Old Enemies

Chapter Thirty-Five

Old Enemies

Heatran caught Darkrai around the middle.

There was no warning beyond a flash of movement too fast for something that massive. One moment Darkrai was sliding toward the sleeping cavern with Heatran behind it; the next Heatran lunged sideways, jaws closing across the narrow black torso in a burst of orange heat and crushing force. Darkrai folded around the impact, one arm flinging outward as its body distorted between Heatran’s teeth, but Heatran did not stop to shake it or throw it aside. It drove forward.

The cavern wall broke first.

Stone exploded around them. Heatran hit the rock shoulder-first with Darkrai still clamped in its jaws, and the entire section gave way under the collision. A violent crack rolled through the lower system as both Legendary Pokémon vanished into a cloud of pulverized basalt and crystal fragments. For an instant Gray saw only darkness where the wall had been. Then orange light flared beyond it, followed by another impact powerful enough to send broken stone bouncing back into the sleeping cavern.

Gray recoiled behind the nearest outcrop as debris scattered across the shelf. Cynthia ducked beside him, one arm over her head, while the distant cries of the sleeping Fire-types rose briefly in response to the vibration. Several awake Quilava bolted toward the nearest clusters. Farther away, a Charizard thrashed once without waking.

“Heatran just took it through the wall,” Cynthia said.

“I saw.”

“That was not a question.”

Another concussion shuddered through the floor.

Gray looked toward the new opening. Heat poured out of it in waves.

Heatran had not simply attacked Darkrai.

It had removed it from the sleepers.

The thought arrived so quickly that Gray almost dismissed it as projection, but the geography supported it. Heatran could have mauled Darkrai where it caught it. Instead it had driven the other Legendary sideways, away from the densely occupied cavern and through a barrier into the adjacent rock.

Deliberate or instinctive, the result was the same.

The fight had moved.

Marcus’s voice burst through Gray’s headset, half buried beneath static. “What happened?”

“Heatran breached the eastern wall.”

Roark came in immediately. “Eastern how far?”

Gray stared through the settling dust. “Maybe forty meters beyond the central shelf. Large collapse.”

“Do not follow until I know what’s behind it.”

Gray looked toward Cynthia.

Cynthia was already looking at him.

They both knew they were going to follow.

That did not mean Roark was wrong.

A roar came through the opening.

Heatran.

Darkrai answered with something Gray did not recognize as a roar at all. The sound was lower, almost resonant, carrying strangely through the broken stone. Then black-violet light flashed across the far side of the breach, followed by a wave of force that struck the opening hard enough to throw dust back into their faces.

Gray crouched lower.

“Roark?”

“Working.”

“Faster.”

“I am currently trying to reconstruct a room nobody knew existed using mining scans from six years ago while two Legendaries punch holes in it.”

“Fair.”

Cynthia had already released Garchomp.

Not toward the opening.

Beside them.

The dragon emerged in a flash of white light and immediately lowered its body, placing itself between the humans and the unstable wall. Garchomp’s attention fixed on the breach. It did not posture toward the Legendaries or roar a challenge. Gray had watched Cynthia’s partner face powerful opponents before and rarely seen that kind of restraint.

It understood the scale.

Another section of the broken wall came down.

Garchomp raised one arm and took the falling debris across its armored forelimb, deflecting fist-sized chunks away from Gray and Cynthia. The largest piece struck hard enough that Garchomp’s claws slid several inches across the stone.

Gray stared at the falling rock.

Then at Garchomp.

“Thanks.”

Garchomp grunted without looking at him.

Roark came back over the radio. “There’s a natural cavity east of you. Big one. Old lava chamber, probably. The wall between you and it was thinner than we thought.”

“How big?”

“Maybe two hundred meters across. Ceiling high. No known connection to the sleeping cavern except the hole Heatran just made.”

No sleepers.

Gray looked toward Cynthia.

She nodded once.

“Good place to fight.”

“Better than here.”

The entire cavern lit white-orange.

Heatran’s roar followed.

Gray moved.

Garchomp went first, testing the broken slope where the wall had collapsed. Cynthia followed close behind. Gray stayed behind her, one hand against the rock for balance as they climbed over jagged basalt still warm from Heatran’s impact.

“Gray,” Rhea said over the radio.

“Yes.”

“Tell me you are not entering the fight.”

“We are observing from the edge of the adjacent chamber.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“We’re not participating.”

“Do not make me regret the distinction.”

Gray had no intention of doing that.

He reached the top of the rubble and stopped.

The chamber beyond made him forget the reply.

It was enormous.

Roark’s estimate had understated the vertical scale. The ceiling climbed into darkness at least a hundred meters overhead, supported by thick natural columns of black volcanic stone. Ancient lava channels cut through the floor like dried rivers, some empty and glassy, others glowing faintly beneath cracked crusts. Pale crystals projected from the walls in broad mineral shelves, catching the red-orange illumination and reflecting it in distorted patches across the chamber.

Heatran stood near the center.

Darkrai was thirty meters above it.

The lower half of Darkrai’s body trailed into shadow, its ragged form moving without wind. One side of the black torso bore bright marks where Heatran’s jaws had closed. They were not wounds in any anatomy Gray understood, but Darkrai’s posture was uneven, one arm held closer to its body.

Heatran looked worse.

Not injured.

Enraged.

There was nothing subtle left in it.

The exhaustion Gray had learned to recognize still existed somewhere beneath the surface, but fury had burned over it so completely that Heatran seemed larger than it had in the sleeping cavern. Its armor glowed along the seams. The stone beneath its feet had softened into dull red patches. Steam hissed where old mineral deposits encountered the heat radiating from its body.

Darkrai drifted backward.

Heatran followed.

“Don’t,” Gray whispered.

He had no idea which one he meant.

Darkrai moved first.

Its body blurred.

Gray barely saw the beginning of the motion. One instant Darkrai hovered above the central floor; the next it streaked forward in a black-and-white smear fast enough to leave a false impression of its outline behind. Quick Attack, Gray realized half a second before Darkrai struck Heatran across the side of the head.

The impact snapped Heatran’s face sideways.

Darkrai was gone before Heatran could bite.

It reappeared above a basalt pillar.

Heatran roared and slammed one forefoot into the ground.

Stone rose.

Not debris kicked upward.

Stone.

Several jagged masses tore free from the chamber floor as though invisible hands had ripped them out. Ancient Power pulled them into the air around Heatran, each slab rotating through dust and molten fragments before launching toward Darkrai.

Darkrai dropped.

One stone missed by inches and exploded against the wall. Another struck the pillar beneath it, shattering the upper half. The third passed through Darkrai.

Gray blinked.

The Darkrai it hit dissolved.

Then another Darkrai appeared twenty meters away.

Then another.

And another.

Within seconds, the chamber contained nine.

Cynthia swore softly.

“Double Team.”

Heatran turned.

Every Darkrai moved at once.

Some climbed.

Some descended.

Some drifted sideways through crystal shelves.

Heatran snapped at the nearest and caught nothing. The false body vanished around its teeth. Two more passed behind it. Another crossed directly overhead.

Heatran stopped trying to track them individually.

Its head lowered.

Gray felt the change before the attack came.

“Down.”

Garchomp planted itself over Gray and Cynthia.

Heatran released Heat Wave.

The chamber seemed to inhale fire.

There was no narrow beam, no tidy cone of flame. A rolling front of superheated air expanded outward from Heatran in every direction, distorting the cavern so violently that the stone itself appeared liquid. Gray’s suit cooling system surged to maximum and immediately began screaming warnings.

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The false Darkrai disappeared one after another.

Not struck.

Erased by the environmental violence surrounding them.

The real Darkrai shot upward toward the ceiling.

Even there the heat caught it.

Its body twisted as the wave passed, the black outline flickering strangely around the edges.

Heatran found it.

A row of stone blades erupted from the floor.

Stone Edge.

The first pillar missed Darkrai.

The second forced it sideways.

The third appeared directly in its path.

Darkrai turned too late.

Stone struck its lower body and launched it across the chamber.

It hit a crystal shelf hard enough to break the formation behind it. Pale fragments rained toward the floor.

Heatran charged.

Gray had never seen anything that large move so quickly.

Darkrai pulled itself away from the wall.

Heatran reached it before it gained height.

One foreleg swung.

Metal Claw flashed silver-white across the talons.

The strike connected.

Darkrai hit the floor.

Heatran’s jaws came down.

Darkrai vanished.

Heatran bit stone.

The floor shattered beneath its mouth.

Darkrai reappeared above it.

One arm extended.

Dark energy gathered around its body.

Not merely color.

The light around Darkrai seemed to recede, shadows stretching toward it across surfaces that should not have cast them. Gray felt pressure behind his eyes.

“Nasty Plot,” Cynthia said.

Gray glanced toward her.

“You sure?”

“No.”

Good.

At least one of them remembered they were watching things nobody had reliable field descriptions for.

Darkrai’s posture changed.

Not stronger in any visible muscular sense.

Sharper.

More present.

The blue eye focused on Heatran.

A pulse of darkness erupted from its body.

Dark Pulse crossed the chamber like a physical wall.

Heatran braced.

The blast hit it square in the chest.

Gray expected Heatran to hold.

It did not.

The Legendary slid backward across the floor, claws carving trenches through softened stone. Ten meters. Fifteen. A basalt ridge stopped it.

The ridge broke.

Heatran staggered once.

Gray’s stomach dropped.

Nothing had moved Heatran like that before.

Not Garchomp.

Not falling rock.

Not its own collisions with the cavern.

Darkrai had.

Heatran lifted its head.

The look in its eyes made Gray forget any concern that the hit had discouraged it.

The roar that followed shook dust from the ceiling.

Heatran opened its mouth.

Flame gathered along its teeth.

Then it lunged.

Fire Fang closed around Darkrai’s arm.

Darkrai twisted, but Heatran had it.

Fire exploded around both Pokémon.

Darkrai struck Heatran’s head with its free arm. A black pulse detonated against the armor.

Heatran held on.

Darkrai hit it again.

Still Heatran held.

Then Darkrai’s body split into several overlapping images.

Heatran’s jaws snapped shut on nothing.

Double Team.

Gray exhaled.

“That is going to piss it off.”

Cynthia stared at him.

Heatran answered before she could.

Metal Sound tore through the chamber.

Gray had heard Aggron produce similar attacks.

This was different.

Heatran’s entire armored body resonated. The sound began as a grinding metallic shriek and expanded into something large enough to become physical. Garchomp flinched. Gray clamped both hands over his helmet despite the protection.

The cavern vibrated.

Crystal shelves cracked.

Several Darkrai copies distorted.

One faltered.

Heatran pivoted instantly.

Ancient Power ripped a slab of volcanic stone from the floor and sent it spinning toward the unstable image.

The slab hit.

Real.

Darkrai disappeared beneath broken stone.

Heatran charged the pile.

For one heartbeat Gray wondered whether that was it.

Then the entire debris mound erupted outward in black energy.

Heatran took the Dark Pulse at close range.

It was thrown sideways.

Darkrai rose from the shattered stone.

Its white head structure hung unevenly, and the blue eye burned brighter than before.

For the first time, it attacked Heatran without immediately trying to leave.

Quick Attack became almost impossible to follow.

Darkrai hit Heatran once along the flank, disappeared, struck the opposite shoulder, vanished again, and came down from above with enough force to drive Heatran’s head toward the floor. Each movement left fading afterimages behind.

Heatran swung with Metal Claw and missed twice.

The third strike caught Darkrai in the chest.

The impact sounded like a steel beam hitting stone.

Darkrai flew backward.

Heatran followed with Fire Spin.

Flames circled the chamber.

Not around Heatran.

Around Darkrai.

A rotating wall of fire rose from the floor, spiraling upward until it nearly reached the ceiling. Darkrai stopped midair, surrounded. The vortex narrowed.

Heatran stood outside it, mouth glowing.

Gray watched Darkrai look up.

Down.

Sideways.

There was no obvious opening.

Then the blue eye fixed on Heatran.

A wave of psychic pressure rolled through the room.

Gray felt his eyelids become heavy.

Not normal tiredness.

An immediate downward pull.

Cynthia staggered beside him.

“Gray.”

“I feel it.”

Garchomp shook its head hard and roared.

Darkrai’s Hypnosis was not aimed at them.

They were simply close enough to feel the edge.

Heatran took the full effect.

Its posture faltered.

The great head dipped.

Fire Spin weakened.

Darkrai drove straight through the thinning wall of flame.

Heatran’s eyes closed.

Only for a second.

The entire room seemed to stop with Gray.

Heatran’s front legs bent.

Darkrai descended.

One dark hand reached toward Heatran.

Gray felt something cold move through his stomach.

“Dream Eater.”

Cynthia heard him.

Darkrai touched Heatran’s head.

Heatran screamed.

Not roared.

Screamed.

The sound was so raw that Gray forgot the battle for a moment.

Heatran’s entire body convulsed. Images seemed to flicker in the shadows around Darkrai—too indistinct for Gray to interpret, fragments of red light, black stone, sleeping shapes, perhaps nothing more than psychic distortion interacting with his own expectations.

Darkrai recoiled.

Violently.

Its hand came away from Heatran as though burned.

Heatran’s eyes opened.

The fury in them was beyond anything Gray had seen.

Whatever Darkrai had touched inside Heatran had made the ancient hostility worse.

Heatran surged upward.

Its jaws closed on Darkrai’s lower torso.

Crunch.

The sound was hideous.

Darkrai struck at Heatran’s face.

Heatran shook it once.

Twice.

Then slammed Darkrai into the floor.

The chamber cracked beneath the impact.

Gray stared.

“Heatran’s going to kill it.”

Cynthia did not answer immediately.

Darkrai disappeared beneath Heatran’s body.

Another Darkrai appeared to the left.

Then one to the right.

Then five more behind it.

Heatran spun.

Too late.

The real Darkrai emerged directly above.

Dark Pulse slammed down.

Heatran’s legs buckled.

Darkrai moved away.

Again.

Always away.

Gray felt the same unease from the camera footage returning stronger now.

Darkrai was absolutely fighting.

It was not harmless.

Its attacks could move Heatran, disrupt the entire cavern, and drag at the edges of human consciousness from dozens of meters away.

But every time it gained space, it used the space to disengage.

Heatran used every regained advantage to close the distance again.

“Darkrai doesn’t want this fight,” Gray said.

Cynthia remained focused on the chamber. “It’s still fighting back.”

“Because Heatran keeps trying to bite it in half.”

“That would motivate me.”

Darkrai moved toward the northern edge of the chamber.

Heatran pursued.

Gray and Cynthia followed along the outer wall at a distance, with Garchomp ahead of them. They moved carefully between basalt ridges, never crossing open ground if they could avoid it.

Roark’s voice came through Gray’s headset.

“You’re moving deeper east.”

“We know.”

“The chamber narrows ahead. There’s another fracture system beyond it.”

“Sleeping cavern?”

“No. Below it.”

Gray looked toward Cynthia.

She heard.

The battle reached the narrowed section first.

Darkrai slipped between two pillars.

Heatran could not.

So Heatran removed them.

Ancient Power tore one pillar apart while Metal Claw shattered the other. Tons of stone collapsed behind the Legendary.

Garchomp moved immediately.

It planted itself in front of Gray and Cynthia and raised both arms.

The first debris struck.

Garchomp caught a slab the size of a small table and threw it aside.

Another exploded against its shoulder.

Gray ducked behind the dragon’s torso.

This was Cynthia’s Champion ace.

A Pokémon that had destroyed elite teams, endured championship-level attacks, and stood among the strongest non-Legendary Pokémon Gray had ever seen.

Right now it was protecting two humans from rubble while Heatran and Darkrai reshaped a cavern by accident.

Gray had never felt the gap more clearly.

“Garchomp, back!” Cynthia shouted.

The dragon retreated with them as another section collapsed.

They waited for the worst of the debris.

Then followed.

Heatran had caught Darkrai again.

This time with Fire Fang across one shoulder.

Darkrai’s body twisted while flame engulfed them both. Heatran drove forward, forcing the dark Pokémon against the wall.

Darkrai raised one hand.

Heatran’s jaw movement stopped.

Gray blinked.

The flames remained.

The bite did not tighten.

Heatran jerked its head.

Nothing.

Darkrai slipped free.

Cynthia stared.

“Disable.”

Gray nodded.

That made sense.

Heatran snapped after Darkrai again.

Its jaws failed to close properly.

The effect infuriated it.

Heatran switched immediately.

Metal Claw carved through the wall where Darkrai had been.

Darkrai dropped beneath the strike and released Dark Pulse at Heatran’s underside.

The blast lifted Heatran partly off the ground.

Partly.

Gray would have laughed at how absurd that sentence was if the situation were not trying to kill them indirectly.

Heatran landed.

The entire chamber shook.

Its mouth opened.

The bite still would not work.

So Heatran stopped trying.

Lava Plume erupted.

The floor came apart.

Cracks raced outward from Heatran’s feet. Molten rock burst upward in multiple columns, filling the narrowed chamber with incandescent spray. Darkrai shot toward the ceiling.

A plume caught one of its duplicates.

Gone.

Another.

Gone.

The real Darkrai swerved between two fountains of lava, but Heatran was already turning the environment into something impossible to navigate.

Another eruption cut off the left route.

Darkrai moved right.

Heatran predicted it.

Stone Edge tore upward directly ahead.

Darkrai stopped.

Heatran charged.

No bite.

Metal Claw.

The silver-white talons caught Darkrai across the side and launched it through a crystal shelf.

Gray flinched at the impact.

Darkrai fell.

Heatran approached.

Slowly this time.

Its breathing had become audible even from a distance.

The fight was costing it.

The earlier exhaustion had not vanished.

Rage had simply borrowed against whatever remained.

Gray could see it now between attacks. The fractionally slower steps. The deeper movement of Heatran’s chest. The way its head dipped between bursts of violence before rising again.

Darkrai rose from the broken crystals.

It looked bad too.

The black body flickered along one edge. Heatran’s attacks had torn bright distortions through its form. The white head structure had lost some of its clean shape.

Neither looked mortal in the ordinary sense.

Both looked hurt.

Darkrai lifted one hand.

Heatran lowered its head.

The air around Darkrai darkened.

Nasty Plot again.

This time Gray felt the psychic pressure from much farther away.

Shadows beneath the rocks lengthened toward Darkrai.

Its blue eye brightened.

Heatran roared and fired Heat Wave before the buildup could finish.

Darkrai split.

Ten copies.

Heat Wave swallowed the chamber.

Most vanished.

Three remained.

Heatran turned between them.

Darkrai attacked from behind.

Quick Attack.

The strike hit Heatran at the base of the neck.

Heatran stumbled.

Darkrai followed immediately with Dark Pulse.

Heatran was thrown forward.

For the first time, it fell completely.

Its armored body struck the ground hard enough to create a shallow crater.

Darkrai hovered above.

Gray felt his pulse spike.

Darkrai had the opening.

It could attack.

It did not.

It turned away.

Toward the deeper fracture.

Heatran saw.

Something in the Legendary seemed to break past exhaustion entirely.

It stood.

Not quickly.

Not easily.

But with absolute refusal.

The Disable effect had apparently ended.

Heatran lunged and caught the trailing edge of Darkrai’s body with Crunch.

Darkrai twisted.

Heatran dragged it down.

Darkrai struck the ground.

Heatran planted one foreleg against the black torso and opened its mouth.

Flame built.

Point-blank.

Gray swore.

“Heatran!”

The Legendary did not hear him.

Or did not care.

Darkrai stared upward at the growing fire.

For the first time, Gray saw something in its posture that looked less like strategy and more like desperation.

Darkrai raised both hands.

Gray braced for Dark Pulse.

Nothing happened.

The darkness gathered somewhere else.

Behind Heatran.

Past it.

Toward a narrow crack descending through the chamber floor.

Cynthia saw it too.

“Gray.”

Dark Void opened.

The attack did not look like a projectile.

It looked like a hole appearing in reality.

Black-purple darkness gathered above Darkrai’s hands and flowed outward in a dense sphere that seemed to absorb the chamber’s light rather than merely cover it. Gray felt immediate nausea. His eyelids became impossibly heavy. Garchomp roared and dug its claws into the floor to remain upright.

Heatran reacted before the Dark Void passed it.

Its attack died.

Its head snapped toward the sphere.

Darkrai sent the Dark Void past Heatran.

Not into Heatran.

Into the crack.

The darkness vanished below.

Heatran froze.

Completely.

For one impossible second, the entire fight stopped.

Darkrai remained pinned beneath one foreleg.

Heatran stared at the crack.

Gray stared too.

“What did it just do?”

Cynthia’s face had gone tight.

“I don’t know.”

The answer came through the mountain.

A psychic pulse erupted from below.

Not like the earlier field events.

Those had been disturbances.

This was impact.

Gray felt it inside his skull before any instrument registered it. Pressure burst behind his eyes. His vision flashed white. Every hair along his arms lifted beneath the suit.

Garchomp staggered.

Cynthia caught the wall.

Gray dropped to one knee.

The entire chamber groaned.

Far beneath them, something answered Darkrai.

Not a voice.

Not anything Gray could hear normally.

A wave of psychic force moved upward through the rock and crystal network.

The crystals lit.

All of them.

White-violet light raced through mineral veins across the walls, spreading outward faster than fire.

Gray’s radio exploded with static.

Then voices.

Mira shouting.

Marcus shouting over her.

Moriyama somewhere in the channel demanding readings.

Roark swearing.

Gray caught fragments.

“—every sensor—”

“—sleepers reacting—”

“—field off the scale—”

“—not localized anymore—”

Heatran made a sound.

Gray had never heard it before.

Not rage.

Not warning.

Fear.

The realization struck him hard.

Heatran was afraid.

Its foreleg lifted from Darkrai.

Darkrai did not attack.

It rose unsteadily beside Heatran.

For the first time since the battle began, the two Legendaries were looking in the same direction.

Down.

Another pulse came.

Weaker.

Still enormous.

The crystal veins brightened.

Darkrai drifted toward the crack.

Heatran immediately moved between it and the opening.

The truce lasted less than five seconds.

Heatran lowered its head.

Darkrai stopped.

But something had changed.

Heatran did not attack.

Not yet.

It stood over the crack, blocking access, breathing heavily enough that its entire body moved with the effort.

Darkrai hovered several meters away.

Its blue eye remained fixed on the darkness below.

Gray struggled to his feet.

“Cynthia.”

“I’m here.”

“What the fuck is down there?”

She looked toward the glowing crystal veins.

“I don’t know.”

Darkrai moved sideways.

Heatran matched it.

No attack.

Just blocking.

Darkrai moved the other direction.

Heatran shifted again.

Old hostility returned immediately, but now Gray could see something beneath it that had not been visible during the fight.

Darkrai wanted past.

Heatran did not merely want Darkrai gone.

It wanted Darkrai away from whatever lay below.

Gray touched his headset.

“Mira, status of sleepers.”

Static.

Then her voice broke through.

“Bad. Almost every monitored individual reacted. Neural field readings maxed out. Most are settling now.”

“Heatran’s cavern?”

“Same.”

“Egg room?”

A pause.

“Thermal stable. No movement.”

Good.

At least one thing had not changed.

Gray looked back toward the two Legendaries.

Darkrai raised one hand.

Heatran tensed.

No attack formed.

Darkrai pointed.

Down.

Gray stopped breathing.

Heatran roared directly into its face.

Darkrai did not move.

It pointed again.

Down.

The gesture was unmistakable.

Not human.

Not language.

Intent.

Something beneath them.

Heatran lunged.

Darkrai vanished before the bite landed.

It reappeared near the opposite wall.

Heatran spun.

The fight was going to begin again.

Cynthia grabbed Gray’s arm.

“We need to move.”

He knew.

The chamber was unstable.

The psychic pulse had damaged half their equipment.

Heatran and Darkrai had already collapsed enough stone to change the map.

Whatever came next was beyond two humans standing fifty meters away with notebooks.

Garchomp moved toward the exit.

Gray followed.

He looked back once.

Darkrai hovered beside the glowing crystal wall.

Heatran stood over the crack.

Both were battered.

Both exhausted.

Both staring at each other with centuries of history between them.

Then Darkrai’s gaze dropped once more toward whatever waited below.

Heatran saw.

Its mouth began to glow.

Gray turned away before the next attack came.

Behind them, the chamber erupted again.

This time, as Gray and Cynthia ran for the broken passage, neither of them could escape the same thought.

Darkrai had finally reached the place Heatran had spent centuries keeping it away from.

And instead of attacking Heatran when it had the chance, it had used Dark Void on something underneath them.