Celestia's Rocket Adventures

by Snake Staff


Cutting The Power

“LUNA!” Celestia was at her sister’s side in an instant. “Sister!”

The white alicorn was already bending down over her darker, smoking sibling, wings half-instinctively enveloping Luna in a protective stance. For an instant as Celestia put an ear to the left side of her chest, her heart was in her throat. The next moment she breathed a deep and heartfelt sigh of relief. A heartbeat, ragged but clear, was still audible in her sister’s chest.

“Celestia!” The princess’ attention was drawn to the sight of her teammates, James in the lead, running towards her. “Is she alright?” her trainer asked. “Is she…” he hesistated.

“She… she lives,” Celestia breathed, panting with an exhaustion that was only just beginning to dawn on her awareness.

“But she ain’t lookin’ so good, is she?” Meowth said, a little quietly.

Celestia looked back down at her sister. With her own heartbeat now thumping ever more loudly in her own ears, she reached down as gently as she could. With one soft, feathered wing, she stroked her sister’s forehead just as she had done in their youngest days.

“Luna?” she whispered gently into her sister’s ear. “Luna, can you hear me?”

The white alicorn listened closely for several long seconds, but there was no response. Luna continued to lie sprawled out on the ground, the last few wisps of grey smoke trailing off of her prone form. Her chest rose and fell, but beyond that she did not move, not even a twitch. Celestia looked back up at the others and shook her head slowly.

“James, have you got any of your potions?” Jessie asked, even the usual bite of her voice lessened now.

“Well, um… no.” James shook his head glumly. “They were in my bag, and my bag was in the locker onboard Robo Mega Meowth.”

“So dey got flash fried den,” Meowth sighed. “Dat’s just typical for today.”

“If we don’t have a means of healing her right away, then we must get my sister to safety immediately,” Celestia declared, standing up straight and tall. “I know our time is short, but I will not leave her here. We cannot just drag her around, so we must remove her from his battle zone.”

“Meowth, what’s she saying?” Jessie asked.

“She sayin’ dat we need ta get her sista dere outa here before we go on,” he relayed.

“Right,” James nodded quickly. “Celestia, I know that you must be tired but do you feel up to maintaining Psychic a little while?”

“Of course,” the princess nodded.

“Great, so we’ll have to be careful in avoiding the fighting but Celestia should have an easier time carrying her sister than us, so if we run up all nine flights of stairs really quickly we can probably be back down here by-”

“Or,” Jessie cut him off, brushing past her teammates, “we could do something that isn’t stupid.”

With that, she picked a red and white Poke Ball from her belt and tossed it idly into Luna’s face. The dark alicorn vanished into a blaze of silver light. The ball didn’t even wiggle once before dinging unceremoniously to signal a successful capture.

Celestia blinked.

“There, now she can rest with Seviper and Inkay and Carnivine,” Jessie declared, scooping up the Poke Ball and pocketing it. Eyeing the others, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t look at me like that, what would make you think running back and forth in a warzone with the boss counting on us would be a good idea?”

The white alicorn frowned. “I don’t know how Luna would-”

“Now come on,” Jessie pointed to a hallway going away from the mound of rubble ahead of them. “Everyone’s least favorite newscaster may be down for the count but there’s still the Pyroar-haired blabbermouth and his water worm to take care of! We need to move!”

“I…” Celestia considered it for a moment, and then decided that in her own presence was about the safest place Luna could reasonably expect to find herself under the circumstances. “Very well, I’ll entrust her safety to you until this battle is done.” She stared Jessie right in the eye, expression firm. “Don’t disappoint me.”

Jessie flinched a little but nodded in seeming understanding.

“Alright then team, let’s go!” James beckoned.

All three members of Team Rocket, plus the Pokémon they had that were still conscious, immediately took off running down the hall. Meowth quickly decided he liked riding better and scrambled hurriedly up the alicorn when she passed by. Celestia easily took the lead, as before.

“And besides,” she heard Jessie telling James as they ran, “You have one, so it’s only fair that I do too.”

Internally, Celestia sighed.


“Druddigon, Sludge Bomb!” a red-haired woman with a prominent visor ordered her Pokémon. “Mightyena, use Dark Pulse!”

“Bisharp, attack the alien with Iron Head!” a green-haired woman next to the first shouted. “Liepard, you use Fury Swipes!”

Bright flashes of Pokémon attacks were erupting all across the secluded forest clearing. Just as Spearow had promised, the many rows of stone monoliths lined up neatly each held a single Pokémon, chained firmly in place and guarded by the humans and Pokémon of Team Flare. The restraints scarcely seemed necessary though. The bound creatures bore the telltale dead eyes common to the victims of Dark Balls, so utterly obedient to their orders to remain still and not react that not even an attack passing within a hair’s breadth of their faces caused the slightest stir.

Spearow might have miscounted the enemy, though.

There were more of them than Twilight had expected, even accounting for the birds’ unsophisticated way of tallying things. And so when the ragtag group of stragglers she and her human friends had managed to round up arrived, they had faced not an outnumbered and surprised gaggle of city-slickers out of their element, but a pitched and dangerously even battlefield. And that was how the princess of friendship had found herself fighting two on four against what, from their uniforms and attitude at least, seemed to be Team Flare’s leadership.

“Dodge it together!” she could hear Ash’s voice behind her, intermittently between directing his other Pokémon. There was no battle line here – merely a running brawl scattered freely through the rocks.

“Right,” Twilight glanced towards her companion, who nodded.

In virtually the same moment, Druddigon spat globs of sizzling purplish gunk and Mightyena opened its fangs to unleash its writhing knots of purple-black energy. Twilight had already pushed off of the ground, wings beating hard, when she felt a sudden and familiar light weight land on her back. The red-head’s Pokémon continued to fire up at her as she gained altitude. Bisharp hopped nimbly to the top of one of the monoliths, then knelt for a moment as Liepard landed right on its back. The elegant catlike Pokemon waited a moment, head down and legs scrunched, tail waving back and forth. Then it saw its chance and pounced.

Liepard’s leap was surprisingly on target clearing fifty feet into the air easily with elongated ivory claws bared right for the alicorn’s neck. Twilight felt a small pressure as her back was used as a springboard, and then was treated to the sight of a summersaulting Pikachu soaring through the air with a glowing silver tail. He’d timed this well, too. Just as Liepard was reaching the apogee of its arc, the spinning lightning bolt tail smacked the Flare Pokémon upside the head with the force of a steel pipe, sending it tumbling back to the earth too fast to be entirely healthy.

No sooner had Liepard fallen than Bisharp was reaching the pinnacle of its own leaping attack, the shining ax head emerging from its skull gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight and poised to strike the alicorn down.

“Like we practiced!” she could still hear her trainer from below.

Twilight’s eyes glowed with the violet aura of Psychic, though it was useless on the Dark-type Bisharp. But that was never the idea – her mental energy caught Pikachu instead. Bisharp was all but on top of her when its body was suddenly wracked with lightning, losing focus so fast that Twilight simply moved slightly to the side and let her crackling foe just plummet helplessly back towards the ground. She looked at Pikachu, buoyed by her telekinetic aura, and couldn’t resist a small grin.

All good things come to an end, and being hit in the face with stinking acidic sludge is a considerably less pleasant end than most. Twilight hacked and coughed at the vile fumes flooding her nostrils, and more importantly the hideously burning goop hissed and steamed on her skin. Eyes squeezed firmly shut and concentration most thoroughly broken, the princess lost her balance and fell herself. She hit a rocky outcrop on the way down, ancient warp stone scraping painfully against her flank before a none too pleasant thud into the packed earth.

“Yes!” she heard one of the Flare women call out. “I knew Poison-type moves were a good pick!”

“Gloat when they’re eliminated, Aliana,” the other woman barked. “Bisharp, carve her up with your Metal Claw!”

“You never were much fun, Bryony,” the first voice grumbled. “Druddigon, another Sludge Bomb! Mightyena, Crunch!”

Twilight had barely managed to wiped enough horrible sludge off of her face with a wing to open her eyes when a second glob took her in the chest. She skidded harshly along the ground until un-gentle impact of another pillar stopped her with force that felt like it might snap her spine. She had just enough time to open her eyes, ignore the burning pain eating away at her sternum, and roll desperately to one side. Bisharp’s glowing, bladed hands stabbed into the dirt right where she had just been.

The princess used the momentum of the roll to regain her hooves while Bisharp neatly extracted shining blades from immaculately precise slits cut into the ground. Twilight’s ears perked, but she heard nothing from Ash – some other fight must be occupying him. In absence of orders she threw herself behind a stone pillar for cover as another Sludge Bomb came hurdling again. The disgusting purple stuff clipped the Steel-type, but it didn’t seem to care.

Breathing heavily, Twilight rounded the pillar only for Bisharp to suddenly appear from the opposite way. Bryony’s Pokémon drove a bladed fist into her face, fine edge slicing into her cheek and drawing blood. She cried out but countercharged, driving Horn Attack into Bisharp’s own face and knocking it onto its back with sheer weight. Mightyena finally rounded the monolith itself, only to be blindsided by an electrically-charged tackle from Pikachu.

Twilight didn’t have time to thank her little yellow comrade, because Bisharp chose that moment to drive both bladed fists upwards into her underbelly. Its Metal Claw hurt like dickens and threw her right off of it. In a pattern she was already getting sick of, she hit the side of another pillar and slid right off of it. Chains holding an Electrike in place rattled as she disrupted them.

An inkling of an idea was coming to her even as Bisharp darted forward and swung again. Twilight ducked, and Metal Claw sundered one of the links on the chain, leaving the long shiny metal strand and its occupant to tumble limply to the ground.

“Watch it!” Bryony yelled at her Pokémon. “Those are important!”

“Don’t tell them that you moron!” Aliana screamed at her partner.

“Why would they be here if they didn’t already know?!”

Twilight didn’t really hear, or care about, the remainder of the argument. The split second of distraction the sound of its trainer’s voice had caused Bisharp was already enough. She had back away several paces, but more importantly had invoked Psychic. The Pokémon itself was totally immune to such an attack as she well knew – but the chain was not. Like a silvery snake glowing violet, it sprang up behind Bisharp and struck at lightning speed. Before the Flare Pokémon properly knew what was happening, it was entangled in strong metallic coils, pinning its arms to its sides, out of reach of its blades.

Liepard chose that moment to strike from its ambush, pouncing onto Twilight from behind and striking with the rapid-fire slashes of Fury Swipes. She yelped, and her concentration faded, the aura around the chains weakening. At its trainer’s command Bisharp surged forward even bound, forehead ax ablaze with the sheen of Iron Head. Twilight staggered back, allowing Liepard to pull her as if to topple her to her side – then at the absolute last second threw herself flat. The onrushing Bisharp tried to slow, but Twilight tugged the chain as hard as she could and it tripped over her, ax blade taking the distracted Liepard in the face. The catlike Pokémon hit the ground several yards away and did not rise.

The alicorn for her part found herself pinned beneath the heavy armored form of Bisharp. It kicked and squirmed mightily, trying desperately to break free or failing that at least chop her with another Iron Head. Unfortunately for it, Lysandre’s money had been well-spent and its bindings were of an immaculately high quality. Tightening her mental grip once more, Twilight pulled the chain even tighter around Bisharp and then simply pulled it upwards. There was nothing it could do but squirm as it was lifted off of her.

As she rose, Twilight saw Pikachu atop Mightyena’s back, electrocuting it at the command of their trainer. The wolf Pokémon howled mournfully before at last collapsing to lie still. Pikachu looked up at her, panting and sporting a few new scrapes but still packing plenty of punch.

“You alright?” he asked her, eyeing her up. “You look terrible.”

“I’ve looked worse – don’t tell Rarity,” Twilight couldn’t help but snicker a little at the thought, even now.

“Don’t just stand there, Druddigon!” Aliana shouted. “Free Bisharp with your Sludge Bomb!”

“You want it?” Twilight shouted back as she ducked beneath even more of that loathsome goo. “You can have it! Pikachu, batter up!”

With that, she hurled the chain and its prisoner right back at the Team Flare leadership as hard as she could. Her little yellow friend promptly jumped into the air himself, and then gave the enemy a taste of his famous Thunderbolt. The added force of several thousand volts of electricity suddenly coursing through its system propelled the flailing Bisharp as if it had been shot out of a cannon. It slammed into Druddigon, and both slammed into Bryony and Aliana. The entire tangled mess smacked into one of the monoliths, Bisharp’s head ax cutting the chain binding a Doublade to the pillar.

“Urgh…” Aliana shoved her way out of the tangled heap, fist clenched. “I’m not losing to one of these again! Druddigon, Sludge Bomb!”

“Psybeam, Thunderbolt let’s go!” Twilight could hear Ash call out from somewhere behind her.

Druddigon threw off the limp form of Bisharp and got back to its feet. With an angry roar it reared back its head and spat more globs of poison, but this time its opponents were ready. Standing right beside each other, Twilight and Pikachu fired off multicolored streams of psychic energy and bolts of electricity. As they soared forward the twin attacks seemed almost to merge into a solid beam of white light, vaporizing the toxic projectiles before striking home. Druddigon was picked up and hurled not just out of the fight but straight through the top of a stone pillar and into the surrounding forest, where there was an explosion.

“Druddigon!” Aliana shrieked, hand held out towards where it had been thrown.

“Never mind that,” Bryony pushed herself to her feet with gritted teeth. “She’s gonna-”

“Do this,” Twilight said.

With no more Pokémon immediately in her way or standing between them, the alicorn had nothing stopping her eyes from glowing once more. Violet auras enveloped the women and yanked them harshly forward. Twilight slammed the two not particularly gently against the nearest pillar, pinning their arms against their sides before flying right up to their faces.

“Tell your forces here to surrender,” she demanded. “And this will go easier on you.”

Aliana gritted her teeth, saying nothing.

“Doublade!” Bryony barked suddenly. “Destroy the alien!”

“Wha-”

Twilight’s eyes turned briefly back to the place where Bisharp lay in a chained heap. Where an immobile Doublade had been bound to the pillar for presumed sacrifice. But the Doublade wasn’t there. It occurred to her just a fraction of a second later – all these Pokémon on the pillars were prisoners of Dark Balls, and that was good for more than just keeping them still.

Unfortunately, this realization came just a second too late to do anything more than duck as a pair of frantic, possessed swords came hurdling through the air right at her. Their sharp edges sliced off the tips of her bangs as they soared overhead. Pikachu, standing behind her, was less lucky. The full force of the attack struck him, sending the lightweight yellow rodent soaring.

“Pikachu!” Twilight cried, concentration thoroughly broken.

“Doublade,” Aliana clenched her fist and shouted as the psychic bindings on her fell away. “Release the Krookodile and Drifblim around you right away!”

“All three of you,” Bryony commanded at almost the same moment, “destroy this alien thing!”

“No mercy!” both Flare leaders ordered at the exact same moment.

Doublade, acting with a phenomenal speed that could only be the work of its dark empowerment, spun around and sliced at the chain links binding a Krookodile and Drifblim to two of the nearby monoliths. Almost the moment that their bindings fell away, both of the enslaved Pokémon surged forward to attack the princess. Behind her, unseen and forgotten, both humans retreated.

That was when the shadow fell.

An unfamiliar whine filled the air as the field around Twilight grew dark. The princess couldn’t pay it much attention – some humans and Pokémon might be looking up but the Dark Ball maddened Doublade, Drifblim, and Krookodile had eyes for nothing but her destruction. She dodged back from twin sword blades attempting a cross chop on her throat, only for the balloon-like purple Pokemon to burst suddenly from some shadowy dimension right over her head. Phantom Force had set Drifblim’s four thin limbs ablaze with shadowy energy and it pounced on the princess, tearing frantically at her as though its very life depended upon it. Each little cut felt as though someone were slicing her skin with a red-hot poker.

“Quick, Psychic!” Twilight could vaguely hear Ash call out above the ever-rising whine.

The princess’ eyes began to glow violet even with Drifblim still right on top of her. The crazed Pokémon found itself caught in an identical aura, and then hurdled bodily forward just as Krookodile leapt forward with massive jaws wide open. Krookodile reflexively clamped down on Drifblim’s head, shaking it savagely for a moment before carelessly flinging its ally aside. Before it could surge forward again for another try, the alligator-like Pokémon was blindsided by Pikachu’s Iron Tail to the side of its head. It staggered back and away.

“Thanks!” Twilight tried to say as she regained her hooves, but the whine had by now become a roar and she couldn’t even hear her own voice any longer.

Not that her little yellow companion would have had time to respond anyway. Doublade’s twin swords carved a powerful Night Slash across Pikachu’s back virtually the instant his feet touched the ground, and he was sent flying. Before Twilight could even think of helping, Drifblim had launched a Shadow Ball from where it lay amidst the grass and Doublade spun forward like a razor-edged whirlwind, blades seemingly everywhere. It didn’t matter to them how much damage they suffered or what was going on with the infernal, deafening roar now dominating the battlefield, only that Twilight fell.

Frantically the princess beat her wings, gaining altitude just as the dark sphere detonated below her, carving another crater into the much-abused battlefield. Doublade pursued eagerly, swiping at her with both of its dark energy-coated swords. Krookodile leapt, snapping at her hooves and just barely missing. Drifblim had disappeared again. Acting on sudden intuition Twilight abruptly stopped beating her wings and plummeted like a stone just a heartbeat before Drifblim burst suddenly out from behind her in another Phantom Force. Rather than catching the alicorn between the two of them and carving her apart, Drifblim and Doublade collided in midair before being blown apart in an explosion of dark energy. For her part Twilight came crashing down directly atop Krookodile, driving her horn into its face as hard as she could.

Krookodile tumbled over onto its back, momentarily stunned, while the two Ghost-types overhead likewise thudded into the dirt. Given a heartbeat where she wasn’t under immediate threat, Twilight’s keen mind raced to take in the battlefield around her. She noticed that the shadow was gone now and the sunlight restored, and the roar that had been overhead was now behind her. Likewise, she quickly noticed that Bryony and Aliana seemed to be trying to scream something inaudible at their subordinates, Bryony pointing at something behind the princess with a very frantic look on her face.

Twilight felt Krookodile already stirring beneath her hooves, and knew she only had a split second to act. Her eyes lit up again as she invoked the power of Psychic against Team Flare’s leaders. This second time she couldn’t be so gentle, so the moment her aura appeared around them the alicorn slammed the two humans’ faces together as hard as she could, and then shoved both of them up against the nearest empty monolith. Part of her winced as the two of them collapsed limply to the ground, hoping she hadn’t just done any permanent damage.

The next moment all of her moral qualms faded into insignificance against the more imminent problem of Krookodile spitting a blinding ball of mud into her face. The Mud Slap was much more powerful than it had any right to be, flinging her into the air like a child’s toy, just in time for a revitalized Doublade to bat her right out again with Night Slash. She hit one of the stone pillars with a wet-sounding crunch, sliding right off the rock face and the oblivious Weepinbell chained to it. Still trying to blink sticky dirt out of her watering eyes, Twilight didn’t even see it coming when Drifblim pounced out of its shadowy dimension yet again. It latched rapidly onto her face, clawing and scraping and blinding her yet further.

A second later and Twilight felt the crushing pressure of powerful jaws grabbing her by the underbelly and lifting her up. She was whipped around like a ragdoll as Krookodile shook her as hard as it could, even with Drifblim still clinging to her face in a death grip. On her exposed back she felt the sudden and sharp stinging cuts of what could only be Doublade’s razor-fine swords. With all three of them dogpiling and flailing on her all at once they had to be doing almost as much damage to each other as to her, but none of them cared at all.

Doing her absolute best to ignore the sharp pain and the blackness closing on the edges of her blurry vision, Twilight clenched her teeth hard enough to crack them. Her horn blazed with rainbow energy, catching Drifblim point-blank in a Psybeam. The ghostly balloon Pokémon was dislodged instantly and hurdled away, but at that very same moment she felt two sword tips driven into the back of her neck in an especially vicious Night Slash. The princess screamed in pain. Krookodile compounded the issue by simply opting to slam her body repeatedly into the monolith as it continued to thrash her.

Between the lingering, stinging mud, the tears, the blackness, and the spots in her eyes Twilight couldn’t see a thing. She flailed against the vice grip of Krookodile’s jaws, but if the brainwashed Pokémon was oblivious to the pain of Doublade’s slashes hitting it as often as the princess it had no difficulty ignoring the comparatively feeble struggles of the rapidly weakening prey in its jaws. On pure, desperate, instinct Twilight attempted to grab at her tormenter with Psychic, but the violet aura simply shattered into a shimmering field of quickly dissolving sparkles the moment it took shape around Krookodile’s body.

Then, all of a sudden, everything changed. Twilight felt more than heard the impact of something tremendous fall like an avalanche onto the back of her foe’s skull. Krookodile’s head was slammed into the monolith, and the alicorn tumbled from now-limp jaws. She hit the ground roughly, and in great pain, but to her credit was already blinking frantically and wiping at her eyes with both wings. A second or two later she had managed to wipe away enough dirt and spots to look up and behold the vague silhouette of Krookodile being lifted up above the head of another Pokémon. A few shakes of her head cleared her vision enough to vaguely identify the newcomer as a bipedal purple Pokémon not too many shades removed from her own coat’s color – a Nidoking, her dazed and aching head informed her after a pause.

That’s funny… didn’t have any… those…

As Twilight’s vision and brain came more fully back to her she realized that this Nidoking was bashing Krookodile repeatedly into the monolith, and that Doublade was nowhere to be seen. Out of the corner of her eye Twilight spied Drifblim rising from the ground, but before it could do anything a familiar yellow shape jumped off another stone pillar and electrocuted the ghostly balloon. Meanwhile, above her head, Nidoking tossed a limp Krookodile up, then battered it away with a single swing of its thick, club-like tail. The princess looked up at her rescuer and found a stony face glancing briefly back down. There was no apparent sympathy in Nidoking’s cold gaze. After a moment, it turned and charged off in another direction without a word.

“Twilight!” a voice from a different direction called out, just before Pikachu ran up to her on all four legs. “Are you alright?!”

“I’m – urgh…” the princess moaned, struggling back to her hooves. “I’ll… I’ll live. Who…” she shook her head again. “New friends?”

“I wouldn’t call them… friends,” Pikachu muttered, standing back on two legs and pointing.

Twilight followed his stubby yellow finger. There, at the edge of the clearing, back behind where the humans were standing, was a short, black aircraft of some sort. It belatedly occurred to her that she could hear again, which naturally meant that the whine/roar was gone. The pieces clicked into place as she saw a newcomer amongst her human friends, an older, taller man in a dark suit and wearing an expression so hard it might as well have been carved from granite.

This must be Giovanni.

Sweeping ahead of Team Rocket’s leader was the powerful Nidoking, the hulking forms of a Rhyperior and Tyranitar, and incongruously enough a Persian. The latter of which took a moment to glance at Pikachu and give a wicked grin before firing off a Power Gem at its trainer’s command.

“You… know each other?” Twilight winced a bit at a sudden jolt of pain in her head.

“You could say that,” Pikachu said sourly, before shaking his head. “Anyway, are you alright? Do you need to rest?” He looked behind him, whipped around, and fired off a Thunderbolt at a nearby Golbat. “If not, there’s still a battle on!”

As she finally cleared the last of the spots from her eyes, Twilight looked around and got a sense of the wider battle. Most of the wild Pokémon, she saw, were either down or fled. Ordering several enslaved Pokémon off of the monoliths and into battle had brought the numbers to Team Flare’s favor, and while they were determined individually Luna’s recruits were just no match for the kind of berserk fury and amplified power that the dead-eyed Pokémon could bring to bear. Even with their commanders still down and apparently unconscious, the red-suited men and women of Team Flare could command a formidable advantage against the attackers.

Or rather, they would have, if it weren’t for the trio of Pokémon currently bulldozing their way right through the center of the battlefield. Nidoking, Rhyperior, and Tyranitar didn’t fight with the crazed fury of the Dark Balls’ victims. Instead they just pressed forward with the same darkly stoic expression as their master, unflinching and all but unstoppable. Nidoking charged forward straight through an incoming Petal Dance, ramming the offending Vileplume with Megahorn and crashing into a stone pillar hard enough to tear half of the rock off. Rhyperior didn’t seem to care that it was being soaked with Water Gun, blasting the Poliwhirl with the knife-sharp bursts of Stone Edge without making a sound. Tyranitar spat the black-purple beam Twilight had come to know as Dark Pulse, slicing a monolith in half and toppling it onto a cowering Scrafty.

“I don’t like it but…” Pikachu shook his head. “We’ve still got a battle to win here!”

“Right,” Twilight nodded, then winced a little bit. “Get back to Ash and help out, I’ll be alright.”

“You sure?” Pikachu asked. “That looked pretty bad.”

“Just give me a second or two more, I’ll be along,” she breathed.

Pikachu looked a little reluctant for a moment, then nodded. He took off on all fours, darting back to wherever Ash doubtlessly was continuing to fight. Twilight continued to breathe hard for a few seconds, trying to shake off the last of the lingering pain. In truth, it had been pretty bad, and she was grateful for the short respite whoever had provided it. But her sense of duty kicked back in a moment later, and she promptly flew to the top of the nearest unoccupied pillar for a better look at the situation.

The first thing she saw was a Fletchinder chasing one of Luna’s Spearow, which she promptly blasted from the sky with a well-aimed Psybeam. The next was Giovanni’s Tyranitar, bashing aside a Mightyena with a single, devastating Brick Break. It continued the swing into the nearby monolith, shattering the chain holding a limp Liepard in place and digging deep furrows into the rock. A Houndoom’s desperate blast of fire had almost no effect on the green behemoth, and it too was tossed aside by Rhyperior’s Horn Drill. From up here Twilight could see that Team Flare was in retreat, falling back before these powerful new Pokémon and even abandoning even the attempts to wake their leaders. That was good, she just needed to find a good place to rejoin the fight herself and…

“Tyranitar, press the attack!” Giovanni’s voice, hard and sharp as flint, cut easily through the bedlam. “No mercy!

“What are you-” Twilight began, her words suddenly choking in her throat as her eyes went wide.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Though it could only have truthfully taken a pair of seconds if even that, the young alicorn’s gaze caught every inch of the scene in exacting detail. Tyranitar’s thick neck reared up and back, powerful jaws stretched wide to reveal its multitude of stone-crushing fangs. A sphere of golden-white light, shining bright as the sun, was taking shape inside that cavernous maw. Giovanni’s Pokémon swung its massive head forwards like it was a club.

There was an instant of blinding flash, as though a lightning bolt had struck, followed at once by a crack and a deafening boom. As Twilight shielded her eyes with a wing, a shockwave swept over her. An instant later, blinking to clear the spots from her vision, she brushed her wing aside and beheld a towering column of smoke. Bryony, Aliana, as well as the stone pillar that they had been slumped against, were all vanished, consumed entirely by the rapidly-rising pillar of jet-black smoke.

Flaming debris – bits of ash and smoking black pebbles – fell like rain across a battlefield that had suddenly fallen deathly silent. What had seconds before been a frantic, all-out melee had simply, abruptly frozen in its tracks, all eyes instinctively fixed on the new burning crater. The brief quiet was just as suddenly pierced by the sounds of wailing. Several Pokémon, both those bound to the monoliths and not, threw back their heads and howled as unnatural storms of dark energy wracked their bodies. Their cries choked in their throats seconds later, and one and all they twitched and collapsed. Some slumped against their chains, others lay sprawled out and smoking on the field of hardy grasses. At once the numbers had swung back to favor the attackers, though scarce few noticed it.

Into the stunned silence stepped Giovanni. Arms folded behind his back, Rhyperior flanking his left, Tyranitar with jaws still smoking flanking his right, the hard-faced leader of Team Rocket drew every eye to himself.

“Anyone who wishes to see the light of another day,” the dark-suited man said in a voice as chilling as the winter winds. “Throw down your Dark Balls and flee this place.”

He spoke no more words. No more were needed.