After borrowing Zayn's Gible Redux, Xian immediately released Metagross.
"Alright, we're ready. Time to find Azure."
Metagross shot into the sky, tearing through clouds at breakneck speed toward Route 45. In what felt like no time at all, they had arrived at the coordinates.
Xian scanned the empty ocean below. "Okay, he should be here somewhere."
He held up Gible's Pokéball. "Alright Gible, I need you to get us into the Twilight Zone."
"Giible!"
The small dragon materialized and immediately got to work. Its eyes glowed with an ancient, eerie light, and the space beneath them began to darken—not like a shadow, but like reality itself was unraveling. A circular void opened below them, and slowly, gently, they sank into it.
When the sensation of falling finally stopped, they found themselves in a place of absolute nothingness. No light. No sound. No up or down. Just... void.
"There's nothing here," Xian muttered, his voice strangely muffled. "It's too dark to see anything."
He activated his special vision, the ability that let him perceive the aura of living things. But as his senses expanded outward, they encountered... emptiness. No life forces. No energy signatures. Just an endless, yawning abyss.
*Of course.* The realization hit him like a brick. *There ARE no auras here. This place is just darkness and the manifestations OF darkness.*
"Gible, can you try to find Azure?"
Gible tilted its head, confusion written all over its small face. It didn't even know who Azure was.
Xian groaned, running a hand through his hair. This was going to be exponentially harder than he'd anticipated.
"Okay Metagross, your turn. Scan the area."
"Meta!"
Metagross's mechanical eyes blazed as it extended its sensors outward. Physical detection returned nothing—no solid matter, no geographical features. Just void. It switched tactics, shifting to its psychic detection.
"Meta!"
A holographic projection materialized before them. Xian's jaw dropped.
There it was—Ariel's ship. Hanging in the darkness like a ghost vessel, impossibly intact in this realm of wrecks and shadows.
"That crazy guy," Xian breathed, a mix of exasperation and reluctant admiration on his face. "Always making things difficult." He studied the data. "We can't just teleport straight to him—we're not on the same layer."
He turned to Gible. "Gible, we need to go deeper."
"Gible!"
The little dragon opened another portal beneath them. Then another. And another. Each descent felt like plunging further into an endless abyss, the weight of darkness pressing against their very souls.
Finally, Xian held up a hand. "Okay. This should be deep enough. We should be on the same layer as him now."
He pointed into the void. "Gible—Phantom Force. Get us to his location!"
"Gible!" the Pokémon chirped confidently.
And then something rocketed past its head, narrowly missing.
Xian's eyes widened. Around them, the void had changed. Where there was once nothing, now there were wrecks. Dozens of them. Ancient ships of every design dotted the darkness like forgotten tombs, their skeletal remains telling silent stories of crews long lost.
The projectile that had nearly hit Gible? It looked like a tiny dragon. Shaped exactly like a missile.
Dreepy.
Xian cursed under his breath. "Damn it—I forgot. Just because we're in the Twilight Zone doesn't mean it's EMPTY."
Before they could react, one of the Dreepy exhaled a stream of purple energy straight at them. Xian, Metagross, and Gible scattered, barely dodging the eerie Dragon Breath. But another Dreepy had been waiting below, launching its own attack from their blind spot.
The attack connected.
Both Gible and Metagross shuddered as the strange energy washed over them. It was super effective—but that shouldn't be possible. Gible was Ghost/Dragon. Metagross was Psychic/Steel.
What kind of Dragon Breath WAS that?Xian's mind raced as he dove behind a wrecked hull. That wasn't normal Dragon-type energy. Ghost? Dark? Something else entirely?
For a moment, silence. They huddled inside the hollow remains of an ancient ship, listening. Nothing stirred.
Xian allowed himself a breath. Maybe they'd lost them—
A shadow loomed above.
One of the Dreepy had found them. It was already charging a Shadow Ball, purple-black energy crackling between its tiny horns.
Xian threw up his hands, summoning a protective barrier with his cultivation abilities. The barrier shimmered into existence, solid and strong.
The Shadow Ball struck—
And punched right through like the barrier wasn't even there.
Xian's eyes went wide. Of course. In the Darkness, attacks ignore conventional protection and resistance. I should have remembered!
The Dreepy let out a high-pitched, almost mocking laugh. Xian extended his senses and realized with a chill—they'd known exactly where he was the entire time. They'd just been playing with them. Tossing them around like toys.
Xian's expression hardened. Alright. No more games.
"Gible! I know I'm not your trainer, but I think we're on the same wavelength here. Trust me!"
"GIBLE!"
Gible vanished into shadows, using Phantom Force. The Dreepy immediately went on alert, swiveling to face Xian—the obvious target, the soft human center of this group.
Xian stood perfectly still as the Dreepy launched itself at him, claws extended and glowing with ghostly energy.
He didn't move. Didn't flinch.
At the last possible second, Metagross blurred into action. Psychic energy flared as it intercepted the Dreepy mid-charge, spinning viciously with Ice Spinner. The icy attack connected solidly, frost spreading across the Dreepy's form. It let out a surprised squeak and went down in a flash of cold.
Meanwhile, Gible materialized behind the second Dreepy, Phantom Force still active. The Dreepy spun, attempting another Dragon Breath, but Gible was faster. It melted into shadows with Shadow Sneak, reappearing directly beside its target, and sank its fangs deep with Shadow Fang.
The second Dreepy fell without a sound.
Gible dragged both unconscious Pokémon back to the wreck, and Xian knelt to examine them. Something was bothering him. These were just babies. Too young to be here alone. Too young to be hunting anything.
He pulled out his Pokédex and scanned the data.
His blood ran cold.
"Wait a minute... these Dreepy are just *hatchlings*. There's no way THEY'RE the Aspect holders here." His eyes widened with dawning horror. "Oh no. Don't tell me—"
The darkness screamed.
Above them, the void crackled with incoming energy. Multiple projectiles streaked toward them like falling stars, each one wreathed in ghostly flame.
"METAGROSS—PSYSHIELD!"
A shimmering psychic barrier erupted around them just as the first projectiles struck. The shield held, but barely—cracks spiderwebbing across its surface. Xian recognized the attack immediately. Draco Meteor. But amplified. Twisted. Wrong.
That wasn't what made his blood freeze.
A massive form had materialized inside the Psyshield. Right behind him. So close he could feel its cold breath on his neck.
Xian turned slowly.
Dragapult loomed over them, easily fifteen feet of ghostly dragon, its hollow eyes fixed on Xian with predatory intelligence. Tiny Dreepy nestled in the holes on its head, peeking out with curious, hungry eyes.
Metagross reacted instantly, spinning with Ice Spinner, but Dragapult phased through the attack like smoke, avoiding it with contemptuous ease. It didn't even look at Metagross. Its eyes never left Xian.
Gible lunged, Phantom Force active. But Dragapult matched the technique perfectly, vanishing and reappearing in the same instant—and Gible was the one thrown back, struck by its own attack's rebound, tumbling through the darkness.
Xian's mind raced as his Pokédex analyzed the threat.
[DRAGAPULT]
Type: Ghost/Dragon
Moves: Phantom Force, Draco Meteor, Dragon Darts
"Tch. Not enough data!"
The Dragapult stopped moving. It simply... hovered there. Watching. Waiting. Toying with them.
Then Xian realized—they were no longer in the wreck.
They were on an open ocean. Sunlight glinted off waves. Ships surrounded them—dozens of them, from ancient galleons to modern vessels. It looked like the surface world. It looked *real*.
One of the ships fired a missile.
Xian recognized it too late. It wasn't a missile.
It was Dreepy.
The projectile struck him directly, and his body shattered.
Xian gasped back to existence, his revival ability kicking in with that sickening lurch of returning from death. His soul had been destroyed—the attack had reached into the Soul Plane itself, shattered his very essence. If he hadn't had that ability...
He understood now. There was no running. No hiding. No clever ambushes. In an Aspect holder's domain, their rules were absolute. They were gods of their own reality.
He looked at Metagross, battered but determined. At Gible, bruised but furious.
"Metagross. Gible." His voice was steady. Calm. "We're taking it down."
They emerged from the wreck together, facing the Dragapult head-on.
More Dreepy launched from the spectral ships—Dragon Darts, Xian recognized now. But he also understood something else. Conventional attacks were useless here. The Aspect rewrote the rules. Distance meant nothing. Defenses meant nothing. Type matchups meant nothing.
But Metagross's eyes were glowing with intense calculation. Data streamed through its metallic mind—trajectories, velocities, probabilities, the fundamental nature of the attacks.
It has a plan.
Gible looked between them, confused but ready. It didn't understand what Metagross was doing, but it trusted them.
The Dreepy closed in. Seconds from impact.
Metagross *acted*.
It didn't block the attack. It didn't counter it. It *deleted* it. Reached into the data stream of reality itself and erased the Dragon Darts from existence. The Dreepy simply... vanished. Like they'd never been fired at all.
Xian didn't waste the opening.
"WILD STORM!"
His cultivation erupted. A cataclysmic electrical tempest exploded outward, lightning twisting into tornadoes that sought to trap the Dragapult. For a moment, it worked—the Dragapult was caught, crackling with electricity, its form flickering.
But then it *phased*. Slipped through the storm like it wasn't there, like the lightning was just light and shadow. Xian tracked its movement with his detection ability—Phantom Force, retreating to a deeper layer of darkness to attack from ambush.
"You think I don't see it?!" Xian's voice rang through the void. "Gible—Phantom Force, NOW!"
Gible grabbed them both, and they plunged deeper still.
They emerged on another layer. Metagross immediately sensed it—an ambush waiting, a trap prepared. But Xian was already scanning, his detection ability piercing the veil.
There. Dragapult, charging Draco Meteor.
"Metagross—ICE SPINNER! NOW!"
Metagross *moved*. Psychic energy propelled it faster than should have been possible in this realm of twisted rules. The ice-covered assault slammed directly into Dragapult's form.
"DRAGAPULT!"
It staggered. Xian allowed himself a moment of hope—
And then the Dragapult dissolved. A clone. Just a clone from Double Team.
Around them, a dozen identical Dragapults grinned with the same hollow expression. All of them had already completed their Draco Meteors. The sky above them was filled with falling stars.
The stars fell.
Xian, Metagross, and Gible were consumed by the light, plunging into darkness.
Dragapult watched for a long moment, its hollow eyes tracking their descent until they vanished into the abyss below. Satisfied, it turned and faded into the void.
They fell. And fell. And fell.
The darkness swallowed them whole. Xian felt his existence unraveling, his consciousness fragmenting as the Draco Meteor's power erased him from reality itself.
Then—nothing.
But in the void, something stirred.
Gible Redux, being a Ghost-type, had a unique relationship with existence and non-existence. It had been "deleted" before, in a way. It remembered Zayn going through something similar once.
From the ashes of deletion, Gible pulled itself back together. It reached out with Phantom Force, grasping at the fading threads of Xian and Metagross's existences.
And slowly, painfully, they reformed.
Xian gasped, doubling over as his body solidified. "I hate this method," he wheezed. "But it's the fastest way out instead of fighting that thing head-on." He straightened, looking at Metagross with gratitude. "Thanks for the Aspect data, Metagross. That information about how deletion works? Priceless."
Metagross gave a tired "Meta" in response.
Xian took a deep breath, centering himself. "Okay. Dragapult's Aspect is gone now. Time to find Azure."
"Meta!" "Gible!"
Gible dove forward, swimming through the darkness with renewed purpose, leading them toward something only it could sense. After what felt like hours but might have been minutes—time was strange here—it stopped and activated Phantom Force one last time.
The world shifted.
They emerged... nowhere.
No ship. No Azure. Just more void.
Xian's heart sank. He extended his detection ability, searching, probing. Nothing.
"Damn it." His voice was quiet in the endless dark. "He's trapped in an Aspect too. Now we just have to wait."
Metagross and Gible floated beside him, sharing the weight of the silence.
Somewhere in this labyrinth of darkness, Azure was fighting his own battle. And all they could do was wait for him to emerge—or hope they could find a way in.
The hunt wasn't over yet.