron Jugulis, but instead hit another one of the giant ice lances, which burst apart in a sudden steam eruption.

“What the—”

Still hearing nothing, Igneous climbed out of the hole and onto the train roof just in time to see the giant mecha hydreigon crash into the ground while Shimmer conjured a pink shield to keep him safe from a sudden onslaught of hot air.

Smiling, Igneous jumped off from the roof. His fiery wings appeared and carried him back in the direction of the pizza truck, which was slowing up as it drifted down to land next to the train tracks. The genesect headed back toward the train. Igneous sucked in a breath, expecting to have to do evasive maneuvers, but the genesect flew right past him.

“Guys?” Igneous said, again pressing the X-transceiver tighter against the side of his head.

“Thank heavens, that thing’s down!” Cyril whooped. “And the stupid Troopers are running for the hills. Mission accomplished!”

It didn’t take long for Igneous to see the cosmic zoroark sliding out of the pizza truck and stretching out his arms. Valkyrie hopped off the other side of the truck and waved Igneous down.

“You got the cloud monster?” the garchomp called.

“I did!” Igneous closed the distance with the pizza truck. His volcarona wings evaporated in orange streaks and embers. He landed by the front of the truck and stumbled toward Valkyrie. “It’s, uh…” The grovlazzle looked over his shoulder. Dust still littered the air, but he saw no signs of the cloud daemon. “It’s nothing but a little puddle somewhere out there.” He vaguely gestured with his right arm.

“That so?” Valkyrie walked up to his side, crossing her arms. “Should we try to find it? Destroy it?”

“I don’t think we can.” Igneous squinted. He had this vague sense when he was close to it on the train, but now he had nothing. “The train’s acceleration is what carried it away, so all the winds that stupid hydreigon robot whipped up probably blew it away.”

“Well, that, and a Radiant Guard squadron is leaving Casaroja and heading to your location,” Cid said, a twinge of nervousness still in his voice. “Maybe try to get clear before you run into big problems?”

Igneous and Valkyrie exchanged a look. “Guess we ought to head back to the safe house?” she said, rubbing the back of her head.

“Pssht. Forget that.” Cyril flicked his right arm dismissively. “I’ve gotta get this bad boy back to the outpost for repairs. That’s where we’re going first.”

Igneous and Valkyrie exchanged another look. “I, uh, guess we can do that?” the grovlazzle said, shrugging.

A loud throat clearing followed. Igneous looked up on the truck’s roof, where a still mega evolved Noctum remained strapped into the firing platform.

“Yeah, that’s a fine idea and all,” he said, trying to pull his head out of the super scope lens. “But can someone get me out of this thing?!“

Cyril winced. “Ah-ha… right. Knew I was forgetting something.” Laughing nervously, the cosmic zoroark headed toward the roof of the truck.

“You cannot be serious right now!”

Paradox slammed his headset on the floor of his office, shattering it. Sticky flinched, then directed one of the poipole in the room to clean it up.

“I did express my concerns about activating it so soon,” the naganadel mumbled, glancing down at his tablet.

“It was overpowering them!” Paradox hissed. The deoxys’ tentacles twisted into arms. “And then one of them started flinging around giant icicles like… like…”

He abruptly teleported in front of Sticky, who held the tablet up over his head in surprise. “Sir?”

“Guile Hideout’s steed,” Paradox said, abruptly turning around and crossing his arms. “He could conjure giant icicles, yes?”

“I believe so,” Sticky said. When the emperor got like this, it was best to agree with him.

“Then the course is clear.” Paradox whirled on him, his arms unfurling into blue and orange tentacles. “Get Cassius on the line. We need to reach out to that frilly vegetable about our little agreement.”

The deoxys teleported past Sticky. By the time he turned around, Paradox was nearly at the office door.

“I think it’s time we reminded him what he has to lose if he refuses to cooperate.”

Paradox headed out the door. Sighing, Sticky looked down and pressed a few icons on his tablet. A video feed pulled up showing a video feed of one of the underground prison cells… and the spectrier lying in the middle of it, mane disheveled, hooves chipped, and patches of ghostly fur missing from its hide.

The cell door opened and a poipole floated in with a small tray of food. Sticky touched a red microphone icon on the corner of the screen.

“Stop,” Sticky said.

Poipole glanced up in the direction of the cell’s camera. “Mr. Sticky?”

“Emperor said to withhold the meal. We need her looking as famished as can be.”

Spectrier weakly tried to lift her head. Poipole hastily turned away from her. “Understood, sir. I’ll bring it back to the kitchen.”

Poipole left the room and the cell door shut. Spectrier lowered her head back down, whinnying weakly.

Frowning, Sticky hastily closed the video feed and locked his tablet. He glanced at the two poipole cleaning up the broken remnants of Paradox’s headset.

“What are you looking at? Get back to work!”

Both poipole nodded apologetically and hastily swept up the fragments into a dustpan. Sticky turned and headed for the door.