The trainers had been counting on Cynthia to protect them. But after watching Will get crushed so completely, whatever resolve they had left collapsed entirely.
Everyone scattered, screaming, all semblance of formation gone.
Spiritomb's tendrils moved with terrifying speed, effortlessly running down anyone too slow to flee. Each sweeping strike brought down more trainers and their Pokémon alike, all of them swallowed by the black mist.
The situation had completely spiraled out of control.
Then a sharp, clear voice cut through the chaos like a blade.
"Garchomp!"
Cynthia stood on higher ground.
Something in her hand blazed with a brilliant, rainbow-colored light.
Garchomp's Mega Stone.
After months of training, she and Garchomp had mastered Mega Evolution as smooth and steady as breathing.
An instant later, a terrifying aura erupted from Garchomp's body.
Its frame transformed: the spines along its back sharpened to lethal points, its twin fins became blazing red blades, and its entire body swelled larger and more menacing than before.
A torrent of savage Dragon-type energy surged skyward, forcibly pushing back the encroaching black mist.
At the same moment, Caitlin moved.
"Gothitelle, let's go!"
An elegant Gothitelle materialized at her side. Its presence wasn't quite on par with Garchomp's, yet it was unmistakably operating within what could only be called legendary territory.
Clearly the benefit of her game reward.
Gothitelle pressed its hands together, and a surge of psychic power erupted outward, forming a pink barrier in front of them that stopped the ghost tendrils lashing out in every direction.
Mega Garchomp let out a roaring cry and launched itself forward in a single flash, a bolt of black lightning hurling straight at Spiritomb. Its speed was absolute. It cleaved through the black mist in an instant and appeared right in front of Spiritomb, those red blades coming down in a devastating slash.
At the same time, Caitlin's Gothitelle unleashed its own assault, a torrent of Moonblast strikes raining down from above, each one landing squarely on Spiritomb. The explosions rolled like thunder across the entire Ghost World.
Under the combined assault, even Spiritomb was driven back several steps. A significant portion of the mist shrouding its body was blasted away. It regenerated quickly, but the damage was undeniable.
The trainers who had been fleeing moments before slowed involuntarily, stunned looks giving way to wild, almost disbelieving relief.
"Why does Cynthia's Garchomp look so different? It looks insanely strong!"
"That's Mega Evolution! You know, from Emerald! She actually got the Mega Stone!"
"It's so powerful!"
"The monster is actually hurt!"
"We still have a chance! If they can hold it down, we're not done yet!"
A wave of cheering broke through the crowd. The suffocating despair that had gripped everyone lifted, just slightly. People stopped running. Some even turned back around, wondering whether to go help.
Even Kairos, watching from a distance, let out a quiet breath of relief.
Cynthia's strength was never in question. Mega Garchomp had lost ten points of Speed from the evolution, but its raw offensive power was completely undiminished. That kind of explosive force, combined with Caitlin's support, could genuinely wound Spiritomb if they coordinated well.
But was it enough?
As if in answer, the battlefield shifted before the thought had even finished.
Spiritomb emerged again from the settling smoke. It bore fresh wounds, but those hollow eyes held no trace of pain. If anything, something disturbing flickered through them, something that looked almost like excitement.
It had been provoked. Truly provoked.
The souls embedded across its body all turned skyward at once. Each one grew a mouth, and from those mouths came a strange, droning chorus. The black mist churning around it suddenly seemed to boil, rushing back into its body in a frenzy.
Its aura began to multiply. The suffocating pressure it radiated doubled, then doubled again, dwarfing what it had been moments before.
"It's absorbing all the souls!"
Cynthia's expression went pale. Every instinct she had was screaming.
"Caitlin, full power!"
"Garchomp, Draco Meteor!"
They had to break Spiritomb's absorption with everything they had, right now.
Still in the middle of drawing in souls, Spiritomb lurched.
A wave of black energy, several times wider and more violent than anything before, came surging toward Mega Garchomp, carrying with it an aura of absolute destruction.
At the same moment, brilliant meteors tore down from the sky, Draco Meteor unleashed in full. Woven through the falling stars was a layer of shimmering pink psychic force: Gothitelle's power, wrapped around the meteors to drive them harder.
The collision detonated in a single, overwhelming blast.
When the smoke cleared, Mega Garchomp was gone from where it stood. It had been flung away like a fly getting swatted, the radiance of its Mega Evolution winking out as it reverted to its base form and crashed to the ground, lying completely still.
Cynthia felt a searing pain detonate in her chest. The shockwave had launched her airborne, sending her in a long arc across dozens of meters before Caitlin's Gothitelle caught her in a cradle of pink psychic energy at the very last moment.
"The Champion!"
"Miss Cynthia!"
Screams of horror tore through the crowd.
The fragile hope that had just ignited was snuffed out completely.
Caitlin's face went white. She wanted to go to Cynthia, but Spiritomb gave her no opening. Another devastating shockwave came sweeping in. The barrier Gothitelle had been straining to hold shattered instantly, and Caitlin was hurled off her feet as well.
The last line of defense was gone.
Marshadow, perched on top of Kairos's head, had started pacing in frantic circles.
"What do we do? What do we do now? Even the two strongest ones couldn't do anything! Even if I fight, there's no way I can beat that thing!"
"Didn't they say it was supposed to be weakened from forcing the seal open? How is it still this strong?"
Kairos stood back and watched it all unfold, genuinely surprised.
A Mega Evolution, two top-tier trainers fighting in tandem, and they still couldn't survive even a single strike.
Spiritomb as it stood now had clearly surpassed anything that could be called conventional combat power. The force it was putting out was actually greater than it had been before the seal broke.
Maybe because this was its last stand.
Or maybe...
Kairos's eyes fixed on Spiritomb's form. Faint, familiar markings had appeared across its body.
Those markings were from the coffin.
It had absorbed the seal itself.
Spiritomb drifted in midair, looking down with cold detachment at the humans below who had lost all ability to fight back. It seemed to be savoring their despair, in no particular hurry to finish things.
Slowly, it opened its mouth. A massive sphere of dark purple energy began to condense at the core of its chest.
The power contained in that sphere made every person's blood run cold.
If that strike connected, the entire Ghost World would be devoured. First the Ghost World would fall, then the real world, which bordered it, would follow.
Despair. True despair settled over everyone present.
The trainers who had been cheering only moments before sat collapsed on the ground, staring up at that silhouette in the sky with hollow, vacant eyes. Some had already closed their eyes, waiting for the final moment to arrive.
Will pressed a hand to his chest and dragged himself over to Kairos, watching what was unfolding above. He let out a short, bitter laugh.
"Heh... this thing won't even give me the chance to lay down my life reinforcing the seal. How inconsiderate."
Kairos said nothing. His gaze stayed locked onto Spiritomb.
His mind was moving at full speed.
Ho-Oh was out of reach. Giratina wasn't responding. Cynthia was down. Will was finished.
What he had left: Marshadow, his own Pokémon, and the charged Ho-Oh feather.
Would that be enough to stop Spiritomb's final strike?
He wasn't sure. He genuinely didn't know.
But was this really his only option?
Absolutely not.
In that instant, the air around him seemed to freeze. The dark purple sphere floating before Spiritomb's chest had expanded until it blotted out half the sky, and the annihilating energy within was splitting open hairline fractures in the fabric of space itself.
Everyone had given up on fighting. Even closing their eyes had become impossible; the crushing weight of imminent death forced them wide open regardless. But in the middle of that silence and that despair, one person was different.
Kairos stood in the shadows. His expression hadn't broken the way everyone else's had.
In fact, if you looked closely, you might have noticed something that seemed almost out of place.
He looked faintly expectant.
He had made his decision the moment he watched Cynthia and Caitlin get wiped out in an instant.
Spiritomb was genuinely powerful. The level of strength it was demonstrating was somewhere around a Tier Two god, maybe just crossing into Tier Three territory, so it was no surprise that Will and the others, who were barely cresting that boundary themselves, couldn't handle it.
He wasn't calling Ho-Oh. He wasn't calling Giratina. That left only one remaining option.
Mewtwo.
As for how to get Mewtwo here: Mewtwo had been going around looking for strong opponents to challenge lately, hadn't it?
Kairos activated the invitation card and sent out a set of coordinates with a short message attached.
"Game notification: There's an overconfident legendary Pokémon here, Spiritomb. It's powerful. The destruction it can cause is genuinely impressive. It might actually be worthy of your challenge."
Message sent successfully.
Almost immediately, Marshadow, which had been scrambling anxiously back and forth, went completely still. Its sharp perception had caught every move Kairos just made, especially that strange pulse transmitted through the invitation card. It stared at Kairos with wide eyes, voice filled with sheer disbelief.
"At a time like this... who are you even contacting? Don't tell me you actually thought of something?"
Marshadow glanced at the colossal entity in the distance that was about to obliterate everything, then back at Kairos's completely composed face. It was nearly losing its mind. Everyone was down. Who could possibly show up in time?
Kairos shrugged.
"Relax. I called someone. They'll be here soon."
"Called someone?" Marshadow stared at him blankly, clearly not following.
"You mean you brought in backup again?"
It was obvious Marshadow didn't believe for a second that Kairos knew anyone operating at the level of Ho-Oh or Giratina.
Then the sky cracked open with an ear-splitting boom.
The energy Spiritomb had been building in its chest had reached completion. The massive dark purple sphere stopped expanding and began to collapse inward at violent speed, as though pulling every ray of light and trace of life within reach into itself.
It was a black hole.
The killing blow was about to fall.
Kairos's eyes sharpened. He turned quickly and spoke in a low voice. "Marshadow, cover me with your shadows. Make sure nobody can detect me here, including Spiritomb."
"But I can only hide you! Even if no one finds us, we're still going to die anyway!"
It didn't understand why Kairos was asking for this, but Marshadow executed the order without hesitation.
The dark mist flowing off its body surged outward and wrapped around Kairos in a thick, concentrated shroud of darkness, blending him seamlessly into the environment around him.
Not far away, Caitlin, who had been struggling to push herself upright, suddenly frowned.
As a premier psychic-type trainer, her perceptive abilities were extraordinarily refined. Just now, in that single instant, she had sensed a pulse from the shadows behind her, something faint, barely there, yet unmistakably unusual.
What kind of energy was that?
It was strange. It didn't feel like Ghost-type, and it didn't feel like Psychic-type either. It felt more like a signal being transmitted from somewhere far away through some kind of medium. Caitlin instinctively moved to turn and look, but that small motion never completed.
Spiritomb struck.
The dark purple sphere, carrying every last bit of power Spiritomb had gathered, descended like a meteor, like the end of everything, and slammed into the ground below.
The shockwave tore across the entire battlefield in an instant. Blinding light consumed everyone's vision. The searing heat reduced the rock beneath their feet to flowing lava within moments.
Cynthia, Will, and every ordinary trainer on that field were, before that absolute force, no larger than specks of dust.
Caitlin felt a mountainous weight crash down on her from all sides. There was no room for thought. She could only act on instinct, forcing up one final psychic barrier and praying it would hold for one more second.
But the death she had braced for never came.
In the moment that annihilating energy was about to consume everything, a strange distortion rippled through the space of the Ghost World.
It was as if an invisible hand had reached out and pressed pause on a frame that was already shattering.
There was no holy golden light. There was no prismatic radiance.
Only a cold, pure, almost frightening pressure, bleeding in from the void.
It was a presence that stood above all things, and it was stronger than Spiritomb had been even at its peak.
The raging flood of energy froze in midair, abruptly suspended. Then, as though it had encountered something it genuinely feared, it locked against that massive black hole in place, neither advancing nor retreating.
A white figure stepped slowly out from within the spatial rift.
It floated in midair, arms folded across its chest, its long tail swaying gently behind it. Almost like a person.
Its gaze was cold, but not with malice. It was the cold of indifference, the look of something for whom the world-ending energy raging before it simply didn't register as a concern.
In that moment, not a single sound remained anywhere on the field.