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Crescendo was wrapped in a protective circle around Pluto and Zero, shielding them from the occasional glowing ember that flied down to their position. His tail swung slowly up and down, splashing at the water still flooding the floor though it was slowly draining away. There was only just a trickle of water coming out of the broken pipe now, its pressure and water used up.

He looked up above just in time to see Thanatos dive into the wall. He turned back down when Pluto began coughing again, and breathed another layer of Aqua Ring over the Leafeon. Pluto was weakening very fast in these conditions, they had to finish this Nightmare fast, for Pluto's as well as Zori's sake. He flicked a concerned glance over to Zero, who had sat down and closed his eyes, as if concentrating hard. Cress knew about Zero's condition with the Overheat move, and fire triggered it very easily.

Cress raised his head, cried out, solemn and low-pitched. He disliked this place, hated it so much, this place that was making everyone suffer. His heart ached for Zori, who must be terrified, for her teammates who are hoping to find her safe, and for everyone caught up in this, and possibly be the next to fall victim to this evil place.

Thanatos blindly reached around the inside of the wall, trying to find a pipe. He searched the wall on the same side as the one he found in the room at the bottom, and found the large empty steel shell that extended below. He cursed to himself; he should have broken the pipe up here instead of below, to allow the water to put out the fire above before falling down to take care of the fire below.

He darted into the next room, popping his head out of a bookshelf to examine the room. The door to this room was half-hanging off its hinges, the fire having devoured most of it. The fire hasn't reached most of this room yet, but it was starting to creep in through the open doorway.

Thanatos ducked his head back into the wall and searched around for the plumbing, finally finding a small pipe that lead him to the main one. Coming out of the wall here, he sighed when he saw that this wall was on the opposite side of the wall adjoining the burning room. Glancing around at the room, he moved back to the wall between this room and the one above Pluto's, brought his firt up, energy gathering around it, and punched right through the wall. Several attacks later, a hole the size of him opened up in the bottom of the wall, like some oversized mouse hole you see in cartoons like Tom&Jerry.

With a flick of a hand, the doorway shimmered with a layer of psychic power, the fire suddenly kept out of this room as if a solid wall stood in its path. Floating across the room, he once again slammed his fist through the wall, punching a hole not only through the wood but the steel casing of the pipe as well.

Water erupted out, right through Thanatos, and quickly flooded the room. It could not leave through the door, where the psychic Barrier kept it in, so the water left through the only opening; the hole Thanatos had cut out earlier.

Water crashed down to the floor, rushing across the room through the hole and bursting out the other side.



Chase looked up, startled to see the Vaporeon. She was half obscured by Smoke, her gray-and silver colouration invisible there, while she stood out starkly against the burning flames.

"Ma'am? Are you OK...?" He started to ask, but his voice faltered when he saw her bare her teeth and suddenly melt into a puddle of water. Did he frighten her...?

"Look out!" Morana caught a flash of the oncoming attack in her mind's eye, a picture of the future, and she grabbed Chase by the tail with her teeth and dragged him back, encompassing both of them with a layer of magical healing water, shielding them against the Muddy water attack. The Aqua Ring felt weird over both of the Fire Type's bodies, but at least it did not sting and burn as the Vaporeon's attack would have.

"Ma'am! What's wrong!?" Chase cried out, but Morana tugged on him towards the door. Her instincts were sharper than Chase's, and she knew that the Vaporeon was not to be reasoned with. She bounded out the door, half-dragging Chase with her, scrambling up a mound of burning debris.

((One more pipe down))

Celsus rotated himself in his tank, looking around at the guild's wreckage. "You've gotta be kidding me. Right after we joined, too..."
"It's another one of those illusions.. Imiti looked to the starting battle, and decided to improvise a way to help out. He found a few small pieces of rubble and used his innate psionic abilities to fling the Absol's mental copy. It didn't do much, but it helped somewhat.

As for Celsus, well, he was a Magikarp.

(-1)

(Also, my iPod doesn't like the random number thing, so I'll just arbitrarily pick 6. If that doesn't work, roll for me.)

Thanatos suddenly burst into a cloud of dark mist, which flowed backwards as if hit so hard he had disintegrated. The mist flowed back in seeming retreat, starting to clump back together to create a solid form. But stead of forming the outline of a Gengar, it came together into a huge quadrupedal creature. The Ghostly Arcanine struggled to his feet, snarling at his opponent.

Stark, Anti-Stark, and everyone else suddenly began moving away at alarming speeds, though none of them were running. In fact, most of them were still locked in battle. Soon, they were only just a speck in the distance.

Pluto gasped as the weight and support of the Milotic was ripped from him, and he staggered, his legs finally giving in and allowing him to drop hard to the ground. The proud eeveelution gritted his teeth and slowly got back onto his feet as Thanatos approached him. The Leafeon examined Thanatos's new form, recognizing it as the one he had taken when he had first died.

"We should get back to the others." Pluto rasped, looking out into the distance. The ghosty Arcanine just shook his head.

"It's no use, we'll never get there. This doesn't concern them." Thanatos growled, walking forward until he was right in front of Pluto. The Leafeon turned to stare up at his protector, and suddenly, so suddenly, felt so small, weak, and vulnerable. Thanatos's face was grim, as it often was, but his eyes...they bore into Pluto with an emotion he often imagined there. And suddenly, it was so clear. He never imagined it, he has always seen it.

Hate.

"...Ethan?" Pluto whispered fearfully, his voice devoid of its usual strength. His legs were shaking, from more than just weakness. The Arcanine Ghost bared his teeth, a low rumbling coming up from his throat.

"I am not Ethan! Ethan was a foolish, naive young man who decided to swear his soul to protect a foolish, spoiled young brat of an eevee who could barely take care of himself!" Thanatos snarled. Pluto flinched at the accusatory words, his ears dropping down low on either side of his head.

"T-that's...that's not true." He protested weakly. Thanatos snorted, shaking his head.

"Maybe not." His voice dropped, lower, more solemn. "Do you know what my oath to you really meant? Do you understand the depth of my sacrifice? I can't move on, ever. I'm cursed to walk this world for the rest of eternity, because my Oath bound me to protect you in any way I could. So when I died before you did, this was the only way, I had to trap my soul in this limbo between worlds. Do you understand the warm, the peace, the promise of Arceus's embrace that I had to leave in order to save you? Save you because you were too much of a coward to-"

"ENOUGH!" Pluto roared, the strength returning to his voice. His own eyes showed anger, deep, intense anger. "I should have been more careful in this world. Be gone, illusion!" So this entire time, the condescending tone, the impatient growling, it wasn't Thanatos at all. Just a manifestation of his fear of being hated by his best friend.

The Ghostly illusion grinned wickedly as it began to fade away, as the world around them was being ripped apart.

"Hehe, even if this is your Illusion, how could I not hate you after what you did to me? If this if your fear...it is a rational one...I damned myself for an eternity because of you..." As Thanatos fully disappeared, and Pluto himself was being pulled back to the realm of sleep, he shook his head in denial.

"No, you would never..." He mumbled, sounding so very unconvinced.