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Distorted (Pokemon SI)
(21) The Lord of Ice Does Not Condone Cannibalism

(21) The Lord of Ice Does Not Condone Cannibalism

“No waaayyy…” I whispered with a hand over my mouth.

“Crap.” Celia quietly growled, placing her hands on her head in disbelief.

Ben pointed and asked, “Is that…?”

“...” Abigail’s eyes widened a bit and she looked away.

Collin leaned back and scratched the back of his head, “Thats…”

“The Lord of Ice.” Celia flatly finished the sentence for Collin.

We were all staring at a massive chunk of ice with the dried out and half decayed corpse of a larger than average golden Beartic. The most noticeably part of it was the massive bite mark in its side where something had eaten part of it.

“that things is deader than dead.” Winnie remarked.

“Maybe it’s a different Beartic?” Justine suggested.

“What other Beartic is golden like that?” Celia snapped, “This is bad news.”

“Does this mean that the area is under new management?” I asked, nervously looking around. We were in a lightly wooded area of the tundra, but there weren’t any Pokemon in sight besides the ones in our party.

The ground shook. We all looked up as the Cryogonal swarms chanting became more frenzied. Leo and Absol ran up to the front to join us, Absol was barking a warning, the disaster Pokemon’s hackles were standing on end and he looked fearfully up at the Cryogonal.

“Looks like we’re about to see who the new Lord of Ice is. Maybe its another Beartic.” Leo said, as the ground shook again, “Either way something big is coming. We should get the fuck out of here.”

The temperature dropped more than I thought possible, the ground shook again.

“We’re too late…” Marcus whispered as he began backing away, holding onto Tim’s arm to tight that his knuckles turned white.

The white-out suddenly stopped, the falling blanket of snow parting like stage curtains, revealing the biggest motherfucking dragon I’d ever seen. The weak sunlight glinted off of Baxcalibur’s golden scales. The Noble dragon’s shadow loomed over us, it was ten times the size of Sahara and its golden-yellow eyes were triply as murderous.

I guess this is what looking at Godzilla would be like.

“When did a Baxcalibur population appear in Sinnoh?” Tim growled, backing away, his free hand hovering above his Pokeball belt.

“Cue the boss music and HP bar.” I muttered, hovering a hand over Sahara’s ultra ball.

A few regular Baxcalibur and Arctibaxes stalked out from behind their leader, growling at us, white steam puffing out of their nostrils.

All hail the Lord of Creation. A deep ego voice emanated from the golden dragon.

Be grateful intruders, for you shall be slain by the Lord of Ice. Noble Baxcalibur snarled, its golden eyes could probably freeze us to death if it stared hard enough.

Thunk! Thunk! A flurry of small ice chunks of ice fell to the ground. It began to hail.

“Get back!” Celia shouted as she let out Incineroar and Bewear. The Lord of Ice roared, throwing itself straight at them in a flurry of dragon type energy that was its signature move, Glaive Rush.

Bewear caught the dragon lord, grunting with effort as it was pushed back, leaving deep scored in the snow. The cuddly bear pokemon smiled murderously as it strengthened its body with fighting type energy and heaved Baxcalibur back before diving right into a frenzy of attacks.

Noble Baxcalibur grunted and took a few steps back, swatting at Bewear like how one would swat a horsefly. The other ice dragons rushed at our group.

Incineroar joined Bewear in its assault on Noble Baxcalibur, covering itself with flames and crashing into giant ice dragon’s stomach.

The Lord of Ice grunted in annoyance as Incineroar landed back on the ground and quickly stepped on Incineroar, putting the full weight of its body on the wrestling Pokemon in an attempt to squish it like a bug.

A pale blue, four armed Pokemon jumped in and lifted Baxcalibur’s foot with little effort, letting Incineroar roll out of the way before the foot came back down.

Noble Baxcalibur clawed at Machamp and Bewear, its was surprisingly fast for its large size and was able to hit both Pokemon dead-on and send them flying.

Ben threw an ultra ball, “Ready for battle Big Man!” Heatran landed on the ground with a loud thump, it’s metallic roar sounding out in a challenge to the Noble dragon.

The Magma Pokemon slammed itself against the nearby group of normal Baxcalibur like a freight train, sending the dragons flying away before charging straight at Noble Baxcalibur. Heatran crashed into the golden dragon hard enough to send it stumbling backwards and continued to barrel forward as to not lose momentum.

Heatran roared again, summoning a Magma Storm that quickly trapped the massive dragon in a hellscape of fire and magma. Noble Baxcalibur roared back and sent massive shards of out out of the storm straight at Heatren, who stoically tanked the attack.

After they dispatched a Baxcalibur, Ceruledge and Armarouge joined in and used a joint Fire Spin to boost Magma Storm’s power as Heatran charged into the storm of fire, passively gaining strength from the fire storm with its ability.

More Baxcalibur and Arctibax charged into the battle, targeting the humans. Ben and Collin sent out Arcanine, Charizard, Mienshao, and a black Tauros to meet the incoming wave.

Once the others and I got a safe distance back, I sent out Sahara and Infernape to take care of a few Baxcalibur that had targetted us. Sahara roared a challenge, elated to be battling other dragons. Every win would be boost her pride as a dragon.

Infernape hooted and grinned, taunting the ice dragons as it danced around them, gracefully ducking around their clumsy attacks before retaliating with powerful fire wreathed punches and kicks.

An Arctibax ran forward and bit at my ankles, making me jump back as Winnie leaped down from my shoulder and quickly sent the teen dragon running with an illusion of Kaiju’s Mom.

“take that ya lizard punk!” The white fox shouted after the retreating Arctibax.

I sent out Glados as well to support with its long range.

Justine and Kenta joined me, sending out Yamask and Kommo-o to combat another wave of Baxcalibur and Arctibax. This was the entire colony coming at us!

I heard a burst of sound and electricity followed by the sound of metal on metal from Jason and Abigail’s teams nearby.

The twins had teamed up with Marcus and Tim to defend themselves. I saw Angela casually walking up to the front with a dangerous gleam in her eyes. It would be a good idea to stay away from the front for the time being.

A screeching roar like nails on a chalkboard sounded over from Leo’s team as a Hyper Beam tore through a group of ice dragons, Tyranitar was out and ready to rumble.

The group I was in was currently facing four Baxcalibur and seven Arctibax. Sahara, Kommo-o, and Infernape exchanged eye contact and charge at the fully evolved dragons together.

“Buff before attacking!” Kenta shouted.

Kommo-o clattered its scaled together and roared as it charged jumping onto one Baxcalibur and pummeling it with Close Combat. Sahara crashed into another with at full force with Dragon Rush and knocked another down with a sweep of Dragon Tail.

The fourth Baxcalibur ran past the two, leading the Arctibax in a charge towards us.

“Murder Mode Glados. Gravity, max force.” I ordered.

Spinning itself in place, Glados activated Gravity. The smaller dragons were instantly forced to the ground, while Baxcalibur was able to stay standing and begin taking slow steps forward, snarling at us with murderous intent.

“Wow~ That move really is useful.” Justine remarked, “Yamask, Golett?” Yamask popped out of Justine’s shadow and Golett released itself from its Pokeball.

“Would you two be a dear and take care of a few of those Arctibax?” Justine asked her ghosts. Golett nodded and ran forward, dodging an attack from Baxcalibur and began punching an Arctibax at the edge of the gravity field in the face with Mega Punch until it fainted before throwing a barrage of Shadow Balls at the other teen dragons.

“Yeah sure, I guess.” Yamask scowled, “Those lizards need to learn their place in the world.”

Yamask cackled as he floated forward, a Shadow Ball forming in each hand. Winnie darted in front of Yamask, sticking out a tongue at the mask ghost.

“last one to beat an arctibax is a big fat loser!” The little fox shouted as he fired off a Dark Pulse at the group of immobilized Arctibax.

Shuppet and a few of the ghost gang emerged from my shadow to join in on beating up the ice dragons cause they didn’t want to be big fat losers.

Justine tapped the front of her foot on her shadow and Dragapult poked its head out, “Dragault, go help the others out in defeating the Noble Pokemon.”

The ghost-dragon looked between Justine and Noble Baxcalibur, a bit unsure about leaving its charge alone, but Justine reassured it that she would be fine, Kenta and I were here with our teams afterall, and Yamask was much stronger than before.

Dragapult nodded, then flew out of Justine’s shadow and darted away, making a beeling towards Noble Baxcalibur, who was now surrounded by a swarm of ghosts. It reminded me of someone getting swarmed by a bunch of wasps.

“Glados, take out that Baxcalibur with the usual Zap Cannon combo.” I said, pointing at the Baxcalibur that was getting close to the edge of Glados’s gravity field.

“TARGET. ACQUIRED.” Glados replied, whirring with electricity as it charged up its attack and fired off a Zap Cannon, hitting Baxcalibur straight on. The ice dragon was still standing after that attack and it shot an Ice Beam back that went wide.

Glados hit it with another Zap Cannon, knocking it out. “Good job.” I said as I looked over to Sahara, Infernape, and Kommo-o. They had engaged in battle with another set of Baxcalibur, while another group of Arctibax were running towards us. The smaller dragons fired off a bunch of Ice Beams than Kenta, Justine, and I had to duck under.

The incoming problem was quickly solved when they ran straight into Glados’s still active gravity field and were immediately caught in the trap.

I was about to sent the rest of the ghost gang to clean the newcomers up when the ground shook. And I mean it really shook. I stumbled, flailing my arms around and nearly fell down. Once I had regained my balance, I looked to the source of the earthquake.

Machamp and Incineroar had been knocked out by Noble Baxcalibur, Heatran was now grappling with it and blasting fire in the dragon’s face. Ceruledge and Armarouge darted around the massive dragon like flies, blasting it with fire and slicing at its hard scales.

Angela’s ghosts were flying around the massive like a swarm of bugs and slowly chipping away at its health.

Collin sent out Crabominable and Hitmonchan to replace Machamp while Celia replaced Incineroar with her Alolan Ninetales and a Wigglytuff.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Something felt wrong. I wasn’t super familiar with Baxcalibur, but I did remember using it once or twice in Pokemon Violet to try out its ability.

What was it again? Temperature? Thermal. Thermal Exchange!

“Glados, what does the ability Thermal Exchange do again?”

“THERMAL. EXCHANGE. BOOSTS. THE. USERS. ATTACK. WHEN. HIT. BY. A. FIRE. TYPE. MOVE. IT. ALSO. PREVENTS. BURNS.”

“Shit!” I turned to Infernape as it sent another Baxcalibur running, “Infernape! Go help out against Baxcalibur! No fire type moves, that’ll only boost its attack and its immune to burns, tell the other fire tyes about this!”

“Infern!” The fire monkey shouted back before leaping away towards the raid boss battle. I saw Leo sending Weavile and Houndoom over to help out as well while Tyranitar dealt with another Baxcalibur.

The ice dragons numbers were beginning to run out, thankfully they were less numerous than the Cryogonal. We’d be dead if there was that many Baxcalibur and Arctibax. Because of that, the others were beginning to send members of their team over to help fight dragon lord.

Jason ran over with an Electvire, Toxtricity, and Kilowatterel in tow. Justine, Kenta, and I called our Pokemon back. The other two rushed over to help out while I went back to look for the twins.

The Lord of Ice was still going strong, actually, it was even stronger than it was before due to how many times Thermal Exchange had been activated by Ben and his fire types attacks. Despite being ganged up on by so many powerful Pokemon, Noble Baxcalibur was still going strong and showed very little damage despite taking boosted direct hits from Heatran.

This is what we get when Arceus juices up an alpha Pokemon with its god powers.

The Lord of Ice continuously swatted ghosts away while stomping a foot or its tail on the ground to create an Earthquake or burst of ice to send its attackers flying. What the dragon lacked in skill, it certainly made up for in sheer unadulterated power and tankiness.

I stumbled and almost fell a few times but was able to get to the twins. I ducked down as Baxcalibur roared and sent out a burst of freezing golden energy that froze its surroundings, taking out Hitmonchan.

The golden dragon grunted as its foot collapsed into the ground beneath it and it wobbled, trying to keep its balance. A Diggersby popped a head out of the ground nearby to view its handiwork and then dug back into the ground.

“Yo! Guys! I need your help!” Chloe and Zoe turned to us, as their Meowstic duo continuously threw a bunch of ice dragons around like ragdolls.

“Yeah? What do you need help with?” The two said in unison.

I glanced back at the battle with Noble Baxcalubur for a second before continuing, “I need you guys to use Gravity on Baxcalibur.”

I turned to Glados, “You go help them out with Gravity.”

“AFFIRMATIVE.”

“Go!” I waved for them to go as I ran back to the front, in search of Angela.

I found the ghost type master easily enough, she was behind the frontlines, standing with her Typhlosion and Justine as they watched the battle unfold. Angela was giving orders to her ghosts.

“Angela! Justine! I have a plan.” The two looked over as I stopped next to them, panting. The twins landed on the ground, they had floated over.

“Good, because Curse and Toxic aren’t working on that overgrown lizard.” Angela said with a frustrated growl.

That was concerning. Things aren’t going well if one of our team’s strongest is having trouble doing any major damage.

I briefly frowned before asking, “Will confusing or illusions work? We don’t have the power to damage Baxcalibur, but it definitely has the power to damage itself.”

“I’ve tried Confuse Ray but it doesn’t work for long.” Angela replied, crossing her arms, “We need to weaken it more for that to work at all.”

“Okay, Winnie, go get Zoroark and use illusions to make it fall down.” I said.

With a nod, Winnie jumped off of my shoulder and raced away to find Zoroark.

“I’ll go look for Jason and get his crew on paralyzing it, if it’s possible.” Justine added as she began to run away.

“Good idea.” I called after her. Angela and I ducked down again as another burst of icy golden energy swept through the area and the ground shook from the Lord of Ice stomping the ground.

A small white shape followed by a larger black and red one darted towards the dragon and the air rippled as a massive rock pillar erupted out of the ground straight at Baxcalibur’s face. The giant dragon tried to walk backwards to avoid the pillar.

As it took a step back, the ground below the noble Pokemon completely collapsed thanks to Diggersby’s work, sinking it up to its knee. The Lord of Ice grunted and looked down at the hole one foot was now stuck in.

The twin’s Meowstics and Glados floated up in front of Baxcalibur. Their eyes glowed as they increased the gravity around the massive ice dragon threefold, making the dragon stumble and begin to fall over as it found itself unable to resist the gravity field’s effects. The ground further collapsed under the combined weight of the massive ice dragon and the triple gravity fields.

There was a massive BOOM! Rocks, dirt, and snow exploded upwards as the gold dragon crashed to the ground in semi-slow motion, roaring in anger and pain as the momentum from the dragon’s fall damaged it probably more than what anyone else had done so far.

There was a blinding flash from above as Jason’s team summoned a combined Thunder that fell down like a guillotine and crashed into the gold dragon with a series of BOOMs. The Lord of Ice roared in pain and flailed as it struggled to get up under the force of the triple Gravity field.

Angela’s ghosts darted forward and chanted together as they tried again to apply a Curse to the dragon, ghost type energy swirling around them and the dragon in a figure eight.

I looked back as Marcus and Tim joined us, Marcus shielded his eyes and grinned, “Hey, I think we might be winning.”

I was about to punch the guy in the nose, nononononono didn’t you ever hear about not tempting fate?! Dammit!

There was a blinding burst of golden light followed by a BOOM and a shockwave as the Lord of Ice exploded like a freaking mini nuke. I ducked down, arms over my head as a massive shockwave threw me off my feet and sucked all the air out of my lungs. I felt frost form all over the exposed parts of my body.

I heard the Meowstic pair shriek, and Glados shout, “ERROR! ERRrrro…”

Nice try pests. Noble Baxcalibur growled as it stood back up, its scales glowing a white-gold. Most of the party’s Pokemon had been knocked out, with a very injured Bewear, Heatran, and Turtonator still standing.

Sahara was laying on the ground with her eyes spinning. Coughing and wheezing as I took a big breath of freezing air, quickly returned the landshark, and scrambled back up to get a hold on the situation at hand.

Most of the party members at the front has been knocked out from that single attack, Celia, Ben, Abigail, and Collin were all sprawled out on the ground. I couldn’t see where Winnie was, and I saw Leo’s boots sticking out from behind Tyranitar’s prone form.

“Oh of course this thing has a second phase!” I growled under my breath, my heart rate was rising as I realized that we were probably fucked.

Noble Baxcalibur stomped forward, probably intent on squishing the downed party members under its feet like bugs. Angela wasn’t going to let that happen, she tore Spiritomb’s keystone from her neck as she strode forward, her ghosts rallying around her. She wouldn’t be able to pull an emergency exit move like she did last time, but she certainly could buy everyone time.

Seeing the ghost type master approaching it with such confidence, Noble Baxcalibur chuckled, You think you can defeat ME all by yourself puny human? I think not. Your TOOLS will never surpass the might of the Creation Lord’s blessing!

Again with the Creation Lord. It’s referring to Arceus right? I thought as I ran forward to begin helping the others get up while the dragon’s attention was still on Angela.

I started with the twins cause they were the closest, and we’d probably need them to teleport us away like, asap.

There was a boom as Dragapult careened into Baxcalibur, only to be repelled by its golden energy. I hunkered down shielding my face as another burst of golden energy exploded from the ice dragon, sending Dragapult flying back and crashing into the ground.

I shook off the ice that had formed on my coat, shaking my hands and feet to try to get some feeling back into them as I returns the Meowstics to their Pokeballs and began to drag the twins away. One of them groaned as they came to.

I shivered as I felt Baxcalibur’s icy cold gaze alight upon me, it rumbled, stomping towards us and picking up a foot to squish us underneath it before it engaged Angela in battle. I heard Angela scream for her ghosts to get us and the Cryogonal song crescendo.

What a way to die.

There was a pop and a flash.

“DEINO!” Kaiju broke free from his dusk ball and roared, sending sound waves bouncing around as he used Astonish. The completely unexpected sound made Baxcalibur flinch and recoil. The ground shook as the giant dragon clumsily set its foot back down and cause another mini earthquake as the massive dragon took another few steps back to stare incredulously at tiny ant of a dragonling that dared to challenge it.

Kaiju opened his mouth wide, dragon type energy gathering in his maw as he fired out his best Draco Meteor. The Lord of Ice easily swatted the attack aside with a Dragon Claw. By the time the smoke had cleared, Kaiju had already used Dragon Rush to fly forward and grapple onto the golden dragon’s foot with Crunch. And Kaiju did what he does best. He began to eat.

I couldn’t fucking believe my eyes Kaiju tore off a scale and took a small chunk out of Baxcalibut’s foot meat, and ate it.

Shocked from the little dragon’s audacity, Baxcalibur roared in pain and shook its foot in an attempt to throw Kaiju off, but the little dragon held on doggedly, taking another chunk out and eating it once Baxaclibur put its foot down again.

It was an ant fighting a mountain, and the ant was winning. To be fair, if an ant had the audacity to grappling onto my foot and begin to take chunks of my foot meat out, I would freak too.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” I heard Celia groan from behind me as she slowly sat up and saw the insanity going on.

I should called Kaiju back, but one distraction and he’ll be roadkill.

I felt a hard tap on my shoulder and looked back, as Celia urgently spoke to me, “Quick, help me get the others.” I looked back at Kaiju one more time as he jumped up with Dragon Rush again to latch onto the golden dragon’s throat.

The Lord of Ice let out a rather undragonly squeal as it shook itself to try to get Kaiju off, letting out a weak burst of golden energy that was able to get Kaiju off. The little dragon soared through the air, spreading out his legs and waving them, opening and closing his mouth like a muppet as he flew by himself for the first time in his life.

“Kaiju!” I screamed, quickly fumbling with his dusk ball in my numb hands, returning him before he could hit the ground.

Without a seconds delay, Kaiju popped back out again and began to run straight for Baxcalibur again. I leaped forward tackled Kaiju to the ground, “I love you buddy but not this time, we’re booking it.”

Kaiju tried to wriggle out of my grasp but I held on tight and pulled him back, glancing nervously at Baxcalibur.

The Lord of Ice simply watched us with a befuddled expression before rumbling, what nerve you have to let a hatchling fight in a battle.

I paused. Wait what? Baxcalibur. The dragon who was literally just trying to kill us. Is scolding me for letting a…‘hatchling’ fight.

I pulled Kaiju back a bit more and retorted as I slowly backed away, “Bruh. Kaiju literally let himself out of his ball to fight you. I never let him out in the first place.”

Kaiju opened his mouth and shouted, “Deino dein!” and nearly knocked me over as he tried to get at Baxcalibur again.

The Noble Pokemon had an actual look of concern in its eyes, you feed this hatchling its own kind? Cannibalism is not okay hatchling.

“Deino! Deino dein deino!”

I looked between the two dragons and then sent a confused look back at the others who had recovered. They were just watching this scene with a confused fascination.

Hmmm I see. I guess even humans won’t go to such lengths. My apologizes for assuming.

I raised a hand, “Umm, so what the hell is going on? You were like, trying to kill us just a moment ago.”

Baxcalibur snorted, I do not kill hatchlings. Tis dishonorable as a dragon to kill our young! The giant dragon leaned down to us and glared, I have standards you know.

I think Kaiju’s mom would beg to differ if she’s fed him and his siblings other dragons.

Closing my eyes, I rubbed my temples. Then I looked back at the Noble Pokemon. “Okay, sooooo like what the hell are we gonna do then? You gonna let us go or what?”

The giant ice dragon laughed. No. I shall not let slavers like humans live.

I frowned and stood up with a scowl, “Excuse me?! Who the hell are you calling a slaver?”

You hum–

“NO NO NO! You listen here!” I shouted, pointing an indignant finger at the dragon, “How dare you call us slavers! Yeah I know there are bad humans out there, but all our Pokemon joined our teams willingly and are family! You hear that?! F-A-M-I-L-Y! You really think a dragon almost triple my size like the Garchomp on my team would listen to me if I mistreated her?! NO! She’d evaporate her pokeball and fucking bite my head off!”

I–

“That Heatran could fucking kill us all with one Magma Storm if it wanted to dumbass! Jeez who the hell has been feeding you all this bullshit?! Didn’t you ever learn how to think critically about something that someone tells you?!”

Kaiju hopped a few times and grunted in agreement, “Deino! Dein!”

I felt a tapping at my ankle and looked down to see Winnie sitting there with his tail slightly wagging. He was a bit battered and scruffy, but otherwise fine, “when did you get the balls to scold a noble pokemon az?”

Winnie said with a grin as he climbed up my leg and hopped onto his usual place on my shoulder.

“Just now.” I replied.

Baxcalibur leaned back and seemed to consider my words before thoughtfully replying, You have a point. I will do better to not do the same in the future.

I gave the Lord of Ice a thumbs up and a sarcastic, “Great.”

Though, one thing I am curious about…

“Yeah?”

I would like to try this, ‘seasoned meat’ the hatchling keeps talking about.

“Deino!”

No you will not be allowed to eat my feet hatchling. You have a problem.

----------------------------------------

Baxcalibur ended up giving us time to recollect ourselves and set up camp before we began making dinner.

The Cryogonal were still there by the way, but they weren’t really doing anything. The ice Pokemon weren’t even singing, and seem almost disappointed as they floated above our camp and just watched while everyone ignored them.

I was curious about how in the world large Pokemon the size of the Ice Lord was able to keep up with its needed calories considering its massive size. Pokemon magic? Or maybe that it had reptile metabolism and only needed one big meal every few months like a crocodile.

The entire team was quite reasonably high strung about the massive gold dragon who was previously trying to kill them just chilling outside the camp with its dragon family that was also previously trying to kill us.

A few members of the Ice Lord’s colony ended up joining us, this time including some Frigibax that Kaiju ended up befriending. I assigned Winnie to babysitting duty cause the last thing I wanted was for Kaiju to end up hurting one of the Frigibax and angering the Lord of Ice.

In the meantime, said Lord of Ice was kinda just making casual conversation with us, asking about the ingredients used and how human society worked with Pokemon. It was pretty surprised about different our explanation was from how it was told by ‘The Guardian’ aka, The Lord of the Mountain.

Its views of the human world was consistent with what the human world was like a few hundred years ago, so I guess the Mountain Lord had been closed off from the rest of the world for a few hundred years and either didn’t know or care how the world had changed outside of her borders.

That certainly was some food for thought.

Anyways, because Kaiju specifically praise my cooking, I was assigned to making snacks for Noble Baxcalibur and its family. We didn’t have anywhere enough food to properly feed them so they brought some of their own Mamoswine meat. How thoughtful.

Ceruledge helped chop the pieces up into cookable portions while Infernape and Armarouge helped with cooking and rotating the meat over a massive bonfire after I had seasoned it, making sure to add on my remaining store of herb mystica as Kaiju had insisted.

While we were waiting for the meat to cook, the Ice Lord asked us what we were here for.

Celia explained to the Noble dragon the whole thing about Galactic Corporations wanting to mine their mountain and that the company had recently developed a prototype of some new tech called the Illusion Piercer to help penetrate into the sanctuary.

The Lord of Ice didn’t seem to get what ‘technology’ really was, but at least understood that Galactic Corporations were bad and that they had a way to get to the heart of their territory. So we were here to help them somehow find a way to combat that and help them keep this place protected.

I’d never heard of ‘Illusion Piercer’ so Celia explained that early on, the team had gotten an offer from Galactic Corporations to use this tech for their expedition but they refused to work with the company and not so kindly turned down the offer. They didn’t talk about the offer much after that.

There were also rumors of Galactic Corporations making contact with Hunter J, Celia was sure that they planned on sending in the infamous poacher with the Illusion Piercer to clear out any strong Pokemon before they moved in to mine the mountain’s ores. That was part of the reason why she felt such an urgent need to contact the Mountain Lord. Hunter J had a reputation for poaching Pokemon from places that she shouldn’t have been able to get into.

Marcus added that they wanted to help in the conservation of endangered species, and as a researcher it was his dream to study Hisuan variants thought to be extinct. He and Tim would like to come to an agreement with the Lord of the Mountain to be able to research their species and hopefully make this area protected so that humans wouldn’t be able to freely intrude, both for the humans safety and the safety of the Pokemon living here.

The Lord of Ice wasn’t too concerned about the threat from the poacher or the tech, but still thanked us for the warning and extra knowledge. The ice dragon would need to contact the Mountain Lord about this, but it wasn’t too keen on meeting it considering how it hadn’t actually killed us like it should have.

I just told the ice dragon to do its own research before it came to a conclusion.

The conversation paused as Infernape, Armarouge, and I served the dragons their meat and they took some sniffs of the food.

Noble Baxcalibur ate a chunk the size of Sahara in one bite and rumbled in pleasure as it savored the flavors in the meat.

Hmmm…This, ‘seasoned meat’ is better than anything I’ve ever eaten before! The Lord fo Ice exclaimed, the other members of its colony voice their agreement.

It is disappointing that I won’t be able to eat meat like this on a regular basis. I see why other Pokemon would want to live with the humans of this age. Free delicious food, a colony to live in, and a safe environment to grow strong. It certainly is appealing, though I do not like the rules humans impose on each other and Pokemon.

I shrugged as I gave Kaiju a bowl of cut up meat, “Hey, these types of things usually come with a few cons. Nothing’s perfect.”

Indeed.

The Lord of Ice and his entourage quickly finished their seasoned Mamoswine meat before getting up to leave. The golden dragon gave us one last word of advice before it left.

The Mountain Lord is as stubborn and as vengeful as they come, she has a long standing grudge against humans of the past. Even I wouldn’t dare suggest working with humans to her.

The last Lord of Ice did so and look what happened to him, he was made an example of.

Perhaps she will be willing to listen if you manage to survive the first few rounds of her attacks.

My advice would be to reach for the Guardian’s heart, not her mind. May the blessing of the Creation Lord be with you humans, the meal was delicious.

Then the Lord of Ice turned and left, disappearing amongst the light snowfall like a mirage as the Cryogonal above began to hum a new melodic tune.