Chapter 97: Final
Chapter Ninety-Seven: Finale
“I disagree!”
A pair of massive hands slammed hard onto the wooden table. The water in the glass trembled violently, spilling a few drops over the rim.
“This mission concerns a plan the organization has been laying for decades. How can we let irrelevant outsiders get involved?”
“If anything goes wrong, who can bear the responsibility?”
The burly man shot to his feet, venting his fury in the crowded meeting room.
“Calm down, calm down.”
“Don’t be hasty. The decision hasn’t even been made yet.”
At the other end of the table, a young man with handsome features spoke in a gentle, placating tone.
“Oh?”
“Lord Burke has quite the air of authority.”
“Don’t tell me you really think that because you took Guland Island, you’ve become someone important?”
From the side, a bitter, sneering voice drifted out with a thick note of mockery.
“Sos!”
“The last matter in Sinnoh hasn’t even been settled with you, and you still dare to jump in on your own?”
Raging fury flared in the burly man’s eyes. He let out a roar and raised his thick, muscular arm toward the direction of the voice.
“What’s the matter?”
“For the greater good of the organization, what do the lives of a handful of people amount to?”
“It’s you, Lord Burke—after all these years, how have you not developed a single brain cell?”
“Don’t tell me all the nourishment went into those two ounces of muscle of yours?”
Sos sneered from the corner. In his narrow, reptile-like eyes, a taunting light flickered.
“You...”
The chair was dragged back with a sharp scrape.
In a surge of anger, Burke clenched his palm, broad as a fan, and looked ready to charge straight at Sos.
An intense internal conflict was about to erupt.
Tap. Tap.
Suddenly, a hand thin as a dead branch knocked on the tabletop.
The sound was not loud, yet under some strange force it reached the ears of everyone in the meeting room with perfect clarity.
“Enough.”
The slow, rasping voice sounded like sandpaper dragged across wood, dry and icy in equal measure.
“Deal with your personal quarrels elsewhere.”
It was a shriveled old man with snow-white hair. His wrinkled face was set with a pair of deep, wise eyes.
Within those dim, clouded pupils, a savage glint would occasionally flash.
Like a pet dog that had just been chastised by its master, Burke immediately put away his earlier fury.
He hunched his neck and sat back down indignantly, even looking somewhat docile.
In the shadowy corner, Sos no longer dared to say anything.
He merely lowered his head, burying the darkness in his gaze beneath the shadows.
The meeting room fell into an eerie silence.
“Cough, cough.”
Suddenly, a dry cough sounded through the room.
Including the old man from before, everyone turned to look at the middle-aged man seated at the head of the table.
His shoulder-length red hair, vivid as molten lava, had been combed neatly back. A pair of old-fashioned glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, hiding those dark red pupils that seemed to burn with fierce flames behind thick lenses.
“In any case... this matter is settled.”
His solemn voice echoed through the silent room.
Lifting a hand to straighten his somewhat disordered sleeve, the red-haired man interlaced his fingers and placed both hands on the table.
“The hand of Dark Star has reached too far.”
“Only by giving them a lesson will they understand their place.”
“And besides...”
A trace of madness suddenly appeared on the red-haired man’s otherwise stern face.
“The Earth Lord has quite the temper when woken up.”
...
Beneath a star-filled night sky, an iron-made beast crouched within the city.
In Silvercrest City Stadium, the duel between Lu Yun and Scizor had already reached its fiercest stage.
Bang! Bang!
In the air, immense powers crashed against each other without restraint. Waves of invisible force swept across the field.
To the spectators watching, they could only make out two blurred figures, one gold and one red, like a pair of magnets drawn together in midair, colliding, separating, and colliding again.
Brilliant golden electricity spilled in all directions, deeply entwined with the searing crimson metal.
Boom—
After a violent exchange, both sides tacitly returned to the front of their respective trainers and paused, no longer pressing forward, but taking a brief rest.
“Huff... huff...”
Lu Yun was wrapped in dense golden electricity, breathing heavily.
Across his pale chest were several hideous wounds.
After temporary treatment, the cuts no longer bled, but the pain remained intense.
Grinding his teeth, Lu Yun looked toward the Scizor opposite him.
Clearly, the other side was not having an easy time either.
The crimson metal shell, after such a long and high-intensity battle, now looked as though it might melt at any moment, with red-yellow liquid like lava seeping from it.
On its back, only a single pair of insect wings remained from the silvery foil-like sheen they had once possessed.
Under their rapid vibration, they sounded like a steam engine, venting great clouds of scalding white mist to help cool the temperature within, which was close to exploding.
Scizor slowly lowered the two claws at its sides, both of them already blackened with scorch marks.
Behind it, Noen stood quietly.
His gaze was heavy as he stared intently at the Ampharos ahead.
“This Ampharos...”
“Why is it so strong?”
“It only just evolved, and yet it can fight the Mega-Evolved Scizor to a standstill.”
Glancing at the Scizor before him, now clearly nearing its limit, Noen thought anxiously, “The strain is still too great.”
“Has ten minutes already been the limit?”
Suddenly, a fierce look flashed across his refined face.
“We can’t drag this out any longer!”
Having made up his mind, Noen steadied himself and entered the shared mental link between the two of them.
“It’s time to decide the winner, Scizor!”
“Roar!!!”
The response was Scizor’s battle-hungry roar.
Its conical, spear-sharp legs suddenly struck the ground and surged forward.
Step by step, faster and faster.
A howling gale swept past its body. Crimson energy overflowed from its metal frame.
Like a red meteor racing across the ground, Scizor gathered every last ounce of power in its body and turned it into its most terrifying finishing strike.
“Giga Impact!”
Zzzzt—
“So this is the end...”
Brilliant golden electricity erupted through the void. Lu Yun’s eyes were calm and steady.
“Then I’ll show you.”
“My trump card.”
Dense electrical current flowed over Lu Yun’s orange body like liquid plasma.
It condensed, solidified,
and became a dazzling suit of radiant electric armor.
After evolving into Ampharos, the electric armor was finally brought forth by Lu Yun in its most perfect form.
Explosive power burst from every muscle. The vast magnetic field became the finest of rifling grooves,
spinning, grinding,
until sparks burst like fireworks and the air cried out in agony.
Lu Yun was like a golden bullet, tearing the air ahead of him apart and leaving a brilliant trail of electric light in his wake.
“Wild Charge!”
Buzz—
Crimson and gold interwove.
Molten iron and thunder collided.
On the dark horizon,
a light like dawn slowly rose.