//------------------------------// // 355. Falling Dominoes. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Situation Recap- After landing a less than truly crippling blow, Pom, along with Dolly and Quetal, have been sent away to an unknown fate by the almost indomitable Gilgamesh in his unbound Hoopa form. Despite numerous injuries being emplaced upon the impossibly powerful titan by hundreds of Pokémon attacking him all at once, Gilgamesh and all six of his floating arms were still going strong. He is proving to be one of the strongest beings to ever exist in the Pokémon Realm given the devastation and destruction he’s caused across the entirety of the Ransei Region. Kenshin’s rebel forces lay in tatters. The only ones still fighting are the heroic few still standing that might be able to put a permanent stop to Gilgamesh before he can bring terror to the world once more. If the physical exhaustion wasn’t enough for those who would be seen as heroes, then it was the constant mental strain since the battle began at the start of the day and there has been very little time or opportunity to recover since. Things only got worse at noon when Gilgamesh had ultimately broken out of his bound form with the help of Inky Due’s last bit of strength. The amount of destruction throughout Ransei doesn’t even begin to compare to what the Kingdom of Illusio is going through. The Castle of Illusion has already fallen and Cerebrum City is in the process of being destroyed in a variety of ways. The most important to everyone currently involved is that the psychic crystals that once kept the city floating are now dangerously unstable due to the efforts of Cotton Murkrow, the spymaster of Avia, to sabotage them and stop Gilgamesh’s unheard plans. It is unfortunate Cotton’s final plan has come to fruition far too late. For the falling Cerebrum City is now a giant explosive deathtrap of the likes that have never been seen in Ransei before. -Pokémon Realm, Ransei Region, destroyed top of Cerebrum City, Shanty- I be rolling to the side as claws tore up the ground next to me and I be swinging my weapon for the arm, the little cut it be doing doesn’t seem like much. It is being hard to keep fighting when I was wondering what became of Pom. Dazzle lashed with a flaming whip twice and be knocking back the arms, speaking of which they be looking smaller and are becoming weaker by the second, but they were only weakening to a point. The most important thing is that they were being far slower and easier to dodge. “We really need to be going after Gilgamesh himself!” As Dazzle be saying this we be leaping over a right armed swiping at us from the left and Lit blasted it with lightning after it be passing by underneath us. “Squeak!” Looking up at Lit on my forehead, he be pointing at something, it is being a very familiar unit of Beedrill… except one of them be looking far more badass than normal, having somehow turned its legs turn into two more lances and it’s stinger has become even more terrifying and large in appearance. The larger one bursts forward and sprayed something at Gilgamesh and he be reacting to it quite poorly, using one of the two upper arms he had with him to swat at the large Beedrill and sent a beam after them from the hole in his body when his arms missed. While that was happening the other five Beedrill soared in, in a straight line, then bombarded him with the same attack one after another five times in a row. Each attack seemed to be doing something to Gilgamesh given the two arms we were facing suddenly stopped in place and seemed to be writhing in pain. “They are using the move Venoshock, a special corrosive Poison Type liquid that does some damage but is not exactly poisonous on its own. It really burns up too quickly to poison someone.” Dazzle stated as she slapped her two whips into the right arm as Lit lights up the left one on the right with several bolts of lightning. “However, if the target is poisoned, any amount of contact with the Venoshock attack activates the poison already present within the body to immediately cause a lot of internal damage. Poison Types tend to use it as a devastating two move combo, especially against those who aren’t immune to such an attack. Almost nobody is immune to a Salandit or Salazzle, unless they have something preventative like the Pecha Berry Scarves Pom and Dolly have been wearing.” I ran past the flailing arms and narrowly be ducking under a claw as a do, with Lit blasting it with some lightning to knock it away, I be motioning for Dazzle to follow me. “We should be using this time to be getting close to attack him personally!” I didn’t be having enough water for a Bounding Bubble around me, but the three of us could be climbing up to attack his body while he is being distracted. We all be having the ability to cling to surfaces, but we had to get up to the bottom of the floating landmass ripped from Cerebrum City with the destroyed castle that fell into it. “Lit, can you be giving us enough strong webbing to climb up to that landmass so we can be reaching Gilgamesh?!” “Squeak!” Lit responded as he bounded off of my head and in a spark of green he rocketed upwards to the landmass floating above us. Dazzle turned around to knock back the two arms with a flaming whip as they regained composure and came at us. I brought my weapon about to defend against arms and claws, we would have to wait for Lit to finish creating a way up for us and would be defending ourselves until then. -With Kenshin’s group, Red-Gilgamesh- Watching that Sanosuke get knocked on his backside was kind of funny, but I was on these guys side so I might as well give the guy something to help things along. Just not my newest awesome weapon that I got from another guy that calls himself ‘Gilgamesh’ too. I looked at the titan that has been tearing everyone apart. Okay, so he has some reason to have dibs on the name at the moment, but that’s not going to stop me! Mostly since I can’t void out of here and I’m not leaving my buddy Greenkidu behind… When you can build an entire castle out of Excalipoors, like I have, you really don’t need to worry about lending them out since you can find at least fifty more in one hour. That is if I don’t find the Excalipoor dimension again… I mean come on, an entire dimensions where everything is made of swords that can’t actively be used as swords? Even the people were living Excalipoors that could barely cut butter to spread it on some bread! That I was able to build a castle of Excalipoors before I ended up in the Excalipoor dimension was an achievement in and of itself. I hopped backwards dodging the flailing left arm that tried two slash us by spinning inward in a circle twice then tried to slam its fist down right on top of me. I held up my Excalipoor and the ‘tink’ noise occurred, once I found out these sword would take as much damage as they could deal out. Well it was no contest what I’d use them for afterwards, until someone figures out how to actually break these dang things to prevent them from taking over entire universes! An Excalipoor couldn’t do any real damage intentionally, that means nothing could actually damage it intentionally either, because no matter how hard you swing the blade into something it wouldn’t break regardless of the fact that it is less damaging than a paper cut on a good day. “If you want, I can lend you something I don’t need.” I have so many Excalipoors, they are practically coming out my… wait does this form I have even come with ears? I’m some kind of giant muscular bug with the feeling that I should be flexing for cameras like some kind of super body builder. I checked myself while the others held off the floating arm things, very cool thing the floating arms are by the way and it reminded me of Exdeath somehow, wonder what became of him after he lost that fight to a dark unicorn with one of those amazing keyhole blades. I kind of wanted a keyhole blade too personally, even if it happened to look like another Excalipoor. Eventually I finally found the Excalipoor coming out of my left armpit that wasn’t the ones I kept pulling from my inventory space. In fact, I’d even say I don’t even know where this Excalipoor could have possible come from at all, I just happened to have the hilt of one sticking out of my armpit as you do. Like it was second nature for me to find an Excalipoor in the oddest of places, especially embedded in my own body like some kind of wart. I just pulled out the Excalipoor sword, that couldn’t even physically fit in the space of my left armpit, without a second thought about the ‘not-a-working-sword’ and just put it away. “Wark.” Greenkidu stated bluntly as they jumped and kicked the slashing right arm away with a meaty impact. “Of course I’m not going to give him the one from out of nowhere that I just pulled from my armpit, give me a little more credit than that bro!” Yep, when my best friend just started turning into birds, they got all chirpy about it and still wouldn’t let me eating the chicken version of them them go. Yeah no, not giving him an Excalipoor, do I really seem that predictable to Greenkidu? I quickly pulled out a boring looking weapon and threw it at the Sanosuke guy who caught it. “It’s dangerous to go alone, here take this!” “What’s it called? It feels rather nice and hefty.” Sanosuke stated holding a large sword, with a single long edge… it was more like a several foot long heavy metal slab in the form of a sword with a single edge. The thing was basically a simply looking giant broadsword. “Oh that old thing? It’s called a Buster Sword I think, don’t know what it has exactly busted though.” I idly held out the Excalipoor in my left hand and a ‘tink’ noise was heard as a right armed fist slammed into it with all the strength and speed it could muster and came to an instant dead stop, no transference of momentum or power behind the blow whatsoever. It opened a portal, then started to rapidly attack the sword creating a series of ‘tink’ noises to sound off for each blow as I intercepted the high speed attacks with a yawn. On one of the times the ‘Excalipoor Shield Sword’ stopped the fist trying to smash me, I slashed up the inner portion of the arm by rapidly and stylishly twirling my naginata with an amazing flourish for someone as glorious as I was. ”Someone probably made it darn near unbreakable for someone with super strength, probably why that blade is so large.” To prove a point, Sanosuke lunged with an overhead swing and brought the new weapon down and sent the left arm flying with a huge shockwave, while damaging and cutting up the arm severely almost cutting it off at the wrist too just from the sheer force of the guy’s physical strength. “Okay, yeah, I can see where that would be a thing.” Sanosuke then pointed his new Buster Sword at Gilgamesh. “Hey, you know, instead of fighting his arms we need to take the fight to him, really start laying into that guy personally. He might just be able to regrow these arms infinitely or something and we’re just wasting our time here fighting them.” “Who are you and what have you done with Sanosuke!” Kenshin suddenly seemed suspicious of his friend. “Look I know I’m not usually smart and… where was I going with that again?” Sanosuke started to rub at his head as his right hand continued to hold up the enormous sword like it was made of Solid Snake grade cardboard. “Oh thank goodness, it was just a random fluke that he sounded intelligent there for a moment, instead of a Ditto somehow miraculously swapping places with him!” Kaoru seemed like she’s into the Kenshin guy and this Sanosuke dude was their best idiot, I was cool fighting with these guys with Greenkidu acting as a fifth ranger. Kenshin sighed audibly as he slammed his sword up into the right floating arm and sent if flying back with a burst of energy coming off his backwards blade sword. He sighed with something like relief as I darted forward deflected the right arm away again with a swing of a kanabo I was now wielding in my right hand after I once again blocked with an Excalipoor of course. “Okay, let’s move it!” I jumped with my four legs and spread my wings only to slam into the nearest pillar when I shot forward… ow… I fluttered back a bit and then flew up at the other Gilgamesh who was thoroughly being distracted by giant bees. “I meant to do that!” “Kweh.” Greenkidu rolled his eyes and finally sent some pity healing my way. This world was actually pretty cool, but I wouldn’t want to meet the hive those bee guys came from. A huge blast of boiling water knocked the titan off balance and they were struck with several more blasts of strange liquids. Yeah, this guy was the closest thing to a good this world had to someone of my impressive might considering how much punishment he was actively taking, he was definitely a Gilgamesh. -Shanty’s group, Shanty- “Go, I can hold them for a bit on my own!” Not very well Dazzle, I be knowing that you were struggling as much as we were. A lightning covered spray of webbing hit both arms as Lit aided us from above, I quickly leapt onto the thick white rope of slightly sticky thread and started clambering up. I really shouldn’t be looking down, but… when I did I be see flames starting to coming up around the edges of Cerebrum City and that is being very ominous. Something apparently be catching fire down there. I climbed up until all my hooves were on the floating island that Gilgamesh be standing on. I be taking my front hooves off the landmass and then be thrusting them toward the arms below. “Riptide! Come on Dazzle!” I fired a shock of briny water and it be hurting with all the open wounds I be leaving on both the floating arms. Dazzle quickly ran away from the blast of sweat laden water and started quickly climbing as Lit fired several more Electro Webs to slow the arms down. Dazzle quickly ascended the webbing rope, but halfway up the bottom of it caught on fire, Dazzle looked down and then doubled her speed until she reached me as I be placing all my hooves back on the surface and be climbing upwards with her beside me. “We’re falling fast enough for things to start catching fire… either that or it’s the unstable Psychic energy in the air, heard a psychics call it the ‘pyrokinesis effect’ once when it came to psychic crystals destabilizing like crazy. If things are this unstable, I wouldn’t want to see what happens when Cerebrum City hits the ground… or be anywhere near the epicenter. How many people do you think are still fighting?” A gasping Dazzle asked as all of us clambered up onto the top of the floating landmass that broke off form Cerebeum City. “From what I can be seeing, not nearly enough…” I stated as I looked around the battlefield from the edge of the cliff overlooking everything, seeing a lot of unmoving bodies out there. How many people has this monster killed… on this day, a week ago, the day we got here in this world or even months before we arrived? How long did Kenshin be fighting this guy for again exactly? Looking up high into the air as boiling hot water bombard Gilgamesh and be seeing an airship, in the distance as an amount of water sloshed in our direction I be gathering it before it be spilling over the edges of the small floating island above the main mass of Cerebrum. “Yet I’m still here trying to get my pound of flesh for the guy being the reason my home is being destroyed, saw the floating whale evacuating my Dark Type buddies. Don’t know how I’m getting out of here after this personally.” We turned to look at the wounded vulpine Pokémon with the short tail and long hair, he doesn’t be looking to healthy. “Bastard can see through my illusions, really got me good with that last stomp, but I’m not leaving until all things are said and done.” “Squeak.” A tired Lit sat on his fluffy rear and took a break and I kept watch for the arms we be fighting, Gilgamesh was currently being far too busy with bees to really be stomping the life out of us yet. I be seeing one of the arms disappear into a portal and then be looking around for it and then I be knowing who it be attacking, because Dodo be carrying Ocellus and Dodo sent me a warble in worry. I be reassuring my buddy that I’m fine and pacing myself, though that last Riptide be taking the fluid out of me. I just be giving Dodo orders to protect Ocellus and keep doing whatever it is they are doing on the battlefield now. Thinking of water, I waited until the water I caught had cooled down and be filtering all the impurities out of it as I drink from it. I be getting much better at doing this, it is being a new favorite survival skill of mine. Seeing Lit stare at me I be separating some water for him and Mr. Zoroark. While Dazzle didn’t need as much water as most Fire Types tended to run hot and be liking it that way, I still be giving her a small amount. “Huh, that tastes extremely pure and refreshing, almost no elemental energy bleed over like what a Water Type would do that could cause imperfections that Electric Types take advantage of.” We not be really having much time to talk Dazzle, but it is nice to be having a moment to take in our situation and rest. “Right, we need to put a stop to Gilgamesh before this place explodes or something with us on it… I’m quite frankly surprised we’re all still alive and made it this far.” “Not for the lack of trying on that guy’s part, his last attack broke some ribs.” The mercenary Zoroark gestured over his shoulder at Gilgamesh. “Kwe-ehhh!” Green sparkles swarmed around our bodies and we all be looking and feeling much better. “Is this all that is left that can fight?” Kenshin looked perturbed as he and his group suddenly arrived by jumping up here and be using their psychic abilities to float up to us. He glanced at the airship and the Wailord keeping its distance from the battle and the Beedrill that be putting up one heck of a fight with how fast they were moving. Kenshin frowned as he be looking up at the titan with what I recognize to be pure contempt. “Okay guys, here’s the game plan, we came, we saw and we kick his butt and don’t lose or die!” Red Gilgamesh was being much nicer than the other one, even if he is being a scary muscle mosquito. Honestly had the urge to be making a fire to keep him away from me with that huge pointy nose. “I certainly keep losing to entire teams… then again, that just proves how strong I am when it requires entire teams to beat me. I’ll bet that one on one I’m a champ and this time I’m on the right side of history, but first…” Red-Gil be putting away a weird sword and be pulling out a shield… that looked to be being made of weird swords like the one he be putting away that have been haphazardly fused together. He be wielding it in his left hand and in his right he be pulling out a hammer with a flames coming out of what be looking like a mechanical side of it. “Finally time to use the good old Jet Hammer I got from that weird penguin guy on that star planet.” Red-Gil be twirling the hammer faster than I can be seeing it. “The place had a pretty big rodent problem though.” “Wark.” That green feathered bird can really be holding some grudges against their friend. “Hey, I eventually made it up to you about your strawberry shortcake being stolen only for some pink puffball to eventually eat it!” Red-Gil stated, the bird eventually nodded in acknowledge that Red-Gil be likely getting them an entire cake or something to make up for that, which is being more than what I be getting for my birthday for the last few years. “Enough gabbing, heroics are to be had around here and I’m going to be the one to do them this time!” With a shout the hammer lit up and he be rocketing right for Gold-Gamesh using the flames to push himself through the air. -Airship in airspace around Cerebrum City nearby, Lumber Spry- “Mrs. Skeeball ‘should’ be fine, with some rest and doing nothing but that Mr. Wilhelm.” I told the Wailord who looked worried with several of Skeeball’s kittens on their father also showing as much worry. “If I didn’t know she wasn’t an electric type, I’d swear she was by her incredible resilience to firing that much energy from her body.” Don’t know about Cotton’s health though, it was rather iffy and she was struggling for life. “I think I’ve finally figured out what Cotton’s final plan ultimate was in all of this…” Seer Xatu stated as I turned to him, as did Sami and Canard who were helping the Araquanids with their aim. The Boiling water and Beedrill were hitting Gilgamesh hard, this was the kind of monster that Cotton had been trying to stop? All those Venoshock attacks should have put Gilgamesh down a long time ago, what kind of monster was he that he was still standing? I know Legendary Pokémon were said to be powerful, but this is ridiculously terrifying to see what one could do at full power. “Could you maybe let us in on this plan?” Mr. Canard asked with crossed arms. “Look at Gilgamesh, do you notice a problem with his body? His arms aren’t connected to his body, there’s also the fact that he can’t form portals underwater, nor can his body swim in its current state and he’s too heavy to pull himself from the water. I think Cotton somehow intended to drown Gilgamesh and if he was trapped inside the city while drowning…” Yeah, that would be a really bad way to go. “If that wasn’t enough to finish him off, with the city about to explode violently… we wouldn’t want to be near the water when it inevitably goes off. It’ll flash boil anything alive in there.” “It’s almost falling too fast for us to keep up with… how would we even get him into the city? Much less keep him there, we’d have to disable him so he can’t move until he’s in the water.” Ms. Sami was sharp on the uptake and there were very few Pokémon left on Cerebrum City in any kind of battle condition to be doing exactly what we needed to finish Gilgamesh off. The fact that Gilgamesh was still fighting whereas hundreds of Pokémon fell before him was nothing less than terror inspiring. “Guy can teleport and should be even able to levitate given the amount of power he has, we’d have to really hurt him before the place goes up so that he can’t make a portal to get out in time.” “How far away from the city do we need to be to be safe exactly?” It seemed like Canard had an idea as to why Seer Xatu looked quite pale. “Let me just start by saying that we absolutely need to put at least a mountain between it and us a soon as it hits the water, the water will slow down the reaction, but once the city hits the bottom it will detonate… I surmise the explosion will be visible from space at the very least and might even make Rayquaza think he missed meteor hitting the planet while he was sleeping. It’s going to devastate the entirety of Eastern Illusio at the very least if the water doesn’t contain most of the explosion, it’s guaranteed to evaporate Cerebrum City entirely.” “…” There wasn’t much time left then, why did all of this have to happen? Why did Inky Due have to be a traitor to the Ponyta Prowlers? What about all the Pokémon living in that water below us when it flash boils? My heart tightened a bit and I frowned as I thought about all the patients on this ship that needed help. “We need to send someone to tell Ocellus to speed things up then.” Canard said a second later. “Ready, willing and able, suicide missions are nothing new to me Canard!” Sami said jovially while throwing a salute. “No Sami, just no, do we have anyone available that can fly that will be able to get a message to Ocellus?” Canard obviously cared about Sami and looked far more disturbed than the rest of us that she would volunteer so easily. “Did someone say massage, I could use one of those after the day I’ve been having.” A small green bird chuckled be fluttering and landing before us while clucking with laughter. “No seriously though, I can do it. Even if I’m five Natu short of a unit and this day has been just plain cashew.” “Cashew?” I asked curiously wondering why he would say the name of a nut. “Gesundheit!” Then the Natu started up another round of clucking laughter. “Yeah, today could use a little more salt. Hey, don’t give me that look, I’m a… professional.” The entire ship shuddered and Natu immediately took off as we were faced with arm after it hit the ships barrier and was promptly blasted away by Wilhelm with a Hydro Pump. -Gold-Gamesh vs. Kenshin’s Remnants and Allies- Gilgamesh summoned all of his further away arms back to himself and then glanced at the airship, before sending his middle right arm to attack it. The two upper arms were occupied with trying to swat the Beedrill, the Mega Beedrill being impossible to hit and thus far Gilgmesh had only managed to clip one’s stinger. The Beedrill were getting slower as they were losing stamina from being in the air for so long and putting in so many maneuvers. The upper arms started Teleporting around through portals trying to catch the Beedrill off guard. If they weren’t so used to reacting to things moving at blinding speeds, then they would have been taken down a long time ago. The middle right arm was busy attacking the airship firing constant artillery blasts of boiling water at Gilgamesh and now the attacks were more focused on preventing the barrier from falling less the ship full of heavily injured Pokémon go down in flames. The poisoned bottom arms and the middle left were busy preparing for the group charging directly for Gilgamesh. Red-Gil came in and slapped the middle left arm with the hammer and sent the arm flying, the lower two arms weren’t as strong thanks to the poisoning and shriveling up and turning purple but they still caught the hammer and pushed Red-Gil back. Gilgamesh fired a beam from the hole in his chest and Red-Gil dodged away and continued to attack the middle left arm as it slapped at the shield made of what some would call useless sword only to hear another ‘tink’ noise that Excalipoors are known for making when actively used as weapons. The bottom right arm grabbed Red-Gil by the four legs and slammed him into the ground, while the beam was still going The others wouldn’t have the opportunity to dodge the beam, so Shanty chose to perform a cartwheel and sprung into a wild windmill into the path of the beam and was even angling the scythe into it as she kicked her legs to speed up her rotation and parted the massive beam into two half with a constant wedge of cutting arcs. After the beam ended, Shanty landed on her front left hoof and kicked off to somersault through the air backwards to land on her hooves while holding up the cane scythe defensively, ready to spring into action to slice through another beam of energy. She was watching the hole in Gilgamesh’s chest, as much as the arms. Sanosuke immediately charged for the lower right arm that swung its fist at him and deflected the fist off the new weapon that Red-Gil gave him and delivered crossing slashes to the arm in a painful rebuke that left it even more damage than before. The slashes also left an afterimage of energy in the air. After sending the arm flying, Sanosuke quickly planted the tip of the blade and held the hilt as Gilgamesh’s tail slapped into the blade and only pushed Sanosuke back slightly, Gilgamesh almost lost a portion of the tail to the sudden leaping overhead strike that followed the impact. When the lower right arm tried to take advantage of Sanosuke getting the sword stuck in the ground, a Shadow Ball blasted it back and Zoroark slid into the position of supporting the muscle headed Psychic Type as Red-Gil got himself back into a standing position, apparently his four spindly legs were making it awkward to get up off of his back. Kaoru on the other side charged a bokken with Psyshock and slammed it home into the lower left arm dealing damage as the psychic energy blasted outwards in a wide pattern upon impact. Her eyes widened and she brought up her bokken defensively and survived the retaliation slap that damaged her weapon as she was knocked back. The lower left arm was suddenly struck harshly with a pair of flaming whips and a following lightning bolt as both Dazzle and Lit ripped into it before it could retaliate further. “Everyone give me time to perform my technique to take Gilgamesh down, Sacred Sword!” Kenshin just stood back with his eyes closed and both his hand on the reverse blade sword holding it up between both of his closed eyes, slowly a powerful glow started to overtake it. A concentrating Kenshin was charging up for his final ultimate attack that he knew would leave him entirely incapable of moving afterwards. The Beedrill began raining Pin Missile and Venoshock attacks from above, while staying mobile to avoid imminent death or severe injury. -Interlude, Ocellus- “Okay!” It was nice of the Natu to come out here to tell me, but before we could move the Magnificent Mentalis appeared with a load of Abra, Kadabra and other Alakazam. “What’s the situation?” Mentalis asked as they teleported in and then he paused and saw Gilgamesh and the back of Kenshin as he held his sword tightly as the energy coming from it was on par with some of the feats Celestia, Twilight or the elements of Harmony were known for. “ “You need to save everyone that is still alive in Cerebrum City and or is too injured to move or get away on their own, the city is going to explode!” I said hurriedly as Gilgamesh was in the middle of fighting off some of the strongest people I’ve ever met. The energy the city was putting out was disconcerting as I could feel it in the minimal psychic abilities how big the explosion was going to be. “That would be an understatement my dear… we’re about to lose eastern Illusio from what I’m feeling here, everyone rescue our friends and allies, teleport them out of here as fast as you can.” The only problem here, would be that Mentalis couldn’t teleport out Dark Types. “We’ll need to get the Pokémon in the water below moving immediately, send out a psychic message warning them that they need to evacuate.” “Direct any remaining Dark Types towards me…” I really hoped King Evan can handle them and the ones I already sent to Aurora, well if there was an Aurora left after Gilgamesh’s bombardment. At least the ones I sent there would be safer than being here. “Dodo, I want you to relay what I’m about to tell you to Shanty.” Dodo turned his eyes to me and tilted his head while warbling questioningly. -Gold-Gamesh vs. Kenshin Remnants and Allies. “Hmm…?” Shanty looked off to the side and returned her bar shaped pupils to the fight in front of herself and shook her hips a little with a grim smile playing across her lips. “We not be having much time left… but I certainly like our odds of actually flogging this guy to the point he can’t be escaping!” “Just die already!” With a few portals formed in the air a rain of blazing fists came smashing at Shanty, when Red-Gil intercepted them be taking the rapid attacks on that shield easily for her. Gilgamesh had recently gained a large hammer shaped indent where his left kidney would be. That he wasn’t falling to pain, meant that they needed something big soon or else this would be a slow death by a thousand cuts. “Say, can I be having one of those Excalipoors you be mumbling about? They seem rather nifty and useful!” Shanty stated with toothy grin. “Sure, if you don’t mind it being actively useless as a weapon, since trying to use it as a normal weapon will not actually get you anywhere.” Red-Gil stated under the onslaught of punches that changed targets to the Beedrill who could barely dodge it, four of them took glancing blows and then almost immediately a second later nearly got ripped from the air if they hadn’t recovered in time. “Here, use the one I found in my armpit. It’s really easy to swing in the direction of an incoming attack and they are nigh indestructible… so you’ll only ever need or want the one. I would know, I’ve yet to find a way to actually break one of these damn things on anything.” Red-Gil pulled out one of these swords with his right hand and I be taking it in my left hoof as I held the cane scythe at the ready in the right. After he handed it off to me, he be pulling back out the mechanical flame hammer thing. “Cool!” He be pulling an entire sword out of his armpit and it even be smelling like it was in there! It also be looking pretty fancy, even if it can’t be being used as a weapon. I’ll treasure it, even if it was being completely worthless for many things. With that interaction out the way, Red-Gil rocketed up into the air with the Jet Hammer to try and uppercut Gilgamesh with it. Only for the monster to dodge the blow by leaning back and then slamming his head forward at Red-Gil who blocked it with the shield, only for Gilgamesh to get a significantly sarcastic sounding ‘tink’ noise for his efforts to slam his head into it. None of the previous ‘tink’ noises before this sounded quite as annoying like that. “What are those swords made of?!” Gold-Gamesh bellowed in anger. “Failed dreams and a man’s completely ruined romance!” Red-Gil declared before slammed his hammer down on top of what passed for Gilgameh’s upper right shoulder or chest staggering the much larger titan. “Raaggghhh!” Using the imbalance to lift his left leg high up with his psychic energy and he slammed it down. The heroes attacking his lower arms from the ground were sent sprawling except for three among them in the large shockwave that blasted forth rupturing the stone, grass and dirt as it sent debris from the castle flying in every direction. “Aye!” Shanty was one of the three on the ground that hadn’t been knocked down, she moved to block the shockwave from hitting a concentrating Kenshin with her defensive shout. She had no idea of how to effectively block an area of effect attack with the sword she’d been given recently otherwise, so she went to using her own spirited shout to deflect the energy away from Kenshin. Kenshin continued to stand as still as a statue with his sword was becoming a fountain of raw power condensing down around the dull rounded edge of his weapon. Kenshin was the second figured unmoving as he was still preparing his ultimate attack thanks to Shanty’s efforts. The third still standing was Lit rocketing up towards Gilgamesh’s face rebounding off his three right arms doing quite a bit of damage with each Lunge empowering his upwards movement, that and his inability to understand gravity as a small low weight being. He let off a bright blinding flash of lightning into Gilgamesh’s eyes. “Gah!” Gilgamesh leaned back and attempt fire a beam at Lit who had already burst out of the way like a little green energy covered yellow bullet. Gold-Gamesh’s badly battered arms certainly didn’t react to him suddenly being physically blinded and continued to attack as if they could see, then again Gold-Gamesh was psychic and it wouldn’t be hard for him to do so if he was seeing things with his psychic abilities. “For a few seconds, I will Limit Break… Hiten…” Kenshin’s eyes snapped open, he was only focused on Gold-Gamesh’s body primarily. “Mugen…” Kenshin intoned as his arms seemed to start moving. He wasn’t even paying attention to anything else as Shanty was sent flying by a painful backhand as the middle right arm appeared to try and slap down on him from a portal and stop his attack. “Zan…” As soon as Kenshin said this, the world froze and he looked to have just swung his sword once, afterward Kenshin stood still completely still. The sword soon just dropped from his limp hands and the Gallade toppled over afterwards as the sword clattered on the ground and his body turning various sickly shades of blue, purple and yellow. Shanty and everyone else turned to him wondering why he would swing his sword once and then drop it. What had actually happened was Kenshin using Sacred Sword and then attacking several thousand times in a second with a Godspeed attack that increased in speed and ferocity so much that it only looked like he had swung his sword a single time, it had even caught Gold-Gamesh off guard from the sheer ferocity of it. Everyone turned to slowly look at the six floating arms as hundreds of cuts appeared on his body and he collapsed to his left knee… most of his legs had been shred and the tail seemed to just evaporate into blood smear in the air to eventually reveal that it had been flayed to the bone as it was about to hit Kaoru and Gilgamesh’s body was riddled with thousands of deep cuts all over. None of the cuts were nearly as bad as a massive gash going from Gilgamesh’s right shoulder to his left hip and a large gushing fountain of bodily fluids leaking from the hole in the center of his titanic torso. The arms were devastated and the titan was still barely aware, concerning the sudden bellow he let out as he slowly got standing on the torn and battered left leg. Gold-Gamesh wasn’t finished yet, even after an attack that had completely surpassed what he would call a Noble Phantasm in strength. Noble phantasms were done by spirits… their power an imitation of a legend based on a person’s capabilities while they were alive. Kenshin was very much alive though and wasn’t a spirit, he just created his own legend by doing a sword so technique so powerful it almost even felled Gold-Gamesh if he hadn’t been so stubborn. “Even that didn’t be stopping him?!” Shanty stated incredulously as she barely saw even a hint of what Kenshin just did as Greenkidu was already moving over to heal him. “You need to be heroes…” Grunted a slightly out of his mind Gold-Gamesh. “This world… needs them… kill me… prove to me that you all want to live as much as I…” With a herculean strength that beggared belief, Gold-Gamesh lifted his six grounded arms up and then stood tall and roared despite bleeding all over the place. He was absolutely prepared to continue fighting. “You’ve only got about… five minutes to get away from here…” Said the mad grinning and gasping titan before he started laughing and prepared to attack. “You… won’t make it… as long as I’m standing.” Kaoru was at Kenshin’s body trying to rouse him, but he wasn’t moving. Gilgamesh had started knocking them all down and continued to bludgeon everyone around him with pure god like strength despite how torn his form was, he was going to finish them all off for being so weak and pathetic. The only ones still capable of fighting by the time he was done was Red-Gil and Greenkidu when one voice rang out crisp and clear as he went to finish off Kenshin as Kaoru cradled his barely breathing badly bruised and beaten form. “Bug Buzz!” A green beam of vibrating energy ripped through Gold-Gamesh’s body from behind and he stopped his eyes shrinking to small dots as the hole in his body that fired energy, literally became a hole one could see through as a massive, colorfully green, air rippling beam tore straight through him. -In a tree in Chrysalia, ???- Despite the battering, the many deaths and the chaos, the destruction, the pain, the little metapod had survived through it all and eventually a beautiful Butterfree, a small butterfly Pokémon, flapped its wings and pulled itself free from the ugly and beaten shell that kept it safe as it turned into what it was now. The little Butterfree fluttered free of its confines and looked upon the world with a new and appreciative perspective. It fluttered towards the nearest source of distress and would go on to rescue a lot of Pokémon from several fallen trees and would help the injured with String Shot. -Decimated Cerebrum City, Upper Tier, Shanty- I be busting my chin and my forehead when we be falling through into the city and I could be feeling my face swell up in pain, being left both dizzy and confused about what was happened as I looked up through the massive hole and into the sky. “Who…” I asked as I looked through the hole at the one who be causing Gold-Gamesh to go back to falling after as he tried to stand up and caused a second blast be tearing through his leg. It was a blue armored beetle bug that almost be looking mechanical at first, it had two large prongs lined with yellow on the outside of them and it be glaring at Gold-Gamesh before turning to us. “Hey guys, I’m a Vikavolt now!” Stated the bug with a familiar voice… it couldn’t be… Charjabug?! “I String Shot onto some floating magnetic rocks around here, went around them a lot before I slowed down, they were very tasty and I evolved! Then all you guys came falling right by me and… oh right! We have to get out of here, the city is about to hit water and this place doesn’t look very safe anymore!!” The floating island with the decimated floating castle be slamming through the top of Cerebrum and plowed a hole through through the top layer with everyone still on it and be stopping at the upper tier of Cerebrum City. Felt something grab me and lifted me up, probably Vik, I be blinking blearily as I looked into a pair of kind eyes of the blue shelled bug began lifting me into the air out of the hole into the sky. Before I be blacking out, I be seeing the injured Beedrill trying to save everyone. I still kept a tight grip on the two weapons in my front hooves until I was over the deck of that airship. -Golden Gilgamesh- The inside of the evacuated city was now a veritable haunting spot for ghosts, had any been around to do so, but they would probably wait until after the city exploded. Cerebrum City even started rumbling violently as it was likely nearing the water. I remembered the warning and realized what the green little nuisance meant when it said I wouldn’t heal. I couldn’t even generate the weapon known as ‘Chains of Enkidu’ anymore much less use them to fill in the gaps in my wounds. Which would have been my last ditch effort to take everyone with me had I not been pushed to the point where I could no long move, teleport or attack. The gods of this world knew to stay away from me even after Inky Due looked like she was removed from the equation. In fact, this had been fairly well planned and that stupid little bug… “N-no…”I tried to stand again, when another beam of colorful energy be tore off my left leg below the knee making me almost collapse onto my face. I could no longer keep standing and my arms fell limply to the side no longer able to be lifted off the ground. “Arceus… you… bastard…” “Heh… I’ll be… seeing you… soon Enkidu.” I grunted out before I lost the strength to even talk, even if I had the strength to make a portal there was no way I was making it through it alive. I was aware when those I had been fighting barely managed to collect themselves to escape… I truly wished them well in their future endeavors to save this world. I was aware while water flooded the forsaken city. I was aware as the city hit the bottom as I was slowly drowning under tons of water. I was aware when the psychic crystals finally exploded. I was aware to the last as every last bit of me was torn from the mortal coil of this world in a blast of psychic energy so massive that the entire region of Ransei felt it. I remained ever defiant, for my name was Gilgamesh. I would be remembered by this world, surely it would not be fondly remembered, but I would be remembered as I roared out in defiance one last time and was to be heard in the nightmares of all those who managed to make someone of my stature and might fall so low! My psychic scream would be heard by all of Ransei in their nightmares as eastern Illusio was decimated and destroyed. Not even the supposedly immune Dark Types would be able to ignore a scream so mighty and powerful! -Island somewhere to the northwest of Illusio, Quetal- I gasped as I struggled to pull Pom and Dolly from the water, still being ever careful of my claws as to not hurt… why did Lord Arceus make us as such that we couldn’t hug without causing injury? I turned when I heard the scream, it was Gilgamesh screaming and… despite how far away I was and how it should be physically impossible to hear such a thing at a distance… It took me a moment to realize what it was, a terrifying and defiant psychic scream that was so powerful it had even bypassed my Dark Type immunity… maybe even the immunity of all the Dark Types in the whole of the Ransei Region. I shuddered violently, as in the evening sky I could see an almost blinding huge pillar of raw energy reaching up to the sky and beyond our world. Fairly certain everyone in Ransei could see that, could hear him and could even feel Gilgamesh as he died. Praying that our friends were alright… I carefully lifted Pom and Dolly to start dragging them further up the beach away from the rising water levels that would come with the onset of the night. One would see that I’m a somewhat small Pokémon, but I wasn’t weak… never weak… not with Nixtorm being so nearby that I could see the mountains on the horizon. That meant the pillar of energy to the south was Illusio… Just where were we if we could see Nixtorm from here? -After the fact, Ocellus- It was like a devastating natural disaster had gone off in Illusio, Pom was right in saying she couldn’t protect us from the dangers of this world. Not if they were on par with the Alicorns and managed to stay standing through all that. The Magnificent Mentalis lived up to his name and made the entire airship disappear behind the mountain, with the help of the now homeless people of Kadabraville working in concert to teleport everyone still alive away. It was kind of hard to fathom such devastation without seeing it first hoof… I’m surprised we even survived the aftermath of what would be considered a theoretical 'mass thermo-kinetic magical bomb' going off that took out half the mountain between us and the explosion that evaporated it. I’m surprised that I stayed awake through it all, everyone else was still out and that's with Gilgamesh’s screaming upon death still clawing at the back of my mind like nails on a chalkboard that wouldn't go away. Had quite the headache due to all the psychic energy from the blast, I’m just going to protectively hold onto Smolder and then worry about everything else later after a nice… long… nap… -Team Pocket- “Talk about having a blast.” Meowth muttered with wide eyes, they only survived because of their newest member Surviving Soldier Wobbuffet pushed them all back into the hole and buried them all alive while they were arguing with each other. Surviving Soldier Wobbuffet was a little bit crispy, but he was still good to love-love dance… once he fully recovered that is. "I wonder who that was that was screaming, they beat my all time volume record." Jessie stated blankly. "That's right, I thought no one could actually scream louder than Jessie does." James responded without thinking and promptly took a slap to the back of the head by the flat portion of Jessie's bladed tail. -Origin Space, Arceus- "Here you go, have an Enkidu, now go bother some other world with your massive ego problem." I quickly shoved Enkidu's soul against a confused looking Gilgamesh's soul and randomly kicked them both away into another batch of universes not connected to those that I watched over personally to make sure he didn't end up pulling a Lu Bu on me and will be coming back later to be a big headache later on. I at least made sure they were together before sending them on their way after my death god Yvetal collected them for me. "That... was awfully nice of you... impossibly so even." Bahamut stated with suspicions likely forming from that short interaction.