-The Dragon King-

  -Shock and Awe: Ch 7-

  Did you know that it can take a tree anywhere from an entire decade to 30 years to reach maturity?

  That’s right, potentially 30 years of sitting around, sucking up C02 and sunlight before it’s ready to be cut down and used for paper, or as a single long log for a cabin. That’s enough time for a human to be born, grow up, go into extreme debt, graduate college, get married, and have their own kids.

  30 whole ass years. Wow.

  It also takes about two and a half seconds for a tree to explode and topple over from a Dragon Pulse slamming into it.

  “BAHAUHA AaHAUha AUAHA HHAUuA!” Haunter cackled as it avoided yet another attack by simply phasing through another physical object, and letting that thing take the hit instead of it.

  A tree, a tree, another tree, then a large rock nearby, before going back to trees, all were treated to the meat shield treatment and exploded by Dragon Pulse- well, not that last tree, it wasn’t as large as the others and Shelgon just barreled through it like a wrecking ball as he chased after Haunter.

  “This is fucking bullshit! We can’t corner something that can phase through walls!” Mark cursed. “Oh, I would abuse that so fucking much if I had a ghost type.”

  “Haunter, don’t try to outlast him, Shelgon’s not like most Pokemon, he’s not going to tire out anytime soon! You have to attack as well!” Hellena shouted into the (still exploding) trees with her hands cupped around her mouth.

  Mark had finally gotten that promised training battle out of his Hex Maniac friend from awhile ago, and it wasn’t exactly going as well as he would have hoped.

  Shelgon dodged a Shadow Ball and then leaped at Haunter with a wide open mouth, only for the ghost to float up and out of range of the Bite.

  “Fighting ghosts in real life is a lot harder than just mashing the A button on Bite every turn.” The American grumbled as he watched Shelgon and Haunter devolve into another game of ‘obliterate the trees’.

  “I mean I told you I got four badges when I did the Gym circuit.” Hellena said awkwardly. “You only have one, so don’t, um, don’t get frustrated if you can’t beat me.” She twiddled her thumbs, not really paying attention to the fight, and just let Haunter do whatever it wanted to. “I don’t have that team anymore, but I wasn’t lying when I said my current Pokemon are just as strong.”

  “I’ve come to the conclusion that badges don’t mean shit.” Mark confidently stated. “I only have one, and yet I regularly trounce dipshits with two or three. If anything the gyms are a trap.”

  “A… trap?” Hellena raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes. And I have to admit, they’re so genuinely designed that it’s insidious. The bait is so good that you’d have to be a fool not to take it, so useful that most people would probably argue with me about calling it a “trap”, but I assure you it is. I realized it after talking with a bird trainer lady yesterday, who was almost out of money.”

  Staaare~* Hellena stared at him intensely, with the deep dead pools of dark lavender in her eyes. It almost felt like there was a physical weight pressing down on the back of his neck, wordlessly urging him to explain.

  “Let’s do an example.” He started. “Small trainer Jimmy goes to the lab, gets his starter, and goes on his journey. On his journey he has to pay for food and supplies for himself and his Pokemon. He makes a little money here and there off of trainer bets, but his first real paycheck comes from the reward from his first gym win. The first badge is a soft ball, practically a shoo in that’s only there to test if you can stomach the stress of watching your Pokemon get hurt.

  “With the money he's able to buy more pokeballs, more potions, a better tent, and more food. But the next gym battle isn’t quite so easy, so he has to catch a second Pokemon, which means it costs more to feed his team. Over the next few gyms he goes from just his starter to four pokemon, quadrupling the amount of money he has to spend supplying his team- then they start evolving, meaning they need to eat even more food.

  “The gyms continue to get harder, and if he wants to continue he has to get serious. Proteins, vitamins, held items, premium food brands for his team. Slowly the money he’s making from battle bets isn’t enough to cover the day to day costs of his team anymore.”

  “But that’s fine because of the increasing payouts from badge wins.” Hellena butted in.

  “Exactly! He’s become dependent on winning badges. Now what happens if he doesn’t have what it takes to go all the way? He gets stuck on his seventh gym, and no matter how many times he tries, he just can’t get the badge. What eventually happens? “

  “He eventually runs out of money?”

  “He runs out of money and has to get a civilian job, tying him down in an area, cutting the amount of time he can train, and slowly eroding away his team’s competitive viability as they get rusty from lack of practice. That’s why sunnyshore isn’t full of boomers who have been stuck on Vulkner since they were 15, and cause a ten hour wait line at the gym everyday. They get forcefully kicked back into the civilian economy.”

  Mark stepped towards Hellena with a manic grin on his face.

  “Purple, think about it. The entire gym system that’s mandated by the League is a world wide, government funded, international conspiracy to filter out weak trainers and cultivate elite talent at the top. Even the whole betting on your battles tradition is designed to help the trainer population cannibalize itself, the strong beat the weak, pushing them out of the race by taking their money to go further themselves.”

  “Huh. I never thought about it that way.” She looked at him with her blank purple eyes. “It kind of sounds like something you would come up with.”

  “Oh it’s totally genius and I wish I had something even half as impressive to my name.” Mark snorted. “Unfortunately for them, I’m too smart to get tricked like that. I’ve got my own ways of making money, I’m in it for the long haul.”

  “Mmhm. I’m sure you made Ironclad Solutions because you figured out this deep international conspiracy, and not because you just really like money.”

  CRASH

  The two jumped a little as a tree fell a little too close to them for comfort.

  The two pokemon came charging out of the woods at impressive speeds, well impresive for something that was supposed to be dead and a bowling ball on legs.

  The familiar thick green shell of Protect slammed into place to block several Venoshock shots, and then fell away as Shelgon retaliated with a mighty Dragon Pulse.

  BOOM

  CRASH

  “HWhHAUuA!”

  Only for Haunter to phase through another tree.

  “That’s it, Shelgon! Just fucking flamethrower the whole treeline, don’t give Haunter anything to hide behind!”

  “Haunter, please don’t let them do that! I don’t want to have to run away from an angry Ranger again!”

  “Yeah, listen to the lady!” A third voice breathed down their necks.

  Hellena went rigid, like she had just had a bucket of ice water poured over her head.

  Mark was already turning and threw a wild haymaker behind him that passed through nothing at all.

  “Woah, woah, woah! Peace! I come in peace!” The thing behind them pled frantically as it raised its hands.

  Mark wasn’t sure how to describe the thing. It had a gray and pinkish-red color scheme to it, a big bobble head, wide green/golden eyes, and a round shaped body that was too horribly disproportionate to be natural.

  It was like a corporate mascot designed to be marketable and sell toys.

  The only thing that went against that image was the giant devil horns sprouting from either side of its head- which was something of a red flag design wise. Typically you didn’t put devil horns on something unless it was, you know, related to demon shit.

  Honestly it looked kind of like one of those evil-cuddly companion things that Magical Girls got. (Not that Mark would know about that, he was a normal adult male. He absolutely did not have a Blueray DVD set of Madoka Magika, that came in annoyingly pink plastic, back on Earth hidden behind his copies of The American Sniper, Inglourious Basterds, and Tropic Thunder.)

  “Howdy, friends!” The pokemon smiled wide, and waved at them, causing the golden rings on his arm to jingle. “My name is Hoopa!”

  “Well… I’ll be honest, I don’t really know what to say here other than that this is extraordinarily suspicious.” Mark said as he glanced around them and thumbed the gun on his belt.

  “Suspicious? Me? Oh heavens no! I’m the best friend that you didn’t know you had! Why, golly, I saw what you went through and it just broke my heart.” Hoopa clutched his chest and tears welled up in his eyes, “Just-just watching all that pain, it made me want to step up and step in! So dangit, I’m here to help with anything I can!”

  “You! You’re the pokemon that’s been following us! I’ve felt your presence for weeks, but you kept hiding from me!” Hellena stepped forward, and Mark was moderately annoyed at how much more interested and alive she looked when interacting with a ghost, than she did when with him.

  “I… waaaaas making sure nothing bad happened to you, of course! Like your own guardian angel!” He said in a cutesy voice.

  “If you’ve been following us around, and have been ‘so moved’ by our struggle, why are you only popping in now?” Mark pressed.

  “Err, uhm.” Hoopa’s eye twitched, and his smile became a tad bit more strained. “The time wasn’t right. You know?”

  “Riiiight.”

  “But none of that matters! You’re overthinking. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, that’s what you humans say about these things, right? I’m here now, friends, and I’m here to help YOU!”

  “...Okay then.”

  “Mark!” Hellena tried to warn but he cut her off.

  “No, I want to hear him out.” Mark said as he raised a hand to scratch his nose. “What kind of help can you give us?”

  “Wonderful!” Hoopa clapped the nubs of his hands together, looking much too happy. “I’m glad you asked, friend! You see, I am the key to your problems, and the doorway to all your solutions. I want to-”

  But that was as far as Hoopa got before Shelgon, acting on Mark’s signal, blasted him in the back with a Dragon Pulse.

  BOOM

  “Ah! HEY!” Hoopa shouted as he tumbled out of the smoke cloud, looking more dazed than hurt, and Shelgon lunged out right behind him with the TE sharpening his teeth for a Bite.

  “Disgusting mut! Know your place!” Hoopa sneered, his faux high pitched cutesy voice completely gone.

  The ring on his horn started glowing slightly, and in a fraction of a second it went from on his horn to expanding seven times its size in front of Shelgon.

  Mark’s starter completely disappeared as he passed through the ring, but he could be heard roaring furiously in the distance as he fell from high in the air down into the trees he’d been fighting Haunter in.

  “Filthy animal! It’s insulting that you even-” Hoopa froze mid sentence, remembering who he was in front of.

  “I mean…” He snapped back into his cheery voice and put on a painfully fake smile. “Oopsy friends~ It’s so unfortunate we started off on the wrong foot, c-could we start over?”

  His response was the cold barrel of a revolver being pressed against his head.

  “Tell me exactly what the Hell you are and what you want, or I blow your fucking brains out.” Mark demanded as he pulled back the hammer.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Hoopa didn’t respond for a long while, leaving the clearing in a silence that became more and more suffocating as the seconds ticked by.

  “Answer me damnit!” Mark shouted as he pressed the gun harder against Hoopa’s head, only for the barrel to slowly start sinking into the ghost’s sandy gray body.

  “Hey. Friend.” The word came out cold, like a warning. “You might wanna reconsider what you’re doing, buddy.” He slowly opened his eyes, and the cheery green glow was gone, faded away like its voice. Instead Mark stared into two lifeless pools of curdled blood- the same that most Ghost types had.

  “I think you misunderstand the situation you’re in.” The ghost hissed.

  Mark felt something cold and metallic pressed against the back of his skull, and only then did he notice the small golden ring that had clamped down on the very end of his gun.

  “Go on, tough guy, show me your stuff. Do it. Pull~The~Trigger~” Hoopa smiled at him, and this smile, wide and bloodthirsty, looked so much more natural on its face than the forced ones from before.

  There was the sound of Haunter being returned, and a hand grabbed Mark by the shoulder.

  He turned his head to see Hellena panicked and shaking.

  “You’ve taught me that being bold and stubborn can steal you victories from fights that you have no right winning. This isn’t one of them.” She stressed, and he felt her hand tighten on his shoulder. “Please, Mark. You can’t see what he is, like I can.”

  The old soldier grit his teeth and squeezed the gun so hard that it shook before relenting with a scowl and shoving it back into his holster.

  Shelgon came bursting out of the treeline a second later, and beelined for Hoopa, only to be called back into his pokeball.

  “Sorry, bud. But let me try to sort this out first.” Mark whispered to the ball that was shaking angrily at him, before clipping it to his belt and turning back to the mythical Pokemon.

  “Welp. You have me at a loss, with nothing I can really do here, but ride it out and hope I don’t have something taken from me when I can’t retaliate.” Mark spoke through his teeth. “The exact fucking scenario I swore to never let happen again, so this better be really fucking good.”

  “Ugh, this is stupid.” The mythic pokemon grunted as he straightened himself back out. “Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Hoopa, the Djinn of a million doors, and the barer of keys to every desire. Once, in the ancient age of myth, my name was spoken in terrified awe by every mortal tongue. Now…” He grimaced. “...Less so.”

  “Is that how you teleported Shelgon away?” Hellena asked. “Your doors?”

  To answer her question half a dozen golden rings raised into the air around them, and as they started spinning they opened portals to places all across the globe. Deserts, oceans, cities, deep jungles, beautiful caverns, endless clouds, and countless more sights popped into existence as the hoops flickered between locations like TV channels.

  “Here, look, a peace offering as an apology for the rough start.” Hoopa reached into one of the rings and pulled out a rock of some kind straight from its spot on a museum display. It was a chunk of ancient stone, with a jaw bone embedded in it.

  He tossed it at Mark's feet with a smirk. “There. It’s for one of those beasties that you're so fond of.”

  The hoops closed and flew back to Hoopa, until only one remained floating.

  “Now, I used to be able to do this really easily, but I’m kinda running on fumes these days. But this should give you a clue as to why I’m interested in you.”

  The ring began to spin and glow brightly, the air inside it becoming hazy. Hoopa raised his hands at the ring, fully concentrated and clearly straining himself.

  Slowly a portal opened to a new place. The ring was too small to see the whole room, but it seemed to be a dorm of some kind. A young girl wearing a long red cloak was sitting at a desk, performing maintenance on a massive mechanical scythe. A girl that Mark immediately recognized from another show he used to watch.

  Ruby Rose looked up at the sound of the portal opening, and her silver eyes widened in shock, but before she could scream the ring became unstable and snapped shut.

  “Eh? What do you think? Pretty impressive, right?” Hoopa grinned, panting slightly.

  “Rings. You open portals with rings.” Mark muttered to himself as an old memory finally wiggled free from the dusty and decaying memories of things he’d thrown aside and let to rot.

  “Yes. That is exactly what I said. Good job for recognizing it, genius.” Hoopa snarked- and it was Hoopa.

  Hoopa was that event mythical pokemon in X and Y and the Ruby Sapphire remakes.

  Shit.

  He didn’t finish any of those games! Fuck, okay. What did he know?

  It, uh, it could open portals with its knockoff Sonic rings, (apparently between different worlds, that also also existed, because the Pokemon universe being real wasn’t a fluke, and wasn’t that a whole ass fucking can of worms). And uhh, Hoopa had an ominous pokedex entry. That was all that he could remember.

  Fuck fuck fuck, damn modern Gamefreak for making shit games that he never wanted to finish! What did the Pokedex say? It was something about tricks, right?

  Hoopa didn’t seem to really care about Mark’s mental freakout and carried on regardless.

  “Being able to go here and there, and tell what's from there and here, is kinda my specialty. It’s the core of my very existence.” Two red eyes drifted to Mark with a smirk. “In fact, I’m one of two beings in all of creation that can tell, with only a glance, just how far away from home you really are, cowboy.”

  Mark swallowed hard. “Is that so?”

  “Yup! Well, three if you count the big Lady Upstairs herself, but uh-” Hoopa’s grin turned sharp, his teeth literally turning into rows of fangs that stretched across his face. “-That’s what I’m here to talk to you about.”

  The Djinn chuckled as he slid towards Mark, not unlike a snake.

  “We’re not too different, you and I. Your patron and I, we both naturally go, ah, against the grain of how things are supposed to work. We’ve both been thoroughly whipped and put in our place, for daring to object to how things are run. We could both benefit greatly from a change in administration, if you know what I mean.” Hoopa was close enough to nudge Mark with his elbow.

  “I don’t actually know what you mean.”

  “You don’t have to play dumb with me. I’m well aware of what you are.” Hoopa smirked. “When every dog on the farm has been domesticated, neutered, and has a nice little bell hooked on ‘em so The Lady of the House can hear if they're being too rowdy, well, heh. Bringing in a wild wolf isn't a bad idea.” Hoopa shrugged. “I'm not saying it's a good idea, or that it'll work, but I can see why he would do it. So I want to make a deal. I’ll put my vote on your side of the ring, as long as I get some help back in return.”

  “Lady of the house?” Hellena asked, just as confused as Mark. "Who's she?”

  “She's a He. He's a She. It's an It. A thing. The living husk of the egg that everything in this universe came from. It doesn't play by the same rules as you and I do.” Hoopa gestured between him and Mark. “It hates us because of that. Because we have our own brains, our own ideas that don't stick to the script- and It really hates us more than anyone else, because our noggins ain't as easy to chain up as the rest.”

  Every word out of Hoopa’s mouth felt like it was pressing a needle between Mark’s eyes. A headache in a very specific part of his brain was starting to form, and it was starting to hurt bad.

  “None of what you're saying makes sense.” Mark snapped. “It’s gibberish!”

  “I’m speaking as clearly as I can, about these things, actually.”

  “Just say what you mean, and tell me what you want, trickster!”

  “I can't!” Hoops held up his hands. “I told you, every dog on the farm has already been taken care of. The ones that caused problems were neutered so we couldn’t anymore. Either locked away in the void, or had our power sealed away in a bottle and reduced to a husk.” Hoopa sneered. “...And we all got little bells that ring when we misbehave. Your patron, at least, was saved from the humiliation of that part. Small mercies considering he’ll never see the light of day again.”

  “I don’t have a patron, I don’t know about bottles, or about a farm with dogs, you’re talking in circles!”

  “Mark!”

  Hellena had to grab him to keep him from keeling over as his head started pounding like a drum. His brain felt like someone was inflating a balloon in his skull, and it was hurting so much that he couldn’t think!

  But then-

  “You stole a castle.” He blurted out dumbly as the stinging pain in his head managed to knock loose a forgotten memory. “Your entry said you stole an entire castle with everyone inside.”

  “Huh?” Hoopa blinked. “The fuck? How in the world do you know about that? No, wait. You’re changing the topic. Go back, I want a deal-”

  “Wait, how do you steal a castle?” Hellena asked

  “Stole is a strong word.” Hoopa grimaced. “An ancient king offered to let me choose from ‘the greatest gems of his realm’ as payment, we made a contract, and I took the heart of his kingdom. Simple as that.” The mischief Pokemon waved off the concerns.

  “And now you want Mark to make one of those same deals?” Hellena asked, clearly not convinced.

  “Yes! I can’t do the same twisted soul pacts as those glittery pink Moon-Blights,” Hoopa spat the word like it was a slur. “-but I prefer blood anyway. Much better for contracts, because you can write it out in detail, and be specific with the wording and different clauses. You don’t have to fit it in a three sentence rhyme, or make it a jingle, or something stupid like that.”

  “And what would that deal be? I don’t exactly have a castle to steal.”

  “You see, my bottle is cursed so that I can never find it myself.” Hoopa cringed in pain when he said the words, like a whip had just been taken to his back, but he forced through it. “You help me find where my power is locked away, and I will help you fulfil whatever your end of the bargain is to the Renegade. You cut my strings, and I cut yours. Eh?”

  Hoopa held out his hand, the gray gas of the nubby stub unfolding into four long clawed talons. “What do you say, friend? Want to make a deal?”

  “You keep bringing that up! You keep saying I made a bargain, or that I have a patron, when I don’t!” Mark exclaimed, fed up and in an increasingly horrible mood from his headache. “I don’t have any of that shit! You’re just wheeling nonsense to spook me into shaking on a deal where I don’t actually get anything out of it.”

  “No, you’re the one trying to do that!” The pokemon hissed, his patience fraying. “Do you think I’m stupid? You think I can’t tell who’s brand is burned into you?”

  “Yes! I think you ARE stupid if you think I’m going to fall for that!”

  …

  “You actually don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you? You’re completely in the dark.”

  Hoopa barked a disbelieving laugh, then another, and then he slowly broke down into a manic blood curdling cackle that sounded similar to Haunter’s.

  “BWAHAhAHHAAHahWHOHAHAOHEA!”

  The “laughter” echoed through the clearing like nails on a chalkboard, causing both Hellena and Mark to stagger back, clutching their ears.

  As Hoopa lost his composure, his body seemed to almost start melting. The childish mascot-like form he had been masquerading as slowly started bleeding away into something much more horrific that matched the devil horns sprouting from his head.

  “Oh this is just too good! HAHA!” The melting smear of gray gas and red blood streaks whistled through knife like teeth and pulled himself back together. “You’re in waaay over your head, messing with things you don’t even know exist! You can’t even fathom just how screwed we all really are, and you’re on a path right into the worst of it!”

  One of the hoops flew off his horn and grew in size behind him, opening up a portal into a black nothingness that started sucking air into it like a vacuum.

  “You’re gonna draw the wrong kind of attention, you’re going to get crushed like a bug. And when that happens…”

  Hoopa pointed at Marcus with a claw tipped with ancient blood.

  “I’ll be there to make a deal you can’t refuse, and put my own strings on the Renegade’s champion.”

  The ring snapped shut, and Hoopa was gone, like he had never even been there.

  -The Dragon King-

  Hoopa tumbled, laughing, into a world of endless darkness in all directions. The only breaks in the perpetual nothingness were small floating islands covered in dying grass and bent trees, where the water flowed in wrong directions.

  He was noticed instantly, and the darkness itself seemed to grow even thicker somehow as it concentrated around him.

  “Howdy, friend!” Hoopa called out, not even nothing to mask in his voice how fake his ‘sincere’ act was. “Did you miss me?”

  “No one would ever miss your presence, Djinn.” A voice like rusted iron boomed. “Your mere existence sullies wherever you are, now leave before my generosity expires and I decide to make your crushed corpse a permanent landmark in my realm.”

  “Straight to death threats? Aww, you DID miss me.” Hoopa said, causing the shadows to wind up threateningly.

  “A King does not tolerate such disrespect. Leave. Now.”

  “But we have so much to talk about.” Hoopa drawled. “You know… Like your champion.”

  The shadows froze.

  “Oh? What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” The Djinn asked, his grin of knives growing larger than his face could contain. “I talked to him, you know- clearly more than you ever have.”

  “Interfere with my triumph and I will personally make sure that not even my father could stitch back together your remains.”

  “I wouldn’t even need to do anything to ruin your chances. You sabotaged it yourself by sending him in blind. I didn’t even realize you had an active memory suppressor on him at first because of how fucking stupid that is! Did you go stupid from only having yourself to play chess with here?”

  “The more he knows, the easier it will be for my father to sense him. It was for his protection.”

  “Yeah, like your massive brand on his soul doesn't give everything away if you get close enough! Haha! Oh my gosh, you sent him to fucking die! BWAHAHA! Oh, this is great, you’ve done all my work for me! He’s going to charge blindly in, without realizing that literal gods are going to start pulling strings against him! And right as he’s about to die- BAM! I swoop in and put my own chains on him!”

  Hoopa doubled over laughing, his form contorting and smearing as he lost his composure without a care for keeping up his facade.

  “The prodigal son’s glorious triumphant return, hijacked and put on a string by the lowly jester! “BAHOAUHAAaHAUha AOUAHAHHAUuA!”

  A tendril of void slammed down with enough force to turn the several kilometer long void island Hoopa had been hovering over, into a fine mist of atomic particles.

  But the Djinn was already gone, having long since mastered the timing for escaping before he could face consequences for his mischief.

  Giratina was left alone, again, as he had been for thousands of years.

  The only thing he had to accompany him was the darkness he had subsumed, and his thoughts.

  And his thoughts were ruminating if he might have made a mistake, or if he was being lured into playing into someone else’s hand.

  -End Chapter-

  Every pantheon needs a schemer.