Dusk
by Chustang
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Strength, Speed, Stealth, and Vision. The four potent elements of destruction.Languid and innocent as their harnessers and maintainers were isolated,although their extreme power was often displayed in an ominous, almostforbidding test of skill. Usually Pokemon battles were the dominant cause ofthe Shadow World's resurrection of power as, by coincidence, two or more of theprophesied children were united to fight.
An perhaps that was why a select few of kids who were linked a semi-tightcircle of friendships, current or past, felt a certain power gleaming withinthemselves whenever they were reunited. And maybe that was why they were thefour true masters of Pokemon.
And maybe, just maybe, it was why the strongest of all the potently destined humanbeings witnessed the unfurling of an ancient, malevolent prophecy that was soonto be his. * * * * *
Saffron fur bristling and gleaming with a healthy and resilient shine, a sleek,energetic Pikachu stood second base, ecstatic sable eyes locked intently onhome. Perched on first, Pidgeot flung its sleek head back in a flare ofebullient energy, its incredibly long magenta and yellow cape feathers glidingin the air like a whip then settled back on its bristling, majestic beigefeathers, and clawed furrows in the dirt. Vulpix snickered lightly as theplayful string of taunting echoed slightly within its chestnut hued, cuppedears, standing on third, and energetically drew twisting designs in the airwith its reddish-brown, identical tails that curled cutely into themselves attheir silky, furred tips, forming coils.
Taking up the position of catcher, Bulbasaur balanced on its ivy green, stockylegs and slid its foliage green vines into the sultry fury of summer,brandishing them and preparing them for the hard jolt of a baseball to be flunginto their grasp. Its ruby eyes were gleaming in elation and it barked afriendly "Buuullbaa! Bulba!" at its master who answered the rough,frog like bark with a strong scratch behind its stumpy, triangular ears. Theemerald, slightly dew-flecked grass lapped at its green body in the icy,soothing breeze languidly whipping through it, and the wind brushed against thePokemon's forest green bulb planted firmly on its back, teasing it open toabsorb the golden particles of sunlight.
Ash swung the bat in a practice swing, waiting for Geodude to pitch, his redand white hat spun around on his head of unruly, wild sable hair. Misty andBrock sat on the grass and waited patiently for their turn at bat. The sunlightglinted off the silver metal of the bat as it was swiped through the thick,sultry heat of summer enveloping the whole of Indigo Island.
Its rocky gray skin gleaming dully, Geodude flung the ball in to its other handto warm up. Grinning, it wound up then pitched with the speed of a demon. Theorb of white leather blasted across the grass in a blur of white swiftness. Afastball. Despite the Rock Pokemon's lack of experience, its pitch wasperfectly preformed. It had perfected its throw by constantly refining its RockThrow, and the hard work was clearly paying off.
The trio had stumbled across a baseball field in a small town and decided toplay a game to relax from the stress of traveling through the steep mountainsthey had just conquered. And with Pokemon, the game seemed more enjoyable,watching the ignorant Psyduck sit dumbly in the emerald green depths of rightfield. But the aura of simple hearted fun and recreation was not destined tolast.
A swirl of black, ominously looming cloud suddenly emerged from the darkeninghorizon instantly, as the baseball amazingly halted in mid air. An echo of fearand surprise was dominated by a legendary blast of thunder as it attained ablack glow then quickly disoriented itself. Looking on in awe, Pokemon andhumans alike, the orb began to define itself and shift ominously. A suddenknife of lightning crashed into the darkly glowing ball, erupting the darknessin a brief flash of blinding white. And as the mist of lethal electricitymelted away, a deadly creature emerged.
Threatening midnight blue eyes that devilishly gleamed with a tint of bloodlust; A lethal, dangerous muzzle of white fangs; A jet-black body bristlingwith thick, majestic fur; The ominous aura of a demon.
The sable wolf gnashed at the air, its dark blue eyes attaining a flare of red,and lashed its head toward the flinching, terrified humans, its jet black furbristling in cold excitement. Its tail snaked with liquid grace of a cobra, apotent growl rippling out from its throat, sifting through the bared, lethalwhite teeth.
Ash was jolted with a shock of terror that had just shattered the trance thetransformation of the wolf had inflicted, the bat sliding through his fingersand into the grass lashing violently in the stormy wind. As the metal heavilycollided with the ground, the usually metallic echo was absent as it hit. Theonly audible noise was that of the rabid, bloodthirsty growl emitting from thewolf.
Panic thrashing and whirling in his mind in a painful grasp, Ash bolted,quickly reacting by lashing out his Poke Balls and recoiling each of hisPokemon. Misty and Brock instantly mimicked his retreat, frantically returningtheir Pokemon and sprinting for their lives. Black eyes immersed in fear andthe draining, shell-shocking adrenaline rush violently pumping through itsvein, amplifying is madly beating heart so that each beat was like a drum,Pikachu ran. Dodging an ungodly fast snap of the wolf, the franticallyshrieking Thunder mouse ran after.
The wolf smiled secretly at their resistance, abandoning its harsh, wildcomposure, and glided its sleek, deathly black head to the dark, stormy sky andteased the clouds with a forbidding howl. It flickered sadly, and then joltedup to a tone of death and thrill, crying a foreboding beckon of death to theracing humans. A black glow enveloped its midnight blue eyes ominously,highlighting its eyes from the rippling, majestic forest of ebony fur with afaint glow of silver.
Ash and Misty paused at the howl, Ash protectively clutching Pikachu to hisheaving chest; Misty gasping for breath and her azure eyes shrieking in terror.Brock was nearly to safety, a small, rundown house, as they stopped andanxiously yelled for them to hurry. But his cry was slain by a startling crackof thunder.
The wolf snapped its killing jaws in unearthly unison with the blast of cruelsound that violently burned their senses, a bolt of psychic energy lashing outat an impossible speed toward the two ten year olds. Ash and Misty lockedgazes, unable to react in time to do anything else, their disheartening gazeswhispering a goodbye. And as the bolt of prophetic power curved above them,arching down in a thunderbolt of destiny, they grasped each other's hand.
Blackness. And a pair of midnight blue eyes laughing.
Chapter 1
"Prophecy"
A thick, storm graycoat of clouds enveloped the sky in a death grip of Vision's potent power.Silver lightning fissured the sky with a flash of blinding light. Beneath thedark shadow of the storm, swiftly gliding across the black grass as if on ademon's wings, a sleek, sable canine raced toward a looming, ice crusted orbhovering a foot over the lashing grass. As the dog ran a stab of impendingdanger flared with a venomous sting in its chest, slowing its gait to acautious, tentative walk as a stab of burning pain confirmed the warning.
A roar suddenly shattered the tense aura thickly immersing the mountain edged,dark meadow as a flash of light rained down on the jolted animal, along with aviolently stinging cascade of rainbow sparks that illuminated the grassyclearing in a flash of multi-colors. A yelp of surprise escaped from the wolf'sjaws as it lurched wildly backwards, from the jolt the thunderbolt had potentlywhipped through its mind.
An icy wind whirled up in a minute whirlwind, a silent challenge, and lingeredbefore erupting in a fiery blaze. And within the spiral of lethal embers, ascreech emitted from the fire tornado, manipulating the flames into the vagueshape of a dragon. The flames were constantly flickering, burning, and lickingthe air with dangerous vitality, a rivalry burning in those flame adorned,venomous red eyes. The dragon anxiously gnashed the air and snaked its tail inanticipation of a long awaited battle. It flicked its head and reared up,screeching and flailing in a challenge.
As it slunk down, the flames that had once enveloped it dying instantly, itsbody glowed with prophetic power no mortal Pokemon could outstrip. But as itsevil scarlet eyes adjusted to the dusky meadow, they discovered an empty,black-tinted sea of grass. Warily scanning the meadow in swift glances,snorting a trail of smoke from its nostrils, it causally spit a minute tongueof black energy that, almost as if by magic, lighted its immediate surrounding.The Evil energy escaped from the lethal, fanged jaws of the muscular dragon,then formed into a black flame that hung like a 3d image before the Daemon,highlighted with a chain of golden sparks.
The flame flickered, casting light five feet from the wary creature as itslowly turned, intently searching with dangerously glaring eyes. The wolf wasgone.
Hissing in frustration, it whirled around, rabidly screeching and screaminginto the dark. Its sleek, serpent like, dark green body was glowing with anominous tint of bloodthirsty fury. Its flame-enveloped wings swiped the air,dusting the sky with embers that fluttered into the clouds.
As the raging dragon continued to roar and slash at the darkness infrustration, its angry challenges that had before fallen futile now wereanswered.
A slinking, fluid shadow circled in a demonically fast whirl of black andglinting suggestions of dark, forbidding blue. The wolf agilely snapped at thedragon, lethal fangs bore, and blurred past him in a legendary Agility attack,grazing its teeth on its cheek as a dangerously close warning strike. Recoilinginto the shadows as swiftly as it had emerged, the canine Daemon growled, thewaving, deep snarl echoing in the darkness, and flashed a pair of gleaming,midnight blue eyes in an arrogant challenge.
Recovering from the grazing blow, the dragon gnashed angrily in rage, thenroared and reared back on its hind legs, blazing in an aura of Evil, Psychic,Fire, and Thunder energy. Brandishing its glinting black claws and slashingthem out, a fireball formed between the killing claws. It was an black orb,stringed with minute Thunderbolts, adorned with brilliant red flames, andsparking with lavender, tiny sparks.
Arrogantly grinning, the dragon Daemon fingered the sphere with venomous hate;stroking it with long, scythe like claws. Then prepared to launch the fireballat its rival.
The wolf emerged from the darkness, swiftly shifting from its shadow form, andfaced the dragon's ensuing assault with the icy calm of a killer. Narrowing itsnavy blue eyes and curling back its shadowy gray lips in a snarl, thecompletely black canine snapped, forming a spear of misty, glittering white energy.The two fierce rivals tensed, then attacked.
In the black shadow of the storm, the icy wind playfully nipping and beckoningat its glistening ice blue fur, an equine, ice blue figure was highlightedagainst the darkening sky, edged with an electric, stunning blizzard blue.Shards of transparent, glowing ice composed the majestic mane and tail thatglided through the air like jagged silk. The horse Daemon snorted, a haze ofwhite emitting from its nostrils, then pawed the grass with its gray hoof. Itwanted to run, and the wind guided it back from where it came. But no, it hadto reach the meeting place, especially before those two idiots startedbickering again.
Denying the internal instinct to sprint with the wind, the Rapidash like Daemonreared in a blur of tints of light blue, then streaked at the speed of lightacross the grass in the same direction the wolf had taken, the grass violentlyflying into the air as it sped by. The minute snowstorms on its heels icilyburned as it flicked its mane of blue snowflakes, and charged faster than anyeye could track across the dark, lapping sea of grass. The grass hissed in thewind it created.
Violently whinnying in a shrill voice like an unruly, vicious stallion thatsliced blackness of the prophesied night, it charged on in the shadow of thestorm, destined for the Dusk plateau.
A suddeneruption of fire raining down lighted the infinitely dark, stormy meadow ofDestiny, a tiny ember in the blur of speed. The flicker of lethal Fire blinkedout suddenly, but was ensued by a whirl of bloodthirsty screeches and dangerousscreams of fury. A snarl and glow of dark energy challenged the producer of theshrieks of anger, and was finally linked with a legendary glow of white Visionand multi-colored Strength.
Those stupid boys were fighting, again. Screaming in a rage of frustration andfed-up anger, the horse blasted a mist of frost into the air, the majestic iceshards flashing into a crackling, sparking mane of lightning. She had to stopthem before they went and destroyed each other in thickheaded pride.
Straining its body, the Speed Daemon whirled its legs in a blaze of ungodlyswiftness, almost instantly skidding to a fierce stop before the two snarlingrivals. Furious, brilliant electric yellow eyes the horse flicked its Thundermane that bolted a lethal lance of lightning, violently shattering the venomoussnarls of the Daemons. The startling, screeching scream of the lightning wasthe first event to register in their minds besides the fight, causing theanimals to pause slightly, absently releasing their attacks.
Gritting her teeth in frustration at their stupidity, the Ice Rapidash snarledin a shrill nasal tone and aimed a shimmering knife of lightning at the twoattacks. Tensing her skittish body for a thunderous blast of assaulting sound,the horses reared swiftly back on agile heels and retreated a good five metersto assure her safety. And she was not retreated for a little firecracker explosion;she knew that a fusion of Lightning Assault, Spirit Spear, and Prophecy wouldfissure the sky in half.
Themost powerful Daemons gazed confusedly at each other, trying to realize justhappened. But as the deadly thunderbolt nicked the blur of color and brushedlethally against each other, the electricity averting the Vision and Strengthattacks fused with them, and the sky seemed to burst in a furious, unimaginableeruption of sound. It was like standing inside a volcano as it is erupting,having a jet plane blast past your ears, and listening to a boombox and headseton max all at once.
The fatal sparks of Thunder fused potently with the Fire, triggering a deadlyhell of flames that would of shamed an atomic bomb, assaulting the wolf,whirling down like some demonic inferno slashing with toxic fangs of poisonousfumes and hellish flames. Its midnight blue eyes glinting the explosionsbrilliant illumination that bathed everything in blood red light, the panickingwolf darted out of the killer’s way in an instant, the flames licking at itsheels as it began to frantically run for its life.
Although its sleek, swift body, the wolf was instantly consumed by exhaustionthat burned at its stomach and slashed at its heart, causing the vital organ todrum in a thundering flurry of furious beats that was not engulfed by theprophetic roar of the explosion, sprinting as fast as its legs would admitwithout collapsing as the blast of flames pursed coldly. As a spiraling tongueof Fire sliced down at its heels, the wolf Daemon apprehensively analyzed thesituation swiftly developing around it in a lethal inferno, then realized thedanger of using an attack. Another assault of potency would instantaneouslydestroy him and cause the entire area to erupt in fatal, toxic flames,annihilating the prophecy that all four Daemons were essential to.
The bristling sable fur that thickly furred the sleek canine glinted the bloodred light emanating from the fire and trapped the sultry, charring heat,causing it to overheat and stumble for the icy air beyond the infernoominously, mortally shrouding it in its own demise. Collapsing into the grassdown a brilliant, luminous orange in the firelight, the panting, harshlywheezing Daemon temporarily lay prone in the inferno of flames, midnight blueeyes retaining their striking, resilient gleam of perseverance as it hastilyresorted to its final, critical technique of escape from death lurking in theembers malevolently dancing before it in a flickering, devilish dance of death.
Laboriously wheezing and sucking in ragged breaths that were cruelly choked bythe toxic fumes from the blast and the ash of the fires now raging across theplain, the animal drunkenly but futilely clawed at the ground, attempting torise, and was confirmed by its results that its failure to rise clearlyinflicted. Despite its weakness, it had to transform to escape the flames. Butthat would be defying the physics of Pokemon; surpassing the maximum of attacksrestricted to a pocket monster by morphing for a sixteenth time since it wasrested. Flames roared violently and spit venomously burning ash and embers intoits eyes as it flinched but remained on it heaving side, looming like fieryserpents over the injured body of their prey.
Misty thoughts raced through its mind as the wolf laid, at the mercy of thedevils lurking in the glittering bonfire closing in around it, in a potentialdeathbed, and drew a deep, sultry breath of broiling air flecked with poisonousfumes that cruelly whirled the fiery world into a spiraling smear of red anddimly sliced the demonic roaring of the flames with an anguished lament thatdiscouraged even the most icy hearts; a poignant whimper in the fury of thestorm. Another toxic breath of fumes finally enveloped the fiery world inominous blackness and the venomous laughing of the fire seemed to inch closerdespite the Daemon’s excruciating yet fragile endeavors to keep the inferno atbay. It could barely breath and maintain the barrier at the same time,temporarily blinded by the cinders and fatal heat, let alone transform.
So, as its fading strength finally melted away in a fatal flare of charringheat, the wolf lay still as the flames approached.
Blackness was the only savior for a dejected yet infuriated soul as it weaklysealed its brilliant, glittering eyes as it inhaled a deep, encouraging breaththat subdued the furious sparks of its impatient heart. The wisp of crisp, icyair caressed its throat in a breeze of blissful cold, and gently stroked itschest and cooled the tense hotness that had kindled there in its furious ragethat had been eternally planted on that one day. That horrible, loathsome daythat they had denied the legendary strength of a Daemon; the day they had madethe most dangerous mistake of their lives.
Flashing open its forbidding sparkling eyes glinted the Fire Opal’s gleamingcolors as it ominously glowed with its anger, the fiendish creature trottedwarily in the glittering blackness of the Shadow Mountain mists, waiting. Itsdevilishly gleaming eyes were a fiery mixture of ruby and saffron sparksflecked over a brilliant mist of green, like a fire consuming a forest. And ina way, it was the fire. A blazing fire of the deadliest emotion that couldthrive in a creature was flourishing wildly like a wildfire, gleaming in theFire Opal stringed around its neck: Vengeance
Author notes
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Well, what did youthink??? This is my first Dark fic and I have to thank 1) Whoever wrote thebook The Golden Compass for giving my the idea for Daemons in the first place.And I did NOT steal the idea of daemons; they are a thing in the dictionary andare public; and 2) Ace and Alicia Ashby for inspiring me to write a Darkfanfic. I know I’m probably not half as good as you are but I’m trying.
As for theending section, I just got an idea as I was just about to write about theStrength and Speed Daemons and decided to add a mysterious new character ^_^Take a guess at what it is… I really won’t describe what it is fully until thesequel, but you will get a glimpse of it at the very end of this fic.
Oh and one more thing.I wonder if anyone can guess what Ash and co. have to do with the Daemons… forany of you who have read The Golden Compass, you’ll probably know
Please send comments,flames, suggestions, slices of cake and cookies to chustang@fcmail.com