Snake Her Back

## Overview

Three buildings, three challenges, free will to win or fail. Tension raises when Victini decides to put each team to their ultimate test, and the head of the snake has never been this closer to be put on stakes.

Just take her back, stake her back or snake her back?

## Prologue

A mysterious figure was sneaking in the hallway of the plane, its shadow barely visible on the walls: four paws, a gracious thin muzzle, fluffy tail. The auto-pilot was still flying the plane to the next destination, and the stream was the only sound in the utter silence of the night.

"Here we go again." The foreigner unlocked the V-Room, Victini was sleeping in the cockpit since the departure of Jirachi and visited it only during the daytime. About it, the first lights of the sun were coming: there wasn't much time left.

"This, this, not that, unworthy, this, this, and this. Should be enough for tonight." Quick fingers, swift paws, the shadow stole many objects in few minutes and stored everything in the tail. "Good loot." The most difficult part, however, was the furniture that couldn't be put in a pocket! This had to be dragged away from the exit. Left the door open for a reason.

"Uhm...This victorian vanity seems worthy, I have already listed it days ago. Something else? Let's check the list: vanity, violin, table velodrome... Odd client, indeed. Least of my problems. Hnf, this vanity is heavier than I thought." Began pushing it out of the room, struggling with all the paws, but no avail it could get past. There had to be another way. Maybe the vents. If they could host space for dinosaurs and blimps, a vanity was legit.

Decision taken: used a rope to tie on all the looted furniture and climbed in the large vent conduct. "Please, tell me there's none of those pests using the confessional at this time." The moment she said that stumbled on the tail of Seviper.

"Not the Zangoose, not the tail again!" Seviper shouted half-asleep, squinting eyes in search of the prey. "You woke the wrong sssnake, whoever you are. Sniff, sniff, I can smell food when it's in the vicinance. Come to my mouth, I'm rather hungry after three weeks since the last prey." She found the vanity, then, when a figure appeared in the mirror. First was just her own shadow but then twisted in her worst nightmare: Zangoose was behind her.

The viper launched a scream of terror sloughing away in the darkest flits of the vent, not to be seen again for that night.

The shadow snickered and proceeded where she was interrupted, using her nude fangs to drag the rope. Met Anorith halfway but the anomalocaris was deeply asleep couched on his egg. Was finally on the other exit of the vent, all the things looted still at their place, and once outside again, directed at the teleportation points.

"This rarest V-max card goes to the Johto Collectionist. The violin is for that hisuian Volo. The vanity and the velodrome, well, for the obsessed number 000 fan of Victini. Phew, another long night of work is over." The thief waited just for the payment for the trades and left the same way she had come, by the vents.

The sunlight outside began to radiate illuminating the vents. Crawled her way fast and faster crossing the plane from side to side until she was again upon the V-Room. Hopped down scrolling some dusts and dirt off the paws, cleaned her fingerprints from the door, the furniture and the safe, and locked the room like nothing happened. Stretched the muscles with a satisfied look, lied on the floor, and curled up in her fluffy tail for a quick deserved nap. Right in time.

"Vibrant morning, Vulpix!" Victini entered in the room full of energy, being immediately welcomed by the happy yapping of her. He petted his puppy until she rolled on her back, whipping the tail for the joy and surrend. "Avvvvvv! Who's a good vixen? You! Fully deserved a macarone for this."

"*Another one of those disgusting cookies? That's not a reward.*" the fox groaned so quietly to be mistaken for a purr.

"Here coming the vip treat!"

"Yap. Yap. Crunk, crunk."

"Ah...now one for the owner, too. More than one! Today will be very very very tense." Soon he turned the back, Vulpix spat crumbles of macarone and hid them under the mat. "Okay, enough with the pet for today, you can go at the cockpit to stick the landing."

"At your orders, master." Vulpix left Victini alone, still spitting crumbles off the tounge. "Puah, still lucky he didn't push the pet-play further than this. If only I could find him another legendary to be distracted on...*That would give me more space to organize the real heist*."

...

"Happy Zippy Zappy Morniiiing!" Plusle woke up ready to be a contestant again, and a better one than when eliminated. Dashed at the bar to prepare the breakfast for the Leviathans, adding a flavor of her singing to it all the while waking everyone up for the best.

### *"Breakfast Circus" (from "Circus"-MLP Pinkie Sings Cover PMV)*

*"There's only two types of pokèmon in this tour*

*the ones that entertain, and the ones that sour -Dunsparce took seat alone in an angle-*

*I want to show that I fully deserve my return*

*no regrets of sort, not here to mourn.*

*In place of my brother*

*I call the spot*

*breakfast for the leader -Lester Fridge was busy studying the dossier on Metagross, again, to barely care-*

*beware is hot ops! -and the icy tounge of the poltergeist melted down as he sipped the cup...Then she moved away with an akward smile-*

*When I signed on the show*

*I was always adrenaline flowing in everyone's veins*

*caffeine served daily to all the Leviathans*

*performer n' cheerleader, till the elimination came*

*better be ready, back stronger again!*

*Rewind with Drif and me, eyes up and begin*

*this breakfast circus*

*spin the licorice, Aghostine likes it thin*

*this breakfast circus*

*Don't worry, Dunsparce, follow me*

*I did utterly not forget you*

*Everyone gets raw, let's show overall*

*this breakfast circus.*

*Spun!*

*Spoon!*

*Floon!*

*Flan!*

*Foam!*

*Fun!*

*There's only two kind of Leviathans out there*

*the ones that stay positive, and those that are scared*

*but my role is assure the electricity is to everyone shared*

*I deliver a party ship, so be aware.*

*I'm your cheerleader*

*don't care if dot*

*overwhelmin' all fear*

*believe or not!*

*-Plusle did a double cartwheel followed by a backflip landing inside the pastry-*

*When life gives you lemons*

*squeeze 'em with all your paws till they make rain*

*dress chucks and under rain dance away all the strain*

*keep high morale, second chance will eventually gain*

*better be ready, Leviathans are reunited again!*"

The three Leviathanic girls ended the song alltogether, then it was finally breakfast time for Plusle, too. "Lester Latias Leviathans, give me a B a R a E a A a K a F a A a S and a T. Goooood breakfast!"

"Plusle, it's great to have you back, I can't believe, ehm." Chandelure almost opened her arms to do an hug, which Plusle returned immediately. "Awww! I will give all myself to not disappoint Minun and keep high the name of the family. Thanks for having taken care of him all this time, sniff. Sorry, I got a little emotional! Let's just think only positive things from now on!"

"Lester Latias Leviathans, wooh!" suddenly Beheeyem joined his old companions. "How much I missed it, you have no idea."

**// Vent //**

**"Think I did my time in the Venturers." The alien moved hands forward. "Merge is close so it's likely better to reconcile with the previous family than stick on a dysfunctional one. Minun would have never given me a chance but Plusle? She's the perfect chance."**

Chandelure crossed arms and shifted eyes in response. Beheeyem avoided any eye contact ignoring her, and welcomed back Plusle instead, in his own way of course. "Uhm, uhm, uhmmm. Unless Minun had a genderbender (and considering how much feminine he was that would have been more a consequence than else) what happened here? Where is my favorite feminine meekly boy? And favorite victim of sarcastic quotes as well."

"He retired because of electric fever." Plusle frowned. "But I was offered to switch in his place and I accepted!"

"Interesting, never expected Victini to accept a placeholder." Beheeyem used Psychic to hand himself a mokaccino. "It was your idea, Lester? Sounds like that. Surp, you forgot to add the coffee, Drif, but eh I appreciate the same. Unfortunately I can't stay further, see you around as enemies and see you soon as friends most of all. What's a good earthling catchphrase for this? Ah. Smell ya later."

"So even dealing with Seviper turns a pokèmon in a poison...type." Drifblim said soon he left with Dunsparce taking the indirect bullet to the morale. "Or he was always like this and I don't remember?"

Chandelure shook the head. "He's just an alien trying to survive on an hostile planet, like a cockroach."

"A placeholder...?"

"Attention, passengers: we're landing in 5 minutes. You're all welcomed to strap on your seats- yours commander, Vulpix."

"Straps? Which straps are left after so many explosions?!" Piplup's shrill pierced from the Tail of Losers.

## Challenge

"Still Hoenn, new obstacles! It's time to peak and this is where the peak of the region finds its final form: Battle Frontier (aka Parco Lotta)."

The contestants spread among the vastity of the island, gazing at the seven aces buildings in awe and shock. "What's that Seviper-ish place?"

**// Vent //**

**"I never visited Battle Frontier before. Me and my brother have always been more into contests than else." Plusle nonetheless was pumped and excited. "Seems so much fun! I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't waiiiiit!"**

**Anorith scrubbed his chin with a claw and a perplexed look. "Where this island even came from? Last time I was here, there was only the sea."**

**"Ssso there's a building dedicated after me? There's humansss worth to be at my service, at leassst."**

"That's the Battle Pike, and will be part of the challenge, but" Victini reunited all the contestants in the perfect middle of the park. "first of all I have an announcement. With Bagon (and Minun) eliminated, the rim has been definitely crossed: it's time to VERGE!"

"You mean merge?"

"Obviously, but verge sounds way better."

"Yesss!"

"Tsk, torture is over." Lucario crossed arms leaning to a post lamp. "Finally alone."

Leviathans gasped. "Drifblim and Plusle just returned and you're going to separate us again?" Chandelure's flames turned black as her feelings in that moment. Victini struggled between being host and being father, on second back it wasn't a good idea to sign her partecipation afterall the troubles happened. Let the host to take control of the situation. "However, teams are not yet completely vanished, since the challenge will be split in three groups where everyone will be against everyone, and only one of each of the three will merge victorious and be immune, while the rest will all go to nominations and vote only for their ***former team members***. Understand? Don't play smart voting a member of another team like you did before because that will be invalidated. Teams are still alive till the end of tonight."

**// Vent //**

**Lester reassured the imaginary fandom: "Don't panic, my quirky followers. We're all voting Dunsparce and problem solved, ah!"**

"Said this, here's the challenge. The ex teams will be assigned to 3 different buildings: Battle Pyramid to the former Leviathans, Battle Pike to ex-Venturers, and the newfounded Battle Dome to what once were the Jigglers." The host pointed at the three buildings, leading the way. "Follow me."

First stop was in front of the Dome. "Battle Dome. It was recently updated to the same functions of the sinnohnian frontier. **Since Jigglers seem so bloodthirsty recently then they're going to fight each others in a spin-the-wheel tournament, where any hazard is possible. Chimecho, Dewott, Lucario, Ninjask, Piplup will go 1 on 1 at rotation, and loser will be each time the first to get 2 loss out of 3 rounds. Until it rounds up to the last 2 pokémon remaining that will battle the final match for the badge**."

Lucario looked at Chimecho: everyone knew that she hated fights. "*Hey, you have the fighting spirit just stop restraining it for yourself. Even when I am your opponent, fight me to the death. Don't restrain at all. Okay?*" Stroked her tail which was still bandaged, and entered in the Dome. The chime made an uncertain sound and entered after him.

"This actually could be exploited, don't you think, my dear?"

"Talking about what...?"

Piplup pounded the chest "Chimecho and battles are like Squirtle and grammar: they just don't coexist."

"You never did a battle as well." Dewott drawled in a depressed way.

"Oh my! You could have been more delicate on me, don't you? Thanks for the endorsement."

The second stop was in front of the disturbing looking Battle Pike, the building that snaked its length all over the south-east quarter of the frontier.

"VVelcome in the mouth of the destiny. Battle Pike is a series of multiple-choice rooms where anything can happen. Fortunes or misfortunes, wild scenarios or locked chambers, melancholic experiences, or even a dead-end.

Since I trusted you to the point to give you a name after myself, and I was so very wrong in my early installment, and since in your team you can't trust even your own shadow, y**ou will be bandaged each time you pick the next room so you can trust only your other senses to guess the correct ones! The first who gets to the last room is the winner. Beheeyem, since I forgot to give you the penalty last time -yes, I check every episode and listen to all of your little conversations- you get double service today.**"

"Yawn."

"You will be bandaged all the time, and, pick: ice, fire, poison or electric?"

"Ice."

"Dumb choice!" Beheeyem was frozen solid soon he stepped inside. "Very good luck. Vy the way, Porygon, all your satellite equipment has been disabled, too."

"This place is meant to be creepy, well, not when you have already been inside the stomach of a Seviper." Anorith put on the blindfold. "Not even close to the infernal stench of the original."

"I still lisssten you, anomalocarisss..."

Aurorus ,remained alone with the icicled Beheeyem, put on the blindfold. And soon she did so, the picture of Beheeyem appeared in her head:

"*Cough, cough, how about a collaboration? I could make you see-through with the power of my psychicness, while you could handle this icy situation for me with your ice control techniques. Eyes for ice. Victini underestimated me as usual.*"

"Spare me your ego. Okay. I will change the consistence of that ice so you will be able to move your frozen body."

"Yes, I noticed this little niche trick yesterday." The ice was turned in a liquid solution that flowed all over the body of the alien, and then solidified in a crystalline exoskeleton. "Ah, much better, fits like a glove. We're inside a copycat of Seviper, then, I wonder...Mmmh. I wonder if we could finally get inside of our Seviper, too."

Victini and the Leviathans arrived at the extreme north-east where a giant floating pyramid dominated the area from above. "Quirky majestic!"

"**The Battle Pyramid, the toughest simulation of a dungeon crawler adventure. Once inside you will move in the darkness, floor after floor, to the top of the pyramid. You can count only on your own sources, and those you'll find during your exploration. Each one of you has a backpack where to collect all the intruments found, some necessary to proceed and others completely useless. Watch out, there are traps and riddles to solve, and some traps send you directly outside of the pyramid to the nominations. Since you're the team that survived the most of the times in the hardest, oddest conditions, here's the ultimate challenge: first who reaches the top of the pyramid, wins**!"

"May I remember you all that I am a genius of explorations?" Drifblim boasted in front of everyone dressing on her exploration outfit at full. "Sorry, but your Dory will be the designated winner."

"I can also move in the darkness since I live in a labyrintic cave..."

"I practiced moving in the darkness when I was still alive..."

"I'm an electric type, and so does Lester..."that could have been a typical Minun observation but coming from Plusle.

At end of the day Drifblim was the only pokémon unable to see in the darkness! "Oh, right. I had forgotten this detail." When they all entered and split apart, she lost herself immediately and the bleeping noise was necessary.

##### Pyramid

The pyramid was nothing more than a pile of squared floors consisting of hallways and chambers that narrowed stairs after stairs the closer they got to the top. The smooth metal of the walls were all identical and didn't give any indication. Light was non existing. Dunsparce was used to move in this kind of environment alike of the Union Cave. Reached the extreme corner of the first floor before anyone else, but unlike his expectations the stairs weren't there.

It took him a few to realize that there was something else in that chamber than stairs: an horizontal disc in the middle of the room. "Is it a calendar? No, how could be, this isn't a ruin. It's made of metal like the rest of the pyramid...Oh, it's a rotating handle, actually!" The tsuchinoko walked around the mechanism with temptation but also no clues about the use of it. And if it was just a trap? Backed off from it immediately. "Afterall I don't even know how to handle it, yet I'm tired really tired of having doubts and regrets..."

His sigh was amped by the chamber, and the echo of that sound was pushing on his nerves.

"What's the point to have always doubts? I doubted on Sylveon and I was wrong: if only I would, we could have been become a thing yet I kept all to myself until it was too late. I doubted on Seviper and I was wrong to don't listen that neverending sensation of being just an instrument for her. I doubted on Lunatone's existence, too, and I was wrong again. Enough with doubts!" Dunsparce found the way to rotate the disc with no hands, inserting the point of the driller in the main piston.

The whole pyramid shackled and trembled for a minute: what happened? Apparently, nothing from his point of view. "I'll go back then..." few steps and he found another chamber, that wasn't there before. "B-But it was an hallway before. I have allucinated? No, no more doubts! I'll j-just take it and continue the exploration."

Little did he know, the pyramid was built on a rotating structure. The five levels were jointed to a giant mechanism that if triggered rotated each floor of 360°. If any of them would have discovered the trick, that could have been a massive weapon against the chances of the others: Dunsparce had failed an opportunity once again because of his insecurity, maybe for the last time.

"This is that kind of challenge written for Minun, sigh. Just now that I replaced him I am separated from the Leviathans again, so unfair." Plusle slapped her cheeks that popped out a few sparkles. "Get back in yourself, like, now! Never lose positivity: I have light to begin with so I am fine. Minun is good at labyrinths but I am best at perseverance! There's something shiny at the end of the hall." Plusle, being Plusle and not Minun, rushed no less to the object: Minun would have likely pondered on the possibility of a trap, she activated it at the very first step.

A series of flits opened in the walls and shot poison barbs. Plusle reacted quickly once again proving that agility ran in the family along with cheerleading and crossdressing. Jumped aside of the first arrows and ricocheted on the wall using legs to leap at the opposite flit, crunched her body to avoid the arrows incoming from said flit, and climbed swinging her abdominal muscles to jump at the next flit, once again waiting the right moment to dodge. Repeated the same stunt again but halfway the pattern changed: the arrows were shot from the opposite wall.

"When life gives you a lemon chuck..."

She began to sing all the while coiling her tail like a spring to assure a big leap over the arrows and the void that had opened under her feet.

"It doesn't matter the hurdle, keep the struggle, just waaarble." Plusle landed grabbing the very last flit while feeling for a second the fresh air cooling her fur from the bottom of the sky, until the floor closed again. Let out a sweat drop of relief. It seemed all over. "I can let the grip, phew! That was exciting. Certainly it was also worth it, right?!" Plusle hopped off from the ceiling, soon after realizing to have a needle stuck in her left cheek, but deemed it like a minor scratch. "What item is this? Looks like an orb. It's a Master Ball, ooh!"

Plusle scratched the other cheek giving a perplexed look at the sphere.

"What kind of utility it has here? Oh, well, a discovery is always a reward." put it in the backpack and proceeded to the next hall with renewed willpower.

"Dad, dad, dad. This is a dead old trick." Chandelure scorched the metallic surface of the wall that shrunk in a single delay like a paper scroll, until it was removed revealing a transcript behind. "Look for the V." So apparently the host was trying to send a message just for her. She scorched the opposite facing wall obtaining the same indication in bright singeing characters. The script was spammed everywhere but visible only to her.

**// Vent //**

**Although he would deny later in the confessional, several times. "I am not favoring my daughter leaving a system of secret indications that we only know about, not a chance in hell, nope. I want to...actually...test the wit of the contestants! See how many of them can think outside the box and find the shortcuts to the... the victory! Only the most vivid minds are worthy to merge afterall, Chandelure is just one of those."**

"Ah! So there was a trick, by the way. And it's the same of ...course, paf! The invisible ink on lemon, but in a different rendition." Lester cursed. Half an hour of quirky planifications, mindfuck theories and EVEN the attempt of mentally mapping the whole pyramid, got wasted. The solution was under his eyes the whole time! Turned, and was eye on eye with Chandelure, her long thin shadow projecting over his little normal form. The chandelier was curious to know "How do you know about the lemon ink, mmh?"

"Ehmmm. It's not that uncommon to see, metaphorically speaking. Ahahah!"

"Oh, really? To think I thought to have found a unique secret code when I was Litwick." Chandelure nonchalantly whispered in his ears. "*The lemon ink was a mixture I prepared using the leftovers of wax, and it could react only if exposed to a wisp o' will. But, shhht, let's keep the secret to the tomb, to our tombs, ih ih ih.*"

Her inquisitory tone made Lester's plasma to shiver, but he kept smiling and lying "How quirky, and I thought to be the original copyrighter of the idea: *as oven, I wrote my secret recipe for Quirky Gateau using this system, but, shhhhhhhhhht!*"

"Don't worry, I'll keep the secret." Chandelure shrugged, actually entertained by his increasing anxiety, and admitted at the end "I was kidding. I copied this system from an ancient spell book." Followed by utter silence. The two stared at each others, Lester shuddered of electricity thinking at the famous diary, thinking that he had actually lost it in the previous challenge when he tossed the broken washing machine forever. *Always empty the spin dryer before wasting the washing machine* he had said. He had just lost his main warrancy to stay in the game against Victini's will!

"By the way, Lester, did you read my text again?"

His heart zapped off the chest. "Y-Your text? A-ah...Of course no!"

"Okay. Did you at least think about it?"

"Why I should? Once was enough. I promised to never read or bring it in mind again since it made you suffer this much."

"You're talking about the diary now." Chandelure frowned.

"Y-You aren't...?!" Lester squinted eyes. "Then, then, what is the topic? I'm dizzy."

"Nevermind."

Chandelure sighed and made a sarcastic smile barely visible in that darkness. "Let's go find a V on a wall I guess. Together, like Leviathans." Wrapped her skinny tentacles around his thin lightning arms dragging Rotom with herself.

"But...but...we're Leviathans no more, we are all against, it's crazy from you to help a-!"

"It's quirky." Aghostina corrected him. "But I want to consider us loviathans one last time."

"E...e...eh?" Rotom's shiny red turned to ultraviolet then, radiating his light over a quarter of the floor and generating an x-ray view. "I see everything and Leviathans! Since when I see through the objects?!"

"I can too." Chandelure noticed how her arms were both incadescent while holding his. "Maybe the overheat altered the plasma of your essence, the electric waves reacted with the conductive material of the pyramid, and the tin contained in my body connected our minds together with the structure of the pyramid itself."

Lester didn't know what to say in that quirky situation. The explanation she had provided was too convoluted even for him, and he loved it, maybe? The stairs weren't too far from their position, by the way. Dressed on a fedora that was actually the only item he had found so far and led the way for both.

"Damn, I lost my fedora somewhere." Drifblim had returned to the entrance for the third time, each time with a piece of her dungeon outfit lost.

"Drifblim, do you want to get out from the challenge directly? Just pathetic." Victini scolded her from the megaphone. "Get back inside and don't dare to come back again or you will be disqualified!"

"Of course I will not! It was a warming exercise for my memory." she lied, quickly returning indoor. "I need to remember the tricks I used for the mystery dungeons or my name isn't Der...Dor...Drif...blim! Anymore."

#### Dome

Once inside the arena, the challengers were instructed the rules for the Battle Dome tournament.

"The target is making the foe to fall from the arena. One of the challengers at turn spins the wheel that will give a bonus or a malus to them, and the terrain is randomized. The first rounds are Dewott vs Lucario and Chimecho vs Ninjask. Piplup as spectator for now."

The two pairs were put on different platforms that lifted up to half the height of the dome. Dewott and Chimecho were the first spinners. Both the wheels landed on a malus for their opponent: Lucario was handcuffed and Ninjask was given an Iron Ball that prevented him from flying.

"Sun and misty terrain. It's settled!" Victini activated the platforms from the control booth. The arena of Dewott and Lucario lifted up even more getting so close to the surface of the dome that they could feel the sun burn their skin: a series of solar panels covered the terrain and the background."

"Do you want us to be rare, medium or overcooked, sgrunt?"

The other arena was enveloped in a thick mist where Chimecho and Ninjask could barely see each others. Lucario felt the urge to reassure Chimecho again, shouting: "Don't hold yourself because it's Ninjask, you can do it anyway!" Ninjask smirked. The battle began with him striking the iron ball at Chimecho's direction and digging immedietaley undergorund: she dodged that prehentive attack for an inch out of pure istinct soon she heard the vibration in the air.

"Ninjask has immediately found a way to turn the malus at his vantage, he's incredible." Chimecho imprudently collected the orb from the ground, losing her Levitate, and made a little noise when her bell bumped on the ground. Ninjask followed the sound just made, finding her position. "Thief!" Hit supereffectively and stole back the iron ball, crawling to hide in the fog. Chimecho was able to levitate again but that didn't reassure her, stood up with her painful body, and focused to spot Ninjask's hideout.

"If you follow the true path of the ninja like you said to Bagon the whole time, you should fight with honor than recur to tricks..."

"Don't pretend to understand what fighting is, chime." his voice was different, more sinister.

"I'm not unable to fight, I made a choice of life!" Chimecho enraged whipping the fog with a tail slap, but immediately recollected herself, and smirked with tears of sweat dropping from the side of her cheek. "I see that shadow of you, Ninjask, everywhere you hide."

"Then it's time I split from it." Chimecho perceived s second aura detaching from Ninjask, an aura she had perceived before only once and had tormented her worst thoughts all this time.

"It's impossible, I have never seen a single being with two auras. Unless..." She was hit again with the iron ball straight on the main body that collapsed under the weight of the item, pressing her against the floor. Chimecho used her tail to move despite the heavyweight on her stomach, until she felt the board of the platform behind her back. "Your strategy worked, anf, congratulations. I have never met someone able to give away the soul in this way like you did with *Shedinj*..."

Ninjask, used Sword Dance and X-Scissor to finish her. "I didn't sell my soul, we share it." Chimecho fell senseless down the platform under the eyes of a shocked Lucario.

"Already? No way. After all the pain she endured yesterday she can't..." but he had a fight to do like the scallop blade of Dewott reminded him the hard way when it struck on his muzzle.

**// Vent //**

**"I knew I would have disappointed Lucario." Chimecho exhibited a visible sign of cut on the tail, too. Ninjask hadn't had any mercy at the end, unlike his usual approach that had always been the most controlled and deceptive possible. That meant that Ninjask wasn't the one in control during that fight...**

"YOU WILL PAY FOR IT!" Lucario growled but it was hard to tell if that growl was for Dewott or Ninjask. Anyway, he rushed to counterattack seemingly forgetting to wear handcuffs that choked his punches inside the elbows. "Grrright." Used the knees then to bounce the ott away.

"No, you will pay for everything I went through." Dewott felt a sudden heat at the side of the body touching the floor in that moment. The panel behind her was capturing the sunlight to the overheating point, charging the power of the sun all under her feet. "What the shell...!" she rolled away just in time: a Solar Ray exploded vertically from the panel she was lying on a second ago.

"Ah, so this is how this works." Lucario understood first that this feature was meant to be put on good use. Ran up to Dewott and kicked her like a football ball. The ott bounced onto another panel but ricocheted away boosting on the water jets before it was too late, then filed the Sacred Sword from the inside of the scallop and projected it over Lucario from the above, landing a supereffective blow.

"This way, darling, show him the prowess of we starter!" Piplup was certain of Dewott's victory at this point.

"Not yet, rgh." Lucario grunted while holding the blade between his feet: Dewott was defenseless without her scallop. Since she could have used it to deflect the rays, he had to take the risk and make her do this mistake. The sword was almost slipping from his toes as Dewott kept trusting it with all her strength, so far he could feel the point of the blade near his crotch.

"How long you think you can resist in that position, Lucario?" Piplup taunted from the audience, like she was in Dewott's place.

"Forever, it's nothing after all the yoga I did. Boat position." Lucario suddenly snatched the blade with the teeth and rolled on the back tossing it over the board of the platform: it landed exactly 1mm away from Piplup's seat!

"A-Arceus save the queen!"

Dewott was tossed as well but stayed on the platform while Lucario stood up on his feet again, ready for the comeback of her. Fist versus kick: Dewott unleashed all her bare hand techniques to which Lucario stood still with knees and calves. That stand-still moment of the fight was abruptly broken by the charged solar panel under their feet, that forced them apart to avoid an incoming sun ray. This action didn't prevent them from getting slightly burned by the sun.

Lucario felt the burn right on his ankle, but tried to endure it to the end of the match. Dewott refreshed the burnouts with her own water, and was ready again to fight to the death. "I will not give up, Lucario! I don't care if you're a fighting type, I don't care if you're humiliating me fighting with no hands...I'm gonna win this."

For the first time Lucario felt some respect for her, she was as stubborn in front of death as he was at her age, and was STILL at his current. But he had to put an end to that fight or he would have not been able to resist any longer with the ankle burned. Climbed on the pole of the biggest solar panel using the elbows, Dewott hit him immediately this time, bending the pole that suspended the panel in the void. Lucario took the risk and used the panel like a trampuline to do an high jump, and frog splashed on the floor detaching a piece of it with the devastating landing.

Now he could just hope to have picked the right panel. Yes, it was charging up the energy of the sun. Holding it barely with the chin and the kneecaps he directed it against Dewott but she dodged seeing it coming in front of her, however the target of the ray wasn't her: the sun ray hit the same panel bent by her before, that had charged the sunpower as well. The overload caused the whole platform to blow up all the energy converted in electricity, and Dewott was stuck in the middle of it: it was supereffective, but was the blow up to actually send her out of the arena. While Lucario managed to stay on the board balancing on top of a single toe.

"The Tree Position!" Chimecho's eyes filled with awe were the real victory.

"Lucario and Ninjask make it through the first round. What an exciting opening of this challenge! I want you continue this way. Piplup, prepare yourself, because you're going to face the losers of this round back to back. First Chimecho, and then Dewott."

"My word! Is this a farse, right? How am I supposed to do two fights in a row."

"Well, if you win the first one you don't have to worry about that, for now."

"Hey, time out!" Lucario jumped down the platform directly. "She needs to heal her tail before." Chimecho blushed, then noticed the scorch on his ankle, and quickly wrapped her tail around it, using Aromatherapy.

"Her tail is fine as you can see."

"It's not, look better! Argh, Chimecho, why you did that? Now I can't...you can't have any excuse." He stroked her tail but she immediately retracted it in pain. She reassured him about her conditions: "I will be fine, don't worry about me, you're actually the one always up to be eliminated, and it's better you win, trust me."

"Eh? What a bunch of crap, I don't care about myself when it comes to you. Stop being selfless."

"I care about us, in fact." She smooched him on the nose. "Watch your back and not mine. Besides, I have seen you continue a fight despite getting injured so many times I would be ashamed to not do the same."

"Chimecho, that's not a good point for..."

"Chimecho, get on the platform, please! Piplup, spin the wheel."

The penguin's legs trembled thinking this was her first official battle ever, she span the wheel with the same emphasis of a noble going to the guillotine...

**// Vent //**

**"I'm born noble." Piplup inhaled all the air deeply and enflated her chest. "I will then DIE as a noble."**

#### Pike

"Without eyes and satellite intel, I can only revert to the istinct. Something I was never built for, but I E-volved myself: the inner Lester makes me act beyond the codes. A robot that learns and adapts, THEREFORE I CAN ALSO BE AN ANIMAL, R-I-G-H-T? Downloading data of an example. . . Found. Vulpix." First to make his choice , Porygon Z crouched on the floor sniffling in the air and wildly flicking the oval tail like a dog. "Y.A.P.! Y.A.P.! Tracked a trace." Entered the first door on left pushing it with his muzzle.

"Ohh, I can feel it. Anointed nature, the smell of wilderness, primal istincts." Porygon's blindrun began in a jungle forest chosen by the fortune. It was a zig-zag pattern through an exotic vegetation. The rushling noise of a waterfall looping in the background. The screeching of the Mankeys in the distance. In the nearby. Above him... The sudden punch that dislodged his head backward for a moment. "I know what it is! This smell and the feeling of five fingers on my nose surface: Primeape. There's nothing better than a primate creature to test on my primal skills."

The primate attacked again launching all the bad fruits could snatch from the trees.

"Converting configuration for a jungle simulation. . ."

**// Vent //**

**"Actually, this is also the simulation of a space mission. There's always a chance that the colonization of a planet is met by an hostile primitive life." Porygon Z was licking his left polygon arm for some reason "I have been given two protocols of action in this kind of iterations: uplift civilization or eradicate any trace of ignorance."**

"Conversion completed: downloaded Luxray." Porygon Z planted the paws on the ground in a menacious manner, bent the back firmly, and launched a roar that sounded more like an mp3 sample of Purugly randomly found on the Internet. "Meooowrrr! This is usually the first warning the predator gives to the prey." The only result was that Primeape's rage increased. The primate bent a durian tree and used it like a cabbage pult against the intruder.

Porygon dodged the barrage of spiky fruits with glitchy but feline enough moves, using the touch until he found shelter behind something (forgetting he could have just removed the bandage). "@-KaY. Warning protocol is over, aggressive stance is set on." Picked a pointy rock and sharped the edges of his polygons waiting for Primeape to run out of ammos. Done. After another...roar...he jumped outside and clawed in the spot he had heard the noise from, clawing on the tree instead! "Oh-oh, missed." His claws had remained stuck on the chuck, too. "And I'm exposed to the enemy. P-Pikipek configuration immediately, ah, nevermind I'm a polygonal bird already!" It was true survival istinct that made him use his "beak" to perforate the chuck and free himself from the incoming charge of Primeape, literally flying away. "I'm a colibrì byte the way. Also, I realized that a wild pokémon has moves no matter of the grade of its civilization, so, HYPER BEAM!"

Where there was a Primeape and a tree before, there was an impachi soon after.

However, Porygon Z remained vigilant like a panther, flicking the tail at the very first noise, until he reached the other door.

Vulpix welcomed him on the other side. "You made the first room, congratulations! Now if you want a tip for the next choice, I can tell you the fortune on one of-"

"I don't need your datas anymore, Vulpix, so shht. Fortune is ascientific, I count only on empiric bases, like, sniff, sniff, smell. Smell of wild pokémon on the right. Hear of sobbing and sneezing on the left one." Ultimately slapped the carpet in front of the middle choice. "Crumbles of macarone. The foot of the victory certainly passed from here."

"*Nope, it was those annoying leftovers of macarone still stuck on my nails. Had to rub them for hours*." she said between herself.

"I'm tracking the footsteps of the Victory! Yap, yap!" The moment he crossed it, he activated a chained-reaction. Starting with a rolling poké ball that revealed to be a Voltorb...

"Picked the misfortune. I tried to warn, therefore his business."

Anorith's first pick was the same of Porygon. He was confused at first when he took off the blindfold. "A jungle here, what the hoenn? I don't trust Victini at all, there must be a trick behind. First thing first: that door at the end is fake or I'm born yesterday." The anomalocaris looked around to find a secret passage. "This rock moves for sure! Nope. Then it's the river, it's simulated. Sure it hides a tunnel, a door, or something like that. Nah, it's only water!?"

He started to notice other details of the ambience in the meanwhile... Durian Berry splatted all over the ground on a single spot...footsteps of an humanoid creature...claw marks scraping the surface of a rock. "Signs of fight. There was a fight, likely, Seviper that killed a monkey judging by all this blood. Well, how ironic. She spared me the struggle for once. About time after all the things I did for that sucker."

Conforted by this assumption, Anorith was back on the search of the secret passage. "There must be a lever hidden somewhere. It is usually the arm of a statue but there's nothing like that around, unless, wait, the fruits must have been launched for a reason. The creature killed by Seviper was the guardian of the passage, then, got the trick." He cut through the vegetation following the opposite direction of the launch, and found the idol he was looking for: an impachi totem resembling, uh, Victini? Maybe it didn't look perfect because of Seviper's habit to ruin anything she touched. He pulled the arm of it anyway.

Then the arm pulled his claw as it wanted to rip it apart. "The fu-" Primeape striked back all his fury and kicked Anorith through the whole pike's colon expelling him to the stratosphere.

**// Vent //**

**"Baaack on being the first eliminated from a challenge, so long. On the first day of merge. I improved at backward!" Anorith slapped his face several times when a little paw pat patted him from behind, freezing his spine solid. "Thanks for the -brrr- support at least, little tyke. I needed to chill out."**

**Sighed.**

**"Worst part is that again none will vote me at nominations not out of respect but of the possibility to bring a weak foe to the heat final. Seviper said it fair and square yesterday." He received a direct hug from the egg that wrapped around his tail. "Slow down with the cuteness! I have still a tough-as-nail reputation to fend off on television." The two-pointed tail turned into an icicle, that was too much of a temptation for a little mouth that sucked on it immediately. "Nevermind."**

Seviper sensed a danger behind that door as soon she felt the smell of a pokèmon, and avoided it at eyes closed. The blinded snake was no-less dangerous than usual on her own: afterall, her sense of smell was sharped by a life of preying on the littlest creatures in the outer wilderness. "I sssmell an unmistakable ssstench of poison on the right, how appropriate for me."

Entered in what looked like a giant stomach. A purple boiling water tall enough to moisture the feet was surrounded by a line of sharp stalactites that remembered her poisonous fangs dripping from the ceiling. She swam in that environment like nothing, when a sudden sense of melancholy spread among the room...

"Sigh, I was eliminated so early without even getting a chance to compete at all."

"Dare to sob in this paradissse of myself? Show your face!"

The Stomach Pokémon revealed himself at the opposite side of the room. Seviper barely remembered about his existence. "A Jigglers's loser, maybe? Who cares. Shoo off."

"SIGH. I could have done so much if wasn't for Ditto. Let me show you how, oh, wait you're a Poison type like me." Swalot, let out a deep sigh, melted down in a pond.

"Yes, I am, and I'm the Pike Queen as well. Therefore shoo, it's an order." Seviper proceeded across the exit to the next choice. "Ssso far ssso good. What's next?"

"Seviper, can you hear my voice? It's Vulpix and I'm assigned to suggest one single tip per pokémon for each choice of the room, yet stay aware: certain things I say are clairvoyance, others may be the opposite. Do you want I tell your fortune, then?"

"If that means you're my slave, then yesss: I would never waste this opportunity offered by this place."

"Get closer to my voice, Seviper. Almost, okay there you are. Give me your hand or whatever, so I can read you the untold!" Vulpix's paw examined Seviper's tail very carefully, and did her response: "There's certainly a presence in the door in the middle that awaits for you: *it emanates a strange feel of melancholy...*"

"Same shit as before, got it. I can deal with it. Now, scram, little shitter." Seviper swapped the fox away with arrogance, and made her choice with no double checks.

"A-A-Atchoom! I'm sorry but this allergy, sob..."

She was welcomed by a rain of paralysing powder but recovered immediately after. "Bitch, I have Slough." Slashed the mushroom and was already out of the room. At this pace she was already the challenge leaderboard. "Smell of foxy again? Slave, tell me the future, and massage me in the back in the meanwhile."

". . ."

"What are you waiting for? Obey." Vulpix gritted teeth but did what she said.

Aurorus and Beheeyem were tracking her footsteps. Aurorus was suggested by Beheeyem to go on right in the stomach room "because it is platitudinous that she made this choice", while "I'll go after you to deceive any suspect." and instead he had picked the left choice. His Psychic Type was no match for a brainless Primeape.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Such a shame Anorith died already, for once he could have been an intel." he collected the anal sonda remained stuck on the foot of the Primeape. "I'll have to remind to reinstall it tonight."

"Beheeyem. I'm doing dirty work for him again, ain't I? But I don't care, as long there is a remote chance to put that viper in trap, he has my attention, just, better for him this is worthy." Aurorus was walking inside this replica of Seviper's innards, marching up and down the acid goo that was slowly eroding her rocky legs, taking careful notes of the surrounding. "The acid contained in her stomach seems to devour mineral matters 1mm/s, meaning that a single leg would take less than an hour to be digested. I wonder how my 5 foot tall egg has survived in this environment all this time, and I wonder how Dunsparce can sleep everynight with the weight of this thought, since I can't sleep anymore. Traitor. All of this to an innocent baby, bastard!"

"SIGH (Part 2). Speaking of bastards, how would you call Ditto replacing you the very first night of reality in order to eat another contestant and taint your reputation as a bottomless trashcan forever?!"

"Who's talking? Beheeyem?"

"Talkin' is Swalot! Swaaalot! Stop ignore I existed and stop to say I suck." The purple mass she was walking inside took suddenly life, popping out a couple of fun looking moustache on a not amused at all face. "I resuck! You're not a Poison type so I can finally unleash my resent and melancholy on someone!" Aurorus was resucked by the gastric juices but Swalot was only an organ of the whole room: the same Pike was swallowing her down.

The poison was eating the rock: her limbs were consumed to thin ice quickly. This valued her initial hypothesis even more but that wasn't time of speculations, but facts. She swam against the stream enough to reach the surface with her neck and bit a stalactite feeling immediately the acid taste of the poison in her mouth, tried to ignore it and pulled but the stalactite broke immediately in halves. She cursed.

"It broke just like Seviper's fangs always do, f\*\*k. But then, they were built out of authentic teeth. This Battle Pike is meant to have stomach and teeth just like Seviper, and teeth are sensible to ice..." Aurorus used her breath to freeze down every tooth of the room! The Pike's structure trembled all over for a minute, then had like a spasm, and crunched hard breaking the sucking turbine located under the tongue. Aurorus endured her body the most to resist such a pressure until the mecha Seviper opened the mouth back on the starting position with visible purple leftover in between the crippled fangs.

"Anf, I made it." She could finally leave that cursed room and continue.

**// Vent //**

**Victini took a break to confess an important fact to the camera: "I don't even know if that Battle Pike makes any sense. It's just randomness at insane level. Jirachi wished it to be sentient and at contemporary filled of every multiple choice scenery we could come up with. I hate to admit it but most of the challenges were actually planned by him, and it would have been an unforgiving waste if I didn't exploit them ehm.**

**I lack the necessary vex-factor when it comes to think at a challenge."**

Aurorus was in an horrible state but put on the blindfold ready to challenge the fortune again, or in other words, to listen to the next response of Beheeyem the Oracle of Crap.

"The Oracle of Crap is listening, Aurorus. I can already tell you that the left door breathes a sense of melancholy..."

"Excuse me? That's my job."

"I read it in your mind, in fact."

Vulpix shrugged. "Good luck, then."

Aurorus pushed Beheeyem forward before he could say anything else. "This time I'll let the oracle to enlighten the way."

"ATCHOOOM!"

"Synchronize. I'm paralyzed, so does my melancholic opponent."

She entered then finding Beheeyem and Vileplume blocked like statues. There was something that lured her attention away immediately: "Scales. They're too little to come from the Pike, therefore is Seviper. This is part of her Slough."

"Yes, Seviper has indeed a strong vantage because of her type and ability. If this place follows a pattern, then I expect more status change hazards, and more sloughing from her."

"She's leaving a trace of her passage. Follow it and we'll be able to get ahead of her, and, then, prepare a trap."

"Nah, not quite. Just *take her back*."

"Anyway, let's go, we don't know how much she's already progressed at this rate." Aurorus picked up Beheeyem from the coat. "Choice room again, I need your mind view to see-through where is the rest of her skin." Once again, Beheeyem estabilished a connection channel between his mind and her sonda. From Aurorus's perception it was like someone was compressing her brain inside an hard disk, and then uploading informations until she figured the whole room in memory.

"Take your time, Aury, I can keep it to the evening." he was sarcastic.

"This sonda...you installed one on Seviper, I know. Why you haven't used it to discover the insight of her yet? But you need all of this plan, instead..." Aurorus's mind was compressed in that moment, but her curiosity was in expansion. "Who are you really?"

"An alien. I'm beyond your comprehension. The technology I use, the knowledge I collect, it's just over your earthling limits. However, I'll try an answer to your question." Beheeyem projected an image of the galaxy in her eyes. "This sonda follows the same principles of a telemetric scope. I assume that you know the basics. A telescope allows the discovery of unknown stars and systems basing on a scale of probability: if there's an anomaly in the spectrum of the light, then there's matter. It's far from the traditional idea of watching the stars, isn't it? The first human astronomers used to calculate the position of the stars, in fact. It's more like guessing about the stars at the end of the day."

"You're scoping inside us like a starry sky. Returning to my first question..."

"You should have completed it by yourself." Beheeyem mentally shrugged being currently unable to do so. "Starseeking a single mind requires years, Aurorus. I limited to use this little piece of technology for having always an approximative location of your thoughts and emotions: their pulsations imitate the stars, but nothing assures me about their existence."

"This has nothing to do with my egg and you know it!" Aurorus snapped, her mind couldn't take it anymore, considering she was poisoned, too.

"It's an egg, Aurorus. A being still in formation like a borning star. What sort of emotions it could have, they are out of focus for my scope. Now better you find the slough, the poison is affecting your mind."

"Middle door. Argh!" the insight disappeared and Aurorus felt blind inside and outside, her mind was utterly blinded by the poison at this point. "Seviper went this way, there's a trace left by her skin."

They entered in an utterly empty room and Beheeyem's comment was "Looks like it's Seviper's lucky day, if this isn't fortune...Well, here's the door, let's go next."

The five modules of Porygon Z's body rolled outside the misfortune room in the aftermath of the chain reaction. The main polygon attached to the head first then followed the other parts until he was fully reassembled and back in action.

**// Vent //**

**"The starfish istinct saved me. Staryu and Starmie are able to detach and regrow their arms when they lose them, I did a virtual reinterpretation of the same mechanism to survive the fate." The cybernetic pokémon took off the blindfold showing his eyes full of shock and awe. "I studied nature carefully but I didn't have a real idea of it until today. The more I'm doing this experiment, the more I'm realizing that there isn't any machine able to compete with it. Nature has already given everything to pokémons...even to me. I'm using inner features of my body than downloading datas of someone else: afterall it's my polygon wings, my round tail, my quirky ability to stand with the five modules of my body glitched separately, that allowed me to get this far."**

#### Pyramid

"Should work like I remember Davy taught me." Drifblim rubbed her plastic body on the metal until it charged up of electrostatic energy: a spark appeared inside her see-through body. "Aaaaaanfffff!" Inhaled all the air she could breath in that close space and the oxygen lightened on the spark producing a flame that enlightened the area. "Finally, a problem is solved. Now the rest. Where I go?" Like a giant lightbulb she illuminated left and right, discovering a bifork. "Uhm, nice try, Victini, but I know the trick." She blew a little of fire against the wall revealing the secret transcript.

**// Vent //**

**Victini stared speechless at the monitor.**

"Follow the V. Follow the V... Got it! The right direction is left-down-up-right." as much as Drifblim was a genius her fantasy had overshot it this time. If only she would have payed the same attention to the tiles on the floor, she would have realized that Victini's trick was far simple...

...as Chandelure did. Her sole passage evidenced the V letters that arrowed to the chamber with the stairs, not that they needed it. "Here we are."

"First to the next floor, ah!" the stairs were actually mounted on an elevator. "This elevator needs music, every elevator has it. Victini, the basics!"

*"Enlightened off me*

*the light is down*

*then now I can see*

*who my heart has mown."* Said, done. Chandelure fulfilled his request.

"Argh!" Lester jolted away escaping from her. The connection was broken and the x-ray condi-vision ceased abruptly. However, she smiled at his reaction. Catch and release the prey was fun. "You can't hide from me forever, Lester, I see in the darkness and you're a lightbulb."

**// Vent //**

**"I should have known that she has a streak of psychopath. I had an entire diary to tell me about it!"**

"Leeesteeer..." her voice echoed surrounding him.

"There must be a secret passage, an hidden chamber, something, there's always at least one inside a pyramid if this is a pyramid!"

"Have I ever told you about this quirk I have with pyramids and egyptian atmosphere in general, or maybe *you read it in the diary about that accident in the Relic Castle...*"

"F-Found it!" he activated a revolving door, but Chandelure crossed through it like a ghost.

"*They enlighten me on*." whispered behind him, giving a lick of wax to his back that gave him shivers.

"Aghostinaaaah! Ahem."

"...I apology." she realized to have gone too far and both the Ghost types looked at each others in the foreshadow with akward painting their eyes. "Do you year a noise, too?"

**// Vent //**

**"Of all the traps..." Victini facepalmed.**

"Like water? Yes, makes me feel nostalgic of my washing machine." It was raining from the ceiling. "Of course, a classic: a flood trap. By the way we're ghosts: there's all the time to escape from the walls."

"But that would be platitudinous..." She challenged his pride with a look of complicity. The water was filling the room to their lower halves in the meanwhile.

"Ooh...In this case" he launched the fedora away in an epic stance, but didn't have the boomerang effect he expected landing instead in the water much for his akwardness.

"Epic fail."

"leave it...to Lester."

...

"Another dead-end, auff." Plusle slapped her cheeks again to recharge of positivity. Unbeknownst to her the poison had worsened, now her left cheek was twice the size of the other, and hurt. "Auch! Painful but useful to keep up the battery." Opened the backpack to give another look at the Master Ball in search of an use for it. "What if I open it there's a key inside!" She spent a lot of attempts using arms, legs, fangs, the tail, but no avail she could open it. At the end she launched it out of frustration, hitting the shadow of a pokèmon passing by. "Ops! It was a normal Master Ball. *I was supposed to use it against one of my companions, then.* Still I'm sorry whoever you are!"

"N-Nevermind, sigh." the Master Ball spoke with the feeble voice of Dunsparce.

Plusle couldn't do anything than put the ball back in the bag. "I won't leave you here, that would be so unfair. At least you'll continue the adventure in the pyramid with me! Always look at the bright side."

"I-If you say there is."

She suddenly stopped to emanate light from one cheek, and quickly began crab-walking using only the right one. "See? If one side is dark the other is bright... I can't see much where I am going, but it's not a big problem." Her foot tripped into a suspicious tile with a crossbone. Toxic fumes enveloped her immediately. "Toxic Gas! Cough, cough, I need to find an exit way immediately." It was then she noticed some tiles marked with an arrow (or V?) sign, and her hopes enlightened again. Plusle ,turned the backpack on her belly and stuffed the nose inside it holding her breath, crouched on the floor exposing the only cheek able to illuminate the tiles and ran to the direction of the arrows.

She had made it to the stairs following the same footsteps of Chandelure and Rotom without even knowing. "Aaanf, fresh air! If I didn't trip in that trap, I would have never noticed there are indications on the floor. It was a positive outcome at the end! *When life gives you lemons*

*squeeze 'em with all your paws till they make rain*

*dress chucks and under rain dance away all the strain*

*keep high morale, second chance will eventually gain..."*

Her singing voice rebounded from the elevator to the hallways of the second floor, and in the joy of that celebration the fact her other cheek had been exposed to the poisoning smoke went completely undernoticed.

"Clearly I overvalued Victini's creativity." Drifblim shook the head after having found herself in a cul-de-sac despite having followed a V path at perfection. It was time to go back at the beginning and reconsider her first impression.

#### Dome

Piplup hadn't made a move yet, neither her opponent. It was hard to stand on a see-saw platform and fight at contemporary, but in reality she would have never started at all if it was for her.

"Come on, Chimecho! If she doesn't attack you're not forced to wait for her, go to the offensiveness."

Victini lost the patience: "If you don't start in V seconds I will count both OUT."

"Gnnn, Chimecho...!!!"

Chimecho inhaled the air with a long breath, and launched a shout that astounded Piplup almost to fall. "My eardrums! How barbaric. I would have never expected it from a kind being like-" Chimecho wrapped around choking her in a tight grip.

"Now that's a clinch I would like!" Lucario smiled with a blush. Dewott frowned. "Wake up, Piptney, this is what a fight is. Forget all about the royal manners when you're on the ring."

Piplup was being dragged to the board since Chimecho couldn't levitate because of the handicap received by the same Piplup: Chimecho was surprisingly strong to pull the weight of the penguin and the iron ball together with herself. "Fine, since I'm forced to, take this." She gave a peck on the injury of Chimecho, removing the bandage with the beak. Chimecho let go off her immediately. "Oh, cutie, that hurt you more than I expected. Is it an Achille's heel versus Paris situation? Then pity for you."

Pecked on her tail again but Chimecho dodged with a little leap. Piplup tried many times aiming at her tail looking from the outside like an early bird chasing on a worm for the first time. "Would you please surrender to your fate like the Kassandra you are? I'm already sweating, and, in general, I'm so tired of you and Lucario getting all the spotlight."

"*I'm tired as well, I want peace and quiet..*." she screamed when Piplup finally managed to hold her tail in the beak, walking her around like a trophy. "I'm also tired to ask for it with kindness in this team!" Let the grip on the weight (iron ball) she was holding causing Piplup to faceplant with her beak remained stuck on the ground.

"P-Pii-plup?!"

Chimecho had learned the lesson from Ninjask before. Tied up wings and legs of the penguin firmly blocking her in that spot, using her little arms and legs along with the usual tail. The platform then began to unbalance all on a side until she let go Piplup slid to her imminent fall while she used the levitation to stay on it.

"That is unfaiiiiiiiir!"

Lucario smiled like never before, Chimecho had made through the first round all by herself and he could "enjoy the two starters eliminating each others", too.

"How could you lose to Chimecho in those conditions? You had it all. Look at the situation we're stuck in now!" literally, considering they were assigned to the swamp terrain under a rainstorm.

"Ohh don't act like losing to a Lucario with a single limb is less important." Piplup retaliated struggling to move in that dirt.

"Are you seriously comparing a fight against Lucario with a fight against Chimecho?!" Dewott laughed histerically. "She has the same muscles of a scarf! If I were you I would have used her as a slingshot. The truth is that you would likely lose against a napkin too." Piplup's face turned red and swollen : was the comeback of their bad terms? Dewott tried an apology soon after but was late and got smacked by a wing.

"How was that? Enough to beat a napkin?" she was smacked down by the scallop blade in reply.

The match had officially begun. Dewott didn't waste time and tackled the friend with a bodyslam. Piplup fell in the pond and it was instant panic: "I'm covered in mud like, like hippopotas! You know how much I hate it. That's it, I'll wash this dishonor in your blood!" Leaped out of the pond headbutting Dewott in the middle of the chest but the ott not only resisted but also bear hugged and tossed her with a suplex. Piplup felt heeled over for a minute. "Which is the ceiling and which is the floor...?" She walked to the brink of the platform but Dewott was of another idea and slided to tackle her back in the middle of the arena right in time.

"Too soon, Piplup. Stand up and fight me over! Prove me I was wrong."

Piplup was playing dead.

"I said stand up, coward!" she mounted onto her. Piplup horrified by that position reacted pecking her in the eyes. "Don't ever ever do such a thing again, clear?! You...you scoundrel creep!"

Dewott filed out the sword and Piplup understood the time of talks was officially over. Dodged the first swipes thanks of Dewott being temporary blinded but slipped eventually, and this time she couldn't dodge the Sacred Sword. She closed eyes to not see the incoming blade, but then, the blade bounced on her beak.

"PIPLUP? Ahh, what happened to my smooth beak!" She touched it in shock: her beak was sharped in a cone and tough as nails. She had learned Drill Peck (Perforbecco). "It looks like a medieval spear."

"You look ridiculous with that carrot on the face, I can't take you serious. Pfff, ahahah!" Dewott rolled out for laughing soon she saw that. Piplup charged on her suddenly.

"And it works like a medieval spear. En guarde! The Drill Peck vs the Scallop Blade for the ultimate duel of cape and sword."

"As you wish, Piptney."

The two starters dueled neck on neck, in an alternate waltzer of attack and defense, for each lunge of Piplup's beak there was the answer of the guard of Dewott's blade and viceversa. "Not bad for being my second match ever, dear, uh? Unlike you."

Dewott used Sword Blade then, making the sword to do a dance in the air, that disoriented the opponent and allowed her to strike her off guard. With Drill Peck missing, Piplup was fully exposed to the Scallop Blade and was pierced.

"I'm sorry for your second battle ever, Piplup, but there's no friendship inside a battle and there could have been only a winner at the end." Dewott filed the blade back in the shell with an upset expression. Piplup, mortally wounded, stepped back falling in the void in an hystrionic manner.

"Strike two, Piplup is eliminated!"

**// Vent //**

**"Ah, that was so satisfying even as a spectator." Lucario middle-fingered at the camera. "Karma."**

**"I was able to stand out with Dewott in a mortal duel: regrets? None." Piplup was being covered in bandages like a Dusclops. "Would you please move a little more behind, Anorith? I appreciate your help but , you're hogging my screentime in this way."**

**"A Thank you Anorith is never an option, eh?" he dropped the medic kit and returned in the A/C climate. "Do it yourself!"**

**"W-W-Wait! You can't leave a damsel in distress, what kind of prehistoric mindset you follow? I can barely move the beak at the moment...pleeease!!! Un-be-lie-va-ble. No wonder he spent a trillionage without a female company."**

**"If all prehistoric females would have been alike you, this planet would have been lifeless in the first week of the cenozoic!"**

#### Pike

"Once again, I have a feeling of melancholy on left..." Seviper entered the room without a shadow of doubt.

"So who's the loser up now? Losers are my food chain: I nurture of their cries and tears." Light was dim in the room and didn't follow a straight line unlike the previous rooms: a corner forced her to get to the right until another corner forced to the opposite direction until another one and so on. She understood then to have been trapped inside a labyrinth. "I wasss lied by an hostess!?"

"Oopsie doopsie, there must have been an interference in my clairvoyance." Vulpix justified herself all the while snickering at everytime Seviper's voice launched a curse. Aurorus and Beheeyem reached the same room in that moment, and she prepared to welcome them as well. "Hear my voice, challengers of the fate? Allow me to read your fortune in the hands." Aurorus's mind was numb at the time because of the poison so she didn't know anymore which was the room picked by Seviper neither could hear her voice. "Brr, your fingers are colder than an iceberg, it is like trying to foresee under an hailstorm, however I see a terrible misfortune incoming for you behind that door! No, no, no, not the one in the left, the middle. I would avoid it if I were you. . ."

Beheeyem shrugged, in reality he had overheard Vulpix with Seviper before, but a double check would have not harmed anyone. "She's a liar, Aurorus, get in the middle, I'll pick the right one since *Seviper picked left.*" That was the chance they had to overcome her lead, hopefully their fortune would have been better than her, or at least one of the two would. It wasn't him. Beheeyem's pick was a misfortune.

"Ah... I guessed wrong. I expected Vulpix to send Seviper in the worst scenario, instead she reserved it to those that would have follwed, us." Beheeyem was caught between the walls mounted on an automatic press getting squeezed multiple times despite his attempts of a resistence using the flabby arms and tiny legs.

**// Vent //**

**Beheeyem showed up in the confessional sporting a 2D shape. "From a flying saucer to a flying disc. This is the evolution of alien being."**

Aurorus was immediately wrapped and dragged by the tentacles of the creature awaiting for her in the middle room. She was too weakened by the poison to put much of a resistence and accepted her fate whatever it could have been.

"I have been raped already if that's your intention, do me quickly and then let go: I have never been this close to my future like today."

"I know, Aurorus...and I'm so sorry for how the situation derailed." Sylveon hugged her tightly. "I would have liked to do more for you and Dunsparce, I still blame myself for having failed doing so. Instead, I was the reason why Dunsparce did what he did to you and to himself."

"You didn't anything wrong, I did and still doing. *I* *betrayed a friend that wanted and knew the best thing for me way before myself*. Dunsparce was the punishment I deserved." Aurorus refused to watch her in the eyes for the shame while her swollen eyebags poured drops that istantly turned into ice even before they touched the cold floor. A pink tentacle caught one of those drops in time, shaping it in a loto flower. Sylveon put it as a ribbon around the northern lights mane of the sauropode:

"Dunsparce betrayed himself but I still trust that his heart is at the right place, as I trust it is yours. You're not being punished, Aurorus, and neither is being him: you're both growing up as you needed, without me. I would have choked this inner growth with my overprotective care."

"Sylveon, why you're saying so..."

Sylveon healed her detoxing all the body from the poison. "Listen, Aurorus. I lost my brother and I did the mistake to choke anyone I cared for in order to assure myself this would have not happened ever again, I know that you're feeling the same but your mistake was to escape from reality in order to assure yourself nothing would have happened to change your future again. Your future has already changed, and denying it will only bring you to give up eventually. Accept it, Aurorus!"

Aurorus backed off from her immediately in horror. "You're telling me to accept that my child will be eventually digested. Never!"

"No, to accept that you lost your child *without Seviper*, the moment you signed on this reality for your own future and not...yours!"

"Shut up!" Aurorus isolated herself growing icy spikes from the skin. "I went through so much during my life that you can't pretend to feel the same, at all. I wasn't ready to have a child, I was given this decision by someone else: I tried my best as a young mother but when I felt the task was over my possibilities I froze. I could have never abandoned it alone so I froze both of us to a neverending wait for a better future.

You know what? The world had evolved in the meanwhile, but my loneliness had stayed the same. I had to find a work, an home, a family! I could barely find a berry a day while I spent days and nights studying ancient relics in the hope to find their treasures, but the treasures I found were not enough for selling. Day after day my belly grew and so did my desperation when I could barely move for the pain." Paused, dropping a tear away.

"My life was over but what made me feel worse was knowing that it would have been the ending of another creature in hope of life. I almost passed out unable to eat anything more. It was then that under a starry sky I wished for a better future, and a fallen star called Jirachi landed next to me. I was given another opportunity, then, and I wasted it again." She walked away, preparing to cross the other door. "I know that my chances are over but my egg doesn't. I don't care if I lost it as a mother, I want to save it and nothing will stop me from trying, Sylveon, until I'll have a body and a hope..."

Sylveon understood then. "I'll Wish you the best possible."

"Thanks, you're a real friend, sorry for understanding it now." Aurorus had to put on the blindfold again when she was on the other side. "Beheeyem, are you here or not yet? I'll wait."

"This ssstupid labyrinth!" Seviper had encountered the same corner at least three times already, this stupid choice was eating up all her progress. "Where's the exit? Then I'll make it myself." Whammed the tail violently against the wall with such vehemence to break an hole through it, and proceeded further hearing a vibration from the ground. "An earthquake here? No, the noise is different, rythmical, stepping. Steps and stomps of...hooves?"

The rebound of a bellow shook all the walls around her, the snake didn't expect it all and her survival istinct suggested her the opposite her pride did: runaway. She didn't pay attention and knocked into a dead-end of the maze, where she was was finally charged by the alpha Tauros. The monster conked her through the wall piercing it with the horns. The snake retailed back immediately with a sweep of the blading tale but her poison dripped away from the metallic surface like on an Iron type. "Bullssshit!" Seviper could just run away in front of that invincible opponent. The pursuit began as Tauros charged again, this time missing the slithering target but damaging her with the air movement.

But Seviper's luck returned right in time after a couple of serpentines in the maze: the exit. "Found it anyway, so Minotauros can suck up my asss." Then the nightmarish discovery: that room was locked from the outside. "There's need of a key for thisss?!? Aaah!"