Chapter 319: Giratina's Move Is Just Way Too Dirty — Finders Keepers
Giratina offered no answer to Mammon's question.
How would it know why Shadow Lugia had ended up warped by the Dread Plate like this — and honestly, it didn't much care either.
"Eh, never mind. Doesn't matter."
Mammon couldn't come up with an answer, so he simply let it go — the priority right now was bringing Shadow Lugia down.
"Screeeee—!"
Right on cue, Shadow Lugia's patience finally snapped, its massive purple-black wings beating violently.
Dark Storm!
Black gales howled out, sweeping across the sky. The raging black wind roared like wailing demons, blotting out the entire sky, genuinely unnerving to witness.
But this attack was completely useless against Origin Forme Giratina.
"Shadow Force."
Giratina's dragon eyes turned cold and violent as its massive form surged forward, its entire body shifting between solid and intangible.
The instant the Dark Storm hit, Giratina had already gone fully intangible.
Every bit of the black wind passed clean through Giratina's "body," not affecting it in the slightest.
No matter how powerful an attack is, if it can't land, it's functionally useless.
And Giratina's Shadow Force was exactly that kind of broken move.
Still intangible, Giratina closed the distance to Shadow Lugia in an instant and rematerialized.
Shadow Lugia let out a furious shriek, black energy condensing and pulsing in front of its mouth.
Dark Pulse!
The black wave shot out again, straight at where it saw Giratina — but just as it was about to land, the Dark Pulse passed straight through Giratina's intangible form once more.
THOOM!
The very next instant, Giratina slammed brutally into Shadow Lugia's chest, knocking it back a fair distance.
A Ghost-type Shadow Force!
Shadow Lugia let out a pained shriek — Origin Giratina's attack hit hard. Ghost-type Shadow Force wasn't especially effective against Shadow Lugia typing-wise, but it still hurt plenty.
Steadying itself, Shadow Lugia's blood-red eyes blazed with even more fury and madness from the pain, its massive right wing lighting up with dark energy as it swung it viciously at Giratina.
Dark-type Retaliate!
But the moment it landed the hit, Giratina's serpentine body slid smoothly sideways, gliding away like a ghost.
Shadow Lugia's Retaliate counter came in blazingly fast — but Giratina's body had already turned semi-transparent again.
Retaliate connected with nothing but empty air!
"Thunder!"
The next instant, Giratina rematerialized fully, golden lightning crackling across its body.
KRAKOOM!
A bolt of lightning cracked down, slamming heavily into Shadow Lugia.
Shadow Lugia let out an agonized shriek as the electricity crackled and ate into its body — it hurt, badly.
"Judging by that reaction, looks like it's Flying/Dark," Mammon said, narrowing his eyes slightly.
Clearly, that Thunder had done serious damage to Shadow Lugia — a sign of a super-effective hit.
Flying/Dark typing — same combination as Yveltal.
The Thunder attack exploded violently, sending shockwaves rippling outward.
"Screeeee!!"
But an even sharper shriek rang out from Shadow Lugia the very next second, black vortexes spinning wildly as a beam of light sliced toward Giratina.
Dark-type Dark Void — no wait, a dark vortex attack!
Still useless.
Giratina didn't even bother dodging — it flew straight into the incoming dark vortex.
The attack passed straight through Giratina's Shadow Force state once more, only turning solid again once it closed the distance to Shadow Lugia, slamming into it hard.
From there, the rest of the fight settled into basically the same loop, over and over.
Shadow Lugia was losing its mind. Its blood-red eyes brimmed with pure resentment and fury.
Can't hit it! Can't hit it!! STILL can't hit it!!!
How was it even supposed to fight this thing?!
"That move of Giratina's is just way too dirty," Primal Kyogre remarked, watching the fight unfold alongside them.
Only allowed to hit others, never allowed to get hit yourself — that's basically the deal here, isn't it?
Primal Kyogre imagined itself in Shadow Lugia's position for a second — no matter what you threw at the enemy, nothing landed, yet you had absolutely no way to fight back. That really would drive you insane.
"But it's pretty entertaining, don't you think?" Mammon's grin was completely unrestrained.
He was thoroughly satisfied with Giratina's performance. Shadow Lugia really was genuinely strong — but Origin Giratina was even stronger, and on top of that, it had a move as broken as Shadow Force in its back pocket.
Just phase through and casually stroll right up next to your opponent, no pressure at all.
There were technically ways to counter it, sure — but there was no chance a Shadow Lugia whose mind had already been thoroughly wrecked was going to figure any of that out right now.
It had lost all ability to stay calm at this point — you could honestly call it fully feral.
Black storms kept venting outward in every direction, nonstop, pure rage and violence pouring out of it.
Good thing they were up in the air over open ocean — otherwise this whole region would've been in serious trouble.
Watching Shadow Lugia in this deranged state, Giratina didn't rush to press the attack, instead simply watching quietly as Shadow Lugia raged itself out.
Once Shadow Lugia's frenzy finally burned itself down, a single Thunder strike landed clean.
Shadow Lugia finally couldn't hold on any longer, its body plummeting uncontrollably and crashing into the sea below.
Even with an exceptionally sturdy constitution, taking hit after hit with nothing landing in return would eventually wear anything down.
Mammon, commanding Giratina in battle for the first time, found himself sinking into thought.
How to put it — genuinely entertaining, but somehow also strangely... underwhelming?
Giratina was extremely strong, and armed with a move that was basically broken, which meant this entire fight had gone by without the slightest pressure.
Granted, a big factor in that was that this particular Shadow Lugia, its mind already wrecked by malice, simply couldn't calm down and think straight. Otherwise the fight surely wouldn't have gone this smoothly.
But as far as Mammon could tell, the outcome would never have changed regardless — Origin Giratina was unquestionably stronger than Shadow Lugia to begin with, and he'd been calling the shots on top of that.
With the battle over, Mammon released Reshiram and hopped onto its back.
"Kyogre, go fish Lugia out."
Primal Kyogre dove headfirst into the ocean.
No way around it — Shadow Lugia had gone down into the sea, and there was no way he was just going to let it go now. Not a chance — the whole point of coming to the Whirl Islands in the first place had been Shadow Lugia.
Before long, Primal Kyogre had used the seawater to sweep the unconscious Shadow Lugia onto the nearest island.
Sitting atop Reshiram, Mammon looked down at Shadow Lugia below, momentarily unsure whether now was the time to throw a Poké Ball.
"You intend to catch it?"
Giratina's low, hoarse telepathic voice came through.
"That's right. I've taken a liking to it."
"That's not a good choice. It's been affected too severely by the Plate's power — its very nature has been altered."
Giratina's red dragon eyes stayed fixed on Shadow Lugia. The Dread Plate's power had thoroughly saturated this Lugia's entire body.
"If it can't recover its own consciousness, I'd recommend you give up on it."
The implication being — if Shadow Lugia could recover its own mind, catching it was fine. But if not, then its consciousness had already been completely overwritten by the Dread Plate's influence, and there was likely no bringing it back.
That was simply how domineering the Plates' power was.
"I know." Mammon nodded — he certainly wasn't about to treat his own safety as some kind of joke.
Mammon didn't rush to throw a Poké Ball, instead waiting a while.
It didn't take long before Shadow Lugia stirred awake, its eyes still a wash of blood-red, but this time without that spine-chilling glint behind them.
Noticing that, Mammon took it as a good sign.
Shadow Lugia struggled to lift its head, its vision filling with Giratina, Kyogre, Reshiram, and the human boy perched on Reshiram's back.
A flicker of confusion surfaced in Shadow Lugia's blood-red eyes.
"You're finally awake."
Mammon spoke first.
Shadow Lugia tried to rise, but its weakened body clearly wasn't up to the task yet.
What... happened to me?
"Those wounds on you are from us. You went berserk a little while ago — do you remember any of it?" Mammon said, perfectly blunt about it.
"..."
Shadow Lugia fell silent, doing its best to piece together its recent memory. Scattered fragments slowly came back to it.
"Thank you, human."
Shadow Lugia's low, hoarse telepathic voice sounded out, weak but sincere.
"Looks like your mind's cleared up. Guess a good beatdown did the trick," Mammon joked at the sound of that.
"..." Shadow Lugia let out a bitter laugh.
"How did you end up like this?"
"I dove down beneath the great waterfall to sleep, once — and the whole time, some kind of power kept seeping into my body. By the time I noticed, it was already too late," Shadow Lugia answered.
"That power gradually changed my body, and it started affecting my mind and consciousness too. All I could do was seal myself away to try to resist it — but even that didn't work."
Shadow Lugia sighed. It genuinely had no idea what to do anymore.
The battle just now had left it badly wounded, which had — at least for now — restored its clarity of mind. But who knew whether the influence would keep creeping back afterward?
"I see." Mammon looked thoughtful.
"In that case, how about you come along with me for now? Your current condition is pretty unusual — you could help me out in battle when I need it, and in exchange, I can step in and stop you if your mind starts slipping again."
Mammon proposed this — genuinely, a win-win arrangement.
"That's..." Shadow Lugia hesitated for a moment.
"Then I'll have to trouble you, human."
Shadow Lugia agreed regardless. After all, it didn't want to just give up on itself entirely — it still had a mate and children waiting for it.
"Alright. Let's keep an eye on things for now — if your condition shows signs of getting worse, I'll figure out a way to help you with that too, down the road," Mammon told Shadow Lugia.
And the "way" he had in mind, naturally, meant going to see Arceus. At the end of the day, Shadow Lugia's problem traced straight back to the Dread Plate — which made going to see the Alpaca exactly the right call.
"Also, my name's Mammon."
"Alright, Mammon. Thank you."
Shadow Lugia was genuinely grateful. This human... was a good one!
Watching Shadow Lugia, Mammon couldn't help but break into a sunny grin. Got Shadow Lugia!
Surprisingly easy, all things considered — not just the fight, but the whole persuasion process too.
Turned out that for Legendary Pokémon in special circumstances like Shadow Lugia, once you actually beat them, winning their loyalty afterward was genuinely simple.
"Honestly, no need to thank me. Your kids are actually staying with a friend of mine right now, you know," Mammon said with a smile.
"Huh?" Shadow Lugia startled.
"Actually, I came here a few months back already — ran into your mate at the time, and then..."
Mammon pulled out some Little Sacred Ash to help restore Shadow Lugia's strength, filling it in on what had happened.
Shadow Lugia let out another sigh at that — in its current, hideous state, it genuinely had no idea how it was supposed to face Mama Lugia and its children.
(Yeah — as far as Shadow Lugia was concerned, this current form of its was just plain ugly.)
Shadow Lugia felt thoroughly melancholy about the whole thing.
Mammon, naturally, had no idea what was going through Shadow Lugia's head — his own mind right now was completely occupied by one single thought.
The Dread Plate!!
The Dread Plate was a different situation entirely from the Jewel of Life. The Jewel of Life had been something Arceus deliberately left behind for Michina, so Mammon hadn't felt right about just taking it — otherwise even the Alpaca would've had legitimate grounds to come after him over it.
But the Dread Plate was different. Sure, he had no idea how the thing had ended up here in the first place — but honestly, he didn't much care about that part.
There was only one thing he was sure of.
Finders keepers, baby!
(End of chapter)
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