Raid Battle 2 - Giratina Origin x Redunaoth

Why was this happening again? Were there always going to be some kind of monstrous new Pokemon threatening the sanctity of his home? His family? They’d grown so much since he’d last gone through this. In the span of time from now to the last time he had to convince a Pokemon to stop attacking the surrounding area, his own special family had expanded, he’d had several hatchings with Marshmallow, and they were all growing very strong. And yet, Cadmus felt terribly ill-equipped to deal with a problem of this magnitude again. While he was unfamiliar with Havenner Town and their people, as he never tended to leave the safety of his settlement, he did know they had an Explorer’s Guild branch within their borders. Who better to ask for assistance than them?

He was well aware some of the younger Guild members were the ones spreading rumors about him and his leadership of his people (not the least of which was the absurd idea that he was running a cult. It was absurd- he knew what a cult was, and this was certainly not that). However, he really had no other choice at this time, as he needed to make sure that his people were safe. And if that meant asking a Guild specifically qualified for a job like this? Then so be it.

As the sky turned darker and darker with the presence of the strange and terrible Pokemon, Cadmus’s patience wore thin. He had requested a couple of his guards to go to Havenner Town and request aid from the Division Master, hoping they would spare some of the team to assist. Just about when he’d finally reached the end of his rope, in came his guards and a few of the Guild members. He recognized the Mudkip leading the other two, but did not recognize the Dunsparce-Sandshrew or the Volt Charger-Zubat. While he didn’t trust the Mudkip as far as he could throw him, he let out a sigh of relief that they’d finally arrived.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he welcomed them kindly. While the Mudkip shot a suspicious glance at Cadmus, the Volt Charger-Zubat stepped forward and held out a little paw, which Cadmus gladly took with one of his bug-like drill arms.

“It’s our pleasure!” she chirped excitedly. “The name’s Perun. That’s Tethys, and that’s Burrow. Don’t mind them, I know Tethys doesn’t like you and Burrow’s scared of everything so she always just looks that nervous.” Some hope in their assistance dwindled in Cadmus’ heart, but the look of pure, unadulterated hope and bravery in Perun’s face changed his mind entirely. He was glad to have these kind youngsters to assist.

“It’s good to meet you, Perun. I am called the Great Tide, though some know my true name to be Cadmus, which I’m happy to share with you as we acquaint ourselves with each other to stop what is happening here.” Cadmus desperately hoped his flowery attempt at an introduction didn’t betray how nervous he was, but it looked like Perun either didn’t notice or didn’t seem to mind if he was nervous, which made him feel better.

“Sounds good to me! So, what are we up against here, hm?” Perun looked over Cadmus’ shoulder to look at the sky, and her face instantly dropped with a small “Oh.” However, she regained her composure just as quickly, and the young fusion put her paws to her hips. “Well, you got yourself a good team here in that case, Mr. Great Tide! That beast up there looks like it’d take quite the beating from us, so we could easily make this quick! Especially if you help us, since your typing will likely add on that extra bit of dragon firepower against that thing, yeah?”

Cadmus couldn’t deny it; his typing of Water/Dragon was a good typing against many other typings, but the problem was that he wasn’t completely sure what type this strange beast was that was sticking around just above them. Speaking of which- he kept looking up at the sky to see what it was doing, and it looked like it was just sticking there, just in front of the moon, and letting out deep rumbling roars every now and again. It shook his body to its core, and made something in his chest ache every time he heard the roar.

Now deeply unsettled, he turned to Perun with a nervous look. “The last time a battle like this occurred, I managed to talk the Pokemon down from doing anything that would harm anyone. I believe the only reason I was able to do this was because the Pokemon didn’t actually want to hurt anyone, it just wanted to be out of the digital veil. We managed to get it through, so it’s settled now. But this one… I have a very very bad feeling about this one. We should go as soon as possible to get this taken care of.”

Perun looked at Cadmus, watched his face move to one of extreme distress, and decided that she would be the sole bearer of his burden. With a brighter-than-the-sun smile, she put her paw on his shoulder and squeezed, giving him a nod.

“Then let’s not waste any more time. Come on you two!” she called to her other two teammates. “It’s time to defeat this beast.”

The trek there didn’t take very long, especially as Perun had the ability to fly and she was quite strong. While Cadmus ran at a similar speed to her flying, Perun carried Burrow and Tethys to Area Skyfall, where the source of the beast was.

It was even more unsettling that Cadmus could see the monstrous Pokemon from so far away, blotting out the moon.

When the group arrived, they were met by two other members of their division, Spiral and Hades. The Flareon and the Bolvaze were sent ahead of them to scope out the area, and when they saw the other three, joined by the Great Tide, the two of them rushed over.

“There you all are! It was about to get bad- thank goodness you all made it. Are we ready to do this?” Spiral asked. Cadmus looked at his new companions for this fight, and all of them nodded back at him. Well, except for Burrow, which was to be expected. She just buried her face in the Mudkip’s cloak, but she gave a small nod in agreement.

“Alright! Let’s go then!” And the six of them were off. Tethys and Burrow ran to one side of the Pokemon, while Hades and Spiral ran to the other. Leaving Cadmus and Perun at the front, the two of them took off, climbing the debris that launched out from the hole that this Pokemon created after bursting out from the ground beneath them. It seemed that whatever made up this Pokemon had control over gravity and was able to make these pieces of dirt float like the islands of Skyfall. But these were just clumps of dirt, and they had to be as careful as possible.

As the three duos charged at the Pokemon from all sides, Cadmus felt a deep, thrumming pulsing just beneath his fur. For a moment, he saw Perun stop and pause to look at him, and all of a sudden he felt himself plunge into a deep darkness…

.

..

...

The darkness was cold, and stung all over his body, as if he were miles below a frozen ocean. But this was no frozen ocean, and there wasn’t one near Area Skyfall, so he tried to think of other reasons as to why he was feeling this feeling. All of a sudden, he felt a buzzing ring in his ear, a sound he was all too familiar with- the sound of static, of a glitch. Of corruption.

He needed to get out of whatever state he was in fast or else he would never escape this corruption. No matter how badly the cold stung, no matter how loud the static became, he would push through and find his way back topside.

…

..

.

It was a long and arduous process to regain consciousness, but once Cadmus opened his eyes, he saw that the sky was back to normal, the beast had been grounded, and his body hurt immensely. He tried to sit up, but his head protested by pounding so hard his vision went fuzzy all over again. So he laid there, and watched shapes enter his vision until he could see clearly what the faces were. They were the Guild members that came to assist, and they all looked… scared?

“Mmmh… what happened? Did we defeat it?”

The five of them exchanged glances, but none of them really wanted to speak. It was only until Perun decided to take a breath and sit down next to Cadmus instead of hovering over him that she spoke.

“We didn’t, no.” she started. As Cadmus was about to express his concern, Perun set her hand on his shoulder. “You did.”

“I… what? How?”

The Volt Charger-Zubat folded her wings and settled in to tell him everything.

A hop, a skip, and a jump! Getting up these pieces of floating dirt was easy for Perun. She was making her way, but stopped and noticed Cadmus had stopped following. She turned to look, and saw him staring at the large Pokemon ahead of them. She didn’t know exactly what was happening until it was too late. She made her way over to the god, when all of a sudden a grating, staticy sound surrounded the spot they were both standing. The static seemed to manifest into glitches and phased into Cadmus’ body, which made the god thrash around and snap his jaws. Perun was terrified, but wanted to figure out what was going on with him. More and more glitches seemed to enter his body on all sides as they sat on the piece of dirt leading up to the beast.

Suddenly, as all of the surrounding glitches entered his body, a dark shroud covered him entirely and spread around, seemingly giving space for what was about to happen next. Perun would remember this part for the rest of her life, she felt.

As she watched Cadmus be consumed by this dark glitching substance, she watched it grow, and grow, and in the place of the normal Cadmus was a large, terrifying, almost corrupted-looking version of him, taking on some of the traits of the beast they had been fighting as well as some extra features she’d never seen anyone have before. She could barely tell if Cadmus was even himself at this point. But she watched as the Pokemon she was called to help morphed into something very dangerous, unable to do anything to help him or stop it.

Once his transformation had finished, he let out a screeching roar that did not sound like him, but also did at the same time, while also emitting the same electronic static as the beast had before. The beast, what she would now call the Corrupted Tide, had then launched itself at the other beast, attacking it relentlessly, pulling it back down to the ground with him, slamming both of their bodies directly into the ground with a huge crash.

“... And then you were you again, and you were completely passed out until now. I um… I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything,” Perun whispered. Cadmus closed his eyes, letting himself center before he tackled the issue at hand.

“I see… So I’ve acquired some type of corruption from this beast from… an unknown other source, became a monster, and defeated it swiftly. Is that right?” Perun gave him a small nod, and he hummed softly.

“Perun?” he said, turning his head slightly to her direction.

“Yes?”

“You did everything you could do. Thank you for telling me what happened. I am… going to pass back out, if you all don’t mind carrying me back to my settlement to rest? I promise to treat you to a fine dinner once I feel like I can move.” The god let out a hollow laugh before letting his head slump, and his chest rose and fell rhythmically, indicative of slumber.

After some silence, Perun turned to Tethys, who had a look of disappointment and distress on his face.

“... It was what you saw at that mansion, in that orb, wasn’t it?” she asked him softly. The Mudkip gave her a nod, and they both looked back at Cadmus’ sleeping form.

“I wasn’t sure because the orb was very staticy, but when I saw what he looked like, it looked so close to what I was able to make out.”

“So this was… Supposed to happen… I guess.” It didn’t make her feel any better that she didn’t do anything but stand to the side, but she wouldn’t dwell on it any more than she already had.

“Let’s get him home then, yeah? His partner will likely want to know what happened.”

And with that, the five of the Explorer’s Guild members hoisted Cadmus onto their backs, and carried him home. Spiral would split off and go back to the Division HQ and tell the Division Master that the beast was dealt with, and that they need to investigate where it came from and why it did what it did to Cadmus.