Destiny Tower

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Awright! I'm comin' atcha!"

Luz ran forward in a burst of light and power, her arms crackling with conjured plasma.

Vix was a resilient opponent with a lot of magical power. Luz knew just how to deal with that: the same way she fought every battle. Quick on her feet and lashing out with any attack she thought she might land, whenever possible. She'd keep the pressure up!

Ha! Let's see how you handle things when all the aggro is on you!

 

[Fusion]

A headstrong, aggressive opponent. The best course of action would be to keep the defensive and attack on the very few openings Luz would have. The less boring battleplan would be utterly overwhelm Luz. Decisions, decisions.

'How about both?' Vix snickered. As Luz got close, Vix's metal and glass bled into wax, shifting around Luz and reforming behind her. The air around Vix heated up rapidly, then rushed towards Luz like a wall of fire.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz grinned with the sheer thrill of novelty as her opponent used a technique she'd never even heard of! This was already worthwhile!

There was no point dodging the Heat Wave. Instead, Luz yowled with pain and delight, and turned into the attack, leaping for Vix with her plasma-wreathed paws extended. She'd keep up the attack even as her body boiled if it came to it!

 

[Fusion]

Just what Vix would expect of something based off of a deity. Seeing Luz push through her heat wave only got Vix more excited, which made it burn even hotter. Instead of melting out of the way, Vix allowed Luz to hit her to get as close as possible to the feline.

She winced at the sting of the plasma, but it wasn't nearly enough to knock her out. "Hey, Luz? Wanna see something really cool? Or, rather, hot in this case?" Vix snickered, the flame in her head burning hotter by the second. Bright flames started to swirl around her body, building rapidly before suddenly expanding in a grand roar of flame.

Right before the flames erupted, Vix managed to dial herself back a bit. She didn't want to hurt hurt Luz, they were just sparring after all. Unfortunately, Vix still put out more than she was usually able to handle, and her body started to melt into wax.

"When you two were gonna spar, I didn't think that meant you'd blow yourself up," Puddle said as it flowed behind a rock for safety. "And screw you for that lame joke. Boooo!"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"I'll match yer lightshow!" cried Luz.

As she charged her plasma to the point of crackling across her whole physical form, ready to grapple with her opponent, she knew this is what she was meant for! Never mind those piddly little sparring matches! To hell with auxiliary duties on Spectrum battlefields! She was meant for exhilerating, dazzling, soul-cleansing clashes!

She hit Vix like a bolt of lightning, and there was a crash of thunder as she made the collision. Impact!

 

[Fusion]

The blow from Luz and the electricity that came with it caused Vix's body to distort. There was far too much electricity for her to naturally cancel out. It was definitely painful, but at the same time Vix had never felt more alive! This was the first time she wanted to fight not only to her fullest, but even beyond that! Luz was just a familiar, but look at how powerful she was! If it weren't thanks to Leg tweaking Vix without her knowing, that attack could have been a whole lot worse.

"Th-That was incredible!" Vix felt she was already starting to understand Luz, even better than if they just sat there and talked. Vix wanted to show off even more of her power, to see how much stronger she had become! She felt she had something to prove, and she didn't even care what it was! Her body melted more and more as her flames burned hotter and bigger, eventually engulfing her body is a ghostly aura-like flame.

"Ring-a-ding, there's the bell. Time to stop this before you vaporize yourself. Or me," Puddle said loudly.

"But I'm having so much fun! I don't wanna settle it now!" Vix panted, not noticing herself falling apart. She started to condense her flame around her for another Overheat. "I'll just do one more flashy move, then I'm done, alright?"

"I do not think you can handle that..."

"You wanna bet?" The flames around Vix got denser and brighter, causing her body to boil. Flame whipped out around her body, leaving scorch marks on the stone's around her and Luz. "This'll be the finisher!" Vix cried, throwing her arms out causing another, admittedly weaker but prettier Overheat than before.

After the attack, however, Vix managed to stay afloat for only a few seconds more, then plummeted to the ground in a mess of wax. Her flame burned dimly, her body barely resembled a lamp, and her breathing was ragged. "Auuuuuggghhhhhh..." she groaned, then giggled. "H-How was that, huh?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz laughed uproariously and scooped up Vix's waxen form in a hug as she twirled around in a dance of sheer delight. She was boiling with heat, with infinity energy, with joy! She'd never felt so alive! So free! So worth existing!

"That was the time of my life so far!" she cried. "We're doin' that again, soon as yer rested!"

This pokémon was her new bestie, she decided. Nobody else had such a perfect attitude to battling! She planted a kiss on the melted mess in her paws and beamed whisker to whisker. "Thank ye kindly fer such a fantastic throwdown, Lampent Vix!"

 

[Fusion]

Vix bubbled sheepishly from the hug, twirls, and rather unexpected kiss. Her flame brightened slightly, and it was a tad harder to pull herself back together. "That'd be fun! I'll totally be looking forward to it!" she chuckled. Reforming still seemed like a distant dream, and she was already in such a comfortable spot, so Vix let herself relax in Luz's arms, asking, "I uh... might need some help getting back to the dorms, if you don't mind?"

"Oh yeah, totally forget about the damn investigation," Puddle groaned, cleaning up the splatters of wax from the battlefield. "And me, too, I guess. I can get back by myself, no worries."

"Alright, bye Puddle!" Vix waved a mostly-melted arm, causing a good chunk of it fall right off. Puddle groaned and bubbled. It didn't have eyes, but Vix could feel it glaring at her.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"That'd be my pleasure, darlin'!" answered Luz, scooping Vix as best as she was able into the lampent's own bag.

Well, this wasn't at all how she'd imagined spending her time an hour ago, but it could scarcely have gone better! And hey, she'd made a new friend. One that Brisa would doubtless appreciate too, once she had the chance! Poor gal was too polite to bother shy folks most days.

"Let's get ya back home, lil' firelight~" she purred, setting off back to the dorms.

<><><><><>​

 

[Cresselia92]

A head tilt. A flick of his nine tails. A sigh.

Icetales stood there, in front of the door that led to Arceus. Many thoughts were flooding his mind as he pondered about what he planned to do there.

"Hrm... Perhaps it was not a clever idea to reach the top of Destiny Tower. What if he is appalled by my persona?" He shook his head. "All those tales about the Alpha Deity vanquishing vile daemons... I wonder what is this world' Alpha's opinions of folks like me. But once again... he did not seem to mind Sir Diyem, so..."

Icetales sat on his haunches and scratched a hitch in his ear, trying to take those few extra seconds to think. Then, he produced his bottle of mint tea and sipped a bit of it. Yes, so fresh. His mind and breath were fresher, too.

"...Oh, my soul be darned! I shall do it. It would not be worse than what my father would have done, at least."

As such, he steeled himself and went through the door, keeping a dignified and composed stride. He could already feel the mystical power radiating from that room, and immediately understood how it felt like to stand in front of a deity. Well, at least he could try to leave a good first impression, no?

Icetales stood still, before bowing with respect. "Greetings, Sir Arceus. I... sure hope to not be of any disturbance. I would desire to confer with thee, if thou dost not mind."

 

[Namohysip]

"Yo," Arceus greeted automatically, looking back. He seemed to be mulling over some glowing documents and texts of some kind, scrolls, even. Guess he couldn't quite get rid of some old habits, it seemed. "Glad to--oh, it's you." He relaxed some, then nodded. "Greetings, Icetales. Was there something you needed?"

 

[Cresselia92]

“In flesh and frost, good sir,” replied Icetales with his usual mannerly flair. He narrowed slightly his eyes as he pondered about something, before lifting his forepaw. “…Sup?”

Okay, perhaps that was dumb, but Petram had been insistent about using that term to be more ‘in’. Though, in that moment, Icetales definitely felt like it was much better to be ‘out’.

With a bright smile to hide his awkward feelings, he took a step closer and wagged his tails, which waved gently and hypnotically.

“Um… I can infer that thou art busy with charts and manuscripts, so I shall not steal more time than required,” said Icetales, running a forepaw on his muzzle. “I was mostly interested in checking out the current progress regarding,” he motioned toward the sky, “our good comrade and his splendent beam of destruction. And, well, I desired to confer about another matter than had been on my mind, and which… I believe thou could help figure out.”

 

[Namohysip]

"I have a tentative plan for how to deal with the attack that is coming our way now," Pop replied. "...But we are still planning out our possibilities and risks for the rest of it. This won't be easy, but we need to find a way that we can defeat him before a blast like that destroys the town... We have to prepare evacuations as well, in case that fails... But I don't have a lot I can say yet. What did you want otherwise?"

 

[Cresselia92]

Oh. That was fairly concise and vague. If even the Alpha was fumbling in finding a solution to that countdown-in-dragon-form, then the matter was beyond serious.

Icetales idly wondered what kind of entity was that Joule to be such an issue to even the most powerful of deities. Was he… an even greater deity? What was the true extent of his powers?

Alas, only the heavens of another cosmos knew that answer.

“I see…”

Regardless, it was clear that Icetales wouldn’t have obtained more details about that plan, and prying further probably would have been a terrible idea.

“Very well, onward with the other matter, then.” Icetales wrapped a couple of tails around his body. “So, hm… Thou art the greatest authority of this world, and as a result thou must have had to take… decisions to handle certain matters.” He paused to gather some of his thoughts. “Howbeit, as a leader and main guidance, how far would thou be willing to go for the safety of this world and its inhabitants? Were there moments in the past in which… thou had taken extreme solutions for extreme hindrances?”

 

[Namohysip]

Pop nodded, slowly. "I would sacrifice everything I had if it meant my world would be made a safer place," he said simply, and with more gravity than necessary. "...But before this all happened, I usually allowed the world to manage itself. Only when truly great crises took place did I step in to assist. Balm and Cepa could speak of one such example, near the end of my rest, when I resurrected their reality to prevent... a number of issues from rippling back from their erasure."

 

[Cresselia92]

Icetales nodded in understating. “This is fair. A good leader must know when it is time to step in and when it is time to entrust that the people thou art guarding can handle things by themselves.” He chuckled with mirth. “Must not let people become too complacent, or they might never learn how to solve problems and always pester by asking solutions to minor issues. That is bound to be frustrating in the long run for the leader and stunt the growth of others.

“But I digress here. I am inquiring about such matter because…” Icetales paused and scratched his muzzle with a forepaw. “Because… as soon as I return to my homeworld, I will need to take a stance. As the son of an emperor, I… I am saddled with responsibilities toward my people, thou see? Responsibilities that I have forsaken for far too long, and that are now tormenting me, out of control and stronger than they have ever been.”

He paused to let the words sink in, while his tails moved along the floor. Thin trails of frost formed on the white terrain.

“And my main torment… is this.” He frowned and stared at Pop. “If an unreasonable tyrant who cannot be persuaded by words threatened to invade thy territory and spread destruction among thy people, what would thou do?”

 

[Namohysip]

He listened, and despite his casual tone in public, perhaps this was when Icetales would truly see those calculating, kind eyes the deity had in private. Those same eyes that had stared at Maple, undoubtedly, telling her to hold off on striking Diyem's team down. The same eyes that watched Cibus from the top of Destiny Tower, helpless to interfere despite all his power.

"That is a complicated situation," Pop replied. "I do not run nations, I run an entire world. An invasion would be from another, much like what is happening now, where I must judge allies from enemies, both from foreign realities. How powerful is this enemy becoming? How rapidly are they growing? What destruction is already happening? My response... It could be anywhere from defense to striking first."

 

[Cresselia92]

“Striking first…” parroted Icetales, a somber tone in his voice. He sighed and looked down. “Yes. That is… what most folks consider to be the most optimal solution. Howbeit, the matter is what that first strike entails.”

Icetales took a couple of quick breaths, producing a few clouds of frost which dissipated instantly.

“…There is a maxim in my world, uttered by most members of high society: ‘if thou cannot solve a problem, remove it’. And… this is precisely what they want me to do — remove it.”

Icetales shook his head in disgust. “I never agreed to that maxim, however. I always strived to take the least damaging path, even if that required more effort and time. However, when thou have no energy for extra efforts nor enough time, then finding other paths devoid of bleakness becomes a most arduous goal, does it not?” He looked at the bright sky, realizing that his entire cortège was pretty much stuck in the same situation as his homeworld — with only a pawful of options at most. “Why risk it when thou can simply remove the thorn that is the source of the fester?”

 

[Namohysip]

"Indeed, though it's never really that simple, even when it is said that way." Pop looked down. "I can relate this to how I've seen kingdoms of old interact, before the world's unification. Yes, one could be much stronger than the others, but if they spread themselves too thin, they risked their kingdom being overtaken in other parts. If they played too aggressively, other kingdoms would call them a threat, and they would be taken out themselves... For every action, there are a thousand smaller reactions to consider, when you are looking at entire kingdoms. To strike first, and to always strike first, would only make your kingdom a target in the long run. And if one is to be a ruler... you cannot simply leave it to others to handle later. That person will be you."

Arceus looked to Icetales. "Perhaps, then, you are wise to not default to any one strategy."

 

[Cresselia92]

Icetales flashed a tiny smile. “I would not know if I would call myself wise. Rather… cautious, I reckon. Still,” he sighed, “it sure feels daunting to know that thou art the one tasked to keep thy people safe, and people are so ready to shred thee if thou make a grave mistake. It is an immense responsibility with an equally immense pressure attached to it.”

He glanced at Pop. “How did thou manage to endure such pressure in all these centuries?”