As he, much like his comrades rush to the Primal Point, reality seemed to ripple and wobble. A loud cry signals the end, stopping in his tracks as if his body sensed its own demise. He mouthed a warning to Gwyar Wledig , one of the people closest to him in this assault but nothing comes out. He is too far from the edges of illeana reyes 's mist, having been eager to take his place next to Joules. [break][break]

[break][break]

Pieces of himself are quite literally ripped to shreds. Any thought or situational awareness is destroyed, thoughts blanks as he is overcome with unsurmountable pain. Any sort of scream that would've been pulled forth by animal instinct is turned guttural, and gurgling hos throat ripped out form him by mysterious powers. He fell forward, head tilting down to see some of the carnage. Legs, broken and smashed, mangled in different directions, pieces of bone soaked in blood jutting out like broken glass. Entrails hanging loose as his torso separated crudely. Patches of himself go flying forward, one arm left hanging by sinew, the other flying forward and smacking a blood soaked ground. It's a flash, gone in an instant but also so painful it feels like he will never. fucking. die. [break][break]

And in a feeble attempt for his mind to come to terms with the pain, to lick metaphorical wounds before he passes he is relieved he may finally get a good night's sleep for once, and end whatever nightmare Hoenn presented him this time. [break][break]

Amidst all this is the frantic, almost too fast to understand beeping coming out of one shiny Magnezone. Joules, beeping- no, shrieking in their own way an SOS signal. The pattern repeated over and over again, frantic, desperate as one and then all three eyes turn to the corpse and rush to it's side. All focus towards protecting the Primal Point forgetting in overwhelming rage and grief. [break][break]

The explosion sets Joules off once more, though the dual type unleashes another PROTECT, this one solely with the intent to cover their trainer's massacred body. The rift opened like a gate, and Joules is defensive as things pour out of the rift, with one particular coming far too close for comfort. [break][break]

[break][break]

It hovered over the pokemon's charge, lowering slightly until stopped by menacing sparks. "Your mission, Joules." came a soft voice, echoing and faint. Though the voice progressively gets stronger, the wisp of light growing in size, mud and dust gathering slowly but surely. [break][break]

[break][break]

A skeleton formed under the cover of a strange power, a body regenerating while looking down at another. Muscle, skin, hair. The soul glowing at the point where Paxton's heart should be, before blinking out of existence. A resonating thump, echoed out with one final burst of light before a heart started beating. The first gasp of air, and the first sight. Horror. Carnage. Though rejuvenated in a way, with thoughts clearer and mind calm, seeing himself broken is something he knew he could never unsee. He doesn't want to see it, throat clenching with emotion before he turned to Joules who moved in close, shaking and crying for their trainer. [break][break]

Calls from his colleagues echoed around, and it took mere moments for Paxton to throw himself back into the fray, setting aside the gory sights for later. He lets out Baldwin, the sentient keyring and joined the other's efforts. "Prevent escape!" he ordered, as the Klefki used FAIRY LOCK in order to add to the array of moves preventing Father Winter and Palkia's escape. [break][break]

ZUk1xoIY

[break][break]

+ AIIIIYAIYAIYAAAAAAAAAI [break][break]
- a lil body horror never hurt nobody anyway ( paxton ded ) [break]
- Joules the Magnezone sad af [break]
- Paxton rezzed [break]
- Baldwin the Klefki used FAIRY LOCK on Father Winter + Palkia [break]

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

One minute, Marza Volchitsa was there, trudging behind him and complaining loudly as Morticia lifted him higher up into the air. The next, she was gone. Actually, a lot of people were. Rended to pieces with apparent ease, just like that. He howled her name down to the ground, but his haunter didn’t stop moving forward, pushing him toward the primal point, and soon that was all he could think of again.[break][break]

It seemed luck was on their side—no one seemed to notice their approach. Too busy wrapped up in their own conflicts to watch him drop in from above. But something was wrong. “Pull up, pull up!” he barked, and Morticia peeled back just in time as the primal point fired in an explosion of light, and then bounced back to make the explosion a legitimate one. Everything seemed to shatter in crystalline fractals, as the dome above them cracked and split simultaneously. Something whizzed in their direction, and though Fern’s hands stretched out, it was the haunter’s larger ones that snagged the fracture of the primal gem.[break][break]

Once it was handed over, Fern turned it in his hands as it hummed with residual energy, bright and warm to the touch. This was…good. This would be of use. He tucked it into his pocket, and as he did so, Fern began to notice that he was no longer in the air alone—suddenly the cacophony of hundreds of confused souls was filling the space.[break][break]

The shimmery outline of her serpentine body twirled around him. Ceci?” As if in play, as she did when she was no more than the undersized dreepy who could fit in the cup of his sixteen year old hands. He could not touch her, but he could still feel the sensation of her broad forehead pressing to his. The prickle of warmth that seeped from the spot. Fern let out a shaky laugh, breath choked and vision blurring. “I didn’t make it to you in time..”[break][break]

A trilling, reptilian coo echoed through him, ethereal and scolding, and Fern knew to shut up on the spot lest he be subjected to more scolding. “Alright, alright.” The dragapult fluttered back, watching him with wide, citrine eyes that never once blinked. “I don’t suppose you want to sneak back to the mortal coil while you can, hm?”[break][break]

It felt like a bit of a disservice to ask, but he wasn’t ready to say goodbye just yet. Cecilia twirled around him and Morticia one last time before dissipating to nothing in the hazy air, and the crack in his chest felt as fresh as it had the moment she’d tumbled off that ledge, blown back by that staraptor’s attack (ollie morales .) That was an answer for him—it was time for her to move on, and he would need to accept as much. Still, there was no quelling the grief he felt, despite the relief of seeing her one last time. A wound that would take insurmountable time to heal over.[break][break]

Fern patted the spot between his haunter’s ears as she continued to LEVITATE in the air. “I guess that’s that,” he said, sighing with the intent to turn his attention back to the world upending itself beneath them.[break][break]

And then that trill.[break][break]

Loud and resounding, like a whooping victory cry as Cecilia came shooting through the air again—that time solid and tangible and real out of spatial opening from PHANTOM FORCE. She twisted in a spiraling corkscrew sailing above them, and then dropping down below, in obvious indication and Fern couldn’t help but let out a whoop of his own, a grin plastering across his face despite the pain it wreaked on his busted nose. “Shake me loose, Morty.” The haunter did as obliged, tilting so that Fern dropped into open air, only to land on the dragapult’s back as he called Morticia back into the safety of her pokeball.[break][break]

“That’s my gal,” he praised as Ceci chirped in gladness at having returned to her body. It was almost too easy to forget about everything happening around them, but secured on her back now, Fern was reminded of the spirits lifted and tangled around them in their confusion over being pulled loose from whatever dwelling held them at rest. The conflict tumbled on below it, but Fern was too focused on the spectral beauty of it. Pokémon and humans alike, treading that now-blurred line between eternal slumber and lives once lead.[break][break]

Perhaps there was more to it, though? Bright wisps of flame shot by them, and Ceci sailed out of the way. Once at a distance, Fern noted that V pattern, marked it down in his mind to revisit later. Maybe he could ask jayden cross if he knew what it might mean. It was the odd shadows that pulled free and diverged, though, that spurred him into action again. “Tail one, yeah?” Cecilia obliged and darted after the nearest shadow, trying not to lose sight of it, as it soared away.[break][break]

He had only proven up until that point that he was useless on the ground, in a fight that he didn’t have much personal stake in. But maybe this was where he could prove his worth. Maybe this was what he could do for Rocket, and even if it surmounted to nothing, he still had the shard, right? An idea formed in his mind then, and Fern fished the piece of gem loose from his pocket again. He didn’t rightly know what a little piece like this might do. He didn’t know the first thing about its properties. But maybe the energy housed within it was tied to whatever had come through that spatial tear.[break][break]

Like a homing signal? Maybe? Fern fixed his sight ahead, still chasing that elusive shadow, hair blown back and eyes watering from the wind. With the primal shard curled in his hand, just to see what might happen, if anything.
[break][break]

ZAVwPXbB
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] mask[break]
+ where tf did Marza Volchitsa go?? [break]
+ continues to fly toward the primal point, but it fires first [break]
+ his haunter catches some of the primal gem HOLLAAA[break]
+ reunites with the spirit of his slain dragapult, ceci[break]
+ ceci returns to her body and PHANTOM FORCES to fern![break]
+ fern notes the V-shaped flames and the dark shadows among the spirits. Instructs Ceci to chase one out of curiosity[break]
+ wonders if the energy in the primal shard will act like a homing beacon to whatever came out of the rift :3c
[attr="class","poke-sprite pokemon dragapult"]

A myriad of explosions rock the mountain as Derek draws closer to the summit, throwing him around like the little insignificant thing that he was. Tossed to the ground, rogue debris collides with his figure as circumstances make a ragdoll out of him. The gym leader only comes back to his senses as the ignition of the PRIMAL CRYSTAL signals the beginning, or the end of the League's great journey. And what does he see? Their splintered reality, with dimensional fabrics interloping and finding their center within the one they called home. Seems like it worked.

But the others? Fractured portions of their former selves, gradually serving as a means to reunite them with familiar faces that were, until now, beyond reach. Distanced by death, their appearance spelled something worse than their arrival would feel to those who missed them. Derek can't help but raise a hand to shade his sight from the primal crystal's glaring radiance, reluctant to believe what is happening before his very eyes...

Fire spouts from the Charizard's opened maw, desperate to assert it's claim to life on this plane once more. And as it stands over all from atop the peak, it bears witness to the injuries of it's master, and the DRK Triad's cruelty.

Without words the Charizard tasks itself with delivering Palkia from evil, diving down towards the creature and readying the claws of it's dominant hand before issuing a decisive strike upon the CHAINS bound to it's figure.

emE|iWO4

---

TL;DR
- Derek's Charizard (Apollo) comes back to life
- Charizard uses SLASH on the CHAINS binding PALKIA

PER ASPERA AD ASTRA

☉

The scent of blood and burning flesh permeated Mt. Pyre's summit. PALKIA's attack was a devastating one - to those unlucky enough to have chosen the wrong side of Father Winter's coin. Barnaby, miraculously, was spared the death that came to many of those around him.

What he was allowed to witness instead was a great exodus of souls leaving the bodies of the departed, human and Pokémon alike. Spirits of the damned seeking the afterlife. If he wasn't seeing it with his own eyes Barnaby would have thought he was going crazy.

Perhaps he was in a way, because even as this incredible phenomenon was happening, fighting still waged all around him. Explosions and flashes of light persisted at the peak near the primal point as both factions tried desperatly to fight for their goal. Barnaby strained to find Martín del Mar in the madness, but failed to locate him. Despite his years of training, panic began welling in his chest.

And then many things happened at once. The primal point fired, leaving a massive chunk of crystal behind where the meteoroid had been. Mere seconds passed before an enormous dragon of a Pokémon appeared and smashed the crystal into pieces, sending shards falling down to Earth. As the shards of crystal fell, the dome surrounding Hoenn shattered in a similar fashion.

Somehow, with all of this happening, Barnaby also noticed the spirit of what looked like MOLTRES flying west, toward Mt. Chimney, along with several fiery wisps in the shape of a "V". Somewhere nearby, Barnaby's GALLADE was also one of the many souls to be resurrected, although they would find one another at a later time.

Right now, Barnaby's full attention was on the retreating Father Winter and PALKIA. It seemed, at least for now, the factions were of the same mind. League and ROCKET alike rushed to subdue the DRK Triad member and his chained Legendary Pokémon. Seeing Cillian Quinn's DHELMISE attempt to restrain PALKIA prompted Barnaby to join in.

"Blast Burn on the Unown! NOW!" Barnaby yelled above the din around him; his MEGA CHARIZARD responded immediately, fire pooling in his throat.

xNe|3Ymz

• hidden identity (masked)
• CHARIZARD is MEGA EVOLVED!
• CHARIZARD uses BLAST BURN on the UNOWN chain
• GALLADE is resurrected nearby

☉

A swirl of empowered abilities spiraled up toward creator of space and his captor. Penelope only witnessed from down below, eyes wide as they following every projectile, every bullet, every word that spewed out from their side of the field. Her fingers curled further into the steel beast. While their moves were hitting their mark, something -- for whatever reason -- gnawed on her.
[break][break]
It nipped at her stomach, tearing and clawing like an animal beckoning for her attention, refusing to be ignored.
[break][break]

"Somethings wrong..."
[break][break]
 
But, before she could share these thoughts, Palkia's SPITAL REND hit, sending devastation across the field. In the midst of the chaos, Penelope attempted to cough out a hollow ,"CAREFUL! STAND STRONG! DON'T LE-"
[break][break]

But, again, she was stopped, this time by the sharp stench of iron that ripped through her nostrils, forcing her attention to her left, then her right.
[break][break]

"Oh my god."
[break][break]

Tremors rode up her legs and her chest squeezed tight. She couldn't bare to look to her left, where paxton concordas once stood, or to her right, where hopefully Gunner Graves remained. Or, even down at herself, where cuts and scrapes raked up her legs and arms.
[break][break]

It was then the barrier shattered. The bridge between life and death was mended, allowing for all the pent up spirits of the past to pour back into their world. They flowed out, in ravines, branching off to different parts of the region or world, to where they supposedly belonged. It was in that moment Penelope felt the urged to look upward, back to the sky.
[break][break]

Moltres...
[break][break]

The name burned in her mind like a flickering fire, warm and bright, and everything they needed to shudder off the raging blizzard before them.
[break][break]

This was it. This was the moment.
[break][break]

Smiling at Katherine Fairburne 's battle cry forward, she sent gestured for her METAGROSS to contribute to the efforts, issuing out a beam of pink PSYCHIC energy to help hold down the spatial god from zapping away.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] @charname [break]
- Watches everyone fight [break]
- :O at the people being hurt [break]
- notices the dead, especially moltres :O [break]
- fight fight fight [break]
- uses PSYCHIC to help keep palkia down