CRASSHHHHH!!!!
Dante shielded his face. The winds were swept into a frenzy, and rubble was flying everywhere. He slightly submerged into the shadows to prevent himself from getting blown away.
Fortunately, the chaos soon subsided. However, when he opened his eyes, he froze at the scene before him.
From what was once an enclosed cave, now, there was a straight gash extending far beyond the eye can see on the wall opposite Mawile. The Regis lay flat against said wall, their bodies showing signs of using Reviver Seed.
Dante was speechless. Before this, he had been tensing up, ready to command the Regis to stop attacking after Mawile dispersed their attacks.
From the movement of the energy inside her body, he already understood what she planned to do. Namely, a last, desperate, counter-attack.
He had directed Pikachu to disperse the aftermath of her attack from damaging the dungeon’s walls. However, he didn’t expect. At the last moment, her energy suddenly surged in volume. And it was too late when he shouted to stop her.
With a swing of her sword, everything had been sliced in half. The rocks thrown by Regirock crumbled into countless pieces. The beams fired by Registeel, Regice, and Regidrago were also split numerous times.
And that was not the end.
The sword in Mawile’s hand seemed to stretch infinitely. It expanded and reached the four Regis, causing a fierce but brief collision of energy in which the winner is now clearly determined.
“Issuing commands to Regirock, Registeel, Regice, and Regidrago. Come here and initiate standby!”
Dante took out the remote control sphere and shouted. This was done to prevent them from continuing their previous order to fight Mawile. After placing the sphere back in the inventory, he slipped into the shadows and emerged beside the winner of this battle.
Her body lay limp on the ground. The two maws on her head tried to wave when she saw him, but they only managed to wiggle across the sand. Seeing this, Mawile chuckled in embarrassment.
“Ehe, cough! Sorry, Dan. I think I overexerted my body.”
“You think?”
Dante shook his head in amusement and exasperation. He opened the team menu, planning to use the Oran Berry to restore her to full health. But before he could do so, he was hurriedly interrupted by Mawile.
“Waitwaitwaitwait! Cough cough cough! Dan, are you gonna use the Oran Berry?”
“Of course. Unless you want to remain like that?”
Dante said with a hint of confusion. However, when he looked down, he was met with a pair of puppy eyes.
“C-can you feed me instead?”
With immeasurable willpower, Mawile lifted her hands and pointed at her open mouth, before it fell limply back again.
“Really? After all that, this is still what you prioritize?”
Dante said, his tone full of helplessness. However, disregarding the damage she’d caused to the cave, she did accomplish something he himself thought was highly improbable.
So after some slight hesitation, Dante acquiesced. A soft cushion appeared underneath them. At the same time, he took out an Oran Berry from the inventory.
Mawile’s eyes shone with anticipation. She quickly opened her mouth, humming in delight as Dante personally fed her. Even before she ingested the berry, she could already feel her energy being restored to its full strength.
“Have you recovered? Well then, let’s talk-”
Dante wasn’t able to finish his words as Mawile suddenly glomped him. She had stopped doing this after he rejected her confession. Therefore, Dante was unprepared and had no time to dodge.
They rolled from the momentum of Mawile’s tackle, with the cream-colored Pokemon tightly hugging him.
“I did it! I did it! I did it, Dan!!!”
“M-Maw- wheeze le- me- go!”
“Oh no! I’m sorry! Are you alright?”
Dante gasped for breath. He was lucky her attack boosts had faded. Otherwise, he could already foresee himself getting crushed to death if she still had her boosted stats.
“I-it’s fine. J-just let me catch my breath.”
Mawile nodded in understanding, though a look of pity and regret flashed across her face. Darn it! She was too excited! She wasted this perfectly legitimate opportunity to hug Dan!
While Mawile was wallowing in despair, the four Regis walked over and stood beside Dante. Although there were traces of rubble on their bodies, no traces of injuries remained. It seems even on Legendary Pokemon, the Reviver Seed still has a very astonishing effect.
Dante mused. At the same time, he glanced at Victini in the distance who was heading here with the rest of the team. This reminded him. When should he invite Victini to the system team and bring him to the human world?
After thinking about it for a while, he decided not to do so for now. As a Legendary that lived for more than thousands of years, no matter how innocent he may seem, Dante couldn’t fully trust him with his secrets. Not to mention they only got to know each other for one day.
Besides, Victini still hasn’t directly agreed to joining their team. What if he decided to part ways with them in the end? And then Darkrai and his cronies captured him again and read his memories?
This was also the reason why he planned on having only Regieleki permanently stay in the real world. And why he wouldn’t bring the other Regis. It’s too risky. If they managed to make a remote control sphere one time, who's to say Darkrai doesn’t have another control method that could override his access?
This factor contributed to why he had no plans of strengthening the Regis with Gummi drinks.
“Whew! That was so scary! If I wasn’t fast enough, I would have been divided in two!”
At this time, Pikachu walked over while complaining. His body was stained with dust, but otherwise, he didn’t suffer any injuries.
He had been preparing to neutralize Mawile’s attack. However, when he saw how the four Regis couldn’t even withstand the power of the slash, he hurriedly used Extreme Speed and Agility to barely get out of the way.
Staying to stop that move was suicide! Even his barrier formed by Protect would shatter at the power of that attack.
“Don’t worry. As long as we have a Reviver Seed in stock, you couldn’t die even if you wanted to.”
“That doesn’t comfort me at all!”
Dante laughed. Mawile scratched her head in embarrassment and apologized for almost hurting Pikachu. And as Pikachu accepted her apology, Azumarill and the others arrived.
“Sister Mawile! That was amazing! You took down four Legendaries in a single hit!”
Ninetales said, her tails swishing in agitation and excitement.
“Yeah! You were like, “I’m not gonna let Dante down!” and then KABLAM!”
Eevee swung her paws, as if to mimic the swinging of the sword. Riolu and Ursaring’s eyes were also shining with awe. That last move was so cool- it was like the ultimate finisher in fighting games.
Victini was also staring at Mawile in a new light. At the last minute of the battle, he had been a bit disappointed when her longing for victory suddenly waned. But that was wiped out when it shortly returned stronger than ever.
At that moment, he was oh so tempted to lend her his energy- to grant her the power to win. But his fears, and the familiar energy the sword exuded, made him stop himself.
“Mawile, can I ask how you did that? Based on Dan’s description of the sword, it couldn’t have made your attack to reach that level of power.”
Azumarill asked with a curious frown. When he fought with the Regis, it took him quite a while to knock them down himself. And that was with them not having any boost in defenses.
But Mawile…with one move, she neutralized all the Regis’ attacks and then subsequently knocked them out. He couldn’t imagine how much strength was needed to achieve that.
When the others heard Azumarill’s question, they perked up their ears. And in response to Azumarill, Mawile clasped her hands together in front of her chest as she let out a dreamy sigh.
“I did it with the power of love!”
““OHH!!!””
“Ow!”
Mawile rubbed her forehead. She glanced at Dante with a complaining expression, which he promptly ignored.
“Be serious. What if they try searching for love because of what you said? Eevee, Ninetails, and Ursaring still haven’t even reached a year old.”
Dante chastised, before turning to the rest of the team.
“Don’t listen to her. The reason she could do that is because she learned the move hidden within the sword: Behemoth Blade.”
As he said that, Dante opened the Team Menu and checked the move’s description once again. Even now, he was still surprised Mawile learned it after just fighting with the sword once.
Behemoth Blade: A Steel-type physical attack. It is the signature move of the Legendary Pokemon Zacian, with the base power depending on the determination of the user to slice past everything that stands in their path. (The minimum base power is 100).
Requirement: The user must be holding the Intrepid Sword to use it.
Should he say it’s as expected of a Legendary’s signature move? A base power of 100- that was already the ceiling for the majority of the other types of move.
As Dante was thinking this, he felt his fur being tugged. He turned and found Mawile who had a pouting expression.
“Dan, I’m serious! It was because I kept you in my mind that the sword responded to me! It must have felt my love and decided to give me this move!”
“...”
Dante opened his mouth, but in the end, no words came out. He himself doesn’t know what the condition is for learning the move. So how could he disprove what Mawile said was not true?
“Ehem! Anyways, that’s enough of that. We still have to deal with the aftermath of your attack. You know, that direction points towards Treasure Town. If it caused the town so much damage, and they traced the source of it back to us, we’d be labeled as outlaws.”
The team fell silent at his words. Pikachu covered his mouth and trembled. Images of running away from Guildmaster Wigglytuff and the rest of the Guild emerged in his mind. If that happened, his dream of becoming the best Explorer would be impossible!
“Gulp W-what should we do, Dan? How about we hide the traces of the battle?”
“No. I mean, we should definitely repair the damage as best as we can. However, the Magnezone Corps has some very powerful Psychic Pokemon. Even if we return everything here to what it once looked like, we have no definite way of knowing whether they could find a clue or not. And at that point, it would be more incriminating for us.”
“Eh! Is it that serious!?”
“I-I’m sorry, Dan, I didn-”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Based on the angle of your attack, it most likely just caused an earthquake. Who knows. If we’re lucky, maybe they wouldn’t even investigate it.”
Dante paused. He took in everyone’s expression and continued.
“So for now, let’s return to Treasure Town. In the worst case, we’d just have to pay reparations for the damages. The thing about becoming outlaws is highly improbable.”
“Then let’s go quickly!”
After having Regirock restore everything in the cave to how it once was, their team left the dungeon. They rode the platform Dante made and hurried back to town.
When they arrived, they checked everything from a bird’s eye-view. Seeing only minor damages on the building, Dante and the others breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s great. We won’t become outlaws.”
Pikachu calmed his rapidly beating heart. Until now, he was still inwardly blaming himself for not doing what Dante said and stopping Mawile’s attack. Even though it was futile, if he tried his best, he could lessen the damage it would cause.
They landed inside the town to take a closer look and speak with the townspeople. However, they hadn’t taken a couple of steps when they found the figure of Bidoof running from a distance.
“Huff huff! Golly! Dante, Pikachu, and everyone!”
“Hey, Bidoof. What’s the matter?”
Bidoof didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he asked Dante and the others to follow him to a more private location. After chatting with them about their recent exploration, he finally revealed his purpose.
“It’s Chatot. He ordered us to call all available Explorer Team to come to the guild. He didn’t say the reason, but it looked mighty urgent yup yup! And he told us not to let the townspeople know.”
Dante frowned. Countless possibilities flashed across his mind on why Chatot would do this. In the end, he attributed it to either a new discovery in Grovyle's case, or it was due to the recent earthquake caused by Mawile.
Knowing he wouldn’t get the answer just by dawdling around, Dante thanked Bidoof and headed towards the Guild with their team. Meanwhile, Bidoof waved them goodbye and continued to look for other Exploration Teams.
Their team arrived in front of the guild in no time. With his Copycat Vision, Dante saw several familiar energy signatures gathered inside, mostly the Exploration Teams he met while choosing tasks.
And among them, a particularly dark and mysterious energy made him pause.
“Dusknoir.”
Dante muttered. One of the main antagonists in the PMD game. An agent of the future Dialga. And someone he had been trying to avoid encountering these past few months.
“Huh, he’s here? Do you want me to lead the team for now?”
Pikachu asked. Based on their past experience, Dante usually avoided meetings when Dusknoir was present.
“...no. There’s no need to hide anymore. We’ve grown strong enough.”
Dante said in a determined tone, before leading the team inside the Guild.