"Alright, I am not one to waste time, Zephyr, get ready," Tobias turns to Zephyr, meeting its blood-red eyes, "I promise you are going to have fun tormenting this one. We will use your special move."
Tobias raises his right hand, etched upon his exo-gloves is a black diamond-shaped crystal.
Tobias activates the Z crystal, and a second later, the crystal shines and he feels his soul resonate with that of his Darkrai, creating a perfect soul bond between the two.
Boundless power courses through Zephyr as it gains an ability no other pokémon in the world can use.
"Z Move," Tobias whispers, "Umbra Shadow Garden."
Darkness coalesces around Zephyr as its pitch black shadow starts to expand outwards.
Sunfyre watches in horror as the mountain beneath them starts turning pitch black, seemingly consumed by Darkrai's shadow.
Sunfyre roars in panic, unable to understand the phenomenon, it unleashes a Hyper Beam at Zephyr.
Dark, shadowy tendrils sprout from the ground to block the Hyper Beam. They crisscross together to form a shield of pure darkness.
The moment the attack collides with the shield, darkness consumes all the energy of the Hyper Beam.
Sunfyre flares its wings, turns back, and breaks the sound barrier as it dashes up the sky, trying to flee from Zephyr's darkness.
More tendrils grow out of the ground and chase after Sunfyre, who tries its best to dodge their unending barrage.
The shadowy tendrils multiply in number, two tendrils sprouting from one, and then two more coming out of those.
Tobias smiles as he watches Sunfyre trying to outrun hundreds of shadowy tendrils created by his pokémon, "I'm afraid we can't let you go. Not after the trouble you have caused us."
Looking at the Salamence running away from the battle, Zephyr points its clawed arms at it and shrieks.
It merges into the shadows and disappears from their sight.
Synfyre howls in panic as the dark tendrils keep growing in number by the second. It feels its soul burn from grazing just one of the thousands of tendrils trying to consume its life.
Zephyr appears in front of Sunfyre from one of the tendrils of pure darkness and shadow.
The Salamence looks into the Darkrai's blood-red eyes.
The Darkrai lets out a bloodcurdling shriek at Sunfyre, its red eyes stare right into Sunfyre's soul.
The speed of the tendrils gets faster as they coil around Sunfyre, restricting its movement by suspending it mid-air.
Sunfyre howls and shrieks as it feels its entire soul burning.
It experiences a depth of malice and malevolence it has never before experienced.
Reality changes before Sunfyre's eyes as darkness takes over everything, and it finds itself imprisoned inside the walls of its own mind.
Sunfyre sees a kaleidoscope of its memories projecting themselves at it, twisted by Zephyr, all of them, all at once.
Inside the Umbrascape, Zephyr condemns Sunfyre to relive a twisted retelling of its most painful memories.
Sunfyre finds himself as a young Bagon, a small reptile possessing a large, round snout, triangular eyes, yellow, circular ears similar to reptiles, and a yellow lower jaw with two teeth protruding upwards.
It finds itself upon a great mountain overlooking huge expanse of wildlife.
In front of its eyes, it relives its early life, having to fight its siblings for food. Having to protect its territory from pokémon powerful enough to fight for it and losing.
It relives evolving into Shelgon when threatened with death. Abandoning its territory when another Shelgon defeats it by cracking its shell.
It relives all of its hardships but not any of its glory. The Umbra Shadow Garden makes Sunfyre relive the countless years it struggled to survive.
Sunfyre relives flying from one continent to another as a Salamence, fighting the pokémon who rule the skies and also those who dwell deep in the ocean.
It relives every single injury caused to it, and in this hellscape none of them ever heal as Sunfyre feels its soul growing weaker and weaker.
Sunfyre screams in terror and rage as it finds itself attacking a city inhabited by humans on the shores of Galar.
Sunfyre's greatest mistake comes back to haunt it, as the Zephyr creates a simulacra of a purple-haired trainer wearing a red cape grinning at it.
Sunfyre tries to muster every ounce of energy left in its body to unleash a Hyper Beam at the trainer and erase him from existence.
Yet to its horror, this hellscape doesn't even allow it to fight back. Sunfyre stands there in pain, unable to move a single muscle, watching as Leon walks over to it.
Leon puts a hand on Sunfyre's head, patting its head while whispering something before he unclips a pokémon from his belt and releases his most powerful pokémon.
With a flash of red light, a huge draconic pokémon with orange dragon scales appears in front of Sunfyre's eyes.
Sunfyre lays its eyes on Charizard's draconic body, and its mind tries to forget the memory of their encounter. One that led to Sunfyre fleeing its home continent for the Fumelands in fear for its life.
Sunfyre howls as helplessly as it watches Leon's Charizard approach it.
The Champion of Galar, with one hand suspended to his side and the other pointed at the sky, commands his pokémon.
"Flash Fire."
Sunfyre cries in agony as a torrent of undying flame envelopes it whole, burning away at its flesh.
After living in this hellish torment for what feels like an eternity to Sunfyre, Zephyr's Umbra Shadow Garden finishes consuming its life force, leaving Sunfyre just an empty husk of flesh and bones.
—
Tobias and his pokémon watch as Sunfyre's corpse falls to the ground, devoid of its soul and life.
The domain of shadow and darkness engulfing their surroundings retreats back into Zephyr's shadow. Who just floats back to Tobias.
"Hey, bud, good job out there," Tobias smiles, raising his hands to pet Zephyr's smoke-like plume on its head.
Zephyr feels the caress of its trainer and finds it soothing.
A minute later, Tobias recalls both Flygon and Darkrai back to their respective pokéballs before asking Helios to teleport them away.
—
The rest of Tobias's team, along with Lazarus, watched the entire battle safely from a distance.
Lazarus watches the battle with a shocked expression on his face. He is still having some difficulty breathing, but his ribs and thigh are mostly healed thanks to the hyper potion Ronan injected him with.
Lazarus turns to look at Ronan and asks, "What the fuck did I just see? How did the Salamence just fall dead out of the sky?"
Ronan is almost as surprised as him, "I am just as lost as you are, buddy. This is the first time I am seeing Captain on the field."
"I get that the Salamence was in hibernation for god knows how long so it can't use its more powerful abilities," Lazarus says, "But this is insane. I have heard of Tobia's Zephyr being strong but I didn't know it was to this extent."
Mira turns to face the both of them, "Well, if the Salamence were fighting against any other Calamity, it might have been able to fight back even in its current condition. Too bad it fought against Zephyr. And the reason the Salamence just fell out of the sky was because of Zephyr's ability. It's a Z move.
It's kinda complicated, but from what Captain told me, it puts a pokémon under nightmare where Zephyr can do whatever he wants to it. Whether it's making the pokémon relive the worst moments of its life over and over or making it fight thousands of pokémon until Zephyr finishes devouring its life force."
"Holy shit! That is beyond creepy. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight," Ronan mutters, "Both the pokémon and its ability are demonic. I have a hard time imagining that someone with Captain's personality would have a pokémon like that."
Elliot giggles, "Nah, Zephyr is pretty nice when you get to know him."
"I don't want to get to know him," Ronan says, shaking his head with a horrified expression on his face.
Elliot laughs before he looks at the fight footage again , "This footage is going to be worth so many bragging points when we get back to the valley. I can't wait to show off."
Lazarus turns to Mira and asks, "Hey, Mira, can we go down and check to see if there are any survivors at the outpost? We sent the researchers away, so I am hoping at least some of them managed to get away."
"Yes, of course. We should be able to meet the captain there as well," Mira says as she commands the AI to land the AV near what used to be the outpost.
—
Tobias studies the remains of the outpost, which was once a state-of-the-art research station but now is just a mass of molten steel and concrete.
He hears the humming of the AV's graviton generators as it lands near him.
Lazarus walks out of AV first with a slight limp, followed by the rest of Tobias's team.
Tobias turns to look at Lazarus, "Hey, Lazarus, right?"
Lazarus nods lightly, "Yeah."
"Are you okay?" Tobias asks.
Lazarus looks around and sees the destruction caused by Sunfyre, "I will be."
There is not a single pokémon or human corpse anywhere. It vaporized everything.
Tobias tries to console Lazarus, "I'm sorry for your loss. I can sympathize with how you're feeling right now. We have all lost pokémon, and it never gets easier. We could have prevented this if we were a little fas–"
Lazarus shakes his head, "No, it's not your fault. Without you, there would be no survivors today. Salamence would have killed me and gone after the researchers next.
This entire thing was a combination of bad luck and mistakes on our part.
The situation would have been a lot different had we realized that we were dealing with a Calamity pokémon instead of just any dragon.
But I guess there is no point in dwelling on that anymore. I would rather look to the future and do my best to move forward."
"That is quite the wisdom there," Tobias pats Lazarus on his shoulder. "But you don't have to force yourself to feel fine. It's okay to grieve. Healthy even."
"Yeah, I know." Lazarus looks at the rest of them, "I am grateful to all of you guys. If not for you, I would have died today. And then the Salamence would probably have gone after the researchers. So a lot of people owe their lives to you."
"Don't thank us, we were just doing our job, and don't worry about the researchers. We will find them on the way back," Mira says as Elliot and Ronan nod.
"There is one thing I want to do before we do. I hope that is okay with you guys," Lazarus says.
Tobias nods before saying, "Yeah, sure, it's no problem. What do you wanna do? We will help you out."
Lazarus has a determined glint in his eyes, "I think there is an egg inside Salamence's nest. I want to go and get it."
He closes his eyes. And replays the most traumatic memory of his life.
He remembers the feeling of powerlessness he felt when Sunfyre killed every single one of the pokémon he had raised since they were little, right in front of his eyes.
The sorrow he felt when his friends died protecting the outpost.
The despair he felt when his pokémon sacrificed themselves to make sure he lived.
'Never again,' He swears to himself as he opens his eyes.