Author's Notes:
Sorry everyone, I forgot today was Friday. Also, going forward I'm going on an update schedule of every other week. Meaning there won't be a chapter next week, but there will the week after. With that said, please enjoy chapter 87, thank you.

Giovanni stood atop the control platform for the mind control weapon as he watched the line of Team Rocket soldiers being pushed back. Just the idea of this seemed laughable only a few hours ago, but here they were losing to only three aura guardians. He had grown up hearing stories about the great aura guardians of the past, how they stood up to armies twice their size and came out victorious, but that was the past. Modern warfare technology had made it impossible for something like that to happen now. Infiltration and sabotage, only taking on a small number at a time within a smaller space, surprise attacks, that was the only way aura guardians could successfully battle now, at least that was how it was supposed to be.

As he watched them battle it was as if the stories from his youth had come to life. Two cars flew through the air and crashed into the line and continued rolling back, each killing at least a dozen soldiers, and breaking the defensive line. He followed the path the cars came from and saw Serena, Delia, and Red. Seeing Serena he then looked down at his secretary whose body was dragged into a corner out of the way.

"How did she lose to that untrained brat?" He thought to himself.

"Bring me the plate! I'm leaving!" He looked back at the battle and gnashed his teeth in anger. "This is only a setback. There were too many variables that I wasn't prepared for. Next time I will have an even larger army prepared, and as long as I still have Arceus the world will not see this as a loss for Team Rocket. The city will be destroyed as an example. That will buy me the time needed to create more soldiers and show the true strength of Team Rocket."

A scientist loaded the plate into a case and brought it to Giovanni, who then handcuffed it to his wrist. Two soldiers then followed him and walked down a set of stairs to where a small airship. The airship was about twice the size of a conventional helicopter, with a set of wings each with a propeller, and a set of jet engines in the back. A set of fold out stairs were out and he climbed aboard with the soldiers following him in. In seconds the propellers started spinning and the ship began to lift off the ground.

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As the aura guardians attacked directly the others gave out commands to their pokemon. FieryFirey explosions sent Team Rocket members flying as Red and Alain's Charizards used fire blast into the crowd. They heard a noise and looked up as the airship rose above the battle.

"NO!" Red Roared, knowing Giovanni had to be aboard, escaping. "Charizard, fire blast on that airship!"

Charizard looked up and saw his target, then released the power fire type move. It raced through the air, locked on target. However a hatch opened on the airship and a series of flares shot out, and collided with the attack, causing it to explode prematurely.

Red gnashed his teeth as the airship continued to gain altitude. He wanted to go after it, bring it down, rip Giovanni out and make him suffer. Nearly every fiber of his being was telling him to jump onto his Charizard's back and go after him, emphasis on nearly. He looked back down at Delia and the others fighting so hard. He turned towards Arceus to see explosions happening all around him as Ash and his pokemon were fighting with everything they had. Red refocused on the remaining members of Team Rocket standing in their way.

"CHARIZARD, BLAST BURN ON TEAM ROCKET!"

He yelled, as if his yelling would make the move any more powerful. He was not the hero here, compared to the Delia and Ash he felt he was barely contributing to the battle. He wanted to make Giovanni suffer with his own hands, but if he couldn't do that then he could at least help to ruin his plans.

As they worked down the Team Rocket numbers more and more with no signs of backing down, the scientists started to run, tossing their lab coats and anything they had on them that labeled them as members of Team Rocket as they scattered.

And after a few more minutes their defensive line had been broken. The Aura Guardians held back to finish off the remaining forces as Silver and Red led the others onto the platform. To their surprise it looked deserted, though it wasn't too surprising since it was mostly scientists.

"Come on, let's see if we can find a way to free Arceus," Silver stated as he walked to one of the control screens.

"Don't even think about touching anything," a female voice threatened.

They all looked to see two agents of Team Rocket, a man and a woman, holding pistols with a raticate in front of them. The woman had purple eyes and gold hair in pigtails, as the man had green hair and brown eyes.

"Well, if it isn't Butch and Cassidy," Silver commented nonchalantly.

"Hey it's...oh, you actually got it right," Butch started to yell before realizing he got his name right.

"Nobody step any closer, just back away slowly," Cassidy threatened as she waved her gun around at everyone.

"Why are you two still here?" Kris asked. "Why didn't you run away with everyone else?"

Both of them shifted their eyes to look around, and realized they really were alone.

"Because we have orders to follow!" Butch replied.

"We have to ensure Team Rockets gl..." Cassidy started before hers and Butch's body stiffened and convulsed before collapsing to the ground. Behind them stood Jessie and James with electric batons, with Meowth and Wobbuffet on either side of them.

Seeing its trainers go down Raticate turned to use hyper fang, but Wobbuffet countered with reflect, sending it back. Meowth then pounced on top of it while unleashing fury swipes, leaving the Pokémon unconscious.

"Ok, what's going on?" Brendan asked.

"Simple, we're resigning from Team Rocket," Jessie replied as she and James dropped their batons.

"Then why help us, why not run?" Paul asked.

They both looked ashamed. "We wanted to create a new world with Team Rocket, but we didn't want this," James replied.

"But we also don't want to go to jail. So after this we're gone," Meowth added.

"Wobbuffet!"

"What do we do?" Alain asked.

"Trust them," Serena said as her eyes stopped glowing red. "They really do want to help"

"Fine," Silver conceded, then glared at them. "Ok then help us, we're trying to blow this thing up."

James smirked. "Come on chum," he said, then he and Meowth both sat down in front of a screen and began furiously typing.

"What are you doing?" Silver asked.

"The cannon generates a lot of heat when it's powered up, so coolant has to constantly be pumped through to keep the temperature down," James explained without taking his eyes off the screen.

"We're currently bypassing all of the safety shut offs and powering it to full." Meowth continued, then looked back at the others. "Start and disconnecting those big red hoses, they're for the coolant," he instructed, pointing to some red hoses run along the ground that were about as big around as an arm.

"Right," Jessie replied and ran to the nearest hose, as the others did the same. Silver and Kris however stayed by James and Meowth, still not trusting them completely.

Jessie got to the first hose and tried to remove it, but it was stuck.

"I'll help," Serena said as she walked over, and grabbed the hose connection and tried to twist it.

"Hey, aren't you a psychic? Why don't you use your powers to rip this thing off or something?" Jessie asked.

"I've already expended too much psychic power. If I use much more I'll be risking harming myself," she replied as the connection started to turn.

"I guess using those powers in your performances is a lot easier than this," Jessie commented.

"Actually I've never used them during a performance. I don't want to risk giving anyone anything they can use against me if I were to be found out," Serena replied as the connection was spinning freely.

"Pull on three," Jessie instructed. "One, two, three."

With one strong yank the hose was free and the coolant was pouring out onto the floor.

"Tell me, what are your plans for after this?" Serena asked.

"Like we said, we're running," Jessie replied matter of factly.

"I know that, but don't you have more of a plan than that?"

"We have some fake identities we've made through the years that weren't made by Team Rocket. We're just going to go somewhere and blend in and live relatively normal lives."

"What about staying here in Torrent?"

"We might, we don't have much of a plan yet."

"I think you should. Being Torrent Queen would be a great job for you to start rebuilding your life with."

"What!? I-I don't know what..." Jessie started in a panic.

Serena smiled. "Psychic remember? Just now when you helped us, I read your thoughts to make sure we could trust you. You were thinking about your performance at the torrent league, and if you would still be able to do it."

Jessie eyed her suspiciously. Serena didn't need to be psychic to know what she was thinking and continued.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. As long as you all don't fall back to crime as far as I'm concerned Jessie and Jessilee are two different people, same with James and Jeeves."

"Well, thanks," Jessie replied, a little caught off guard by her response.

"Alright, let's get out of here!" James announced.

A low hum could be heard coming from the cannon being powered up and within a few seconds smoke began to rise. Everyone scrambled off, just as William and the others were finishing off the last of the soldiers.

"What's...," William started to ask before being cut off.

"We need to put some distance between us and the cannon before it blows," Red called out.

"We have about three minutes," Silver replied then looked around. "Where are they?"

"They? Who is they?" William asked, looking around.

"What? Where?" Silver questioned while looking around.

"They said they weren't going to jail," Serena reminded them.

"Don't worry about them, they've earned their second chance. But we need to get away from here now!" Red stated.

"Let's go then!" William said and they all started running, as sparks started to fly from the cannon.

As they ran they saw two soldiers getting up. They Delia and Limaro started to speed up to make quick work of them, but a small burst of aura hit both of them from behind first. As they fell to the ground they saw Isla waving at them.

"What are you doing here?!" William shouted as he ran.

"I told you I would come back after I was done escorting people out, and well, I'm done," she stated proudly, as they came up on her.

William bent down as he ran, and scooped her up and through her over his shoulder.

"DAD?!"

"We need to run!"

BOOOOM

The cannon exploded, much bigger than they expected, sending debris flying.

"I got it!" Isla announced from over her father's shoulderfather shoulder.

An aura barrier formed over everyone, blocking the raining debris from hitting any of them, as they all turned around and looked back at the explosion.

"Do you think all of the legendary pokemon know they can come now?" Serena asked.

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"INFERNO OVERDRIVE!" Ash shouted, as Charizard unleashed an overwhelmingly powerful blast of blue flames.

Arceus changed to a rock type to withstand the attack, but still cried out in pain from the aura Ash infused into the attack. He then cried out as he was hit with a large water shuriken and an aura sphere.

Completing the attacks they were all on the move again. Ash was on his own running, trying to plan their next move. Thanks to the Tapus he had plenty of Z energy in his power ring, but it was still a bit tiring on everyone to keep using Z moves. He could feel his pokemon were giving all they had, but he could see that their strength was dwindling. This of course wasn't too surprising, honestly it was impressive that they lasted this long. A normal pokemon battle would only last maybe five minutes, but they've been battling for at least an hour now.

"Hey Fearow, can you fly up and see what's going on with the others?" Ash asked.

"Hang on," he replied as he dodged several shadow balls.

Up up up he flew, above the attacks and the battle below. He saw the cannon and focused his eyes.

"It looks like they're almost there. There's a lot of fighting at the base of the platform. Wait, I see Serena is already up there with some other people. I think they're almost done."

"Thank g..." Ash started before remembering he was battling a god.

Arceus concluded his rock type attack and changed to a dragon type, turning the gold on his body to a rich purple color. He then looked up as an orange sphere of energy started to form in front of his face.

"Shit! Everyone attack at once!" Ash called out as he slid to a stop while forming an aura sphere, confident he knew the coming attack.

Flames flared, electricity sparked, and blades of water and wind sliced through the air as the pokemon god was also bombarded with aura spheres. The plan was to try and force the attack to cancel, since Ash could already tell that it was most likely one of two very powerful area of effect attacks. He was confident that his Pokémon could dodge it, but not only would they lose nearly all of their remaining cover, but if it was the worst of the two then there was a risk of the others getting hurt as well.

Unfortunately it was as if Arceus was determined to complete his attack, as not even Ash's aura could make him even flinch. The sphere shot up into the air and exploded, sending dozens of smaller orange spheres plummeting down.

"Draco Meteor," Ash thought out loud, feeling a bit of relief that it wasn't Judgment. "Charizard, Fearow, fly through and dodge, the rest of you, Draco Meteor climb," Ash instructed, then explained what he meant to those unfamiliar with the strategy.

Quickly Charizard and Fearow began weaving through the falling attack, and the others moved from one sphere to the next, climbing higher and higher. Even Ash was using this strategy, though he had to use his aura to strengthen his body enough to complete the jumps.

Beneath them the attack connected with the city below. A sea of explosions erupted beneath them as the buildings were swallowed up by the explosions. The buildings they were once running atop and using for cover were now crumbling from the explosions and disappearing in the sea of fire and smoke.

Once above the attack everyone launched another wave of attacks, this time with Lucario using All-out Pummeling. This time Arceus didn't change typing, he reverted back to normal type after launching his attack, so this time the Z-move was super effective.

Arceus cried out in pain from the collection of attacks. But as they descended Ash saw Arceus's eyes lock on him. He wasn't sure how much Arceus was in control, but he had enough to understand that Ash was a serious threat.

Knowing something was about to change he warned his Pokémon, as he looked down. There was still a lot of dust obscuring his full view, but it was obvious what was down there. He couldn't see any of the buildings from before, and only piles of broken concrete and twisted metal where the taller buildings once stood.

Ash looked over to where the others were, there was smoke coming from the cannon. He wasn't sure if that meant they did it or not, but he hoped reinforcements would come soon. Even if his pokemon were at their best, they wouldn't last long against Arceus without the cover they once had.

As this happened Arceus changed to his psychic typing. Before any of them could touch down, they all felt an overwhelming force pulling them down, as Arceus used Gravity on the area. All of them crashed into the ground below, not even Fearow or Charizard managed to stay up in the air. Not a single one of them was injured from the fall. Arcanine landed on her side on an irregularly shaped pile of rubble, leaving her with several broken ribs. In an effort to protect himself Fearow tucked in his wings and tried to use drill peck to soften the blow. It worked, as it broke apart the ruble underneath him, but as he hit the ground his body twisted while his beak was still in some concrete, and caused his beak to crack. Lastly was Ash, who landed in a pile of rubble and was skewered by several pieces of rebar, one going through his right thigh and another through his chest and right lung.

Ash looked up as a shadow formed from above him, coughing up blood as his lung filled. Above him hover Arceus, almost standing there triumphantly.

BOOM

"Somebody please tell me..."

"They did it. The cannon blew up into pieces," Greninja replied excitedly while still under the effects of the immense gravity Arceus had generated.

"If this was a movie and Arceus the villain, looking up and grinning with blood covering my teeth would be pretty appropriate and epic right now. But he's not the villain here," Ash thought to himself.

Looking down at Ash Acreus began to form a sphere of orange energy formed in from of his mouth.

"After all this, after all those times risking my life and saving the world, it's the pokemon god that kills me." Ash smiled as he closed his eyes. "I guess after surviving all that, it seems Arceus is the only one who could do it. Not a bad way to go."

Arceus released the energy, and fired the hyper beam at Ash, engulfing him in aif a bright light.