Yveltal's eyes burned a deep, vivid red as it slowly emerged from the mouth of the cave, enormous wings spreading wide against the pale sky.
Each beat of those wings sent a wave of dark energy rolling outward across the ground. Grass curled and blackened. Trees stiffened, their bark turning grey and rough like old stone. Leaves crumbled to dust before they even had a chance to fall. The life force of everything around it was being pulled away, rising from the earth as tiny sparks of pale light — as though the forest itself were quietly exhaling its last breath.
The withering spread fast. Faster than anyone had expected.
Within moments, the trees nearest to Steven and the others began to show the same signs. Bark turning rigid. Leaves going still and lifeless.
Steven stared up at Yveltal, his expression hard and unreadable. His jaw was set. His eyes were cold.
So it has come to this after all.
"Yveltal has awakened…" Dr. Zuan's voice was barely above a whisper. He looked at the slowly petrifying trees surrounding them, and his face was filled with grief. "The forest is going to disappear again…"
"This is not the time for that!"
Steven's voice cut through the silence like a blade.
"Run — now!"
There was no hesitation in his order. While Yveltal was still at a distance, there was still a chance. Xerneas had only just departed — perhaps a minute had passed, no more. Xerneas would not go far. It would sense this. If they could just hold out — just survive this one minute — then perhaps things would be alright.
One minute. That's all.
High above them, Yveltal let out a piercing shriek that shook the treetops.
Argus, Milis, Lylat, and Maryling had not moved. They stood frozen, staring up at the massive creature that hung in the sky like a dark omen.
"This feeling…" Lylat murmured. His two Ninjask hovered on either side of him, holding him aloft by ropes, but even that felt like little comfort. His face had gone pale. "It's suffocating."
"Our life force…" Maryling held up her hand. Faint sparks of pale light drifted from her palm, rising upward like embers from a dying fire. Her limbs felt heavy. Her body was growing weak, and the weakness was spreading quickly. "It's draining us."
Yveltal was not only pulling the life from the forest and the soil beneath their feet. It was pulling theirs as well.
"Y?!" Argus turned sharply, searching for Hunter Y.
But the black-robed man was gone. At some point, without a word, he had simply vanished.
"We need to leave — right now!" Milis reacted first, her voice urgent. Their plan had been simple: use the chaos created by this Pokémon to steal Diancie. The chaos was here. But so was everything else.
Yveltal's massive wings beat slowly as its blood-red eyes swept across the four trainers and their Pokémon below. A sound rose from deep within it — low, resonant, and terrible. Dark red energy began to gather at the tips of its wings, flowing inward along its feathers, pooling into the black markings at the center of its chest.
A crushing weight pressed down over everything. The air itself seemed to thicken. The four trainers and their Pokémon staggered, gasping, as though the sky had suddenly grown heavier.
Yveltal climbed higher, and then the energy burst free from its chest — a column of dark red light that tore downward like a falling sky.
Boom!
The explosion was enormous. The sound rolled through the forest and shook the ground.
And yet, when the light faded, the earth was undamaged. Not a single mark. Not even a shallow pit. The ground was perfectly untouched.
Yveltal did not look at the four trainers again. Its red eyes turned, slow and deliberate, toward the distant figures of Steven and Cynthia, and the fleeing shapes of Diancie and the Carbink.
It tilted its wings and swept after them.
"Father…"
Milis's voice was very small.
She was looking at her hand. Or rather, what had been her hand. The skin had turned grey and hard, the fingers locked in place. The petrification was spreading slowly up her arm. But it was not just stone — it was age. Her hair was losing its color, fading strand by strand to white. The skin of her face was slackening, pulling loose from her cheekbones. She was turning to stone the way old things crumble — worn down by time all at once.
"Damn it all — we were used!" Argus slammed his fist against his palm, fury and fear colliding in his voice. "Hunter Y played us from the start!"
The moment Yveltal appeared, it had come for them. There had been no chaos to exploit, no opening to snatch Diancie. Hunter Y had known exactly what would happen — and he had made sure he was far away before it did.
"Heh…"
Lylat let out a short, bitter laugh. He turned his head to look at his Greninja, who stood just behind him. Greninja, too, was changing. Its skin was growing pale and dry, its movements slowing.
"Gre… ninja…"
Greninja's face was calm. Quietly, it reached out and placed one hand on Lylat's shoulder.
"Greninja—"
One after the other, trainer and Pokémon turned to stone. But Greninja's hand remained on Lylat's shoulder, frozen there. Still reaching. Still present.
Nearby, Maryling and her Delphox had wrapped their arms around each other. They stood that way as the grey crept over them both, quiet and still.
This was what it meant to stand before a Legendary Pokémon.
"Metagross!"
The warning came sharp and clear. Steven spun around.
Yveltal was closing in fast, dark red energy trailing from its body as it flew, pouring down onto the forest below. Trees crumbled where the energy touched. The ground turned grey and hollow. Orses Forest was becoming a dead land before their eyes, its color and sound draining away with every second.
The darkness was total. It pressed in from all sides, turning the forest into something that felt like the end of the world.
"Magima," Steven said, his voice low and steady, "you need to go back for now."
"Lord Steven?! What are you—"
Dr. Zuan barely had time to react before Metagross gently set him and the Carbink down on the ground, stepping back to take its place at Steven's side.
"Steven?!" Cynthia caught the shift in the air before she even turned around. She looked back at him.
Steven's eyes were fixed on Yveltal.
"We can't outrun it," he said quietly. "So we might as well make a stand."
He reached to his waist. One after another, Poké Balls opened, and his team appeared at his sides.
Scizor. Lucario. Aggron. Empoleon. Sandslash.
Honedge and Larvitar — he had already decided. Neither of them could face something like Yveltal. Not yet. And Skarmory was in the middle of molting. They would have to sit this one out.
From high above, Yveltal looked down at the small cluster of Pokémon and the blue-haired trainer standing in the middle of the withering forest. Dark red energy still shimmered faintly around its body.
"Get behind us," Steven said to the Carbink without looking back.
Then he reached up to the Key Stone set into his brooch, and he shouted.
"Mega Evolution!"
No long speeches. No ceremony. Just the command — and the light that followed.
Not for one Pokémon.
For three.
Metagross, Scizor, and Aggron all transformed at once, the radiance of Mega Evolution bursting from each of them simultaneously. Metagross grew larger and sharper, its limbs spreading wide. Scizor's frame thickened, its pincers gleaming. Aggron rose to its full towering height, armored and immovable.
"Don't let its attacks connect!" Steven called out, moving quickly between positions.
There was no time to direct each Pokémon individually. He trusted them.
"Full power — all of you!"
Mega Metagross aimed all four of its massive arms skyward. Silver-white light built between them, cold and brilliant.
Mega Scizor raised its pincers high, and twin spheres of silver-white energy gathered at their tips. Yveltal was too far up to engage directly — Scizor couldn't get close — but it could still fire.
Mega Aggron drove one foot into the earth with a thunderous stomp. Boulders tore free from the ground and began to orbit its body, spinning in a tight ring.
Lucario spread its paws, and a sphere of blue Aura energy condensed between them, pulsing steadily.
Empoleon's eyes sharpened. Its ability, Defiant, had fully activated, its power surging in response to the pressure bearing down on it. A massive column of water gathered at its beak, churning and rising.
Sandslash swept one clawed hand upward, and a jagged spire of ice crystallized above its palm, gleaming sharp in the darkened air.
Then Yveltal screamed.
Dark red energy poured from its wings, rushing together into a single beam aimed directly at Steven.
Oblivion Wing.
"Now!" Steven's arm came down.
Flash Cannon from Metagross — two beams of silver-white light launched upward in rapid succession. Mega Scizor's Flash Cannon followed a half-second behind. Aggron's Rock Blast pelted upward in a volley of spinning stone. Lucario's Aura Sphere cut through the air, steady and true. Empoleon unleashed its Hydro Pump in a roaring torrent. Sandslash hurled the ice spire forward with Icicle Crash.
Six moves. Six streams of force, converging in midair.
They met Oblivion Wing head-on.
The collision exploded outward. Dark red energy spattered in every direction, and wherever it touched the ground, the withering accelerated — bark splitting, soil cracking, colour bleeding out of everything in an instant. The air smelled like something ancient and cold.
Steven's eyes stayed fixed on the beam above him. His team's attacks were pushing back, holding the line — but only barely. The dark red energy was pressing forward, grinding against their combined strength, and slowly, steadily, gaining ground.
He could feel it. Not just in his eyes — in his body. A dull fatigue spreading through his limbs. His stamina was dropping. Even standing here, watching from the ground, the effect of Yveltal's presence was taking its toll.
Steven set his jaw.
"Hold on."
His voice was steady. Quiet. Just for them.
"Just one minute. Hold on for one minute."
One minute.
That was all they needed.