Chapter 216. Inheritance
The roar of the crowd poured into the eggshell and rumbled like an earthquake.
All around were cheers for Moltres.
They were muffled by the shell, but Zapdos heard them clearly.
"Gyaa!"
Zapdos bristled, and it couldn't help recalling that day, that Moltres who hadn't taken it seriously and turned away.
"Zapdos, you can do it!"
Ash Ketchum refused to be outdone and shouted at the top of his lungs outside.
"Pika!"
"Rooaaar!!"
Behind him, the awakened Pikachu and Charizard shouted their support as well.
But in an instant their voices were drowned out, swallowed by the countless shouts within the Hall of Competition.
Insignificant.
Zapdos could hear nothing.
Even Natsume's telepathy was shut out.
"Gyaa—"
Moltres spread its wings.
A brilliant scarlet radiance poured off its whole body as it looked quietly at Zapdos, seemingly not taking it seriously at all.
"Gyaa-na—"
Zapdos turned into a streak of light and surged toward Moltres bearing Divinity.
Lightning and flame flickered, and in an instant it was upon Moltres.
I will defeat you!
Boom!
[Zapdos's fighting will was about to fall under the Hall of Competition's influence, but it failed!]
[Zapdos's fighting will rose!]
Outside, though he didn't know what was happening within, Natsume could still guess the situation inside the Hall of Competition from the deafening cheers and the system broadcasts.
"It's all about the field…"
Natsume's brows knit tight.
Working together with Mewtwo, he had long since collected the Divinity data on Zapdos and Articuno.
Their Divine Skills were all field-type.
Natsume guessed that Moltres bearing Divinity also had a field-type Divine Skill.
But the field Moltres had set up didn't seem quite right!
As he spoke, Natsume pulled up the two recorded Divinities.
Zapdos's Divine Trait was that Electric-type moves always paralyze, and against paralyzed foes, the chance of losing an action is doubled.
Its exclusive Divine Skill summoned an Electric Terrain where all units lose HP and Zapdos restores the total HP that the others lost.
Articuno's Divine Trait was that the freeze chance of Ice-type moves is doubled, and whenever it freezes a foe, it restores its own HP.
Its exclusive Divine Skill summoned a field with four ice coffins; when the foe is frozen, an ice coffin pins them and drains a quarter of their HP.
"So why is it different with Moltres?"
Natsume stared in surprise at the towering wall of fire before him.
At least for the other two sacred birds, he could see what their moves looked like.
Here, he couldn't see anything!
"Maybe it has something to do with humans?"
Mewtwo spoke, a little uncertain.
"What do you mean?"
Natsume turned back and looked at it quizzically.
"It's nothing…"
Mewtwo shook its head and said no more.
Boom!
A violent detonation sounded, and everyone snapped their eyes to the fire wall ahead.
In that instant, the wall of fire collapsed.
[Moltres's Divinity is incomplete; its Divine Skill effect has weakened!]
At the same time, a broadcast sounded in Natsume's mind.
Whether a Divinity was complete seemed to affect how perfected its Divine Skill was.
For example, center-parted's Dream Armor sounded impressive, but once it ended up in our hands, it turned into just two little kitchen knives.
Why was it incomplete?
As the fire wall fell apart, Natsume looked curiously at Moltres.
Moltres spread its wings and looked down from on high at the Zapdos egg.
Cracks spread all over the Zapdos egg.
Cool liquid streamed out in rivulets, yet the lightning and fire on it waned.
[??? refused to fall, and ??? stood back up!]
With a boom, the lightning and flame flared up to a height never seen before, so much that they even threatened to overwhelm Moltres's aura.
"Gyaa—"
Seeing this, Moltres mechanically plucked a burning feather from its body.
"What's that?"
Natsume froze.
The instant the feather left the body, it flashed with light and, from far away, looked like a delicate flame crystal.
At the same time, the torch crystal on Moltres's brow dimmed a little.
Whoosh!
The feather became a tongue of flame and poured into the Zapdos egg.
It merged into the lightning and fire without the slightest impediment.
On the shell, a flame pattern like a plume quietly surfaced.
Natsume scanned it and found three more such flame patterns on the Zapdos egg.
That meant Moltres had already given it four plumes.
And these plumes—
Natsume fell silent and lifted his gaze to the torch crystal atop Moltres's head.
"It already died.
But instinct is driving it to seek a being that can bear the Authority."
Mewtwo's voice sounded.
It looked at the hollow, vacant eyes of Moltres with a complicated expression.
"Gyaa-na—"
Zapdos seethed inwardly.
Not going all out was looking down on your opponent.
It defiled the spirit of competition!
Boom!
The lightning and flame raged harder.
Zapdos slammed into Moltres bearing Divinity.
[??? refused to fall, and ??? stood back up!]
Each time Zapdos went down, Moltres would peck out a plume and toss it over.
No one knew how many cycles it repeated.
Half the feathers on Moltres's body had been plucked out by itself, and half its body was bloody, a shocking sight.
Ash fell silent.
He no longer cheered for Zapdos.
Imitating Natsume, he stood quietly off to the side and solemnly watched this battle that resembled a handover ceremony.
Boom!
No one knew which number collision this was.
Cracks covered the Zapdos egg like a hard-boiled egg smashed over and over, the dense fissures terrifying to behold.
This time, the Zapdos egg couldn't stand up.
[??? reached its limit, and ??? fell!]
Twenty turns.
Twenty plumes!
Natsume carefully recorded it for Zapdos.
"Gyaa—"
As Zapdos fell, Moltres bearing Divinity threw back its head and cried to the sky.
This time, its voice was piercingly bright!
The dim torch crystal at its brow shattered completely in that moment, crumbling into fine powder that drifted down onto the blazing plumes covering its body.
In an instant, hundreds of plumes turned into flame crystals.
Blood fresh as scarlet streamed as they were drawn out from Moltres's body.
All the plumes soared into the sky.
Carrying the remaining power of the Divinity of the Flame of Competition, they scattered toward every corner of the world.
After doing all this, the light in Moltres's eyes went completely out and sank away.
Now it looked exactly like Zapdos when they had first seen it—bare of all feathers and almost comical.
Only the blood dripping without cease left not a hint of laughter in anyone's heart.
Mechanically, Moltres walked toward the shattered Zapdos egg.
Blood ran down, leaving footprints with each step.
It reached the egg, swayed, and in the end collapsed in exhaustion.
Boom!
The flame-plume patterns on the shell touched Moltres's blood and seemed to come alive, becoming true flames that blazed up and scorched everything around them, including Moltres's body.
Strangely, though it burned, there wasn't the slightest acrid odor.
Instead, a fierce, radiant scent, full of sunlight, spread through the air.
All fell silent as they watched Moltres in the flames settle over the Zapdos egg, as if brooding it, and close its eyes.
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