P/N I will post 10 more chapters tomorrow
Chapter Ten – Final Resting Place
Ash, Brock, Misty, and the two officers had raced from the building when a blood curdling scream ripped through the shantytown outside. In the middle of the ramshackle refugee camp they'd come across the old crone kneeling over a young woman who lay on her back on the ground. The young woman's dirty blouse was torn open, exposing the lesion twisting across her chest down onto her stomach. Ash watched in shock as the lesion lethargically grew before his eyes, like a slowly twisting snake slithering across the woman's pale skin.
"It's outside the quarantine," said the blond officer, wringing his hands in front of him. "We've all been exposed."
"Perhaps," said the crone calmly. "It would certainly appear that way but we can not yet be sure of what we're dealing with." She stood up and turned to Ash and his companions. "You three," she said, straightening up some and sweeping some of the dust from her wrinkled purple dress. "I'm going to Lavender to put this right, and if you have a brain between you, you'll come with me."
"As if," said Misty, crossing her arms. "I say we turn around and get the hell out of here right now, before we come down with this." She paused to look around as her words sent a ripple of murmuring through the gathered crowd. "Ash?" she said, more quietly now. "That's a good call, right?"
"Sure," said the crone. "get out while you can and leave dozens of people to d-" her weathered face twisted in surprise and she bolted forward, far too quickly for someone her age, and grabbed Misty's shoulder, pulling the stunned girl forward and off balance. "Down!" she shouted.
The crowd seemed to undulate with a nervous energy as Ash acting on instinct, threw a pokeball to the ground and released Arcanine with a flash of white light. A freezing chill ran down the trainer's spine, and as the canine materialized with a powerful bark, Ash caught a flash of purple from the corner of his eye. Turning on his heel he saw hanging in the air where Misty had just stood a faint purple cloud, like a dimly luminescent haze. In the second he took to focus on it, Ash perceived a face in the shape, a ghastly visage that snarled at him with a mouth full of fangs and rushed forward as Ash catapulted himself back to the edge of the crowd.
Arcanine materialized in front of his trainer in a burst of wind and dirt, maw open and flashing with fire. Simultaneously, Pikachu crackled with energy from Ash's shoulder and loosed a yellow energy attack. Both the jet of flame and the thunderbolt connected with the apparition and seemed to disperse within its form as though they'd hit something far more substantial than a gas but not quite solid.
With a hissing shriek the vapor dissipated, snarling at Ash again but blowing away in the light breeze. Ash remained were he stood, panting. A cold sweat had broken out across his forehead which he wiped away with the bit of sleeve exposed beneath his bracers. By this point the whole crowd had dispersed, most running away in a panic, some more calmly stepping back to observe, leaving Ash, Misty, Brock, and the old woman more or less alone. The officers had gone after the crowd to try and hold off a riot.
"What the hell was that?" he asked once Ash caught his breath. Glancing at the faces around him, he saw Brock standing rooted to the ground in much the same fashion as Misty. The two trainers looked, for lack of a better word, stunned. It was not fear on their faces but a look of dumb paralysis.
"That," said the crone, clearing her throat and stepping forward, patting Brock and Misty on the back to quickly shake them from their stupor, "was what would be called a 'Ghastly' by most. It's a physical form manipulated by a ghost on this plane. That was fairly nice," she said, voice dry, as the turned to Ash. "You dispatched it in one solid combination of attacks, both of which were one of the rare methods by which a ghost's vaporous form can be hurt."
"Beginner's luck," said Ash. He grinned a little, but still shook uneasily.
"Unfortunately," said the crone. "Neither of us were quick enough to prevent it from infecting your friend." She glanced quickly over at Misty.
"What?" asked the redhead, drawing back, panic shooting across her face. "What are you saying?"
"Your lip," said the crone.
Misty reflexively reached up and covered her mouth. Drawing her hand away she saw red on her palm.
"Oh shit," said Brock. "What can we do," said the Gym Leader to the old woman.
"Guys," said Misty, voice trembling. "What's going on?"
"You can follow me," said the crone. "The only way to save her is to rid this plane of the ghosts causing the plague."
"Guys!" Misty shouted, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
"I'm sorry," said Ash moving forward and taking Misty's hand. "If I'd been faster..."
"What the hell is going on?!" Misty barked, jerking away.
Clicking as it opened in front of her face, the crone held out a mirror and Misty gasped. "If you want to live, you'll help," said the woman as Misty stared at the tiny black lesion, rimmed in speckled purple flesh, that cut down the center of her bottom lip.
SC
"I should have known Team Rocket was involved somehow..." Brock muttered, the words carrying venomous disdain. "Wherever there's trouble, those bastards are involved."
"Indeed," said the crone, walking side by side with Brock.
Rock Tunnel chilled the party to the core. No one managed to contain their twitching and shivering, and coupled with the threat of drawing unwanted attention, the cold made speech even less appealing. Ash walked close beside Misty, behind Brock, silently holding her hand in his. Pikachu sat atop his trainer's head, glowing only enough to light the ground at Brock's feet, but still giving off enough light to cast eerie shadows on the wall.
After the six nerve wracking hours they'd spent underground, the split in Misty's lip had not grown, though a second lesion had appeared on her cheek and steadily wound down her face. Any attempt to bandage it proved futile as the wound would slowly slither out from beneath the gauze. Ash insisted on at least this much though, and saw to it himself. Misty had barely said a word the entire hike, even when Ash was replacing the bandages on her face.
More than once the party had broken its unmentioned pact of silence to discuss the upcoming excursion into Lavender. The crone, who had refused to divulge her origins or give her name or go by anything other than 'old woman' or 'ma'am' explained in great detail that Team Rocket was indeed involved in the whole affair. Exposing her intimate knowledge of Lavender Town, she told the party of the town's bloody past, and it's present predicament.
"Lavender was the first city founded in this region," she said, "by settlers coming from the east. Given that the settlers had vast resources that they could focus on just one city, the local population was well protected and grew quickly. Over the next several generations the people spread out and founded other cities which became known as the core, but Lavender remained the largest and most prosperous.
"A little over a century ago all of that changed," she continued. "A horde of raiders, slavers, and brigands from the southeast formed a coalition and sacked Lavender. The city's defenses were strong enough to kill many of them, but when the horde broke through and the citizens all fought to defend themselves, a slave-run turned into a bloodbath and all but a few of Lavender's inhabitants were slaughtered.
"Some people say the ghosts of the slain people and Pokemon from both sides rose up to continue the fight during the last hours of the conflict, but nevertheless the slavers were wiped out and Lavender survived... more or less. As many as four hundred thousand citizens were killed, and thousands of slavers died. All of those bodies had to go somewhere, so survivors piled them in buildings in an abandoned and decimated portion of town that has since become known as the Bonegarden. You might have heard of it," she said to the party. "The most famous structure is called Pokemon Tower, which is where most of the slaver's Pokemon were dumped..."
Brock and Ash nodded. "Grandpa mentioned it once," said Ash. "He told me that nothing good ever comes from that place."
The crone nodded. "The Bonegarden was sealed off and ever since, the whole region has become a hotspot for paranormal happenings. There have never been any cases of people being hurt, but plenty of people have been scared witless by apparitions of varying moral alignments."
"So why would Team Rocket have any desire to build a machine in Pokemon Tower to forcibly bring spirits here?" Brock asked. "What would that accomplish?"
"I cannot say," said the crone as a light appeared in the distance ahead, the faint glow of an exit illuminated only by the waxing twilight hours. "Perhaps they're trying to disrupt the psychics in Saffron? Ghosts after all with their very presence disrupt the underlays of reality, making it difficult if not impossible for psychic human's and Pokemon's powers to function. But what that would accomplish I don't know..."
The party stopped at the exit and stared out. "So this is Lavender," said Ash, surveying the scene. He waited for a moment for someone to respond, though no one took the initiative. All four simply looked out into the dense fog that permeated everything before them. Lavender Town had little that could pass for an outskirt, beginning almost as soon as Rock Tunnel ended, even if many, most even, of the buildings appeared ancient and poorly maintained.
Strangely, the fog seemed to obscure Ash's vision equally at all distances. The tall buildings a mile away, the warehouse wall a stone's throw away, and his hand in front of his face, were all equally blurry in the fog, which is to say that he could make out only the rough details of each. The effect disconcerted him to no end and for a moment his head spun, his brain trying to interpret what his eyes were telling him. Misty's hand tightened around his in response to Ash's wavering to one side.
"You alright?" asked the trainer, her speaking disturbing the lesions on her face and making her twitch in pain. Ash only nodded.
"I can't see a goddamned thing," said Brock in a whisper. "It's like looking at a giant snowbank..."
"This complicates things," said the crone. "I hadn't anticipated such thick fog... I could lead us in the general direction of the Bonegarden and Pokemon Tower... but we could wander for hours to locate either one."
Ash glanced at his partners. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "Can't you at least see a little?" he paused and all three with him shook their heads. Even Pikachu squeaked a negative response. "Well," Ash said quietly, "I can see, almost." Everyone turned to look at him with differing levels of surprise. "I can make out almost everything between here and those buildings in the distance," he waved his hand to gesture in their direction. "It's blurry though, I can't really explain what I'm seeing."
"It's the fog," said Brock. "It's messing with your eyes."
"Maybe," said the crone before Ash could respond. "But this fog is not natural. It might be affecting the boy in a different way than the rest of us..."
Ash's face flushed with frustration. "We don't have time to wait around," he said, his voice hiding a growl in his tone. "We need to get to Pokemon Tower and destroy whatever it is Team Rocket is building before," he glanced at Misty from the corner of his eye and his stomach turned at the thought of her becoming like those people in the cells, "before it's too late." He swallowed hard when he felt Misty's hand shiver. "Now point me in the direction of the damn tower and I'll get us there," he concluded.
The crone nodded. "Alright," she said, stepping forward into the mist, disappearing as far as Brock and Misty could tell but only becoming blurry to Ash's eyes. Brock stepped forward and stood beside her. "Hey," he said quietly, "once you're inside the bank you can see a little more... only for a few feet, but that's better than nothing."
"Ready?" asked Ash, rubbing Misty's hand with his thumb. She nodded and they both stepped forward. It made Ash sick to think of what she must be experiencing. I have to end this, for her, he thought.
"What do you see?" asked the crone quietly once the party determined that they could all see each other if close together, and that Ash could still see most clearly of any of them.
"Nothing," said Ash, studying the surrounding structures. "There's nothing... no bodies, no signs of a fight... not anything other than the buildings."
"Be as silent as possible now," said the crone. "Spirits will know we are here now, but not all of them are malicious. We need to attract as little attention as possible."
With a deep breath, Ash set off, leading the party and describing the surroundings to the crone in little more than whispers. Over the next half an hour the light faded to a faint glow overhead in the mist and the old woman adjusted course only once or twice.
Ash's skin crawled whenever he turned to give her an update, because then he would see his companions, surrounded by the mists, but also by incorporeal hands in the fog, fingers that would waft over their shoulders or faces as if to caress them. Though the scene seemed unnatural and aberrant, Ash 's mind leapt to the conclusion that the figures in the mist meant the party no harm, their interactions being curious. Still, forcing himself to accept this instinct brought little relief. Maybe these were the spirits of good people, he thought, forcing his mind to happier subjects. Maybe they're even the helpful kind of ghost... if there is such a thing.
Ash said nothing to his companions, as there would be nothing the party could do if they did know, and the ghosts did not seem to bother the trainers or even catch their notice. Ash however went completely numb the first time he saw one of the disembodied hands reach out from the mist to trace its fingers across his neck. The nails left cold sweat rather than blood and Ash nearly fainted, maintaining his pace through sheer force of will. This is wrong, he thought. These things don't belong here... benevolent or not.
Walking on, Ash lead the party with little cues and notes from the old woman. He glanced warily about at all times, watching for any signs of trouble as the specters became more and more common, some even manifesting as floating torsos of mist, complete with limbs of varying shapes. To say he grew comfortable with the situation would be far from the case. To the contrary, as the minutes ticked by, Ash became increasingly more irritated, though not with the ghosts. He had begun to feel, almost, that it was better to be surrounded by the gentle white mists, as if it was a cloak of sorts... even if the specters were terrifying by simple virtue of their existence.
Harmless, harmless, harmless, his mind gasped as a misty and blurred form, a woman with long flowing robes seemed to float forward to him. Trust your intuition, they're harmless. He screwed his eyes shut, feeling his nerves explode with an adrenaline fueled buzz. He kept walking, breath freezing in his lungs as his blood went cold at her touch. The apparition opened her arms and embraced him as he walked through her, breaking her form like the mists and banishing the shape to nothingness. Ash couldn't keep his breath from wheezing out as he opened his watering eyes. Misty's warm hand brushing the back of his icy fingers kept him focused. Jaw locked, he walked on.
"We're here," said the crone as Ash stopped the party before an enormous stone arch in an equally enormous stone wall. The entire trip to the gate, the party had seen no signs of battle, and only Ash had seen anything other than still mists, but now, no one missed the heavy iron gates laying torn apart on either side of the arch, or the gibberish scrawled in red all around the arch. "This is the Bonegarden."
Ash cringed again. The mist beyond the portal seemed darker to him, more like smoke than vapor, and it stirred, shifting and shaping in alien shapes.
"Child," said the crone, turning to Ash at the same instant that the young trainer realized he'd begun breathing in quick draws. "What's the matter?"
Ash turned around, words unable to express the gratitude he felt for Misty's hand holding his. He took a moment to steady himself and then spoke. "There's something in there," he muttered. "Something … wrong."
"We've known that since the start," said Brock, the man's voice firm, though Ash caught the undertone of trepidation in his words. "We know there are ghosts here. Somewhere," Brock glanced around as though watching for the spirits.
Ash shook his head and reached up with his free hand to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead. "No," he said, pausing to take another steadying breath. He refocused his attention more on the old woman now. "It's more than that. The whole way here, I've seen them, the ghosts I mean." The old woman raised an eyebrow but allowed Ash to finish. "They've just watched us and circled around us in the mists... I don't know but I've gotten the impression they're watching out for us somehow. When I look in there," he said, nodding to the black mists inside the arch, "that all goes away. I don't feel anything but..." he stopped to search for a word. "Evil."
No one spoke for a long minute, until the crone quietly cleared her throat. "You've some kind of special sight then," she said. "No doubt the spirits you've been seeing are the souls of people who were good and kind in life and took those traits with them. We can guess that you're right, they probably were, if nothing else, concealing our presence from more malicious spirits. Maybe they even divined our purpose and guided us here. That said, if your instincts are to be trusted, then we'll find little such protection in the Bonegarden."
"Then we need to move," said Brock. "Get in, destroy the machine, get out."
"Our one advantage," said the old woman, "once we're out from under the cover of these more friendly souls," she waved her hand through the air, "is that to harm us with anything but their slow-acting plague, the ghosts will have to take some physical form, a form we can destroy," she drew from the folds of her dress, a single pokeball. "I can hold my own, but I won't be able to ferry us there. You three will have to fight."
Ash, Brock, and Misty all nodded. "We can do that," said Ash. He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Whenever you're ready."
The old woman grinned just a little. "I will lead us to the tower. The machine will be on the top level and difficult to miss. If we simply destroy it, then all this should be put right... the ghosts' influences vanishing with them. Pokemon Tower will be the largest structure in that direction," said the old woman, gesturing to the east. Ash nodded when he saw it. With that, she turned to the arch, and the party walked forward under the massive stones. Ash cringed, but again Misty's warm hand kept him on track.
Inside, Ash wondered for a moment if he'd gone partially blind. His world seemed to go dark for a moment, then slowly come back into focus, dimmed as if he were standing in a smoky building. Still Ash could see with equal clarity at all distances, though the sudden change in perspective made him shudder and wince. He looked around to get a feel for his surroundings and quickly focused on Pokemon Tower. Perhaps as a trick of the mists, the building now appeared much closer, perhaps only eight or nine blocks away, and as Ash's gaze scaled the side of the tower, the darkness seemed to thicken and swirl in sheets of smoke around the building. The pinnacle of the structure was completely entombed in black, only an occasional flash of internal red light breaking the uniform hue. Only empty streets stood between the party and the tower.
"Wow," whispered Brock, holding his hand in front of his face. "This is weird."
"What do you see?" asked Ash.
"More than before," said the Gym Leader. "The fog just got thinner but it's..."
"Like being inside of a thunderhead," said Misty. "There are little flashes of red light," she said as Ash and the crone lead the party down a rubble-encrusted sidewalk. The small rocks and gravely mixture of sand and crushed mortar crunched under their feet. Every step grated on Ash's nerves. The sound of the sediment underfoot seemed deafeningly loud in his ears, ringing like thunder under his boots. He stole glances at the others, but they seemed unaffected by the noise. Every step seemed slower as Ash made himself look elsewhere, trying to block the sound out of his mind, sweat breaking out on his forehead. He scanned black windows and empty doorways, blasted out walls and caved in corners, but saw nothing but the black and shifting mists.
Where is it? Ash found himself wondering why nothing had sprung at him from the darkness. He watched with a twisting stomach each shaded corner and window, just waiting with senses sharpened to a knife's edge for the inevitable ambush, when the monsters would pour from every nook and cranny to attack. He found himself wanting the watchers he knew were all around to leap from their posts. No clashing din of a fight could be worse than the windless city and the gravel under his boots. No horrible sight, he told himself, could be worse than the empty buildings that rose up all around... even if he knew they weren't really empty. Where are you? His mind wanted to scream the question. He could almost see the figures hiding around bends and inside the blackness at the ends of the alleys. He could all but hear the faint breathing, though it all remained just beyond the edges of what he could sense.
"Ash," Misty whispered after they'd gone a block and a half. He turned to her, holding his breath , unable to respond. "You're hurting my hand."
Ash looked down, realizing after a second's pause that his hand was locked around Misty's in an iron fisted grip. "Sorry," he whispered quickly, the paranoia inflaming his nerves beginning to ebb from the front of his mind. He wiped the back of his arm across his forehead and glanced around. The shadows seemed no less dark, but the specters hiding in their reaches must have fled while he wasn't watching them. "This place is getting to me..." He trembled once, unable to believe how briefly he'd been in the Bonegarden.
Misty smiled just a little bit as the party paused and the crone looked out ahead. "I'm here for you," said the trainer, ignoring the obviously irked glances from the old woman who plainly wanted to keep walking.
Ash couldn't stop the smile from tugging up at his lip. "Thanks," he said. Some semblance of calm seemed to radiate from her words, almost going so far as to block out the sound of the gravel crunching beneath their feet.
Why is the dirt still still making that noise? he wondered.
Looking down towards his feet, Ash stared, transfixed for a split second as he tried to interpret what he saw. The ground shifted almost invisibly, as if a layer of fine rubble spread over a tarp echoed the movements of something moving beneath the tarp, something big. Oh, he thought, as if he had missed something obvious, just before panic caught up and chaos erupted.
All at the same time, Ash threw himself forward and tackled Misty to the ground, Brock vaulted backwards as the ground at his feet exploded up in a spray of dust, and a thunderous boom reverberated off the walls of the surrounding buildings as a great dark limb tore up through the ground where Ash and Misty had just stood. Brock cursed as he landed hard on his back, looking up at a pair of huge arms tearing up through the ground on either side of the scattered party.
A flash of white light and a jet of flame announced Arcanine's presence as the young trainer and Misty climbed to their feet. Arcanine seemed to read Ash's mind and raced to position himself between the trainers and the ten foot long arm as a plated shoulder followed the clawed appendage and rose out of the rubble. Through the dust and floating debris, and over the sudden roar of wind and the screeching of a beast, Ash could neither hear nor see whatever attacked the party. He could only grab hold of the scruff of Arcanine's neck with one hand and wrap his free arm around Misty's waist as the fiery Pokemon leapt forward, carrying both trainers a dozen meters from the action.
Whatever it was inside the cloud of dust shrieked again and threw its colossal form into the side of a building, shattering the superstructure and bringing down the stone walls in yet another flurry of dust and collapsing debris. Ash shielded his face from the rush of wind as Misty loosed Blastoise and Starmie from their pokeballs. After another white burst of light from within the cloud, Onyx's scarred form, Brock riding along, came slithering out of the dust followed promptly by a Golbat carrying the old woman. The enormous bat flapped its wings once and rose higher into the sky, the crone throwing out another pokeball which loosed a hissing Arbok.
"You three!" shouted the old woman, "keep your distances! This is out of-" Her Golbat swooped to the side as a clawed hand slashed out of the dust cloud at her, passing inches from Golbat's wing. The gigantic shape which followed after the old woman as Golbat dodged and weaved around the the flurry of slashing arms wasted no time in turning on the nearest target, Brock, when the Golbat flew too high to reach.
Ash stared in terrified awe for a moment at the shape. He thought it looked like nothing so much as a colossal, discolored, Muk as the creature's body twisted and undulated as it bore down on Onyx in a way that no segmented body could move. The monster lacked legs, rather possessing a slithering, slug-like body up until the shoulders sprouted from just beneath its insectoid head. Each arm twisted out of the shoulders at odd angles with numerous joints, and ended in hands tipped with talons like Scyther blades.
"Get back!" shouted the old woman, her Golbat flying close enough to the beast to blast it with a sonic attack. The blast of sound slammed into the monster and blew out a section of its side in a spray of chunky debris, a slab of which landed at Ash's feet with a slam. Ash and Misty both scrambled away as the mass, which they saw consisted of bones suspended in a tar-like sludge, hissed and turned on them.
"Arcanine!" Ash shouted, eyes going wide as the truncated mass of the monster sprouted two clawed legs and flung itself at him. Pikachu sparked with electricity and the newly generated creature clashed against Blastoise's shell as the turtle barreled into position on Misty's order. A thick jet of flame from Arcanine and a thunderbolt from Pikachu seared the surface of the beast into a crusty paste.
"We need to help!" said Misty, grabbing Ash's arm and watching as the old woman, her two Pokemon, Brock and Onyx squared off against the colossal monster. She turned back to the nearer fight as Blastoise and Arcanine set into the sludgy creature and bludgeoned or slashed it to bits.
Grabbing the other pokeball at his belt, Ash threw it to the ground and released Fearow, who quickly turned to look around and squawked in surprise at her surroundings. Ash ran to the Pokemon and jumped, flinging one leg over Fearow's neck and swinging himself into an uncomfortable, but stable, sitting position on her shoulders. The large bird turned and eyed him with something between disdain and shock, but Ash took a firm grip on the dense feathers on either side of her vulturine neck.
"Stay with her," he ordered Arcanine, nodding to Misty. Arcanine whimpered once but barked and stood next to the girl, pawing the ground uncomfortably. "Keep her safe now," he said, making himself grin reassuringly.
"Wait!" said Misty. "What do you think-"
"Isn't it obvious?" Ash interrupted, patting Pikachu on the head once. "We're going to kill this thing. Now start moving towards the tower and we'll keep anything stupid enough to show its head busy." He nudged his heels into Fearow's sides and the bird flapped into the air, twenty-five foot wingspan easily lifting Pokemon and trainer skyward.
Misty watched as Ash and Fearow angled towards the monster, which had set its sights on Onyx, before she turned to Arcanine. "Where does he get these stupid ideas like this?" she asked the Pokemon. Arcanine panted and cocked its head at her. "Better yet," she sighed, turning to Pokemon Tower, several blocks away, "how the hell does he pull them off?"
Patting Fearow's side as the bird took them higher into the air and closed on the beast, Ash took a deep breath. He glanced down at the ground, some fifty feet below, and exhaled sharply. The dark mist seemed thinner up here, and he found himself more comfortable looking down at the ground than standing on it. "Here's the plan," he said, both to Fearow and to Pikachu as though he expected both Pokemon to understand him. "We move in to Thunderbolt range, blast the thing and bank hard left to set up for another shot. Got it?"
Squawking, Fearow climbed higher and Ash knew the bird understood. Pikachu chittered, cheeks sparking as he built the necessary energy for the attack. Shifting forward to better grip Fearow, Ash looked down and surveyed the scene from ninety feet in the air. Onyx had slammed into the monster and driven his scythed tail into the beast's flank, while Brock stood back and ordered Golem to attack. The crone had flown off half a block, harrying something on the ground, shapes Ash focused on.
"Shit," he muttered as Fearow leveled off. The shapes were other Pokemon as near as Ash could tell, and they had caught the party between their numbers and the massive bulk of the monster. Ash looked down towards Misty and bit his lip. No sooner had he left than half a dozen Pokemon had rushed out of the buildings and alleys to attack her. There was something wrong with them though. Ash watched as what he took for a Primeape shambled towards Misty too slowly for a Pokemon of its species, and was blasted apart by a fiery rocket from Arcanine. "Oh shit," he reiterated, as the Primeape, now with a hole in its chest, continued towards Misty. "You've got to be kidding me."
Fearow squawked loudly and Ash's attention refocused on the nearing, and still unaware, monster. Misty can handle some... whatever they are, he thought, even as the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The trainer and his Pokemon swooped within twenty feet of the beast's side and Pikachu flashed, a bolt of white hot energy blasting from his glowing form and slamming into the monster's back. Close enough now to smell the carrion stink rolling from the creatures body, Ash grinned as Pikachu's attack burned a hole in the monster's back and blasted out its front. "Eat it!" he cheered, the thrill of the fight taking the place of fear.
Fearow banked to the left and rolled away, Ash and Pikachu clinging tight as the monster reared back and reflexively recoiled with its eight huge arms as the bolt tore into it. Ash again surveyed the scene and grunted his approval. Misty had dispatched the Pokemon moving in on her group, the old woman had destroyed the monsters advancing from the flank, and with Ash's help, Brock, Onyx, and now Golem, had driven back the colossal beast before them.
"Just a little bit more," Ash muttered. He looked down at Pikachu, the rodent chittering and sparking as it built up for another attack. Fearow cawed and began angling upwards to regain altitude, prompting Ash to hold on tighter. I could get used to this, he thought, exhilarated. The airborne trainer nudged Fearow with his heels again and the bird banked to the right and angled downward, quickly accelerating in for another pass. "Let's make this one the last one," he said, confidence building in his voice as they dove at the monster's vulnerable back.
As Pikachu flashed with another Thunderbolt, Ash gasped and reflexively pulled hard on the right side of Fearow's neck, prompting the bird to bird to bank a hard right. The monster's upper half spun on an invisible pivot and slashed at Ash with three of its huge hands. Fearow's eyes went wide and it rolled, barely clearing the gap between two claws and nearly losing Ash in the process. The trainer's leg was thrown out to one side and Ash found himself hanging from one clenched fist as Fearow rolled again, back almost scraping the monster's chest as the bird angled desperately to avoid the slashing, clawed, hands, all eight of which were now focused solely on Ash's group.
Heaving with effort as Fearow circled back behind the monster, Ash pulled himself back up on the bird's back, grateful that he hadn't ripped out enough feather's to cost him his grip. Pikachu had dug in and held on for dear life, but Ash and the airborne party angled away, trying to put distance between themselves and the monster as it refocused on Brock and began driving him back.
"What the hell?" Ash gasped as the top two shoulders exploded from the aberration's back as one unit and began flapping like wings. Through the haze Ash struggled to focus on details, but there was obviously a new adversary, one the size of an car, and sporting two wings with sickle-like edges. "Left!" he ordered as the flying arms darted towards him like a Beedrill. "Pikachu, take em out!"
Muscles heaving, Fearow rolled to the left and reversed course almost instantly, bucking Ash around hard, but lining Pikachu up for a perfect shot as the new creature stumbled in the air to correct. Pikachu's Thunderbolt blasted through the air like a yellow bullwhip, cracking just over the monster and missing by inches. The clawed arms rolled downwards, slashing at Fearow who avoided the raking claws by an even thinner margin.
The two areal combatants spiraled away from each other and angled upwards, flapping furiously to gain altitude over the other. Ash's excitement began to again degenerate into fear as he saw the flying arms gaining over him. The claws swooped in and stretched out as Fearow again rolled to avoid them, but the claws shifted as if they'd expected the maneuver and leveled out aiming straight for Fearow's now exposed belly.
Ash gasped as the flying monster smashed into Fearow, claws ripping into her flank. The bird screeched in pain and flapped hard to break loose. The claws held tight and grappled in closed, one talon raking Ash's calf and tearing through the Kevlar backing. "Lose these fuckers!" he barked, drawing the small knife he concealed in his boot and slammed it down into the solidified and cadaver-ridden sludge. Ash stabbed the thing again and again, black ooze spraying him as Fearow squawked and began losing altitude, fighting just to avoid free falling. At fifty feet the creature finally released its hold and flapped off, giving Fearow enough breathing room to straighten out.
"Pikachu!" Ash shouted. The rodent flashed again and a third Thunderbolt blasted from his cheeks, this one connecting with the flying claws and exploding in a web of lightning. The creature went rigid and fell. Ash watched as it smashed into the roof of a building beneath and dissolved into muck. "Hell," he growled, squinting as his bleeding calf burned. "Deep wound..."
Fearow called out, circling around to give Ash a better view of the battlefield. His blood seemed to go cool in his veins. Brock had brought down the giant, but its copse had begun dissolving into dozens of smaller monstrosities that mocked the forms of various Pokemon and humans. Aberrations were pouring from alleys and open doorways now, threatening to completely overrun Misty who had been separated from Brock by more than a block.
"Ketchum!" shouted the old woman, riding atop her Golbat and flying within shouting distance. "Look out!"
Ash turned and followed her gaze. "Shit," he spat, eyes widening as dozens of flying insects, Beedrill and Butterfree composed of the same sludgy mass buzzed out of windows and away from rooftops on intercept courses. "Hope you're ready," he said to Fearow and Pikachu. The huge bird beneath him cawed once, an almost pathetic sound, and Ash realized his Pokemon was wounded more gravely than he feared. Glancing down at her side, Ash winced when he saw the blood coagulating in the golden-brown feathers.
Fearow rolled again to the side as the areal opponents closed on her, almost too slowly, dodging a Beedrill's charge by a paper's width. Pikachu tried to loose a Thundershock, but Fearow banked to the right to avoid yet another charge, and Pikachu's attack fizzled harmlessly over the wing of a Butterfree. Ash began barking orders and trying to guide Fearow with his knees, acting as her second set of eyes as the airborne party desperately fought for altitude and tried to break free of the buzzing cloud of assailants surrounding them.
Crying out as a flying insect the size of a human child bashed into him, Ash gripped hard at the feathers on Fearow's neck as he was half flung from her back. The bird squawked as her trainer and Pikachu hung from her side. Weakened too much from her wound to compensate for the shift in weight Fearow began to lean right and angle towards a decrepit skyscraper. "Shit shit shit," Ash swore. He screamed as a black Beedrill buzzed in for the kill, needles aimed at his exposed face.
A blast of flame intercepted the insect and boiled it to nothing before Ash's eyes, dazzling him for a second. Looking around and trying to see through both the glowing spots in his vision and the black haze, he saw Arcanine on the ground, Misty on his back, had climbed atop a two-story building and begun providing ground support. Several more flaming missiles knocked a dozen of Ash's enemies from the sky, and together with the help from the ground, Pikachu and Fearow weeded out most of the rest.
Taking the instant of respite to again survey the battlefield, Ash couldn't contain a mournful sigh. Misty's decision to support him from the rooftops had cost the trainer her momentum, and with ghastly monsters beginning to materialize on the ground around her building, the girl was effectively trapped, still half a dozen blocks from Pokemon Tower. Brock, even farther back than Misty, stood atop Onyx's head as the serpent swept its scything tail back and forth to clear the countless assailants away from his body. Ghosts seemed to materialize from the mist itself and throw themselves, careless of their own survival, at the separated party.
A glimmer of hope flew in when the old woman and her Golbat swooped down and snow Brock from Onyx's back like a raptor, leaving the Gym Leader free to return his Pokemon to its ball on his belt.
"This is gonna be rough," Ash grumbled, angling Fearow towards Misty and taking aim with his pokeball. He glanced to his side and hissed a curse as a dozen more of the flying insects rose up out of the mists and flew towards him. Ash refocused and ignored them, throwing the pokeball down at Arcanine as Fearow closed to within a dozen meters of the rooftop. As Arcanine disappeared in a flash of white light and Misty grabbed the pokeball, Ash gripped Fearow with his knees and one hand, and extended his other hand for Misty.
Fearow pulled up and flapped hard once, decelerating and changing course with breakneck force just as Ash's hand locked around Misty's wrist and she grabbed his arm. Shifting to fling her onto Fearow's back behind him, Ash released Misty's arm and she instantly locked her arms around his waist. "Gotcha," he said, a small grin breaking across his face.
"Thanks for the rescue," said Misty, just as dozens of malicious shades tore onto the roof she'd just escaped and Fearow took off into the sky. "You can fly this thing?" she asked, snapping Arcanine's pokeball to Ash's belt.
"Well enough," said Ash, noting Fearow's growing fatigue. "We need to hurry."
"Ketchum! We need to get to the tower!" shouted the old woman, Brock in tow as the party closed two blocks in a matter of seconds. She brought her Golbat alongside Fearow. "Hurry and- Look Out!" She jutted her finger towards him.
Ash turned just in time to see a dark shape materializing out of the mists beside him, keeping pace with his Pokemon. It looked vaguely human, though squatter and glowing a ghostly purple. The world seemed to go silent as the Gengar sprung at Ash and bit, its teeth passing through his shoulder plates and skin, paralyzing him. He locked up, legs constricting around Fearow's neck just as a black Beedrill slammed into the bird's side.
Misty screamed and lost her grip as Fearow rolled helplessly to the side. The girl clutched Ash but her fingers found nothing. She felt weightless, both from the terror and the fall as she plummeted end over end, watching as the buildings grew closer and closer. Even panicked, she understood the seventy foot fall would be the end.
Misty! Ash wanted to scream as he watched his companion fall from view. His burning eyes locked on the lifeless orbs set in the Gengar's head and his mind seemed to explode. He fought to throw off the ghost's corrupting influence, but an irresistible cold clawed into his head as the Gengar drove its thumbs into his temples. He would have shrieked at the sickening cold if his lungs had been his own. The Gengar's eyes flashed a deep crimson and it grinned, even as Pikachu's Thundershock seared into its form and dispersed with a flash of yellow light.
Feeling like he was melting, Ash only vaguely saw Pokemon Tower looming up in front of him like a mountain. Fearow's wings gave out with a tremor and she could only aim for one of the windows set low in the side of the building. Ash felt the glass shatter around him as Fearow crashed through the thick pane and rolled, tumbling into the building and pitching Ash to the floor where he rolled through the shrapnel and debris.
Outside, plummeting through the air and unable to scream, Misty gasped at the jerk on her arm and the violent tug that stopped her fall only a few feet above the flat roof of a squat building. Hanging on something by one arm and lightheaded, she watched her feet slowly drift down towards the roof until the slate shingles clinked beneath her shoes. "Huh?" she muttered, looking up at the two disembodied purple hands hovering just above her. In the mists between the hands she thought she saw a face, wearing a ghostly smile and sinking away into the oblivion between her and Pokemon Tower.