The ground beneath them trembled.
Bertha, the Sinnoh Elite Four's Ground-type master, stared into the sky with her mouth hanging open.
Her voice cracked in disbelief.
"Is that… is that really Rayquaza?"
The other three Elites, Flint, Lucian, and Aaron, looked shaken.
Their eyes flicked toward Cynthia, searching for an explanation.
Mega Evolution wasn't new for them.
They knew how drastic some transformations could be.
But this was something else entirely.
It wasn't just a form change.
The Rayquaza hovering above them had shifted colors completely, its scales turning a deep, oppressive black that seemed to swallow the light around it.
His aura warping the reality.
Cynthia exhaled slowly, her golden eyes narrowed.
"It is Rayquaza. There's no doubt about that…"
She shook her head, unable to hide her shock.
"But as for why it turned into… this, I don't know."
Even she looked unsettled.
No amount of experience could help her make sense of what she was seeing.
Above them, Rayquaza's transformation finally settled.
Black scales gleamed like obsidian.
Emerald patterns were now glowing gold.
And when it opened its jaws,
A dragon's roar ripped through the sky, enough to shake clouds apart.
Cynthia whispered, "The final battle is about to begin…"
The Elite Four turned their gazes upward.
All attention locked onto the creature, blotting out the heavens.
Sam felt his heart pounding in his chest.
This was Black Rayquaza, the version he remembered from the animated special back.
A Rayquaza so strong it felt like the rules of the Pokémon world bent around it.
Now it was his.
Now it was real.
He swallowed, adrenaline burning through him.
'I have to see what it can do…'
He raised his voice.
"Rayquaza, Dragon Tail!"
Rayquaza answered with a thunderous roar.
Energy burst from its coils, and for a moment, the entire sky lit up as its body moved, faster than the brain could process.
In the next instant, Rayquaza was already in front of Giratina.
The serpent's massive, hundred-meter body curled, crackling with storm-like electricity.
Then, with a sound like a world splitting, Rayquaza slammed its tail across Giratina.
BOOM!
Giratina, still rising from the crater, smashed right back into the earth.
Debris shot up.
Even though Giratina was an older legendary, ancient, powerful, and terrifying, there was no comparison now.
Not against this version of Rayquaza.
Sam exhaled softly.
'This power… is broken.'
Rayquaza let out another roar that echoed through the distorted space above them.
It coiled higher, the air trembling around its body.
Flint muttered under his breath, unable to hide his awe, "It's overwhelming…"
On the far side of the battlefield, Cyrus stared at the fallen Giratina, staring like the ruins of his own life.
Dialga. Palkia. Giratina.
With them, he'd believed the future was in his grasp.
His vision, a world perfected by his ideals, had finally seemed reachable.
Until Sam appeared.
Until Rayquaza descended.
Until that black form transformed and crushed the last fragment of his plan.
Cyrus's hands trembled. His breath hitched, coming out uneven.
For a man who had always acted cold, emotionless, and calculating, he suddenly looked small, like a person watching his dreams turn to ash.
"All my preparations…" he whispered.
"All my years… for this?"
He had spent half his life chasing this moment.
And now, with a single strike, Sam had slammed the door to his "new world" shut.
Cyrus's face twisted.
Hopelessness melted into fury.
"Destroy… destroy everything!!"
His voice cracked into a scream, his composure shattering completely.
Cyrus's breath came out in ragged bursts as he yanked wildly on the Red Chain, the links glowing with an unstable crimson light.
The chain dragged at the wills of Dialga and Palkia, ripping the two legends into motion like puppets forced to dance.
"Obey me!" Cyrus roared.
The gods of time and space twisted violently, their attacks lashing out in every direction.
BOOM! BOOM!
Beams of warped time tore through ancient stone pillars.
Spatial rifts split open like cracks in glass, sucking in everything nearby.
The once-grand Spear Pillar shook as though Mount Coronet itself might collapse.
Team Galactic grunts, gathered behind their boss, were the first to fall victim.
They screamed as Dialga's temporal waves washed over them, aging stone into dust and tearing platforms apart.
Others were dragged into Palkia's sudden distortions, swallowed by small but lethal voids.
The battlefield became chaos, screams, explosions, and the sickening twist of space folding wrong.
But Cyrus didn't flinch.
He didn't even look back.
Team Galactic was his creation, but he'd never cared for the people in it.
Deep down, he had always despised them, tools he used on the path toward his ideal world.
And now, in his madness, that hatred only burned brighter.
Sam's jaw tightened as he watched the mayhem.
He didn't pity Team Galactic, but the consequences of the uncontrolled gods were another matter entirely.
Everywhere, the sky warped.
Black holes, small but terrifying, opened like blinking eyes.
Space stretched unnaturally, the world flickering as if it struggled to hold itself together.
If this continued, the entire region could collapse into distortion.
Sam's voice hardened.
"Rayquaza… It's time to end this."
The air thinned as he spoke.
"Use Dragon Ascent!"
Rayquaza answered with a roar that shook the heavens.
Symbols along its obsidian scales lit up, the delta mark burning like a falling star.
Energy surged around its massive form, the turbulent streams of air curling along its body like black flames.
Sam was unleashing its strongest attack.
Rayquaza shot forward, so fast the attack seemed to peel away from reality itself.
It wasn't just movement; it was a streak of black light carving through the sky.
The atmosphere warped in its wake.
Sam felt the shockwave even from the pillar.
Rayquaza slammed into Dialga first, like a spear made of pure force, driving the god of time straight into the stone floor.
The mountain roared under the impact.
Without slowing, Rayquaza twisted through the air, its tail whipping around as it crashed into Palkia next.
Space rippled violently as the god of space was forced down, pinned under the heavenly serpent's might.
One strike.
Two creation levelPokémon crushed.
The explosion of dust and fractured stone shot high enough to cover the sky.
A wave of destruction swept across the Spear Pillar, shaking the entire peak of Mount Coronet.
When the smoke thinned, the twin gods of time and space lay fallen, unable to rise beneath the overwhelming power of the black serpent.
Rayquaza ascended again, coiling upward through the air until it hung over the battlefield like a sovereign looking down upon its domain.
Every living being on the mountain, Elite Four, Cynthia, Team Galactic, even Sam, felt that gaze pressing down like the weight of a storm.
Below them, Cyrus stared blankly at the Red Chain gripped in his trembling hands.
A sharp snap cut through the air.
The chain fractured.
The red glow faded.
Fragments scattered at his feet.
His tool to bind the gods, his key to a "perfect world", fell apart like a broken dream.
Cyrus's entire body shook.
All the years he spent planning, all the risks he had taken, all the sacrifices… undone in a single battle.
His voice came out hollow, almost lost to the wind.
"My world… my ideal… destroyed."
He fell to his knees as the last pieces of the Red Chain hit the ground.
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