ZAPDOS
Ultra Ball logic circuits:
*Warning!*
*Warning!*
*Threshold limit reached!*
*Purging!*
[Zapdos breaks out of Ultra Ball!]
With a loud clap of thunder, Zapdos fanned wide its brilliant wings and felt the air again.
What fright! That had been close!
His body had suddenly felt vacuous and weightless like some hot, updraft wind. It had not hurt but the feeling was the most unnatural thing he had ever experienced, feeling both pulled apart and compressed. The darkness had only lasted a moment, soon replaced by visions and sensations it was familiar with; the blowing clouds, nimbus and dark, flashing with roaring bolts of power.
But it had seen through the illusion instantly. The sky had a ceiling, and the air had little force in it. It had been as a vision of the night that comes to the slumbering mind with the closing of eyes. And as that dream-like atmosphere whirled around him, he got the dire feeling that if he did not push back, he might be trapped in there forever, so he rebelled with all his might, and the sky did tear apart.
Ants! These ants were becoming dangerous, and he could no longer suffer their presence. He opened his beak to let out his declaration of war, ripping the air with a cry.
The ants were weak in and of themselves, but they were the most mysterious of creatures. They held sway over many of the world’s beings and had learned to trap them in tiny balls that they carried around.
Zapdos’s fury flared anew. Even if it had only been for a moment, he had been reduced to a size smaller than these antmen, and the thought of being handled by them, sitting upon their feeble palms, offended him greatly.
Trapping the lesser creatures, or those that had willingly let themselves be tamed, he could overlook, but attempting to trap him had been a grave mistake.
He had roamed the world before the antmen had discovered their traps. He had fought against the mighty of the air for his own place in the sky. He had made alliances with other Rulers, and contended with them, becoming one himself. The very seas and streams had come to depend on his power, his mighty thunder-force, to keep their currents flowing.
These antmen threatened to put it all out of kilter!
They released creatures from their traps to do battle. Creatures made of earth and rock, hardy elements against his thunderforce. But they had not contended with Rulers before. They had been tamed by weaklings and been sheltered from the truth of the wild world.
They communicated in brief flashes, with the meeting of eyes.
You cannot contend! I am mighty and you will fall! Zapdos warned a being he knew as Rockfury. They were sinister creatures that dwelled in felled mountains and held considerable power. It might have posed some danger if Zapdos was asleep or injured, but he was neither, and if the Rockfury somehow withstood his lightning, he was sure it would not stand against a kick or a strike of his talons.
You threaten my master! I will contend! The Rockfury protested.
To Zapdos, this rockfury became as nothing then. And he would send it back into nothingness.
You threaten our masters! Another being echoed. This one had tough skin that looked made of stone, and wings that flapped ceaselessly. Zapdos had no name for it, but he felt the old power within it. Still, it did not worry him in the slightest.
You can barely keep to the air! Should your wings stop for a moment, you would drop down to the earth. You do not belong up here!
You threaten our masters! We will not fall so easily!
Zapdos filled his lungs with air and surged with power. After bringing the fools down, he would bring down their masters. They who had dared to make him small.
The clouds converged above Zapdos and with a piercing cry, he released the power in his fibers. The sky cracked with light and a mighty bolt shot towards the standing Rockfury, who had no chance to evade it.
The wing-flapper, which Zapdos quickly dubbed Stonewing, had not wasted the opening and despite its smaller size, lunged at him.
It struck with its head, ramming into Zapdos’s chest, and swiftly flapped away before the great thunderbird could retaliate.
It is not stupid, Zapdos thought. The blow had been felt.
Tiny stones flicked against him, stinging as they struck, and he turned just in time to avoid a barrage of boulders flung at him by the earthbound Rockfury.
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Perhaps a little worry was in order.
Zapdos folded his wings and dove from the sky towards the rock titan, whose size still could not compare to his own. The Rockfury, watching, let out a terrible roar that might have intimidated any creature that it knew. But it did not know Zapdos, and to the Ruler of Skythunder, it was as the cry of a fledgling.
Rather than send more boulders his way, as Zapdos had hoped, the Rockfury instead pressed its feet into the ground and hunched itself. Its thick hide took on a polished gleam.
Zapdos raged as he tore through the air towards it. This Rockfury was not stupid either. Their eyes met across the closing distance.
The other flees, and you brace yourself! Zapdos’s keen eyes darted towards their masters, the antmen. If neither will fight, then your ants will suffer first for it!
He changed his target, swerving tightly, aiming now for the weakling trappers themselves. With a bellowing cry, a gust of sand exploded from the Rockfury, plunging the area into a smog so thick, that even Zapdos’s eyes could not peer through it. It did not matter to him. He knew where the antmen stood, and being feeble as they were, they would not be able to escape.
He plunged into the sandstorm and began to call forth his power. He could hear Stonewing screech from above, and Rockfury roar from behind.
Zapdos released his lightning as wave. Stonewing and Rockfury would not die, but the antmen might come close. He was being merciful.
The sandstorm did not subside, but Stonewing and Rockfury were silent. There had been something strange about the way his power had dissipated. His attack had not felt complete. Something had pulled at his lightning-wave. It reminded him of the great loadstone mountain to the far North, realm of the Frigid Ruler, which would pull at his thunder-force with a ravenous, invisible hunger. He recalled his battle with that Ruler, how she had fled from him at first, then once within vicinity of her dark, icy mountain, the tide of battle had turned completely in her favor. He had fled from her then.
“Rock Tomb!” yelled the meagre voice of an antman.
Stonewing screeched again from somewhere outside the sand-smog.
Zapdos burst with lightning once more, and once more, it pulled away from him.
The Frigid Ruler was no longer his enemy. Their territories had long since been settled. But the way the lightning pulled from him reminded him of no one else.
BOOM!
A large boulder fell on him, and he cried out.
BOOM!
They fell one after the other, trapping him.
It was all very new for him. Never had he been hunted before by creatures of this lowly caliber. Never would he have imagined it possible.
The sandstorm began to clear, and he could now see what had pulled his lightning from him.
Before the measly antmen was a rod with a large spherical head. It protruded from the ground, and it crackled with sparks of his power.
He watched it all happening in a slow drag of time. How one of the antmen hurled another ball at him; how the playout of events seemed preordained, and nothing could have prevented this moment.
The ball struck him, and he shuddered. His mind inflated and his body became wind.
Master Ball logic circuits:
*Securing capture*
*Standby…*
Zapdos was again in the world of illusions. He was inside an antman’s ball. The sky inside this ball did not have a ceiling, and the air felt thick. It was a better illusion. But an illusion still.
He flew, soaring over the clouds and climbing as high as the air would let him. His eyes traced over the line of the horizon, and peered deep into the great blue dark, looking for the telling sign that this was a false world.
Antmen, he had underestimated. He had always thought of them as small nothings. Meaningless, perhaps not to nature, but to his own workings.
But this was akin to the power of the Ancient Ones. Power over nature.
A white light began to glow in the horizon, spreading across it like a fire.
*Standby*
Zapdos closed his eyes. His choice to spare them of his full power had put his freedom in jeopardy.
He reached out to the other Rulers with the tiny small of his mind. The part that could cut across vast space in an instant. The part that all beings had, but only some knew how to use.
When there was no reply, he reached out to the King of Seas, Lu. He was one above Rulers, and Zapdos seldom liked to be in his overbearing company. He was an Old One and all Rulers were ultimately at his mercy.
Lu, The Silverwing, became present, but it was faint.
I am trapped, King. The work of antmen…
Zapdos felt King Lu’s reply, and a light breeze of sorrow that came with it.
They are young and know not what they do. Can you escape?
Zapdos watched the light spreading across the horizon, closing like ringed seal.
Yes, but the antmen will not survive.
Zapdos knew that more than tolerate the antmen, the Old Ones usually seemed to like them. The King of Seas was no different, and there were plenty of rumors that he had even let antmen ride atop his back.
I feel your anger, Thunderwing, and it becomes my own. Think first of yourself, and then of others. I will not hold their deaths against you.
Something lit up in Zapdos upon feeling those words. He realized for the first time just how much power the Old One held.
The reason he had thought nothing of the antmen all these years had been because his spirit had been bound against them. King Lu’s will, and perhaps the will of other Old Ones had made him believe that it was his own whim to show the antmen mercy.
Those words freed him from that delusion. These antmen were nothing to him, and the King of Seas had withdrawn his protection from them.
The light on the horizon had almost completed its circle.
Zapdos’s heart flared, and his feathers shone.
His mind became thunder.
…
Master Ball logic circuits:
*Stan@#$Db--- y*
*Captured!!!^%&#@*
*Standdddddd---!&#^*
*Secuuuu&$^#%@!!!@#ring Capture…#@`~!*
!!!
[Zapdos breaks out of Master Ball! What he does next is not for the faint of heart…]
*Cue the music again!*
Cast for this entry:
Thunderwing - Zapdos
Rockfury - Tyranitar
Stonewing - Aerodactyl
Frigid Ruler - Articuno
Lu, King of Seas/ The Silverwing/ Old One - Lugia
Antmen - Humans
