The Perfect World

Chapter 2: Snowpoint and Beyond

*Voltflare's POV*

...

I slowly stand up and look around me with a horrified expression on my face. The familiar sights from my last nightmare come sprinting back to me, complete with the equally-terrible gnawing sensation in my gut. While I seem to be in a different part of this abyssal world from before, I am definitely in the same place. My back aches in extreme pain, and it hurts to even move. The flat, conjoined island that I lie on stretches out for a few hundred feet, at which point it drops off into another void. I have a sinking feeling that this is the other side of the first void that I had fallen into in this "dream-world" the last time I had visited.

No, not again! Not this place... I begin to panic, and I will myself to avoid crumpling in terror. Then, as if to spite my fate even further, I hear a loud roar- unlike anything that has ever pierced my ears before. I freeze in shock, and a large, menacing shadow slowly appears on the desolate island in front of me.

The apparition comes with a presence that steals the color from life itself; if the purple-grey color that infects the ground under me could be called "color," the creature stole it. It's hard to describe the end result, because I didn't have much time before the shadow swiftly leapt to the same island as me, and I had to immediately redirect my full attention to it. Like a paralyzed Stantler staring its predator in the face, I watch the shadow, silently hoping that I'm not on its menu. As it draws closer, the ominous figure grows and grows, roaring all the while, until it reaches such an astronomical height that even Maxwell's Dragonite would have been short by comparison. Finally, to complete the horrid image, the terrifying creature that had previously projected itself into my vision steps, or rather, speeds through the air, out of the shadow. The menacing draconian Pokemon looms over me, and a wave of paralyzing helplessness afflicts my very core. Its red spiked wings separate in the air, clashing into a shadowy set of claws that threaten to rip me to shreds at any moment. A gleam from its eyes signals my impending doom.

Is this the end for me? Isn't there something I can do to stop this monstrous creature before it kills me?! My mind waves all concern for hunger and thirst away in lieu of survival.

The Pokemon slowly continues its approach, relishing in the fact that I am too frozen in fear to move. When the Pokemon is only a few dozen feet away, a calm, yet sure voice echoes through the entire area,

"Voltflare?! Can you hear me?"

That voice! Isn't that... I can faintly recognize the voice's origin. The beast seems to hear the voice, too, and scowls, if its contorted face could be construed to be a scowl.

"You want to keep standing in my way, you insolent little human?!" it roars into the distant void. While the creature's guttural tones are unnerving, something about that first voice strikes a hidden chord in me.

Wait a minute... That's... Nathan?!

"Nathan!" I call out, panicked beyond all return,

"Please, if you can hear me- I'm right here!"

"It's OK, Voltflare," Nathan's voice returns, although I still can't figure out where he is. Frantically, I jerk my head back and forth, scanning my limitless surroundings as fast as I can. Besides the fact that I can't find Nathan, the action further aggravates the deadly phantasma in front of me, and it speeds towards me faster than I can blink.

"If you refuse to stand down, I'll just kill him here, and save this world the trouble of dealing with him in the future!" it thunders, brandishing its claws like an executioner's axe, just before he hits his mark.