The second man looked quizzically at his Typhlosion sidekick, who himself was looking cross-eyed at the suction cup-tipped Nerf dart that stuck to his snout. Meanwhile the first man, a tall affair with a flowing black trench coat and sharp eyes the color of pitch, grinned broadly as the Typhlosion reached up and pulled the foam dart off and threw it to the side.
"Then what the hell was the point of doing it in the first place!" the second man, a youth naught but around the age of thirteen, exclaimed.
"Ah, Young Hero... The question is not why, but why not. If you were as Evil a Genius as I am, you would know that," the man called Evil Genius taunted the one called Young Hero, spinning the Nerf Nite Finder pistol that he held before bringing it to bear on Young. Cackling evilly, Evil bended his head back and yelled, "Not like it matters now! You'll all be dead! Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead!"
Young raised an eyebrow. "What're you gonna' do, drown us in foam?"
Glaring at Young, Evil tossed the pistol aside, pulling his trench coat open. Strapped to the inside of it were numerous weapons, but the ones he seemed most interested in were two Maverick revolvers which he pulled out, spinning them about before crossing his arms, one pointed at Young and the other at his sidekick. "I am gonna' kill you," Evil said between gritted teeth. "And then, NOTHING CAN STOP ME!"
He quickly pulled the triggers of both guns, darts flying out on a straight path for Young and the Typhlosion. Young stood there impassive, gaping at the stupidity of it all, but Typhlosion leapt out of the way of the way while letting out a cry of "master!" as he jumped into the path of the dart headed for Young.
The nameless sidekick Typhlosion winced as the dart impacted with his chest, sticking to it but otherwise causing no discernible damage. "Geeze, you shouldn't have," Young mumbled.
"LET THE SHOW BEGIN!" Evil yelled out, evidently not done yet. Raising a thumb, he hovered it dramatically over a button on the slide of the Maverick that had shot the dart now stuck to Typhlosion, before slamming the thumb down and pressing the button hard. Immediately the dart stuck to Typhlosion's chest burst into a fiery explosion, the force of the blast knocking Typhlosion back into Young and sending the two careening across the spacious chamber.
"What the hell?!" Young exclaimed as he came to a skidding stop on the floor, pushing Typhlosion off him and scrambling to his feet. "Whose great idea was loading a Nerf dart with explosives?!"
"Aren't you...going to be worried about me...master?" Typhlosion asked amid coughs as he lay on the floor, thrashing in pain.
"Oh, you'll be fine," Young glared at his sidekick. "Pokémon are immune to crippling injuries like that, remember? Your kind can only faint."
Typhlosion blinked and glanced at his chest, noticing that other than a patch of black, singed fur, there was no sign of the explosion and he seemed completely fine. No gaping, bloody hole through his chest like one would think would happen, at least. "Well, that is convenient, isn't it?" he said as he climbed to his feet, brushing some ash off his chest.
"CURSE YOU!" Evil screamed, trying to bring himself under control again. Panting heavily, he dropped the two Mavericks from his hands and glared at Young and Typhlosion out of the corner of his eyes. "Fine then, if that's the way you wanna play, I won't hold back."
Evil reached beneath his coat, pulling out something that resembled a cross between a pistol and a sword. As he held it out, its blade flipped back over the top of the barrel, allowing Evil to hold and use the weapon like a normal gun. Young grinned and held out his own hand, a shining light emanating from his fist. The light expanded, and eventually materialized into his own combination gun and sword, which he held pointed at Evil with the blade flipped down over the front of the barrel. "Neither will I. This will be the end, Evil. I vow that this day, your evilness will come to a halt!" Young suddenly ran at Evil, holding his gunsword out at his side as he let out a ferocious battle scream.
"I'm afraid you're mistaken!" Evil cackled, firing off a trio of shots from his own gunsword.
Deftly Young swung his own weapon about, knocking the bullets out of midair as he charged. Breaking through Evil's barrage of bullets, Young leapt into the air and swung his gunsword down at Evil. Evil quickly flipped his weapon's blade back into position and parried the blow, overpowering Young and knocking the teenager through the air slightly. Young was able to land on his feet however, skidding along the ground until he came to a stop, converting his gunsword into a pistol and firing off a few shots of his own at Evil while he regained his balance.
"Master, let me help!" Typhlosion yelled as Young leapt back at Evil again, the two of them facing off in a fierce duel with their gunswords.
"No, stay back!" Young yelled as he blocked a blow of Evil's, holding the grip of his gunsword tightly with both hands. "This is our fight, we will settle this ourselves!"
"But...master! What's the point of me being here if I don't help?!" Typhlosion exclaimed.
Seeing his chance Young took a swing at Evil, however the older man was too fast and quickly stepped out of the way of Young's blade. Realizing that now he was open, Young stepped back out of his attack and quickly parried Evil's attack. "Because you're my sidekick!" Young shouted. "I'm required to have one, ya know. It's part of being a hero!"
"But...that's so stupid!" Typhlosion whined.
"Oh, just shut up already and let me fight here!" Young suddenly spun around, flipping down his gunsword's blade and firing off a shot directly at his own Typhlosion.
Typhlosion screeched as the shot knocked him backwards, however of course due to the inability of Pokémon to receive fatally crippling damage, was again completely uninjured and merely shaken up. "You shot me!" Typhlosion screamed.
"Yeah? And? You're fine; just stay out of the way here!" Young continued to fight Evil in a blur of sword slashes, even while managing to talk to his mouthy sidekick at the same time.
"But...you
shot me! I thought we were friends!"
"ENOUGH!"
Evil suddenly jumped backwards, firing off a well aimed shot that knocked Young's gunsword right out of his hand. "Your babbling is sickening! Disgusting! Since you apparently have no desire to shut up and every time either of you open your mouth I can feel my brain cells dropping dead, I shall just move to the next phase as is! Sayonara!"
Before either Young or Typhlosion could react, the room suddenly began to shake and fall apart around them, the platform Evil stood on hovering up and rising through the collapsing roof. "Quick, we need to get out of here!" Young said, stating the obvious. Not having anything to argue about now, the two partners turned tail and ran out of Evil's secret base as fast as they could, managing to keep one step ahead of the collapsing rock and metal at all times. As they reached the building's entry, small explosions began to go off throughout the walls. Typhlosion let out a howl as he leaped at Young, grabbing him in his arms and using his momentum to send the two of them flying out the door, just as the entire building behind them erupted into a huge, brilliant fireball.
The two heroes stood up unscathed, Typhlosion's invulnerability protecting Young from any harm. The boy glared at the flaming ruins before turning around. "Come on, we need to hurry. I've got just the weapons we need for this."
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Evil stood on his small, hovering platform far above the ruins of his previous secret base. Smirking, he mentally controlled the platform to spin around and speed off at high speeds off into the distance. Before long a collection of small buildings with a suspiciously empty patch of ground between them all came into view, a towering city barely visible on the horizon. "Begin the diversion," Evil spoke into a headset he wore. Without any confirmation needed, Evil watched as the ground opened up beneath him, the tip of a missile rising up out of the hole in the ground and into the air.
"You know you can't get away with this!" A voice suddenly drifted through the air. Evil turned his platform around and looked quizzically at the two machines flying at him. As they got closer Evil realized amusedly that they were none other than a pair of giant mecha, one modeled after Young and the other after his Typhlosion sidekick.
"You're very persistent, you know that?" Evil said, his voice amplified through speakers positioned around his platform.
"Says the one who's not even protected!" Young shouted, gripping the controls inside his mecha tightly. Stopping suddenly, platforms over his chest opened up and the tips of several small missiles poked out. "Mega Missile Barrage, launch!" Young shouted as all the missiles launched at once, twisting and arcing pointlessly through the air as they bared down on Evil, who merely stood on his tiny platform and smirked.
Just as it seemed that Evil would finally be vanquished, a barrier appeared around the platform, all of Young's missiles impacting with the barrier and exploding harmlessly around Evil, his guts unfortunately remaining fully within his own body instead of smeared over the ground below as Young had hoped would happen.
"Bah, that won't stop me!" Young shouted, the missile panels closing as he jetted off towards Evil, his mecha's right arm held out to the side as he flew. The arm suddenly split open and a large blade popped out of it like it was a giant switchblade, the arm snapping closed again as Young swiped at Evil's small floating platform. Wordlessly Evil easily managed to dodge out of the way of the large and consequentially much slower sword, all the while the missile below going through its usual launch preparations.
Noticing the missile, Typhlosion tried to get Young's attention. "Master, that missile, it's—"
"QUIET!" Young yelled, interrupting Typhlosion. On his free arm two gun barrels folded forward, which he promptly shot Typhlosion's mecha with.
While Typhlosion's mecha did not have the same invulnerability that Typhlosion himself did, the shots, fired off blindly due to Young's persistence with keeping his focus on Evil, merely grazed by one of the mecha's legs and caused no serious harm. Pissed at his master yet again, Typhlosion decided that he could be a hero just as much as Young was and not just a sidekick. "Fine then, I'll stop it myself!"
Sirens blaring, the missile suddenly launched, arcing towards the city. Young was too preoccupied to notice of course, but Typhlosion shot off after the missile, straining his mecha to its limit. Somehow managing to pass up the missile, he turned around and held out both arms, intending to catch and divert the missile's flight. It was at that point that Young finally noticed what his sidekick was trying to do, breaking away from Evil as he flew towards where Typhlosion stood in midair with his mecha's arms outstretched. However, all Young could manage to do was yell out, "No, you idiot! That won't work!"
Typhlosion had no time to react as the missile collided with his mecha's arms, easily crumpling and shattering them as if they were made out of aluminum. The missile's tip then collided with the chest of the giant Typhlosion mecha, right about where the cockpit was. The warhead immediately detonated upon contact with the mecha's torso, missile and mecha alike blowing up in a shower of shrapnel that rained over the ground far below. Amid the shrapnel, Young could barely make out the limp shape of Typhlosion himself falling downwards, fainted but otherwise okay thanks to his inherent invulnerability. Wondering for a moment whether that invulnerability extended to giant drops, Young merely shrugged and turned back around.
"So!" Young shouted. "It may not have been such a smooth save, but it worked anyways and the city is unharmed! All part of our strategy to defeat your evilness!" Young announced triumphantly.
"But...he acted on his own..." Evil pointed out.
"SHUT UP!" Young fired off a few shots at Evil, which like every other one merely glanced off his shielding.
"Heh..." Evil grinned and closed his eyes. "It does not matter anyways. That missile, it was merely a decoy. Keeping you distracted just long enough so that the final stage of my plans could come together!" Evil raised a finger and pointed high into the sky. "At this moment, all throughout the charted sectors of space, satellites are moving into position to execute the final stage and nothing can stop them now. NOTHING!"
Young gasped as he stared up at the sky, not as if he could actually see anything. "How devious and unexpected..." he whispered.
Evil carried on with his soliloquy, explaining in great detail the final steps of his great plan. "Each satellite, on my command, will fire a specialized warhead into the core of the planet or star it has been assigned to. Upon reaching the very center of the planet or star's mass, the warhead will detonate and cause a destabilization of the target's gravity field, ultimately resulting in its implosion and formation of a black hole. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! Because the multiple black holes will be so close to each other in a celestial sense, they should merge together to form an even bigger black hole that will ultimately, in time, DESTROY THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!"
"You...you're crazy!" Young shouted, realizing that Evil had actually outsmarted him this time.
"I know," Evil grinned sadistically. "Now, let the end of the universe begin!"
Synchronized almost perfectly, hundreds of satellites fired off hundreds of similar warheads all at once through the regions of space that humanity had discovered. Those satellites positioned around stars had it easy, their warheads designed to withstand the intense heat but without any need to penetrate through solid crust or magma. When it came to planets such as Earth, however, the warhead was designed with a powerful drill at its tip that bore away at the planet as it traveled towards its destination.
On Earth, Young could only watch on horror as a large object fell out of space, right on top of where his Typhlosion sidekick had fallen minutes before. The drill powered up and began eating through the Earth, leaving behind a large tunnel in its wake. Not long after the warhead had begun drilling into the planet, lava began to erupt from the tunnel, blanketing the landscape. Watching as Young's mecha fell out of the sky and into the lava, its pilot having fainted out of shock, Evil gave one last final, evil laugh as the warhead drilled deeper into the planet, before even he was taken down by the onslaught of lava.
Throughout the galaxy, the results of Evil Genius' ultimate plan were beginning to show. Warheads had begun to detonate, planets and stars alike collapsing into themselves as black holes formed. One by one, the Sun and each of the eight planets in our very own solar system—plus the dwarf planets, of course—caved in, leaving behind only empty masses of infinitely dense space.
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"Uh...sir? We have a problem, sir."
Between dimensions, within the plane known as the Ethereal Realm, a small, pink, cat-like creature nervously stuck its head through a large door. The creature was attempting to get the attention of the much larger creature that rested within the room. Slowly the creature stood up on its four gold-hoofed legs, a white mane billowing about behind its head despite there being no wind. As it stood, a golden ring shaped like a split circle with four spokes appeared around the creature's belly, seeming to radiate light throughout the room. "What is it, Mew?" it asked in a bellowing voice.
"Well, uh, it seems that we have had a catastrophic failure, sir Arceus..."
Instantly the room seemed to disappear, replaced by a view as if the gods were looking down on the universe from far above. What on Earth would have been hundreds of years passed in the blink of an eye for Arceus and Mew as they stared down at the Milky Way galaxy, watching as a large black hole formed out of the numerous smaller black holes that had erupted throughout the galaxy. The large black hole began to expand even more, intent on devouring all of the galaxy and then some. Arceus sighed as he sped time up, the black hole rapidly expanding until the entire galaxy gave in to it..
"Who did this?" Arceus asked.
"It was a human, sir. On the planet called Earth," Mew answered obediently.
"Earth... Why is it always Earth?" Arceus mumbled.
The black hole, now the size of an entire galaxy, was starting to have a visible effect on the entire fabric of space, all the galaxies in the universe slipping closer together as they were slowly dragged inwards by the gravitational field of the black hole that had used to be the Milky Way galaxy. Impassively, Arceus raised an eyebrow as the first small galaxy was sucked into the black hole, followed by several others after it. Having seen enough, Arceus sighed and stopped time completely, the movements of galaxies instantly stopping.
"I guess this means I have work to get to..." Arceus grumbled, shaking his head. "Yet again..."
"Sir, if I may, humanity on Earth has managed to destroy not only itself but the entire universe countless times by now. May I suggest not merely recreating everything as it was, but instead adjusting creation so as to prevent such incidents in the future?" Mew spoke up boldly.
"Hmm..." Arceus considered the idea thoughtfully. "What do you propose be changed?"
"Well, I have compiled this list here, sir." Reaching between dimensions, Mew pulled out a large scroll which it handed to Arceus, floating over closer to him. Arceus grabbed the scroll in a ghostly, ethereal arm and used another equally ethereal arm to open it, reading over what Mew had written on it.
"No explosions, no evil, no foam, no swords, no guns, no technology..." Arceus read aloud, carrying on as he read over the lengthy list. Coming to its end, Arceus set the scroll aside as its ghostly arms disappeared. "Well, that is quite a list. I don't know if I can follow all of it..."
"Perhaps sir could try out just a few of the suggestions?" Mew suggested, not wanting the entire list to go to waste.
"Perhaps... Hmm, I know." Arceus closed its eyes and concentrated, time again starting but at a much accelerated rate, all of the thousands of galaxies in the universe below disappearing into the black hole in a bright burst of light and sound. As the light faded, Mew looked down and saw that the black hole had disappeared, the beginnings of a new universe appearing in its place and rapidly spreading out throughout the empty cosmos.
"So then, sir, what are you doing different?" Mew asked as it watched the new universe take shape below them.
"I think this time, I'll see how Earth does without Pokémon. That should stir them up quite a bit," Arceus answered, his thousands of ghostly arms working on shaping individual planets.
Mew laughed. "Good one, sir. That won't be any protection against them wiping themselves out though; they'll still manage to find a way and reason."
"Of course," Arceus shrugged. "Might as well go get the bets started now."
Mew nodded and slipped out of view, back into the realm between the dimensions. Meanwhile Arceus continued to work on shaping the universe, paying particular attention to one specific, all too familiar blue, green, brown, and white planet in the galaxy that would, in time, come to be known as the Milky Way once again.
Arceus smiled as he finished, withdrawing his arms from across the universe. "Well then, let us start the cycle again and see where we end up this time."
The End
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Whee, it's done! Yay. All rejoice. Now, when're we doing the next one? >:D