Angel quietly reached the towering entrance of Mount Moon, her phantom pace coming to a sudden, absolute halt right at the shadow line of the cave mouth. She didn't plunge into the darkness just yet. Moving with a strange, deliberate slowness, she slid the straps off her shoulder, unzipped her white Poké bag, and began pulling out a small mountain of supplies.
She retrieved premium Poké snacks, fresh Oran berries, and a flask of dense Sitrus berry juice. Her movements were incredibly tender, almost maternal, as she sat on a flat rock and began feeding Koffing. She caressed his rugged purple hide, petting his round form and giving him scratches behind his vents like a loving, biblical angel descending upon a battlefield.
But the visual was a complete nightmare.
Her pale skin was pristine and spotlessly clean, her white clothes radiating a royal, pure elegance under the mountain sun. Yet her snowflake pupils remained wide, hollow, and completely emotionless. The caring smile plastering her face looked haunting and eerie, her frozen presence vibrating with a thick, invisible stench of blood and mass murder.
She pulled a clean white cloth from her Poké bag, wetting it with a splash of water, and began tenderly wiping away every single streak of dried blood and wild dirt from Koffing's body, making sure her favorite companion was clean and presentable. She handled him with absolute devotion, pressing a deep, quiet kiss against his forehead before leaning down to give him soft scratches. She did the entire thing without uttering a single syllable to Poopie
Up on a thick branch nearby, the black Murkrow sat perfectly still, nested in the leaves. It was parked close enough to track every single micro-expression and catch every single breath, silently flashing the data straight down the telepathic links to Kadabra.
Miles back, leaning against the rocky ridge, Emily caught the mental translation, her eyes widening in absolute shock as the coordinates and descriptions locked into her brain.
Eventually, Angel packed her food containers away, zipping the Poké bag shut with a crisp click. She slowly turned her head toward the pitch-black tunnels ahead, and for the first time since leaving the townhouse, her lips parted to utter a phrase that wasn't a cold command to execute a human being.
"Are you feeling better, Poopie?" she whispered, her voice carrying a gentle melody that sounded bone-chilling in the quiet foothills. "Come... let's find Odin. He is waiting for me... I can feel him. He is calling for me... he needs me. He needs you too, Poopie..."
The Murkrow caught the entire sentence, its sharp ears picking up the names as it instantly relayed the data down the line.
Inside the brain of Emily, the words hit like a physical shockwave. Her clinical posture snapped upright, her fingers tightening against the stone.
"What the fuck does she mean she can feel him?" she thought, her mind racing at a hundred miles an hour as she calculated the pieces. "He's waiting for her? Does she somehow have a live contact with him under the mountain? Wait... hold on. She knows him. She's directly connected to him... is this my lead? What the hell is she to him for her to go completely psycho? Is she a lover? A family member?"
Then, the sheer absurdity of the nickname registered in her thoughts, and a look of deep, bitter disgust crossed her face.
"And eww... who the hell calls a Koffing 'Poopie'?" she muttered to herself, her jaw tightening in raw irritation. "That completely emasculates a Koffing's entire terrifying species reputation. A mere Koffing... especially this fucking unstoppable monster of a creature... to be called by the most kiddie, cute nickname like Poopie? It's almost fucking comical."
Shaking the irritation out of her head, she locked back into her ruthless, clinical operator mindset. The puzzle was solved. The double-blind tracking had just dropped the ultimate prize into her lap.
"Either way, I have my lead," she thought, a cold smirk breaking across her lips in the shadows. "A direct connection and a clear path. This psycho bitch is going to lead me straight to his location. Kadabra, tell Murkrow to keep trailing the duo even inside Mount Moon. Tell him to hide in the deep dark, keep a watchful eye on them, and don't let them drop out of sight. Once you're done with that, begin preparing Teleport... it's time we close in some more."
Angel hoisted the white Poké bag onto her shoulders, her soundless heels turning away from the sunlight as she stepped past the threshold. Beside her, Koffing floated into the dark, his vents hissing softly as he locked onto the faint, distant rhythm of his master's comatose heartbeat bleeding through the stone.
Behind them, the shadow was closing the gap. With a silent warp of psychic energy, Emily vanished from the ridge, blinking straight into the echoing blackness of the caverns to trail them into the mouth of the abyss.
Angel and Koffing finally entered the massive stone threshold of Mount Moon, her phantom pace continuing forward with a quiet, eerie grace. Even though she was wearing heels, her footsteps didn't make a single clicking sound against the rugged cave floor. Her movement remained a completely soundless, ghostly glide. Beside her, Koffing floated on absolute, hyper-volatile guard duty, his wide eyes scanning the shadows, fiercely ready to protect his goddess from any threat that took a weird step toward them.
The early level tunnels close to the entrance weren't actually dark, but they weren't brightly lit either. Natural cracks in the high walls let the external sunlight slightly penetrate the perimeter, and the bright bleed from the mouth lightened up the earlier paths. Small gaps in the rocky ceiling filtered down occasional streams of sun.
Further down the main routes, the pathways were lined with torches strategically placed in areas where travelers frequently passed. These zones were well-maintained by the League, helpful local hikers, and volunteer travelers. All in all, visibility was completely fine. Perhaps way deeper or in the lowest levels of the mountain range was where the darkness would truly take over, but for now, they could navigate easily.
For the first ten minutes, their travels through the mountain were mostly peaceful. The populated beginner paths were filled with standard, everyday Kanto life. Hikers and trainers were moving back and forth, and a few trainers were actively screaming commands as they battled each other further down the route, including a fierce Golbat vs. Lickitung match. Others were grinding up levels against the local Pokémon or capturing wild Pokémon.
Near a jagged alcove, a sudden panic rippled through a small crowd when a young trainer completely lost a battle, his Mankey getting brutally knocked out by a wild Machop. Luckily, a veteran hiker was standing nearby. The experienced hiker saw the danger and immediately hurled out a massive Onix, using his heavy frame to chase the wild Pokémon away and save the kid's skin.
The veteran hiker turned his head and caught sight of Angel gliding right past the commotion. Sensing the dense, heavy, and dangerous aura naturally emitting from Koffing, the hiker knew this white-haired girl packed massive combat muscle. Irritated by her complete apathy, he barked out, loudly asking why the hell she didn't step in to help save the kid.
Angel didn't offer a single response. She didn't look at his face, she didn't turn her head, and she didn't spare the crowd a single glance. She just kept walking in her exact directional line, moving through the cavern like a mere ghost passing through.
Thank God the veteran hiker didn't possess the survival instincts of a fucking potato.
The second she glided past, his brain immediately picked up on the terrifying, freezing chill bleeding off her frame. He caught the look in her hollow, unfocused eyes and realized something was inherently wrong with this girl. Sensing the massive red flag, the smart hiker immediately chose to back the fuck off, keeping his mouth shut as he wisely turned around to tend to the fallen trainer, quickly helping him up off the dirt.
Meanwhile, Angel kept going further and further into the mountain.
After another twenty minutes of steady, unyielding walking, the duo began to reach the middle levels of Mount Moon. They had covered roughly one and a half kilometers of winding stone pathways, putting a good distance between themselves and the safe, beginner zones, though they weren't deeply buried in the bottom abyss just yet.
At this depth, the artificial torches and the streams of sunlight from the ceiling gaps completely vanished. The environment grew noticeably darker, and visibility was becoming a real issue, but they weren't plunged into pitch-black blindness. Mount Moon possessed its own faint, natural ambient lighting—a dim luminescence bleeding from the ancient mineral veins and deep rock walls. A flashlight would have certainly helped to clear up the shadows, but the duo could still see the terrain well enough to function without one.
It was during this time that the wild Pokémon became far more aggressive. The local Pokémon in this deeper section ranged anywhere from level 18 to level 25. Pokémon possessed their own sharp instincts, and they could easily feel the raw, terrifying purity of the energy radiating off Koffing.
The vast majority of the wild Pokémon sitting between level 18 and 23 fled immediately. The moment his heavy purple shadow drifted near their alcoves, their instincts screamed a red alert, and they scattered deep into the rock crevices to save their own skins.
But the level 25 territory masters were a completely different story. They were the undisputed apex leaders of these middle tunnels. Some of them simply wanted to try their might against an interloper. Others felt intensely threatened or disrespected; their territorial pride wouldn't allow them to lose face by running away from a human on their own turf.
But to Angel, their pride and their motivations meant absolutely nothing. She didn't stop her stride, she didn't change her hollow expression, and she didn't waste a single drop of human emotion. Every single time a territory leader lunged from the shadows to block their advance, the conflict was reduced to that same flat, bone-chilling whisper cutting through the twilight:
"Kill."
And so, Koffing killed. He systematically obliterated every single wild Pokémon that tried to stall their progress for even a split second, flooding the rocky paths with corrosive acid and crushed bone, leaving a secondary trail of carcasses rotting in the deep, dim tunnels.
□■□
Angel was navigating the path on pure, hollow autopilot. Her mind was a broken mess of grief and obsession, her ears completely deaf to the echoes of the tunnels, her feet moving soundlessly over the jagged dust despite the heels she wore. Beside her, Koffing floated near, always on guard.
Ahead on the main stone path, Noella was strutting through the cave, her high-maintenance posture radiating pure arrogance. Clad in expensive designer training clothes, custom designer shoes, and holding a luxury bag, she was the absolute definition of a pampered heiress who had grown up with a golden spoon in her mouth. She had been told since birth that she was a one-of-a-kind tactical genius, and her credentials backed up her massive ego. She had already conquered three official Gym Leaders—Brock, Misty, and Lt. Surge—to secure three gleaming Gym badges. She stood her ground in the center of the lane, fully expecting the oncoming wanderer to move aside and make way for her high-class presence.
Instead? Angel completely ignored her existence.
Angel walked straight into her, delivering a hard, physical shoulder-check that knocked the wealthy heiress completely off balance. Angel didn't even pause. She didn't blink, she didn't say sorry, and she didn't even turn her head to acknowledge that she had just run into a human being. She just kept marching straight forward, treating a proud three-badge trainer like a piece of worthless dirt on the cavern floor.
To an arrogant, egotistical girl who demanded absolute submission from everyone, being treated like a ghost by a commoner bitch who didn't know her fucking place was an unpardonable sin. Her pride was violently wounded, her face flushing red with immediate rage as she stepped out, blocking the path entirely to unleash a venomous scream.
"You think you can just glide through here and ignore me, you freak?!" Noella shrieked, her voice echoing sharply down the hollow cavern walls. "Do you have any goddamn idea who I am?! I am Noella! I crushed the Cerulean and Vermilion Gyms before you could probably even afford a Pokéball! You don't get to look through me like I'm nothing! I am challenging you to an official League match right here, right now, and I am going to break that pathetic floating ball of yours until you drop to your knees and beg for my forgiveness!"
Angel didn't offer a single fraction of an emotional response. Her snowflake pupils remained wide, completely hollow, and entirely unfocused. She stopped dead in her tracks simply because the path was physically blocked, her lips parting to release a single, flat, and bone-chilling whisper that cut through the high-maintenance screeching.
"Kill."
The word dropped like a massive block of ice into the tight cavern space. Noella's arrogant bragging instantly died right in her throat. The sheer, unhinged wave of pure, lethal danger cutting off Angel's tongue made the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up. She was an egotistical snob, but her trainer instincts immediately picked up the scent of a psychotic murderer. Shaking off the sudden chill, her face flushed red with a mixture of fear and pride as she snapped an ultra-sleek, premium Pokéball off her Poké belt and hurled it forward into the twilight.
"Don't you try to threaten me, you psycho bitch! Official League rules! Go, Poliwrath!"
In a brilliant, high-velocity flash of white light, a massive, dual Water/Fighting muscle tank materialized on the stone floor. Poliwrath slammed its heavy, webbed fists against its own chest, a low, guttural roar echoing through the caverns as its golden-potential aura hummed around its frame. Noella was fighting with the standard, legal mindset of a high-tier League challenger—she wanted to secure a clean knockout, assert her absolute class supremacy, and humble an insolent commoner. But Angel and Koffing were playing a completely different game. They weren't fighting for a referee's whistle or a scoreboard. They were fighting to commit murder.
"Poliwrath, lock the spacing down! Use dynamic movement and pressure him with Bubble Beam to force an opening!" Noella barked, her tactical mind immediately clicking into gear.
The battle erupted into a lengthy, high-octane brawl. Koffing floated forward on pure feral instinct, his natural battle knowledge taking over the field without needing a single directive from his silent goddess. He knew exactly what he was doing; both Odin and Angel had meticulously drilled the fundamentals of type matchups into his core. He didn't waste his breath with standard toxic gases. Instead, he chose to open the fight with a high-velocity Sludge Bomb, opening his jaws to blast a dense, corrosive sphere of purple acid straight across the stone lane.
"Slide under it! Use Hydro Pump to counter the Sludge Bomb and pressure him!" Noella commanded ruthlessly.
Poliwrath moved with incredible athletic grace. The muscle giant dropped its center of gravity, sliding low beneath the flying acid as the Sludge Bomb slammed into a background boulder, violently melting the stone into a smoking puddle. Mid-slide, Poliwrath unleashed a powerful, rapid-fire blast of pressurized water. Because Koffing was floating high using his Levitate ability, ground attacks were completely useless against him, but the sheer force of the Hydro pump still slammed hard into his round frame, driving him backward through the air.
"Now! Close the distance and break his posture with a heavy Body Slam!" Noella screamed, her eyes flashing with arrogant triumph.
The blue giant launched itself off the cavern floor, its massive frame shadowing the twilight as it came down with bone-crushing force. But Koffing wasn't an idiot. Sensing the incoming physical strike, he deeply inhaled the surrounding air to execute a rapid dual Stockpile, his purple hide instantly inflating and hardening like reinforced steel plates.
BAM!
Poliwrath slammed its full, weighted mass straight onto Koffing's hardened body. The concussive impact sounded like two boulders colliding in a landslide, the shockwave kicking up a thick cloud of dust around the stone lane. Koffing took the brutal force, his internal organs rattling as he was slammed backward across the dirt, but his steel-like hide held together. Before Poliwrath could disengage from the impact, Koffing's instincts locked onto the close-quarters spacing. He violently threw his entire inflated mass forward into a punishing, Take Down.
The heavy, steel-hard smash caught Poliwrath square in the chest, the raw momentum fracturing the muscle giant's ribs with a sickening crunch. Poliwrath let out a wet gasp, stumbling backward across the jagged stones, but its endurance was staggering. Noella didn't let up the pressure for a single microsecond, her voice cutting through the dust. "Don't let him recover! Press the advantage and use continuous Water Pulse attacks to overwhelm him!"
A roaring torrent of pressurized water erupted from Poliwrath's center, the absolute fluid force hitting Koffing dead-on. The crushing water jet blasted him straight up toward the rocky ceiling, his skin bruising under the high-pressure stream as dark, poisonous fluid leaked faintly from his side vents. He was taking heavy physical damage, his defenses getting heavily pushed and pressured by Noella's high-intellect commands.
Poliwrath's knees were shaking from the fractured ribs, but out of sheer, unyielding will, the blue giant refused to let its master lose face. Before Koffing could steady his alignment in the air, Poliwrath launched itself upward into the shadows of the ceiling, its webbed fingers extending like claws as it managed to violently latch its massive arms straight onto Koffing's round body in a suffocating, unbreakable death grip.
"Yes! Wrap him up!" Noella shrieked in absolute ecstasy, jumping up and down in her designer shoes. "Drive him straight into the dirt! Seismic Toss! Finish this trash!"
Poliwrath locked its thick arms around Koffing's flank, spinning violently mid-air as it prepared to channel the ultimate, devastating kinetic loop—ready to dive head-first and pulverize Koffing's body straight into the jagged cavern floor to deliver a brutal, battle-ending knockout.
But inside the mind of Poopie, a burning, catastrophic rage ignited. He was the favorite companion of a goddess, a powerhouse who lived to protect her light, and he had allowed a common blue slave to trap him in a physical lock right in front of her eyes. The sheer frustration and anger at his own slip-up completely broke his biological limitations. Out of sheer, unadulterated willpower, a violent surge of yellow electricity began crackling furiously across his purple pores.
Right at that exact spot, in that terrifying microsecond mid-air, Koffing learned Thunderbolt.
He didn't waste a single frame. He unleashed the newly awakened elemental storm in a catastrophic, maximum-output burst, firing a point-blank, blinding Thunderbolt straight into Poliwrath's face.
CRACK-BOOM!
The blinding yellow lightning detonated in the tight cave space, the raw voltage lighting up the entire middle level like a miniature sun. The electricity ripped violently through Poliwrath's water-soaked muscles, dealing a devastating, super-effective critical hit that completely fried Poliwrath's body. Poliwrath let out a strangled, agonizing screech as the current pulverized its consciousness, its grip instantly failing as its giant body crashed limply down onto the stone floor, completely knocked out cold and fried to a crisp.
Koffing floated down from the smoke, his vents hissing furiously as his eyes remained wide and lethal. He wasn't playing by the League scoreboard. Angel's orders were to kill, not to defeat. Without an ounce of hesitation, Poopie hovered directly over the unconscious, twitching body of Poliwrath, opening his jaws wide as a dense, high-velocity sphere of corrosive Sludge Bomb acid began rapidly concentrating in his throat, ready to blast the giant's head to bloody chunks.
"No! Stop! Poliwrath, return!" Noella screamed in a sudden, hysterical panic.
She held her premium ball forward, a beam of red recall light shooting across the dirt line to violently snap her unconscious Pokémon back into its shell just a fraction of a second before the lethal acid could leave Koffing's mouth. The Sludge Bomb missed its target, slamming into the dirt where Poliwrath had been lying, instantly melting the stone floor into a bubbling, hissing pit of toxic slime.
Noella stood across the path, her hands shaking violently, her high-maintenance designer clothes disheveled as she pointed a trembling finger at Angel. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she yelled, her voice cracking with genuine terror and outrage. "Are you out of your goddamn mind?! This is an official challenge! It is against the League rules to kill a trainer's Pokémon! It's just a Pokémon battle! Why the hell are you being so ruthless and cruel?!"
Angel never uttered a single word. She didn't glance at the melted stone, she didn't look at Noella's trembling frame, and she didn't give a single shit about the League rulebook. She remained completely, deathly silent, her absolute confidence in Poopie unshaken as she stood like a beautiful, frozen phantom.
Noella swallowed hard, her pride completely wounded but her competitive rage boiling over. She couldn't lose face to a silent commoner bitch. Snapping her second ball off her Poké belt, she hurled it forward with a venomous shriek. "You want to play dirty?! Fine! Let's see you handle this! Go, Vileplume!"
In a secondary flash of light, a massive, dual Grass/Poison Vileplume materialized on the path, its colossal red petals shifting as a heavy, suffocating scent of spores filled the tight tunnel air. Because Vileplume was part Poison-type, it was biologically immune to getting poisoned, meaning Koffing couldn't rely on toxic status conditions to choke it out. Furthermore, the type chart balanced out perfectly; Grass was weak to Poison, but Poison resisted Poison, meaning Koffing's acidic moves would deal neutral, normal damage to its hide.
Koffing's sharp mind instantly calculated the shift. He didn't bother with Smog or Poison Gas. He floated forward to lock into the next leg of the gauntlet, but his energy was noticeably lower after the brutal physical clash with Poliwrath. His round body was heavily bruised, dark fluids were leaking faintly from his side vents, and he was still carrying the two active defense modifiers from his previous dual Stockpile.
"Vileplume, don't give this floating trash a single second to breathe! Use Sweet Scent to force him close, then lock him down with Magical Leaf!" Noella commanded with a sharp, calculating glare.
A thick, cloying aroma flooded the tight cavern lane, the heavy scent clouding Koffing's senses and drawing his floating alignment forward against his will. Seizing the opening, Vileplume whipped its giant petals forward, launching a barrage of glowing, razor-sharp Magical Leaf blades straight across the stone path. Koffing tried to weave through the twilight to dodge, but the mystical leaves tracked his movements perfectly, slashing repeatedly against his purple skin and drawing fresh sprays of dark fluid.
A thick, cloying aroma flooded the tight cavern lane, the heavy scent clouding Koffing's senses and drawing his floating alignment forward against his will. Seizing the opening, Vileplume whipped its giant petals forward, launching a barrage of glowing, razor-sharp Magical Leaf blades straight across the stone path. Koffing tried to weave through the twilight to dodge, but the mystical leaves tracked his movements perfectly, slashing repeatedly against his purple skin and drawing fresh sprays of dark fluid.
Koffing bared his fangs, retaliating on pure instinct with a high-velocity Sludge Bomb. The corrosive purple sphere shot across the dirt lane,
but Noella was tracking the trajectory with elite precision. "Vileplume, Don't let it touch you! Counter it head-on with your own Sludge Bomb! Blow it to pieces!" Noella barks.
Vileplume reacted instantly, its huge core expanding as it unleashed a matching, massive sphere of toxic sludge. The two high-power Poison attacks collided dead-center in mid-air, the kinetic force detonating in a massive, violent explosion of pure purple light and sizzling residue. The blast threw a beautiful, dramatic flare over the twilight path, the shockwave kicking up thick dust and scattering corrosive droplets across the stone walls. Before the smoke could even clear, Noella was already pressing the spacing. "Mega drain."
A vortex of green energy erupted from its core, shooting towards Koffing and establishing a draining link straight onto Koffing's round frame. The Mega Drain brutally siphoned his remaining lifeforce, siphoning away his vitality to heal Vileplume's minor surface burns. Koffing let out a low, pained groan, but his natural combat knowledge kept him moving. Fighting through the siphoning link, he deeply inhaled the damp air to trigger his third and final Stockpile.
His purple skin swelled to its maximum capacity, his defensive armor completely maxing out. He violently hurled his massive, steel-hard frame forward into a crushing Take Down, aiming straight for Vileplume's center to break the draining link. He slammed violently into the Grass-type, the sheer weight of the impact cracking its lower stem. But Noella didn't flinch. She had predicted the physical desperation.
"You fell right into my trap! Sleep Powder! Put this monster to sleep!" Noella screamed triumphantly.
A dense cloud of dark blue, somniferum spores erupted directly from Vileplume's massive petals, completely engulfing Koffing's inflated body at zero range. The heavy powder coated his skin, the powerful sedative properties aggressively clouding his consciousness. Koffing's eyes began to flutter, his floating alignment wobbling dangerously as the sleep status took a brutal hold of his system, leaving him completely exposed in the middle of the path.
"Now! Giga Drain! Drain every single drop of life left in that pathetic shell!" Noella shouted.
Four massive, glowing green tendrils of pure elemental energy burst from Vileplume's core, wrapping tightly around the groggy, heavily compromised Koffing. The siphoning force of Giga Drain was catastrophic, violently ripping his vitality out through his vents to restore Vileplume's cracked stem. Koffing let out a hollow, agonizing cry, his body dropping lower and lower toward the cavern floor, getting hurt pretty fucking badly as he faced the absolute brink of a brutal collapse in the dim twilight.
Seeing her Poopie—the cutest and her beloved toxic puppy dog who had broken his own teeth trying to feed her ramen with chopsticks yesterday, just to make sure didn't starve—getting ruthlessly disassembled and tortured right in front of her eyes, something violently snapped inside Angel's broken psyche.
The hollow, autopilot trance completely shattered. Her snowflake pupils violently contracted into sharp, murderous needles, and the freezing, suffocating pressure bleeding from her frame completely doubled, turning the dim cavern into a literal icebox. Her broken, silent mind roared back to life as she bared her teeth, breaking her robotic silence to unleash her terrifying genius as a master tactician, screaming out a complex, high-stakes battle command to save his life.
"Poopie, shake off the fog! Swallow! Consume the stockpiled energy to regenerate your core, then break their line of sight with a massive Smokescreen!"
Hearing his goddess's voice snap through his fading consciousness, Koffing's eyes flashed with a feral, re-energized fury. He ignored the sleep spores through sheer devotion, instantly activating Swallow. The massive pool of stored energy from his triple Stockpile was completely consumed, converting into a catastrophic burst of internal cellular regeneration. His defensive modifiers reset to zero, but his torn skin, bleeding vents, and deep bruises literally fused back together right in front of Noella's eyes, his health restoring completely as he hovered in the air like an undying zombie.
Before Noella could even process the sudden healing, Koffing opened his vents wide, unleashing a massive, pitch-black cloud of dense Smokescreen that instantly plunged the entire middle level pass into an impenetrable, dark void. The green siphoning tendrils of Giga Drain instantly lost their target lock, snapping into nothingness as their line of sight was completely choked out.
"Vileplume, defensive stance! Use Acid spray in a circle to keep him back!" Noella commanded frantically, her tactical confidence wavering.
"Predictable," Angel whispered, her voice a beautiful, terrifying melody of pure tactical dominance as she read the battlefield instantly. "Poopie, ignore the acid! Use their own blind spot against them! Drop to the floor and blast the ground with a full power Take Down to shatter their footing!"
Koffing dove straight through the dark fog, ignoring a stray spray of sizzling acid as he slammed his massive frame directly into the cavern floor.
BOOM!
The sheer concussive impact shattered the stone path beneath them, creating a localized tremor that violently ripped through the tunnel. Across the lane, the heavy Vileplume lost its footing entirely, its roots tearing out of the cracked earth as it stumbled blindly in the dark smoke, completely exposed and off-balance.
"Now, Poopie! Assurance! Melt that annoying weed to the bone!" Angel screamed.
Koffing lunged through the black smoke like a demon, utilizing the fact that Vileplume was already off-balance to trigger a maximum-power Assurance. Because the target had already taken damage and lost its footing in the same turn, the physical impact hit with double the concussive force. The heavy, iron-hard smash slammed violently into Vileplume's center, completely crushing its main stalk with a horrific snapping sound. Before the creature could even let out a screech in the dark, Koffing opened his jaws wide at point-blank range, unleashing a massive, high-velocity torrent of Sludge Bomb after Sludge Bomb acids straight into its broken core. The damage was overwhelming; the sheer volume of corrosive slimes completely flooded Vileplume's interior structures, melting the giant flower from the inside out. Vileplume collapsed onto the shattered stones, its giant red petals completely blackening and dissolving into a smoking, liquefied pile of organic mush.
She was down to her final beast, her ego and pride completely shattered into pieces as she stared at the white-haired girl across the path. In a complete, unhinged rage, she grabbed her final premium ball and hurled it into the twilight with a deafening scream. "I will kill you for this! I will fucking destroy you! Go, Pinsir! Clip this bitch in half!"
In a violent flash of white light, her final Pokémon materialized on the field. The pure Bug-type Pinsir slammed its giant, spiked horns together with a terrifying metallic CLANG, its feral eyes locking straight onto Koffing. It packed monstrous, bone-crushing physical power, standing ready to initiate the final, blood-soaked round of the gauntlet.
"Pinsir, don't give them a single frame to think! Swords Dance to maximize your cutting power, then pressure him with Slash!" Noella screamed frantically, her intellect shifting into an aggressive offensive strategy.
Pinsir spun its body, its spikes humming as it executed a rapid Swords Dance, its physical strength skyrocketing. Moving with explosive speed, the giant beetle lunged across the lane, its claws flashing in the dim mineral light as it launched a relentless barrage of high-speed Slash attacks.
"Poopie, weave low and use Smog to choke out its joint articulation," Angel called out, her lips curling into that eerie, hauntingly beautiful smile that could give a grown man nightmares. Her snowflake pupils were wide and dead, taking pure, sadistic pleasure in watching the wealthy girl unravel. "Force it to fight your rhythm."
Koffing utilized his Levitate ability to slide seamlessly beneath the first two slashes, his movement smooth as butter under her direction. As Pinsir overextended on a heavy downward strike, Koffing opened his vents, flooding the immediate space with a thick, choking cloud of Smog. The toxic, burning cloud got trapped right inside Pinsir's joint segments, forcing the beetle to cough violently, its high-speed slashing momentum breaking entirely.
"I expected that!" Noella yelled, a desperate, arrogant grin twisting her face as she tried to reclaim the tactical grid. "Pinsir, use the cave walls! Rock Tomb! Bury that floating freak!"
Pinsir slammed its heavy claws into the ground, dislodging a massive cluster of boulders from the cavern ceiling and hurling them straight down to trap Koffing in a crushing stone cage.
"Cute," Angel murmured, her creepy, serene smile widening as she watched the rocks fall. "Poopie, ignore the trap. Stockpile right through the impact, then blast the stalactite cluster above Noella's head with a Sludge Bomb."
Koffing inhaled the thick cave air, triggering his first Stockpile. His hide hardened like iron plates, buffering the crushing weight of the Rock Tomb as the boulders bruised his skin. Working on her exact coordinated directive, he pivoted his jaws upward through the falling debris, firing a high-velocity torrent of Sludge Bomb acid straight into a massive stalactite hanging directly over Noella's position. The acid melted the limestone anchor in a split second, sending a massive, jagged stone spire crashing straight down towards Noella.
"Ah!" Noella shrieked, her designer shoes slipping on the dust as she frantically dove backward into the dirt, her expensive clothes tearing against the stones as the massive stalactite shattered right where she had been standing. She scrambled to her feet, covered in cave dust and panting in raw terror. "You... you tried to hit me?! That's against League regulations!"
"This isn't a League match, little girl," Angel whispered, her eerie smile never wavering as she looked at Noella like a bug under a microscope. "Pinsir is wide open. Poopie, Take Down."
While Noella was distracted saving her own skin, Koffing hurled his entire weighted mass forward into a shattering Take Down. The physical smash caught Pinsir square in its armored thorax, the concussive force cracking its exterior shell and sending the beetle skidding backward across the jagged path.
"Pinsir, get up! Use Harden to reinforce your carapace, then lock him in with Vise Grip!" Noella screamed, her emotional state rapidly fraying as she realized her strategies and her genius was getting completely outclassed by this monster of a girl.
Pinsir's outer shell flashed with a metallic glint, its massive horns opening wide like industrial shears as it lunged forward, catching Koffing's round frame in a suffocating, crushing lock. The razor-sharp spikes bit deep into his purple skin, drawing a fresh spray of dark fluid.
"Keep pushing! Swords Dance again while you have him trapped!" Noella commanded, thinking she finally had a opening.
"You really don't see it, do you?" Angel chuckled, a soft, haunting sound that echoed through the dark tunnels, sending a chill straight through Noella's spine. "You think you trapped him, but you just signed your own execution. Poopie, take the hit and Stockpile through the blades."
Koffing absorbed the agonizing physical compression through sheer devotion, triggering his second Stockpile right inside the teeth of the vise grip. His skin reinforced itself again, his round body swelling as he intentionally wedged himself deeper into the beetle's horns, preventing Pinsir from disengaging. Noella caught sight of the unnatural swelling and realized the trap too late, her face going completely pale. "Pinsir, abort! Open your horns and fall back right now—"
"Maximum density," Angel commanded flatly, her dead eyes locked onto Noella's trembling frame. "Third Stockpile. Trap his weapons permanently."
Koffing triggered his final Stockpile. His body swelled to twice its normal size, his hide turning as hard as solid armor plates. The immense physical expansion jammed Pinsir's massive horns completely open, the beetle screeching in primal frustration as its cutting limbs were rendered totally useless, locked in an inescapable close-quarters trap.
"He's stuck! Pinsir, use Seismic Toss! Throw him off!" Noella shrieked frantically, tears of pure panic and wounded pride welling up in her eyes as her entire strategies were systematically dismantled piece by piece.
"Checkmate," Angel whispered.
The word cut through the twilight air like a cold razor. Koffing didn't offer a single microsecond of slack. With his triple Stockpile fully maxed out, his round body radiating a dense, terrifying aura of compressed kinetic destruction, he opened his jaws wide at point blank-range, straight down the center of Pinsir's face. He unleashed a maximum-charge, catastrophic Spit Up.
The colossal pool of accumulated energy erupted from his mouth in a blinding, roaring beam of pure, concussive white force that looked like a literal Hyper Beam. The zero-range nuke hit Pinsir dead-on, the raw kinetic explosion completely ripping the giant beetle's entire upper torso into bloody, smoking smithereens. Its armored carapace, spiked limbs, and muscular frame were instantly vaporized in a spectacular, horrific shower of gore before it could even let out a final screech. The roaring white beam tore straight across the stone path, the concussive shockwave blowing Noella clean off her feet and sending her sliding violently across the dirt road. Her expensive designer outfits were shredded against the rocks, her luxury bags scattering into the dust as the massive blast rocked the middle level walls, leaving a massive, smoking crater where her Apex Pokémon Pincer had just been standing.
By the end of the lengthy, brutal gauntlet, a natural, heavy surge of raw physical power flooded through Koffing's physical structure, his purple skin humming with a denser, heavier aura of destruction as his strength surged straight to level 33, He floated tightly beside his goddess, his wide eyes tracking the smoking, shattered crater where Noella's Pincer had just been vaporized into a shower of bloody gore.
Angel stood in the dim, mineral-lit twilight. For a long, suffocating moment, she said nothing, her snowflake pupils locked in a sharp, murderous glare. Her creepy, haunting smile remained fixed on her fair face.
But instead of continuing her march deeper into the mountain, a sudden, jagged shift occurred in her psychology. She broke her forward momentum. Her soundless heels slowly turned against the cracked stone path, her gaze locking dead onto the wealthy three-badge heiress who lay ruined in the dirt, her emotional state broken, realizing she was nothing but a helpless frog at the bottom of a well. Noella was screaming, bleeding, and hysterically sobbing on the cave floor for her lost Pokémon, but her cries instantly froze in her throat as Angel began slowly walking straight toward her.
The entire subterranean atmosphere seemed to drop into a deep, sub-zero freeze.
The stare Angel gave the fallen girl was a horrifying, haunting nightmare. Angel's gaze alone made Noella experience a paralyzing terror she never knew existed, a primal panic that gripped her spine like an iron vice. Trembling violently in her torn designer clothes, Noella began frantically apologizing to the approaching ghost, her voice cracking with hysterical tears as she scrambled backward in the dust, her designer jacket tearing against the jagged rocks.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Noella gasped, her voice cracking hysterically as she frantically begged for her life. "I shouldn't have stopped you! I shouldn't have challenged you! Please, just leave me alone! I was just angry, I didn't mean it! I'm sorry for being so rude to you! I'm sorry for being mean! Please, don't look at me like that! I'll give you anything you want! i'll give you money! just don't come any closer!"
It didn't matter what she said. Angel never spoke a single word. She never replied. She just kept slowly closing the distance, gliding across the stone floor like a reaper coming to claim a soul. Eventually, Angel reached the trembling heiress. She slowly crouched down to her exact eye level, her wide, dead snowflake pupils staring straight through Noella's skull as her lips parted to release a low, freezing whisper.
"Don't ever... ever... hurt Poopie.. ever again."
Those chilling words were the final, crushing straw for Noella's shattered sanity. The raw terror and psychological whiplash completely overrode her system, causing her to pee herself in pure fear and burning embarrassment right there on the dirt floor.
The microsecond the whisper left her lips, Angel didn't order Koffing to execute. This time, she wasn't using a tool. She wrapped her delicate, white hands tightly around Noella's throat and began brutally choking her out. Murder was the only thing occupying her mind; all who dared to stall her or harm her Poopie shall die. Noella thrashed weakly against the stone, her fingers clawing frantically at Angel's wrists as she tried her absolute best to squeeze out one last, desperate plea through her blocked windpipe.
"I'm... sorry..." Noella gurgled, her face turning dark as her oxygen cut off completely. "Sorry... for... hurting... him..."
Angel wasn't having a single ounce of it. Her grip remained an unbreakable vice, squeezing with terrifying, unnatural strength until the light completely faded from the heiress's eyes and her body went entirely limp. Angel didn't let go. Even though the girl was already dead, she kept her white fingers locked around the neck, aggressively squeezing the cold flesh, her haunting smile remaining fixed on her face. She simply hated people hurting or bullying her Poopie. Not even Odin could escape this dark, obsessive side of her if he crossed the line; her favorite companion was entirely untouchable.
Not far off, nested in the high crevice of the stone wall, the black Murkrow witnessed the entire brutal spectacle, tracking every single detail from the start of the battle straight to the gruesome murder of Noella. It silently relayed the continuous stream of data down the telepathic links to Kadabra, and straight into the brain of Emily.
Unable to handle the sheer gravity of the transmission from a distance, Emily immediately commanded Kadabra to warp them, teleporting straight to Murkrow's high hidden location to finally reunite with her aerial scout, After a grueling trail.
From her high vantage point on the rocky ridge, Emily looked down through the dim mineral twilight, and her breath caught violently in her throat as her hands began to tremble uncontrollably against her Poké belt. She had a perfect, panoramic view of the entire bloodbath—watching in paralyzing horror as the silent albino girl continued to ruthlessly choke out a cold, lifeless corpse on the ground below. Her clinical composure was dead and buried.
"She's a complete, unhinged monster..." Emily whispered, her voice shaking with a cold, genuine terror. "She's gone completely loco... she's lost her damn mind..."
She realized she wasn't just tracking a suspicious looking ghost girl who was a prime lead anymore. This white-haired bitch had gone completely psychotic, committing physical murder with her own bare hands. And looking at the terrifying synergy between the girl and her demon bodyguard, Emily knew that as they began approaching the lower, darker levels of Mount Moon, anyone who dared to step out of the shadows to block their path would be ruthlessly slaughtered on the spot.
From route 3, all the way to here.. she has only left dead boddies of both Pokémon's and Trainer's alike... her story is quite literally,
A Tale Told in Blood.
Below on the stone lane, Angel kept brutally choking the already dead body of Noella, never letting go. Her fingers remained locked like iron clamps around the cold flesh of the neck, her wide snowflake pupils completely devoid of any human emotion. A few feet away, Koffing hovered in the dim mineral twilight, a deep, agonizing pain ripping through his round chest as he watched his favorite person dissolve into this heartless specter.
It hurt his heart to see his angel degraded into a emotionless ghost. Poopie would have preferred if he had done all the killing instead. He never wanted her clean, pristine, fragile hands to touch the filth of a corpse. He had wanted to carry the entire physical weight of this hunt on his own purple shoulders so that she would never have to get dirty.
This gruesome display was the exact reality he had been trying to prevent. If only he hadn't let Poliwrath trap him mid-air. If only he hadn't taken so much damage against Vileplume that she had been forced to step out and break her silence to save his life. If only he wasn't so utterly useless. If only he was stronger. If only he was smarter. Shame and bitter regret flooded his system, cutting deeper than any elemental strike he had endured during the gauntlet. He felt disgusted by his own weakness. Maybe master had been right all along; maybe he shouldn't have spent so much time simping. He should have trained relentlessly to become an unbreakable wall for her to lean on.
"Koff... koff..." a low, sorrowful rattle escaped his jaws.
Angel, who had always possessed a phenomenal capability to read and completely absorb his emotions, froze. Her unique soul link with him picked up the precise frequency of his sadness. Instantly, her entire vibe and aura violently shifted. The freezing, sub-zero chill bleeding off her frame evaporated, replaced by a warm, welcoming, and incredibly pure light. Her smile completely lost its haunting, eerie edge as she turned around to face him.
She was suddenly back to her cheerful, innocent self—an actual angel of light standing in the middle of a graveyard. Not a single murderous trace, killing intent, or robotic demeanor remained. Her eyes melted into a pool of soft, overwhelming affection as she gazed upon her favorite Poopie, a complete transformation that could make anyone fall in love at first sight. Her Poopie was feeling sad and down, and that was an absolute no-no while she was here to protect him.
Dropping to her knees right in the dirt, she pulled his bruised, heavy purple body straight against her chest, burying her face into his hide as she began pouring her entire heart out to him in a frantic, sobbing mess.
"I'm sorry, Poopie... I'm so, so sorry," she wept, her voice trembling violently as her tears soaked into his skin. "Look at you... you're hurting so badly because of me. It's all my fault! I was so blind, so stupidly frozen in my own head that I just let those monsters tear into you... I neglected you when you needed your trainer the most. I'm supposed to protect you, but I just stood there like a ghost while you bled for me..."
She squeezed him tighter, her delicate fingers digging into his pores as her chest heaved with suffocating guilt.
"I'm so selfish, Poopie... I dragged you all the way out here into this horrible, dark mountain, forcing your battered body to fight a battle just because I'm too weak to face reality. Because my broken, pathetic mind can't accept a single second of a life where Odin isn't here with us... I'm forcing you to carry my entire world on your shoulders, and I almost let them kill you for it. Please forgive me, Poopie... please don't look at me with such sad eyes... I love you so much..."
But right in the middle of her weeping confession, the air in the cavern path completely died.
She stood up.
A sudden, terrible spike of raw dread filled both of their faces. Angel's jaw went slack, the color draining from her face until she looked as though she had just met the reaper herself. The sheer terror painting her expression was deep enough to turn a whole book black. Koffing wasn't faring any better. The environment around them vanished from their senses because they both felt the exact same catastrophic shift at the exact same millisecond.
Through Odin's Gold Poison Affinity, Koffing had always maintained an unbroken, instinctive lifeline to Odin's life. It was the sole reason he had never truly lost his sanity on the surface; he could always feel that his master was still breathing somewhere around or inside these mountains.
But right now, one of his two absolute worst nightmares just manifested in the dark.
The elemental connection he had with Odin went completely, utterly dark.
A severed bond of that magnitude could only dictate two possible realities: either Odin had suddenly been thrown into an alternate dimension, or he was dead. And a spatial shift was highly unlikely.
He was dead.
At that exact crossroad, something ancient and terrifying stirred deep inside Koffing's core. The network of sadness in his chest was permanently washed away by a far more dominant, predatory emotion. He felt anger. A primal, unadulterated rage began slamming violently against the doors of his restraint, begging to be set free. But he held the line. He clamped his jaw shut, forcing the madness back down into his pores. He must not emotionally break in front of Angel. His goddess needed him now more than ever; she needed a shoulder to cry on, a shield to lean on. How could he dare to show a single shred of weakness at such a critical point?
Angel began weeping hysterically, the last remnants of her composure shattering into pieces. Her knees grew weak, her legs trembling violently as every ounce of her strength, drive, and willpower was forcefully ripped out of her body. She was an utter, broken mess on the stone floor, her loud, agonizing cries echoing sharply down the hollow cavern walls as she choked out a fragmented sentence.
"Poo-poopie... I-I-I ca-can't... fe-eel him any-anymore... O-O-Odi-n... he.. he.. he is de-dead..."
She stretched her delicate, trembling arms out through the dim mineral light, desperately begging her last anchor to hold her.
"Po-po-poopie... please... don't lea-leave me too... Do-don't... le-leaveee... meeeee—"
No one on the field knew the shattering truth about what was waiting in the abyss. Deep in the shadows of the rock formations, another hidden party had been secretly stalking them from the very beginning. This entity was completely hidden away from Emily's radar network, hidden from Murkrow's keen aerial scouting, hidden from Kadabra's sharp psychic senses, and entirely masked from Koffing's focus.
The assassin lurking in the dark was a level 36, Gold-Potential wild Golbat.
Utilizing its immensely high base speed and maximized speed IV, the predatory bat launched itself through the twilight like a literal needle in the sky. It didn't blitz toward the floating Koffing. It aimed its lethal velocity straight at the throat of the defenseless girl.
Before either of them could even register a shadow moving, the wild Golbat blitzed right past Angel's neck, its razor-sharp wing slicing clean across her throat.
A thin, dark red line instantly opened on her pale skin. Blood came dripping rapidly out of the wound, blood spilling past her lips as her breath caught in a wet, choked gasp. Right in front of Poopie's wide eyes, her delicate arms lost their tension, her body collapsing onto her knees before finally dropping face-first onto the cold cavern ground.
Who could have known those would be her last words?
In that single, silent frame, Koffing's entire reality completely shattered.
Today, his two ultimate nightmares had happened back-to-back. Odin's line was dead, and he had just watched his goddess get slaughtered right in front of his face. His entire world crumbled into ash before his eyes.
Something clicked inside his brain. A final, irreversible switch flipped down.
All the burning, catastrophic anger he had been forcefully suppressing, all the primal rage and pure madness spiraling out of control, violently surged to the surface. The immense wave of negativity tore right through the door of his restraint, breaking down his mental barriers and setting his feral instincts completely free. It wanted out now.
And right at that catastrophic moment of collapse, a very familiar, cocky voice echoed loud and clear straight through his mind. It was Odin's voice, dropping a single, final release word into his consciousness.
"Kill."
He didn't know if it was his imaginations or if it was real... but that word was all he wished to hear.
Koffing went completely berserk.
His eyes turned entirely, milk-white, his pupils vanishing as the raw kinetic energy of his life force, detonated outward. He opened his jaws and let out a horrifying, unnatural roar that sounded like a literal shriek from hell—a deafening banshee's wail that howled like a rabid, mad dog through the entire mountain, shaking the stone walls to their absolute foundations.