Paragon

Remnants of the Great War [23]

PARAGON

Remnants of the Great War Arc [23]

Chapter 32 : The Vault of Secrets

___

Kalos Region - Shalour City

Zinnia grit her teeth as she slid back, clutching her arm. She pulled her hand away, revealing her palm to be sticky and red with blood. Blood oozed from the gash on her arm, and she glared at her assailants, who stood before her in an intimidating crescent, encircling her. There were five of them, slowly advancing toward her in their hooded cloaks.

She felt her hand brush against the cold metal of the warehouse wall behind her and cursed internally. She was outside, but the warehouses on Shalour's coastline were packed together, and the rusted roofs above blotted out the sunlight.

The enemy's Weavile licked her blood off its claws as it prowled around her. To her left stood a Thievul and a Magcargo, and to her right, an Audino and a Manectric.

Zinnia slowed her breathing and carefully assessed the situation. This outcome wasn't entirely unexpected. After N had told her where the Cyllage entrance was located, Zinnia had narrowed her search down to Shalour's own warehouse district. Sure enough, Aster had sensed a peculiar concentration of anxiety coming from an administrative building at the district's edge. After a night of reconnaissance, she'd spotted a pair of hooded figures slinking around and tailed them there. It only took a couple more nights of poking around to find the secret entrance to the tunnel, hidden in the lobby of the building beneath a supply closet. Aster hadn't sensed any shadows, yet shortly after getting off the phone with N, they had appeared. She'd thought camping out near the entrance right under their noses would've provided a certain level of protection, but it seemed even playing the part of some homeless vagrant hadn't shielded her from their notice.

Somehow, they'd identified her as a threat.

"Not even gonna give me time to think, huh?" she grinned, wiping her mouth, and the Weavile grinned back, frost crackling across its forearm threateningly. Zinnia's hand drifted down to her belt and she pulled a pokéball off. Cocky bastards, she thought, realizing they'd made no move to stop her. Think you can kill the Almighty Zinnia with a mere five man advantage? She thumbed the release on her pokéball. "Dragon Darts!" she roared.

Dragapult poured out of his pokéball with a sinister smirk, jade Dreepy peeking out of the holes on its horns. Faster than the eye could see, the Dreepy shot out in volleys of four, jade dragon energy streaking through the air with a harsh screech. The concrete floor splintered and blew apart as volley after volley fired indiscriminately at all five opponents before them. A dusty haze rose up from the carnage, obscuring Zinnia's view, but when it faded, she saw the Audino on her right with its arms raised, eyes glowing to power a wide Protect.

Dragapult didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that his attack hadn't done anything, and similarly, the grin hadn't left Zinnia's face either. "Drakloak Cannon," she commanded.

A pair of Dreepy slithered out of Dragapult's horn and mashed themselves together in a haze of ghostly mist. More Dreepy emptied out, adding themselves to the pulsating cloud above Dragapult's head, and as they cast themselves into the infernal mix, the cloud began to stretch into a larger form, darkening into a black-horned Drakloak. Its body was still unformed and incorporeal, but like its master, it smirked, then split apart and squirreled away into all four of the holes on Dragapult's horns. Within each hole, a yellow eye opened, glittering with malice.

Beneath their hoods, Zinnia could see her assailants frown, and Weavile and Manectric narrowed their eyes behind the shield, their instincts aroused.

Dragapult let out a high-pitched chortle, then released the attack. Four golden beams of hellish energy blasted forward in an instant like a laser with a tremendous crack. The cannon barrage splashed against the Protect and tore through it instantly, piercing straight through, and carving across Audino's body in a savage blitz. Audino cried out in pain, but its voice was quickly cut off as the beam slashed across its face, silencing it, and it warbled back in defeat. Yellow flames erupted across the ground around the hooded figures and they stumbled back, unnerved. One of them recalled the defeated Audino and glared at Zinnia, squeezing the pokéball of his defeated partner so hard its hinges creaked.