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[attr="class","textbox"]Laughter, as clear as crystal and melodious as bells, echoed down from Eternatus' chamber. "Trust me. We're just lucky they're not joining the fight themselves," Isaac admitted. As he said this, he looked at the fused beast's crest, his own face reflected in its facets. "Though I guess in a way, they are, huh?"[break][break]

Still, Navy was right. If this was his test, that meant it was his fight. It wasn't Neo's. It wasn't Akane's. Even if they could help, he was never content to play armchair quarterback. With a nod, he held his hand high, drawing the shattered remains of his shield towards it before they could clatter to the floor. They drifted back toward him, crashing together around his clenched fist.[break][break]

As fists of fire and lightning rained down from each side, Isaac would slip through the mists to strike with fists of ice.[break][break]

Each fist staggered and distracted the beast, desperate attempts to wind back the clock before Neo was incinerated. Each took their toll. So distracted was it that it was helpless before Shuwen's might. Its jaws snapped shut, and no matter how hard it tried it couldn't pry them open. Instead, all it could do was buck and stampede across the room, desperately trying to shake this new threat before it faced its own backlash.[break][break]

An eruption through clenched teeth was all Isaac and Navy needed to know it had failed.[break][break]

A lesser creature would have been annihilated by its own head exploding. Isaac knew this was no lesser creature. He lunged forward, thrusting his fist of ice into the cloud of smoke before the dust even settled. He was right to do so. His fist barely grazed against a solid wall of muscle before it leaped away.[break][break]

It was alive, but it was far from in good condition. The armored plate atop its jaw was cracked and broken. The spikes along its back had been blown off, dream mist rolling out from where they once adhered. The smoky grey layer to its mane had been singed away, and its body seemed less solid and robust.[break][break]

Nonetheless, what it lost in sheer force it gained in speed and aggression. It struck around the room like a bolt of lightning, only stopping to crash down towards the group in a massive Thunderclap.

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[attr="class","textbox"]"There any better way to learn than to fight together?" A knowing smirk lit up on Isaac's features as he spared a glance Navy's way. How many of Isaac's friendships in the Hoenn region had been signed in blood? His desperate fight for survival turned him from some little nobody to one of the most connected people in the region.[break][break]

Maybe it was that desperation and that fight that helped Isaac know exactly what Navy was doing next.[break][break]

The thing about speed is that it's never what really kills. It's the sudden stop at the end that does the trick. The fused beast, now minus one component part, learned this the hard way as human and Pokemon rose up against it in sync. A pair of vicious blows stopped it in mid-descent, purple storm clouds erupting from its body like a spurt of freshly squeezed blood.[break][break]

When the clouds parted, the fused beast had shifted once more. Its saber-toothed fangs were now broken in half, its face now bare bar the crystal atop its head. The power and musculature had been sapped from its legs, their shape shifting to a more elegant and dainty form. The cloudier portion of its fur had now faded away, leaving only a familiar wispy mane in its wake.[break][break]

As Navy bowed out of this engagement, Isaac was left staring off with a dark mirror of his own patron.[break][break]

"All been leading up to this, huh?" Isaac asked, settling down into a fighter's stance. "Then go ahead. Give it your best. Make my fuckin' da-" With a strangled gasp, his boast was silenced. Extrasensory force clamped around Isaac's throat, lifting him off the ground. The mirrored Suicune's eyes squinted, hellbent on strangling that mouth of his shut.[break][break]

The smirk on the face was the only warning that this was exactly what Isaac wanted. He flicked the frozen gauntlet off of his hand, willing it towards the mirrored Suicune not just with his hand but with pure elemental power. It shifted in midair; first melting into a ball of water, then freezing back into ice the second it made contact with Suicune's face.[break][break]

It wouldn't distract Suicune for long. Already, the water was starting to melt again. However, that second of broken focus and obscured vision was all Isaac needed. He slipped out of the extrasensory chokehold, making a rush straight towards Suicune. From a distance, it could manhandle him without fear of retribution. Up close, he at least stood a chance. He formed a knife of ice in his hand, prepared to lash out at the wounds that Navy and his Urshifu had pounded all over the beast's body.[break][break]

The good news was that he'd made contact. The bad news was that it had been with the loose-gripped side of his fist. The ice on Suicune's face wasn't the only thing melting. Uh oh. Isaac tried to hop back, willing the winds to take him, but Suicune was quick to capitalize. They lunged toward Isaac, their own body distorting into wind. The two swirled around each other, stalling Isaac's retreat before it could begin.[break][break]

It was exactly what Team Isaac had been hoping for. As Suicune skid to a halt, Neo was immediately upon them. The light of Mega Evolution engulfed her as her horns buried into the legend's side, serving not just to put extra heft behind her attack but also to obscure her true purpose. In a sudden burst of magnetic power, Neo pushed herself off the ground, her Magnet Rise allowing her to vault into the air with Suicune still entangled in her horns.[break][break]

The resulting suplex, a Heavy Slam to end all Heavy Slams, damn near shook the cavern.[break][break]

While her weight bore down on Suicune, Akane gathered power. The fluid within her body blinked from a cool green to a furious red, the iron thorns that named her species floating by her side like a row of satellites. Focusing all of her power into a single beam of lightning, both friend and foe were engulfed in the force of her Hyper Maser Array.[break][break]

Eternatus' innards were lit up in a flash of bright plasma, only to darken as smoke rose from the site of impact. Isaac watched with bated breath, refusing to let his guard drop from a moment. Neo was the first to stagger out of the cloud, clutching her side all the while. However, Suicune was nowhere to be seen. Was it finally over? Had they triumphed?[break][break]

A roar loud enough to shake the cavern answered Isaac's question. Wind erupted from the cloud, dispersing the smoke in a single furious burst. Its form was unstable, half-dispersed into dream mist and crystalline light, but the mirrored Suicune still stood tall. As it roared, rain began to fall, the very environment responding to its wrath.[break][break]

Then, in a flash of sheer cold, things started to escalate. What was once harmless rain had flash frozen into a shower of icy needles.

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[attr="class","textbox"]Isaac knew better than to stop Shuwen's approach.[break][break]

They weren't just fighters. They weren't just survivors. They were diehards. They were the type to throw their life away, only to stubbornly cling onto it as it as it sailed onwards toward glory. They were the type to look impossible odds in the eye, laugh, and ask if that was truly the best they could do.[break][break]

No. He wasn't going to stop Shuwen. He wasn't going to steal his valor. Instead, he waited in the wings. His every muscle tensed up. His Pokemon waited, one at each shoulder, their eyes locked on his hand for him to give the signal. With each fist that rained down on the fake Suicune, with every ripple of its misty body, they leaned closer and closer into a runner's stance.[break][break]

As it sailed, Isaac shouted "Now!" He leaped up high enough to brush his fingers against artificial clouds, turning them to his own will with but a touch. They angled outward now, the rains once falling like a shower of blades now landing in Suicune's wake. As they fell, panels along Akane's chest opened, a Blizzard causing the deluge to freeze into a solid sheet of ice.[break][break]

Isaac skid up to the sheet, setting a hand onto it and willing it bigger, bigger, bigger still. With each new layer he produced, Neo smashed it with a Body Press, compressing it into a frostier, thicker layer. Together they worked like a well oiled machine, slowly but surely sealing the false Suicune behind a dense, powerful layer of permafrost.[break][break]

Only a red eye, barely visible through the frosted pane, glared out at them.[break][break]

Panting from exertion, Isaac flopped against Akane's side. Arceus, it was never this bad during the battle in Dewford. Was it because he was exerting himself harder? Was it because they were closer to Eternatus' core? Or was it because, with each passing day, the legend only grew stronger? A part of Isaac wondered what would happen if it regained its full strength.[break][break]

Fuck it. He could worry about that later. For now, he tried to stumble towards Shuwen. Akane held him back, instead nodding for Neo to gingerly heft the frozen bear up. "Hell of a fighter, Shu," Isaac less said, more sighed. "We got you." It was less like he was addressing a corpse, more like he was addressing a friend.[break][break]

After all, like hell was he going to let Shuwen die.[break][break]

Wiggling his way out of Akane's arms, he staggered towards Navy to help scoop him off of the ground. "C'mon, Naves. We're getting outta here." Even if the two needed to shoulder each other out, there was no man left behind. Not on Isaac's watch.

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