Chapter Text
As Silver and Carol hovered side by side, ready to put aside their differences from their earlier fight, Giratina, the multiversal interloper, let out another deafening, metallic screech. The Renegade asserted its presence in a world that wasn’t its own, and Crisis City answered with a sudden, chilling shudder.
The heat of the burning metropolis died as the cold rushed in. A chill crept through as the magma stiffened, darkened, then rotted into a glossy black sheet.
Gravity followed suit as abandoned and rusted cars lifted away from the shattered highway with the lazy grace of a balloon, whilst chunks of bridge and bent streetlamps drifted upward, bumping into one another in slow, mute collisions.
As Silver hovered beside Carol, his features tightened. The hedgehog’s golden eyes tracked the floating wreckage, the dead lava, the coldness sweeping in from out of nowhere.
“That creature’s doing something to the city…” he uttered, voice strained, gaze snapping to Carol. “It’s changing everything just by existing here. That energy… that’s the kind of distortion that could have brought the flames back. But—"
“But it’s messing with gravity and dropping the temperature down in this dumpster fire?” Carol answered, her eyes locked on the monster in front of them.
“Yeah! It doesn’t make sense!” Silver exclaimed, the realisation hitting him hard.
“Nothing’s making sense today, fuzzy…” Carol replied firmly.
“I was so sure your energy ignited the city,” Silver admitted. “But you didn't. And this monster—” he gestured wildly towards Giratina, “—is literally freezing the lava solid! If neither of you brought the flames back… then I have absolutely no idea what's keeping my timeline burning!”
Carol finally shot him a sideways glance.
“Well, regardless,” she said, her mouth quirking into a smirk she absolutely hadn’t earned after getting rag-dolled earlier, “you still decided to jump to conclusions and throw rush-hour traffic at my head before asking questions.”
“I… need more evidence next time,” Silver confessed with a grimace.
“Yeah, you do. And maybe a better greeting.”
“Yeah… sorry.”
“Apology conditionally accepted,” Carol replied, tone brisk as a debrief. “Now, let’s deal with this overgrown, ugly space-centipede thing!”
Giratina’s red eyes burned brighter as the world seemed to tilt in response.
“I think it heard you calling it ugly…” Silver stated flatly.
“Good!” Carol responded cockily, fists tightening.
Light gathered around Carol’s form, hair and eyes shining brightly. She didn’t wait for a countdown because patience had never been her brand.
Moving first, Carol shot forward in a golden streak, driving a binary-charged hook towards Giratina’s head.
"Let's see how much of a punch you can take, spooky!" she roared.
But for all the taunting and confidence… Carol’s punch didn’t even land.
“What?!” Silver uttered, his eyes widening in surprise as he witnessed Captain Marvel fly straight through the monster.
It was like Carol’s hand passed through smoke—no resistance, no impact, only a nauseating sensation that physics had lied straight to her face as momentum carried her forward.
“What the—?!” Carol sputtered, coming to a halt and turning hard in the air. “It isn’t solid!”
Giratina didn’t indulge the confusion. It turned to face the bewildered Captain Marvel, its maw opening as darkness condensed with surgical speed. A sphere of ghostly energy formed, pulsing once like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to any living thing.
Shadow Ball.
“Oh, crap!” Carol gasped, barely managing to bring her arms in before the blast detonated against her chest.
BOOM!
Concussive force folded Carol like a paper plane. She tore backwards across the air and cratered into the side of a leaning skyscraper, steel screaming as floors buckled inward. Dust and glass vomited into the street.
“No!” Silver’s voice cracked with alarm. The hedgehog’s aura flared violently as he snapped both gloved hands forward, orchestra-conductor sharp. “I won’t let you destroy my world, monster!”
Floating debris jerked towards his outstretched palms. A cluster of twisted metal, shattered concrete, and the wreck of vehicles compacted into a rotating sphere, dense enough to make the air around it shudder. Silver shoved his hands out in a hard thrust, launching the projectile like a city block fired from a cannon.
“METEOR SMASH!”
The debris ball struck Giratina’s midsection, but just like Carol’s punch… Silver’s trump card passed right through.
Silver froze mid-hover, dropping his hands.
“No way… physical attacks don’t work," he stammered, eyes wide with horrified disbelief. "It’s… completely intangible!”
Just then, a sudden burst of gold erupted from the ruined building, answering Giratina's victorious roar.
Carol shot free of the collapsing structure and snapped back into the air beside the bewildered hedgehog. Her suit was scuffed, her patience shattered, and her pride was now carrying a knife.
“Ok… that sucked,” Carol grumbled, utterly annoyed.
“Any ideas on how we take down this monster?” Silver asked, looking at her.
“If we can't punch or throw things at it, we vaporise it," Carol commanded, her fists igniting with fresh binary power. "Energy attacks only!”
Silver nodded once, earnest and grim. “Right!”
Giratina reared slightly as its purple aura flared, making the air hum while it prepared its next assault: Earth Power.
Silver and Carol sensed a violent pressure building from below. They glanced down just as columns of geothermic plasma erupted upwards in jagged bursts. The highway’s remaining foundations shattered; concrete buckled, steel reinforcements whipped wildly, and floating cars were thrown sideways as though an unseen hand had swatted them.
“Move!” Carol barked.
Silver barrel-rolled, his teal glow flaring just enough to deflect the worst of the blistering heat. Carol, meanwhile, threaded the eruptions with brutal efficiency, weaving between the scorching geysers as if navigating a minefield.
Giratina watched, unbothered by their evasions, before folding its shadowy wings backwards. Vibrant hues gathered within its maw—pink, purple, blue—draconic lightning crackling around the sphere, resembling a storm trapped behind jagged teeth.
Dragon Pulse.
Silver's eyes widened in fear for a moment, but it was quickly replaced by absolute defiance as he needed to protect himself and Carol from the impending attack.
Acting on instinct, Silver darted forward to confront the blast. With both gloved hands raised, the hedgehog unleashed his telekinesis, creating a dense psychokinetic barrier—a translucent wall forged from sheer willpower and desperation.
“Get behind me, quick!” he shouted.
Carol didn’t argue, darting into the pocket of safety at his back right before the beam struck.
The impact resonated, causing the barrier to bend inward. Hairline fractures spread across the teal surface, threatening to shatter the fragile construct completely. The time traveller clenched his jaw, his entire body trembling under the crushing weight. The onslaught pushed him backwards through the sky, but he refused to give in.
“It’s… NO USE!” he snarled through gritted teeth.
From behind the hedgehog, Carol could see that the shield was failing. Silver’s arms shook violently. She realised this encounter was shifting from a “team-up” to a “funeral.”
“Hold steady, hedgehog,” she ordered, her tone cutting through the tension. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Hur… Hurry!” Silver gasped, shoulders buckling as the fractures deepened.
Carol launched upwards in a tight arc, diving straight into the destructive path. She positioned herself directly between the hedgehog and the onslaught, slamming the door shut on the attack.
“GAH!” she cried, taking the hit, but doing her best to absorb the catastrophic energy directly.
Silver’s expression twisted in horror as his shield dissolved. “What are you doing?!”
“Nnngh—!” she grunted, teeth locked tightly together to trap the scream in her throat.
“That’s suicide, get out of there, quick!”
“No!”
Silver’s golden eyes widened in sheer, helpless disbelief. He had spent his entire life watching his world burn, and now a stranger, the very person he had blamed for bringing the flames back, was throwing herself into the fire just to buy him a few seconds of safety.
Meanwhile, the sheer force of the impact invaded Carol’s cells with alien intent. Agony lanced through every nerve, yet she forced herself to keep absorbing the barrage.
“Aargh!” her voice finally tore out, raw and unfiltered. Her surrounding glow flared violently, flickering with strange new hues at the edges. Purple fringes and blue sparks danced across her form as the draconic onslaught attempted to stain her photons with its own cosmic rules.
“You’re insane!” Silver uttered, witnessing the heroine take the catastrophic brunt of a legendary beast's power without instantly being incinerated.
Gritting her teeth until her jaw ached, Carol refused to break. Forcing the conversion, Danvers dragged the hostile blast into a shape her physiology could digest, mutating myth into raw photon charge through pure, stubborn will.
The resulting detonation of light finally grabbed Giratina's undivided attention. Its glowing red eyes widened, but the beast stubbornly continued to spew the draconic energy from its maw, unknowingly empowering Captain Marvel even further.
Once the barrage finally ceased, Carol remained suspended in the air. Her shoulders heaved, her body trembling from the violent aftershocks, while the atmosphere around her vibrated with a deafening hum.
“Okay,” she panted, her voice distorted by the immense energy rolling off her form. “That was awful…” A fierce grin fought its way onto her face regardless. “…but I feel like a billion bucks… kinda.”
“Are you… Are you actually alright?” Silver pressed, hovering closer with obvious concern.
“Course I am,” Carol replied, her tone regaining its trademark confident bite as her eyes burned white-hot. "I process cosmic radiation for breakfast, kid. And right now, my tank is overflowing.” She locked eyes with the towering Renegade, matching its ancient, malicious glare. “Now, let’s see how this overgrown space-centipede handles some real power!”
Bringing her palms together, Carol unleashed a concentrated blast, a volatile mixture of her inherent photon light and the purloined draconic energy. The strike hit the Renegade square on, and this time, nothing phased through.
Carol’s counterattack would have been devastating regardless, but neither she nor Silver realised a fundamental rule governing the beast's biology: Dragon-types were inherently weak to their own elemental force. By infusing her strike with the absorbed power of Dragon Pulse, the Captain turned the Renegade’s own power against it, unknowingly delivering a super-effective, critical blow.
Giratina shrieked, the metallic wail ripping across Crisis City with enough force to violently rattle the suspended wreckage.
Silver’s face illuminated with profound relief.
“It worked!” he exclaimed, his optimism fully reignited. “Pure energy bypasses the intangibility!”
Carol, however, refused to celebrate. Her features tightened as Giratina’s glowing red eyes became windows of vicious fury; the beast was livid at having its own power turned against it.
“I think I just made it mad,” she said, her tone laced with grim realisation.
The hedgehog threw her a startled glance before snapping his attention back to Giratina. The Avenger was right; the creature was outraged. The purple aura surrounding the beast pulsed once before it vanished.
“Wait, is it retreating?!” the time-traveller asked, frantically scanning the dark skyline.
“No,” Carol replied, casting a wary look at her new companion. “My instincts are screaming. That thing is far from done.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah... but I can’t track the damn thing,” Carol hissed, hovering back-to-back with him. “Zero heat signatures or movement. Absolutely nothing.”
The Lord of Antimatter hadn't fled; it had erased its physical presence from reality to prepare a lethal ambush: Shadow Force.
Suddenly, Silver’s teal glow flared. He pushed his psychokinetic senses outward, blindly searching for the interloper.
The hedgehog’s voice dropped, dread creeping into the edges. “It’s slipped between the cracks. Just waiting to strike from the shadows."
Carol’s features twisted into a deeply unimpressed scowl. “Fantastic. So we’re fighting a giant ghost—”
WHAM!
Without warning, Giratina tore back into existence directly in Carol's blind spot, its massive body now warped into a terrifying, serpentine shape. Because the heroes were hovering back-to-back, the physical impact was catastrophic for both of them. A massive, shadowy tendril swatted the Captain out of the sky like a fly, while the sheer concussive shockwave of the beast's arrival sent Silver violently tumbling head-over-heels through the ash-choked air.
“Damn it!” Carol gritted out as she plummeted.
She crashed brutally onto the shattered highway below, skipping violently across the unforgiving asphalt before slamming into the side of a rusted taxi.
Meanwhile, flaring his aura to stabilise his chaotic spin, Silver managed to right himself. His golden eyes snapped wide, watching his temporary ally come to a bone-jarring halt just as their colossal assailant phased out of existence once more.
“No!” he cried out, desperately pivoting to locate the unseen threat. “I’ve got to end these phantom tricks!”
Reaching into subspace, the hedgehog opened his gloved hand. A brilliantly glowing green Chaos Emerald materialised in his palm.
“Glad I found this one earlier,” he muttered, a sharp bite to his tone. “But I need to focus and flush this thing out!”
Gripping the gem tightly, he closed his eyes and drew upon its positive, chaotic energy with the desperate intensity of a drowning hedgehog clutching a lifeline.
“Where are you?” he whispered, extending his awareness.
Then, the spatial anomaly was registered. Silver’s eyes snapped open just as the giant nightmare materialised from the ether, rocketing straight towards him.
“CHAOS CONTROL!” Silver commanded, raising the emerald high.
VWOOM.
The world instantly froze, suspended in absolute stasis by the supreme power of Chaos.
Down on the ruined highway, Carol found her body entirely paralysed, experiencing the same temporal lock she had felt during her earlier brawl with Silver.
“That Chaos Control trick again”, she thought, her hyper-charged consciousness processing the frozen environment. Her eyes remained locked upwards, catching the brilliant green light radiating from the hedgehog's palm. “Good thinking, kid. But seriously... how many of those magic rocks are there?”
Back high above, Silver reigned over time and space. Giratina hung suspended mere yards away, its momentum completely halted.
Seizing the opening, the telepath flung his free arm back, preparing to unleash a lethal Psycho Cut.
However, before the hedgehog could launch the attack, a terrifying low rumble vibrated through the stasis. The Ruler of the Distortion World began to twitch, its massive form slowly forcing its way through the temporal pause, accelerating with each agonising inch.
“What?!” the hedgehog gasped, halting his attack. “That’s impossible!”
Shattering the frozen continuum completely, the beast lunged. Silver barely managed to shoot upwards, narrowly avoiding the lethal strike as the monster phased right through the remains of a skyscraper and vanished back into the void.
“It’s… resisting,” Silver rasped, his expression twisting into a mask of pure shock. He stared dumbfounded at the glowing jewel in his hand. “How can that thing bypass Chaos Control?!”
Time snapped back into normal flow.
On the ground, Carol’s limbs unfroze, but her mind was already racing. Even paralysed, she had witnessed the impossible: the creature shattering the temporal hold.
“That overgrown pain in the ass just ignored time itself!” Carol spat, deeply annoyed as she pushed herself off the crumpled taxi. “Figures…”
Silver floated down slightly, his voice tight but loud. “Keep your guard up! It's going to strike again!”
“Not this time,” she declared, her stance firm and overflowing with renewed confidence.
Suddenly, her cosmic awareness screamed. She locked her gaze dead ahead down the ruined highway, her fists clenching as binary light ignited around her knuckles.
“There you are…”
The Renegade tore back into existence, materialising right in front of her to deliver another crushing Shadow Force blow.
Carol anchored her boots into the ground, drawing her right arm way back, raw photon energy condensing.
“Phase through this, ugly!” she roared.
WHAM!
Carol’s supercharged punch, still heavily laced with the absorbed draconic power, crashed directly into the monster. The sheer, overwhelming velocity sent the Renegade rocketing backwards. It skipped off the concrete, smashed straight through an elevated overpass, and cratered into the foundation of a skyscraper before it could even attempt to phase out.
Giratina's resulting roar of agony was deafening, emitting a metallic screech so piercingly high it shattered every surviving window for a mile.
“What a hit!” Silver exclaimed, his face lighting up with absolute awe. He descended rapidly, landing next to the heroine as she lowered her fist and stood tall.
“That definitely left a mark,” he added, gesturing towards the collapsed building groaning under the creature's weight. “Literally!”
“About time we actually hurt the damn thing,” Carol admitted, rolling her shoulder before glancing down at her shorter companion. “By the way… exactly how many of those magic gems exist?”
Silver glanced at the pulsing jewel in his grasp. “Well, there are seven in total.”
“Seven? Seven reality-bending MacGuffins?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you have the rest of them?”
“Well… I had the blue one,” the time-traveller admitted awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, before looking up at Carol. “Until I dropped it when you tackled me earlier.”
“Ah. Sorry about that.”
“No worr—”
WHAM!
“GAAH!” Silver screamed, his sentence cut short as a surprise Shadow Ball struck him, sending the hedgehog violently hurtling through the air.
“Silver!” Carol shouted, whipping her head around, watching helplessly as the hedgehog crashed into an abandoned van before eating the concrete face-first. The green Chaos Emerald bounced harmlessly out of his limp grip and rolled away.
“Silver, you alright?” Carol called out with concern.
“Oww…” the psychic groaned, his voice completely muffled against the ruined tarmac.
Carol’s features instantly morphed from shocked concern to anger. She snapped her gaze toward the far end of the highway. Giratina had risen, its glowing red eyes locked directly onto her.
“Hey, freak show! Nobody hits the kid but me!” the Avenger roared, her binary aura igniting into a towering inferno of cosmic light as her helmet materialised over her head. “It’s time to put you down for good, spooky!”
Giratina tilted its massive head, unleashing a deafening screech before spitting another Shadow Ball from its maw.
Carol shot upwards, effortlessly dodging the dark sphere, then surged towards their rising foe.
“Silver!” she barked, her voice booming loud enough for the time-traveller's ear to twitch, even though he was still face down on the concrete. “I need your powers pinning this thing down!”
Slowly, Silver hauled himself off the ground with a shaking exhale, snatching up the green Chaos Emerald nearby. Blood trickled from his lip, and his teal glow sputtered, but then flared back to life.
The hedgehog stared up to see the Avenger and the monster clashing in the grey sky. While Carol swung devastating photon fists, the Renegade countered with barrages of ghostly energy.
It was a pure spectacle: two interlopers from vastly different universes locked in a mid-air brawl above the broken metropolis of Crisis City.
A true clash of legends.
After landing a heavy right hook that sent the monster reeling, Carol glanced down.
“Silver! Can you do it?!” she shouted.
“I… I can try!” he yelled back, his voice raw, eyes burning bright gold.
Carol’s smirk returned, sharp as a blade. She fluidly barrel-rolled past an incoming Shadow Ball, rose higher, and delivered a binary-charged kick square across Giratina’s head. The beast roared in sheer indignity.
Back down below, Silver safely tucked the Chaos Emerald away into subspace before thrusting both hands towards the melee in the sky. The hedgehog focused every ounce of his remaining strength on immobilising the Renegade.
Teeth clenched and arms shaking violently, the psychic reached out—not for the creature's physical body, but for the pulsating, malevolent purple aura radiating off it. His psychokinesis finally locked on, wrapping around the antimatter energy like a teal-coloured vice.
Feedback slammed into Silver’s mind. It was cold and rotten, a wave of dread that didn’t feel like fear so much as the complete absence of hope. For a moment, the hedgehog saw nothing but a void of inverted rules, a world where gravity was optional, and light meant nothing. And something in that abyss noticed him back.
“Hold it still, kid!” Carol called down, floating backwards to gain some distance, witnessing the beast finally being tamed.
“I’M TRYING!” Silver snarled with absolute defiance, his focus unwavering as his eyes slammed shut.
Giratina thrashed, its metallic screech tearing through the sky as the psychic tether locked around its spectral signature. It fought with offended fury, as though a lesser creature had dared to put a leash on the devil himself.
Silver’s eyes watered, blood vessels standing out starkly against his sclera.
“Now!” he screamed, his voice cracking under the strain. “DO IT, NOW!”
Carol didn’t hesitate. She thrust both hands forward and unleashed a continuous beam of ultra-dense photon light—superheated and furious, heavily augmented by the draconic energy she’d forced into her own system.
Light flooded the Renegade’s aura, chewing through the shadows, ripping away pieces of its spectral structure in violent bursts of dark matter and burning ash. Giratina’s shriek deepened into a frequency that shook the ruined city’s very core.
The Pokémon desperately fought to phase out. It tried to trigger Shadow Force, but ultimately failed.
Silver’s grip kept it anchored, but the sheer darkness of Giratina actively fought to break the hedgehog’s hold.
“I CAN’T HOLD IT FOR LONG!” Silver cried out, his voice strained to the point of breaking.
The hedgehog’s entire body convulsed under the pressure, and the teal aura violently flickered around him, threatening to short-circuit entirely.
Carol poured even more power into the beam. Jaw clenched tight and eyes glowing solid white from behind the helmet, the Avenger acted as a living conduit for stellar punishment.
“Let's see if a ghost can burn!” she roared, taunting with confidence.
The pulse hammered relentlessly until Giratina’s purple aura flared, then fractured, cracking like fragile glass under the immense pressure.
Seizing the momentary shatter in its defences, Carol cut the beam and rocketed forward at Mach speed.
Drawing back a glowing fist, she delivered a catastrophic, point-blank haymaker directly to the Pokémon’s face. Because Silver's telekinetic tether held it perfectly in place, the monster absorbed every single ounce of the impact, unable to be knocked away.
“Give up and scram back to your own dimension, or I swear I'll vaporise you into stardust!” Carol commanded, her voice booming with the absolute authority of an Avenger delivering a final ultimatum as she floated eye-to-eye with the interloper.
With a violent, desperate wrench, the Renegade finally tore free of Silver’s grip.
The severed psychokinetic connection snapped back into the hedgehog like a physical recoil. He cried out, collapsing onto one knee on the highway, utterly spent.
Giratina was battered and thoroughly defeated. It realised that continuing this battle was foolish; even the ruler of the Distortion World knew when to retreat and fight another day.
Dark tendrils shot out from the Pokémon’s body, latching onto the lingering temporal energy in the air to effortlessly rip open a swirling blue breach.
“Smart choice,” Carol mocked with a cocky smirk.
As it dragged its massive, serpentine form into the portal, Giratina’s glowing red eyes locked onto Carol, and then down at Silver. It was a hateful, piercing glare that promised this was merely a postponement.
The binary star and the time-travelling hedgehog had just earned a permanent spot on Giratina’s hit list.
With one final, vengeful screech, the entity vanished fully into the void, and the wound in reality snapped shut behind it with a sharp crack.
The unnatural cold Giratina had brought evaporated instantly. Heat returned with a rush, like a furnace door being flung open. Colour bled back into an angry orange as the magma resumed its aggressive churn. Gravity reasserted itself with violent impatience, causing floating debris to crash back down in a heavy rain of steel and concrete.
Still hovering in the air, Carol’s helmet dissolved. Her aura dimmed as she descended, exhaling a long, hard breath. She then landed beside the kneeling hedgehog, her shoulders heaving, binary glow completely gone.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Carol stared at the empty sky where the rift had just been, then glanced down at the battered psychic beside her. As she crossed her arms over her chest, a genuine smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth, worn but real.
“Not bad, fuzzy,” she admitted, her voice lacking its earlier arrogance because the fight had beaten it out of her by necessity. “You held your own.”
Silver let out a weak chuckle, then gasped because laughing hurt.
“I told you… I won’t let my world be destroyed.” He swallowed hard. “And… I owe you that apology.”
“Yeah, you do,” Carol said, her tone dry, though her posture softened just a fraction. She unfolded her arms and extended a gloved hand down to him. “Name’s Carol, by the way.”
Silver blinked at the offered hand as if it were a miracle and a lesson all at once, then took it. Carol hauled him up to his feet with effortless strength.
“Thanks, Carol,” he said, his voice quieter now, the sincerity plain.
“No problem,” she replied, her smirk fading into a far more practical expression as she looked across Crisis City. “I do have one small complication, though.”
Silver’s expression tightened in immediate understanding. “Getting home, right?”
Carol nodded, her jaw setting. “Yep. Spooky took the last portal. Figures.”
“Maybe we keep looking,” Silver suggested, earnest as ever. “One of those portals has to pop up somewhere, right?” He gestured gingerly towards their surroundings. “If a distortion can open a door to let that thing out, another door has to open eventually.”
“Maybe you’re onto something,” Carol admitted with a small shrug, her arms folding again.
Silver floated up, grimacing at the dull ache across his body, then steadied himself in the air. His teal aura was barely a flicker now, but it was enough to lift him.
“Come on,” he said, his voice firm with renewed purpose as he looked down at her. “We can check the highways first.” He looked across the overpass, which was partly destroyed by the flames, but also thanks to Giratina’s rampage. “Well… whatever’s left of it anyway…”
Carol looked up at the floating hedgehog and let out a small, genuine laugh.
“Lead the way, kid.”
For the next few hours, Carol and Silver searched for any lingering blue breaches, but they found nothing. The only victory was retrieving the blue Chaos Emerald, which Silver had dropped during their earlier brawl.
Needing a break to clear her mind and refocus on the task at hand, Carol left Silver to continue the sweep while she sat cross-legged on the edge of a melted skyscraper.
Notably, the atmosphere had shifted.
The city was undeniably still ruined; that was for certain. The sky remained a suffocating blanket of grey, and the magma ocean churning beneath the crumbling highways continued to cast a hellish glow.
However, the sheer, aggressive malice that had saturated the air upon her arrival was gone. The tornadoes of fire that had previously danced in the distance had settled into lazy, localised plumes of smoke. More importantly, the feral Iblis creatures made of red and orange lava had not reformed.
The flames had returned after Giratina retreated, but they didn't seem violently hostile anymore. It was as if the environment had stopped actively trying to kill them and was merely existing in its broken state.
Carol let out a long, exhausted breath, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair out of her face. She stared out at the horizon, her mind racing. How was she supposed to get back home? The Avengers and her other allies needed her back to take the fight to Ultron Sigma.
Just then, a soft hum of psychokinetic energy broke her train of thought.
Silver floated up over the ledge of the skyscraper, his teal aura rippling gently against the heat. To Carol’s absolute bewilderment, the silver-furred hedgehog was holding two crisp, perfectly red apples, one in each gloved hand.
"Here," Silver said, his voice quiet but friendly as he tossed one of the apples underhanded to her. “I thought you might be hungry.”
Carol caught it purely on reflex, staring down at the fruit with genuine confusion.
"Apples?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked back at the hedgehog. "Seriously? Where do apples grow around here?"
Silver smiled with a soft chuckle as he sat down on the edge of the roof next to her. He polished his apple on his chest fur before taking a loud, satisfying bite.
"My secret," he mumbled with his mouth full.
Carol looked at the hedgehog with amusement. “Cryptic much?”
"Eh, maybe just a tad," Silver admitted, swallowing his bite. He looked down at the bright red fruit, his expression softening into something melancholic. "But I like them. I didn't exactly have fresh fruit growing up in a ruined future. When I finally travelled to the past, I got to try one. They help me think when things get complicated... but they also remind me of what a healed world could taste like. It reminds me of what I’m fighting for.”
Carol let out a dry, respectful chuckle, shaking her head. “Fair enough…”
Not saying another word, Danvers took a bite.
The sudden burst of sweet, crisp juice was a shock to her senses after breathing in sulphur and ash all day. It was, without a doubt, the best apple she had ever eaten.
The duo sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the only sounds being the distant, low groan of the dying city and the crunch of their snack.
"You know… I still don't understand it," Silver finally said, his golden eyes scanning the horizon. The playful demeanour faded, replaced by the heavy burden of a time traveller who had seen too much.
"Understand what?" Carol asked, taking another bite. "How an overgrown ghost-centipede manages to completely ignore the absolute suspension of time?"
"Well, no... though that is a terrifying question for another day," Silver replied, his tone laced with lingering disbelief at Giratina's raw power. He gestured out towards the molten ruins around them. "All of this is bugging me.”
“Okay, what’s on your mind? Spill.”
“When you arrived here, I was so sure you were the trigger. I thought your energy spike brought the flames back. Then, when that monster showed up, I thought it was the cause. But neither of you was…”
“We already established that, Silver,” Carol replied gently.
"Yeah, I know. But my home is still... broken," he said, his voice thick with frustration. "It's not as hostile, but it's still ruined. If the timeline was truly healing, then the flames shouldn't be here at all. My work should still be in place.”
Carol finished her apple, tossing the core into the abyss below. "So, what does that mean for you, fuzzy?"
"It means I have to investigate… again," Silver said with a sigh. "Something—or someone—else is keeping my future locked in this state. I can't just wait around for the timeline to fix itself. I need to go back to the past and find my friend Sonic."
Carol tilted her head, curious. "Sonic? Who is he exactly? Your commanding officer or something?"
Silver laughed out loud, the sound echoing lightly across the rooftop. "Sonic? A commanding officer? No way. He’s... well, he’s a hedgehog like me. But he’s from two hundred years in the past. And he's blue.”
“Blue, huh?” Carol mused. She remembered the kaleidoscope of visions she had seen while tumbling through the Breach.
“That blue blur fighting Silver must have been Sonic…” she thought to herself.
“Yep. Blue, and the fastest thing alive. Past, present, and future.”
“It’s still weird that I’m in the future of another reality,” admitted Carol.
Silver shrugged. “Time travel, reality hopping… It’s all weird, right?"
“Sure is,” Carol agreed. Her expression shifted from thoughtful to competitive as her mind went back to their conversation. “Anyway… this Sonic, you said he’s fast?”
“That’s right. The fastest thing alive,” Silver corrected.
"I'm pretty fast," Carol challenged with a cocky smirk.
"You are," Silver admitted, nodding respectfully. "But Sonic’s speed is different.”
“How?” Carol questioned, intrigued. “Enlighten me, hedgehog.”
“Well… he’s like the wind,” Silver revealed, pure admiration in his tone.
“The wind?”
“Mhm,” Silver replied with a nod. “Sonic always knows exactly where to be and how to save the day. He’s saved the past more times than I can count. If I… we go back and find him, maybe he can help us figure out what's anchoring the flames to my time." He paused, looking at Carol thoughtfully. "And... maybe he might know a way to get you home, too."
“You think he might be able to?” Carol asked.
“I bet he can,” Silver said with conviction, raising a finger to emphasise his point. “I heard that Sonic learnt a lot when he was trapped in White Space.”
“And White Space is…?”
“Oh, right, sorry—I don’t think I really explained that earlier.”
“Nope. But I’d like to know more.”
Silver dropped his finger and smiled. “Okay, White Space is a dimension of absolute nothingness. When this monster called the Time Eater tore through history, it erased moments of time and space, leaving them as blank, colourless voids. Sonic had to literally run through those trapped moments alongside a younger version of himself to restore the timeline, save our friends, and bring life and colour back."
Carol raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "A monster that eats history. Let me guess… some angry cosmic god with a grudge?"
“Yes, but no,” Silver corrected.
"Huh? Make it make sense, kid," Carol prompted in confusion.
"The Time Eater was a primordial entity, but it wasn't acting on its own," Silver explained, delving into the bizarre lore. "The monster was just a vessel. It was being piloted by a scientist named Doctor Eggman… and his past self.”
“Right, okay…” Carol breathed, utterly confused.
She was still intrigued, but the sheer weight of these temporal complications was starting to give her a minor headache.
“Anyway, the point is," Silver continued, "I heard from Sonic—the one I know— that he ran through one of those blue rifts during his time in White Space.”
“Wait, he did?”
“Apparently, that’s what he told me. And so did our other ally, Shadow.”
“And Shadow is?”
“The Ultimate Lifeform.”
“The Ultimate Lifeform?” Carol echoed, raising a sceptical eyebrow.
“Yeah, he’s got a very complicated history.”
"I bet he does." Carol lifted her hands to make deliberate air quotes. "A title like 'The Ultimate Lifeform' sounds like it comes with a ridiculous amount of baggage." Dropping her hands, she rested them back on the melted ledge of the rooftop.
Silver let out a genuine laugh. "You have no idea. Trust me, if I told you everything I know about Shadow’s past… we’d be sitting on this roof forever."
“Let’s keep it simple for now, Silver.”
“Right, okay… well, the story goes that Shadow chased an old foe through one of those rifts and ended up fighting alongside a woman with pink hair and her group of allies. Sonic then arrived just after the fight was over…”
Carol let out a sudden, genuine laugh, the sheer absurdity of the multiverse finally catching up to her. "A woman with pink hair fighting multiversal threats alongside an 'Ultimate Lifeform'? You know what, Silver... that actually sounds exactly like my kind of crowd."
Silver laughed again, the sound light and infectious.
For a moment, the two heroes simply shared a much-needed laugh, letting the sheer ridiculousness of their lives wash over them. As their chuckles naturally died down into a comfortable silence, Silver looked back out at the horizon.
“Maybe… Sonic or Shadow can help us get you home,” Silver offered with a hopeful smile. “Along with getting answers to why my home is broken again.”
Carol pondered everything, keeping quiet. Relying on a fast, blue hedgehog and an 'Ultimate Lifeform' from the past of an alternate reality wasn't exactly standard protocol. But considering all logic was currently thrown out the window, it was the best lead she had for getting back to the fight against Ultron Sigma.
"Maybe… they can help," Carol said softly. "I'm sure they could—"
Suddenly, Carol stopped mid-sentence, sensing a distinct shift in the air.
Silver felt it too. His golden eyes widened, a perplexed expression crossing his face as the ambient pressure of the ruined city changed.
Both heroes jumped to their feet on the edge of the skyscraper and turned around to face the centre of the rooftop, Silver still awkwardly clutching his half-eaten apple.
In the centre of the ruined roof, space began to spark. A tight, circular ring of brilliant, golden-orange sparks traced itself in thin air, intermingling with a strange, soothing blue light that echoed the temporal anomaly from earlier. It spun rapidly, throwing off embers until it formed a perfect, fiery portal.
"Another rift?" Silver asked, stepping forward as his free hand glowed with a defensive teal aura.
"No," Carol replied, a genuine grin breaking across her face. Her tense shoulders dropped in immense relief as she recognised the familiar magical signature. "I think… that’s my ride home.”
From the golden-blue portal, a distinguished-looking man stepped out onto the ash-covered concrete. He had dark hair that was visibly greying at the temples, complemented by a neatly trimmed moustache. His ensemble was chosen very deliberately, every article serving a mystical purpose: a flowing blue tunic, a red cloak with a high collar that seemed to hover slightly on its own accord, and a heavy, eye-shaped golden amulet resting against his chest.
"Strange?!" Carol called out, walking towards him purposefully. "About time someone found me!"
“Strange…?” Silver repeated to himself, his brow furrowing in surprise at the bizarre name.
Doctor Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, let out a patient, albeit deeply exhausted sigh. "Carol, do you have any idea how difficult it is to track a single binary energy signature across the ripple effect of a multiversal singularity?"
“Err… come again?” Carol mused, coming to a halt a few feet away from the Sorcerer.
"Finding a single, glowing needle in an infinitely expanding haystack of realities,” Strange explained, slightly exasperated. “That is what I have been doing."
"Okay… well, I assumed you'd just wave your hands and do your spooky magic trick," Carol teased, crossing her arms.
“If only it were that simple,” Strange replied, his tone composed and perfectly accepting of her usual brashness.
"You ain’t lying there. So… how did you find me, then?"
"It was a most strenuous endeavour," Strange revealed. "Hopping through the multiverse while the space-time continuum is having a catastrophic meltdown is no simple feat.”
“I bet.”
“To pierce the barrier, Stark and Doctor Light had to construct a tachyon-tether dimensional chronal-anchor. However, machinery alone cannot track a soul across infinity. I had to rely on the lingering temporal distortions left in your wake. By combining my mystical resonance with their technology, I was able to sift through the chaotic connections… eventually.”
Carol blinked, her cosmic-powered brain taking a full second to process the sheer volume of techno-magical jargon. She turned to look back at Silver, who merely offered a bewildered shrug, looking just as lost as she was.
"Errr… so you searched, what, five realities to find me?" Carol guessed, turning her gaze back to the Sorcerer Supreme.
"Try seventy-four," Strange deadpanned.
“Ahh, so close," Carol quipped, trying to lighten the heavy mood with a bit of humour. She unfolded her arms and snapped her fingers playfully.
“I’m glad you can find the amusing side of this," Strange sighed.
Carol offered a casual, unapologetic shrug in response.
"Nevertheless," Strange continued, his tone turning grave, "the multiverse is experiencing unprecedented connections. Finding the exact slipstream you fell into took every ounce of mystical focus I possess."
"Well," Carol smiled softly, her usual bravado fading into genuine appreciation. "Thank you, Stephen. Really."
Strange waved a hand dismissively, accepting her gratitude. It was then that his sharp, perceptive eyes shifted past her, landing squarely on the silver hedgehog standing just behind the Avenger, apple still firmly in his grasp.
"I see you've made a friend," Strange noted, arching an intrigued eyebrow. "Is he a mutant? An alien?"
"He's a psychokinetic hedgehog, actually," Carol clarified, gesturing between the two. "Stephen, meet Silver. Silver, this is Doctor Strange. He's an Avenger. Sort of."
"I am the Sorcerer Supreme, my Earth's primary protector against mystical and multiversal threats," Strange corrected with practised dignity, before giving Silver a polite, accepting nod. "A pleasure to meet you, Silver."
"Uh, hi," Silver replied, moving closer. He looked at the sparking golden-blue portal behind Strange in absolute awe before his gaze drifted to the ornate medallion on the Doctor's chest. "That thing you're wearing... I sense a strange energy from it. Is it like a Chaos Emerald?"
Strange glanced down at his chest, then to Silver. "I am unfamiliar with 'Chaos Emeralds,' but this is the Eye of Agamotto. It is an ancient artefact of immense mystical power."
"Oh... okay," Silver murmured, impressed by the weight of the description.
Strange turned his attention back to Carol, his expression hardening into absolute seriousness. "Carol, we need to leave immediately. The situation back home has escalated."
"Ultron Sigma?" Carol asked, her fists instinctively clenching and her features sharpening.
"Yes. He’s accelerating his plans for the complete extinction of all organic life. We need our heaviest hitter back on the board."
"I'm ready to go," Carol said, her eyes flashing briefly with white-hot energy. "Though, you should know, the multiverse is even more dangerous right now than you think."
"Oh?" Strange asked, his curiosity piqued.
“While I was here, a massive, shadowy ghost dragon came out of nowhere. It manipulated gravity, completely ignored physical attacks, and felt like it was made of pure antimatter."
Strange frowned, his brow furrowing as he processed the grave information. He looked to Silver. “Is this true?”
Silver nodded. “Yes. That monster was like nothing I’ve faced before… that’s for sure.”
"Hmm. A being of pure antimatter, slipping between realities?” Strange mused, pondering the news with a hand going to his chin. “That is highly concerning."
"Tell me about it," Carol added dryly.
“The Singularity is bleeding into dimensions that should never interact,” Strange continued, his hand dropping from his chin. “Regardless, we must be prepared for further incursions, but our priority must remain on Ultron Sigma, Carol. If we fall, our merged Earth will be lost forever."
"Understood," Carol nodded. She turned and looked down at Silver, who was watching the exchange quietly.
“I guess it’s time for us to part ways?” Silver asked, looking up at her.
"Afraid so, Fuzzy,” Carol said, extending her hand once more. "It’s been a blast… but here’s a tip: don’t throw any more taxis at strangers, alright?"
Silver smiled, taking her hand and giving it a firm shake.
"I'll try my best,” he answered with a sheepish, nervous laugh.
Carol smirked, letting go of the handshake and resting her hands on her hips. "Good luck figuring out your timeline, Silver. If Sonic and Shadow are half as good as you say they are, I'm sure you’ll fix this future."
"Thank you, Carol. Good luck fighting your own battles back home." Silver stepped back, his golden eyes filled with a quiet hope.
"Come along, Captain," Strange urged, his hands trembling slightly as he gestured to the portal. "The mystical tether is weakening."
Carol turned and walked towards the makeshift portal. She paused just before stepping through, looking over her shoulder at the broken, fiery landscape of Crisis City one last time. It wasn't her world, and it was far from perfect, but she knew it was in good hands.
"See ya around, Silver," Carol called out, giving him a two-finger salute. "Maybe we'll cross paths again."
"Count on it!" Silver called back, returning the salute with his free hand.
With a flash of red and blue, Carol Danvers stepped through the portal. Doctor Strange gave Silver a final, respectful nod before stepping backwards into the ring. The golden and blue sparks folded inward, collapsing upon themselves until the portal vanished entirely.
"Well... I guess I can add teaming up with a human supernova and meeting a magic doctor to my list," Silver muttered to himself. A weary but genuine smile crossed his face as he tossed his half-eaten apple away.
The hedgehog’s aura flared to life, lifting him off the roof. As he floated high above Crisis City, his golden eyes scanned the burning horizon, and that smile faded, his resolve hardening.
"But jokes aside... I need answers," Silver declared. "It’s time to head back to the past and figure out what’s really keeping this nightmare alive."
Launching forward like a teal comet, he set off, ready to seek out Sonic, Shadow, and anyone else who could help him untangle this mystery.
Yet, as he flew, one dark thought refused to leave his mind: “That monster... where did it actually come from?”
The sheer, rotting negativity he had felt when his psychic tether wrapped around the beast's aura still sent a cold shiver down his spine. Whatever void that shadowy dragon had crawled out of, it was a hellish, inverted place that defied all natural laws.
However, what the time-traveller didn't know was that while the Lord of Antimatter had slithered back to its distorted prison, it was not the only ancient entity watching events unfold.
Far beyond the boundaries of Universe-1991, across the fractured multiversal lines of Earth-196, a much higher power was observing the chaos.
Earth-196
The Hall of Origin existed at the very pinnacle of Earth-196, a sacred dimension suspended far above the world of Pokémon. Here, the floor was forged from shimmering, translucent glass, and the sky was an endless expanse of shifting auroras.
At the centre stood the Original One.
Arceus, the Alpha Pokémon, stood tall and resplendent. Its white, equine body was ringed by a golden, cross-like wheel that pulsed with the energy of creation itself. But the Creator was not at peace.
While Arceus’s domain was primarily shielded, the catastrophic shockwaves of the Singularity had struck the ancient past of its world: the Hisui region.
A massive space-time rift had violently torn open the sky above Mount Coronet, bleeding a sickly violet hue across the horizon. From this jagged tear, unnatural lightning surged downward, striking the region’s revered Noble Pokémon with unerring precision.
Infused with a strange, incandescent golden energy, these ancient guardians were driven into a frenzied state, their eyes burning with a light that was both divine and destructive. No longer protectors, they became uncontrollable forces of nature that threatened to tear the fragile peace of the Hisui region apart.
Worse still, Arceus could sense that Giratina had slipped through the cracks of the Distortion World, exploiting these weakened multiversal barriers to spread its antimatter malice.
The Creator needed a champion. It required a mortal soul with the courage to fall through time, quell the frenzied lords of the land, and restore order to the ancient world.
Arceus closed its eyes, projecting its divine consciousness outward across the bleeding multiverse, searching for a spark of unyielding resolve.
Floating panels of golden light materialised in the air around the deity, serving as windows into other realities, thanks to the temporal link to the singularities' energy. Arceus witnessed countless visions across the cosmos—champions clashing, legends meeting, and heroes uniting to push back the encroaching forces of darkness.
But one specific panel caught their undivided attention.
One specific panel caught their undivided attention. Tracing the temporal ripples left by the anomalies of Universe-1991’s White Space incident, the vision zeroed in on a recent convergence in Universe-13. It displayed a sprawling, untamed grassland known as the Archylte Steppe. A ferocious storm raged, but the true spectacle was the battle unfolding beneath the thunderheads.
A colossal dragon-machine, claiming to be the ‘King of All Creation,’—a blasphemer to deities like Arceus—was wreaking havoc.
Yet it did not fight unopposed.
The Alpha Pokémon watched as a young woman with rose-pink hair rode a magnificent mechanical steed clad in silver and gold. The steed was a divine Eidolon, galloping through the sky with supernatural grace, lightning dancing along its armoured flanks. The woman stood atop its back, dual-wielding curved blades that crackled with raw, elemental fury.
Below them, her allies watched in awe, alongside a distinct, stoic figure of black and red. The Ultimate Lifeform stood with his arms crossed as he observed the woman's divine execution of the mechanical beast with quiet respect.
Arceus's gaze returned to the sky as the woman and her steed became a streak of living lightning. She moved with merciless precision, her twin swords carving through the machine's armour like divine judgment.
The Creator observed not just her immense physical power, but the sheer, unwavering strength of her soul. She fought with the cold discipline of a soldier, yet possessed the indomitable will of a protector who outright refused to yield to a predetermined fate.
When the woman combined her blades into a single, gleaming weapon and cleaved the mechanical beast's core in half, Arceus knew their search was over.
"A Knight of Lightning," Arceus’s voice resonated through the silent Hall of Origin, a sound like the tolling of celestial bells and the roll of distant thunder. "Her spirit remaineth unbroken, her resolve absolute. She is the saviour whom Hisui doth require."
But Arceus was a being of cosmic order. It knew that drawing a champion across the multiversal void into the ancient past of Earth-196 was no simple feat. While this warrior fought even now to stave off the ruin of her own world, Arceus beheld the threads of destiny weaving about her. She was fated, and soon, to be bound to a power higher still within her own realm.
To bring her to Hisui, Arceus required leave. It must speak with the Goddess who held the threads of time and fate within Universe-13.
Arceus turned its majestic head from the window overlooking the Archylte Steppe, directing its divine focus toward the Unseen Realm, Valhalla.
The golden wheel encircling Arceus’s form flared with a blinding, radiant light as the Creator prepared to bridge the gap between their spheres.
"Hearken unto me, Goddess of the Unseen," Arceus called out across the infinite expanse. "The mortal destined to become thy knight possesseth the strength my fractured world so desperately craveth..."
The golden light consumed the Hall of Origin entirely, as the wheels of fate had begun to turn.
