Chapter 210: Found Kyurem! Wait — Is Kyurem Just a Thief?
Giant Chasm.
A vast meteorite crater in the far northeastern corner of Unova — visible, in theory, from the elevated overlook at Lacunosa Town. Alder and the others stood at its edge now, looking down into it.
They made their way into the cave and kept moving. The deeper they went, the more obvious the temperature drop became — a steady, creeping cold that pressed through clothing and settled in the joints.
"It's getting pretty cold in here."
Wallace pulled his cape tighter around himself and looked around at the darkening walls.
Ice was forming on the stone now — frost patterns along the ground, patches of packed snow in the hollows. The air had gone genuinely sharp.
"We're close." Alder checked the map. His Volcarona drifted at his side, a small warm presence in the chill. They kept moving.
They passed through one final tunnel and emerged into open space.
A world of white opened up before them.
The chamber was enormous — a glacial canyon, walls sheathed in ice crystals that caught what little light reached them and scattered it in slow, cold sparks. Snow blanketed the ground in deep drifts. Ice-encrusted rock gleamed underfoot.
"It's beautiful," Wallace said softly, and meant it. The austere, frozen grandeur of the place genuinely struck him.
"This is it." Alder exhaled, his breath visible in the cold — a faint white plume dissipating upward.
They moved further in. After a few minutes, every person in the group stopped walking at the same moment.
Geometric snowflakes drifted through the upper air of the canyon — hexagonal, perfectly formed, slowly rotating as they fell in lazy spirals. It was genuinely breathtaking.
And below them, resting on the ice—
Something enormous.
A grey-blue creature lay curled against the canyon floor, massive even at rest — its silhouette like a corrupted dragon, all sharp angles and unsettling geometry. Ice-blue spines at the nose. Ice-blue coloring around the face and jaw, jagged as fractured glaciers. A long grey neck. Two arms disproportionately small against the bulk of the body. Two asymmetrical wings — one longer, one shorter — built from actual ice crystal. A trailing grey tail.
Its eyes were closed. It was sleeping.
The geometric snowflakes orbited it in slow patterns, dusting its body with a thin layer of powder. They seemed to be keeping it comfortable.
"This is Kyurem? The strongest dragon?"
Steven studied the sleeping ice dragon carefully. It was not, he thought, a beautiful Pokémon. Its features were harsh and unsettling — the kind of face that made the back of your mind take note.
"What do we do?" Cynthia said quietly, eyeing the creature. "Wake it up?"
They couldn't do what they'd done with Groudon — that had worked because Groudon was in an unusually deep sleep, tested and confirmed before they'd tried anything. Kyurem's sleep depth was unknown. And everything they knew about Kyurem's temperament suggested caution was warranted.
The complicating factor was that they didn't know how Kyurem felt about Reshiram and Zekrom. Kyogre and Groudon's mutual animosity had been a known quantity — Groudon had woken up and immediately gone looking for a fight with Kyogre, which was predictable. Kyurem was a different variable entirely. The relationship was unclear.
"I think—"
Giovanni started to say something, then stopped.
A sensation moved through him like cold water — every hair standing up, something deep and instinctive screaming predator. His hands went cold.
He looked up.
The sleeping dragon had opened its eyes.
Pupil-less gold, utterly without warmth, fixed on the group with the expressionless attention of something that had not yet decided what to do with them.
"Careful—"
Steven's hand closed around a Poké Ball.
"ROOOAAR!!"
Kyurem's roar hit like a physical thing. The sound filled the entire glacial canyon, rebounding off ice walls, amplifying into something that pressed against the chest from the inside out. The geometric snowflakes scattered in every direction, chiming softly as they fled toward the walls.
The ice dragon rose to its full height.
It looked down at them.
A group of humans had walked into its territory and disturbed its sleep. The question of why was of less interest than the question of how to express its feelings about this.
It noted the one with the strange energy — something in the dark-haired man's presence registered as non-trivial. That was the only reason it hadn't already fired an Ice Beam the moment they'd entered the canyon.
But its mood was not good.
The cold rolling off Kyurem's body was no longer ambient temperature — it was actively intensifying, a visible, material cold that sank through layers and made limbs sluggish. Wallace was fighting the urge to visibly shiver.
And then there was the weight of Kyurem's gaze. The total absence of warmth in those golden eyes. The oppressive atmosphere that seemed to slow heartbeats and make the lungs work harder.
"Kyurem." Alder forced his voice into steadiness. "We didn't come here to disturb you. We want to ask for your help — just once — and whatever you want in return—"
"ROOOARR!!"
Kyurem didn't let him finish.
The roar that came out wasn't directed as an attack — it was louder, more violent, a full-throated statement. The shockwave hit like a wall of compressed air and ice particles, sending everyone stumbling, hands going up to shield their eyes. The force was enough to nearly take people off their feet.
That was just a roar.
Volcarona put itself immediately between Alder and Kyurem, snapping a Protect barrier into place.
Kyurem's gold eyes didn't change. They were the eyes of something that didn't particularly feel things the way most creatures did.
"It's not interested in talking." Wallace said it quietly, because it was obvious.
The roar had been a warning. A dismissal. If they stayed, the next thing would not be a warning.
Alder pressed his lips together. They'd come all this way.
Several more seconds passed. Kyurem's breathing had shifted — slower, the cold exhaling from it in steady visible wisps of frozen air. Impatience was beginning to register in the set of its body.
"Kyurem." Alder reached into his pack and produced the DNA Splicers. "These belong to you."
Kyurem's eyes tracked to his hands.
The Splicers. Yes. Those were its.
They'd been lost — over two thousand years ago — and Kyurem hadn't been particularly motivated to go retrieve them. It had no use for them on its own. But now here they were, back.
Alder held them out.
The Splicers lifted away from his hands in a faint glow and drifted across the distance between them, finding the notches at the apex of Kyurem's wings. They slotted in and disappeared.
Alder's chest rose. Was that a yes?
"Get out."
The voice was low and rough — mental, not audible, but with a texture like gravel and ice — and it hit them all at once.
Alder blinked.
"I won't kill you. Since you brought the Splicers back. Now get out."
Kyurem was done talking. It wanted to sleep.
Wallace stared at it.
What.
You just — you took them. You took the DNA Splicers and now you're telling them to leave?
Mammon, for all his villainy, at least conducted transactions. Mammon believed in fair exchange. Mammon was more principled about property than this creature.
Was this dragon a thief?
Alder was quiet for a moment. He didn't repeat himself — it was obvious Kyurem wasn't going to help them.
He hated it. They'd found it. They were standing right here.
But there was nothing to be done.
"Kyurem." Giovanni's voice came through calm and resonant, the subtle green luminescence of the Power of Viridian flickering to life around him. "What would it take? For you to agree to help us?"
The Power of Viridian provided at least a buffer — even Kyurem's impatience was moderated somewhat by the presence of that natural authority. It wouldn't stop an attack, but it bought time.
"I have no interest in whatever petty business you humans are wrapped up in."
Kyurem glanced at Giovanni with open contempt. Dismissed.
It wasn't curious. It had nothing it wanted. The fire of True and Ideal had long since left its body — without those, most things were simply not interesting. What did human conflicts have to do with it?
If anything, Kyurem found its so-called "kin" faintly ridiculous. Two dragons fighting endless battles over something as abstract as Truth and Ideals. Absurd. Embarrassing, really.
"Not even if it involves Reshiram and Zekrom?" Giovanni pressed.
The gold eyes shifted. Impatience, clearly visible.
"Don't test my patience, human. Leave."
"Kyurem." Giovanni kept going. "After the Dragon of Unova divided, three legendary dragons remained. But the world knows only two of them. Reshiram and Zekrom have names everyone recognizes. Yours—"
"HUMAN!!"
The word hit like a thunderclap.
Kyurem's eyes blazed — the gold light flaring bright and hostile, pupils dilating with something that was absolutely a reaction — and its jaws opened.
Ice Beam.
The beam was thick and fast, a column of solid cold that punched through the air with no warning.
"Groudon!!"
Giovanni was already moving, Poké Ball already open before the thought had finished.
White light, and Groudon materialized between the group and the incoming beam — arms raised to intercept—
Crack. Crack. Crackcrackcrackcrackcrrrrk—
The ice spread from Groudon's hands up its arms, encasing its torso, climbing its neck. It moved like water freezing mid-fall, impossibly fast.
Two seconds.
Groudon was a statue.
Every person in the group stared at it.
"…"
Giovanni stared at it.
That was two seconds.
"Foolish humans. Since you refuse to leave, you can stay here as ice sculptures."
Kyurem's mental voice had the texture of something that had made a decision and was now following through.
It had given them the chance to leave. Repeatedly. They'd kept talking. Fine.
Then — red.
A deep, furnace-red light began bleeding through Groudon's icy casing. Warmth radiated outward in waves, and the ice crystals on Groudon's surface began hissing, beginning to melt—
A 'G'-shaped shimmer of red light flashed—
Something larger stood there now. Something that radiated heat like a vent over a magma chamber, plates glowing, body moving like lava given form.
"ROOOARR!!"
Primal Groudon.
YOU FROZE ME.
YOU FROZE ME AND I WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING THIS—
Primal Reversion.
With Groudon's transformation, the canyon changed. Searing sunlight broke through from above, as though the ceiling had opened, blazing down into the glacial space. The ice crystals on the walls began to weep. The frost on the ground pulled back in visible retreat.
Kyurem's expressionless eyes tracked to Primal Groudon.
They got colder.
A single spark of electricity crackled at Kyurem's tail, then ran the length of its body in a single instant — a full-body electrical surge that reshaped it from the ground up.
"ROOOARR!!"
The roar that followed was different from anything they'd heard from Kyurem before. Deeper. More violent. The sound of something that was now genuinely, personally offended.
Where Kyurem had been standing, something larger stood in its place.
Black Kyurem.
It rose on two legs. Enormous, powerfully built — one arm black, the other ice-crystal, wings spread wide at its back, tail ending in a black turbine. Its silhouette had changed completely, become something that looked even less like it was inclined toward negotiation.
"It changed forms." Steven's jaw tightened. "That version is significantly stronger."
Black Kyurem rose slowly into the air above Primal Groudon, looking down at the Continental Pokémon from altitude, the weight of its presence filling the canyon like a second cold front moving in over the first.
Two legendaries, facing each other across the glacial space.
The geometric snowflakes had retreated entirely to the far corners of the canyon, huddling and vibrating softly. They understood what the others were beginning to understand.
Kyurem was actually angry now.
"I wonder if Primal Groudon can handle this," Wallace said, watching the confrontation with visible concern. He genuinely didn't know.
"…You know," he added, a little distantly, "have you noticed that every single powerful legendary seems to have some kind of transformation?"
(End of Chapter)
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