The descent felt like an eternity.

A veritable storm of thoughts spun round inside Xerneas’s head, each one different from the last but all sharing one common aspect. They failed to take note of what had actually transpired over the last few moments. Various different attack strategies, or improvements to be made later, or very trivial things but never once did the fact his upper and lower half now fell in parallel to one another cross his mind. Blood streaked through the sky from both segments. Finally, his torso made contact with the ground, a sickening wet slosh sounding out from the pile of cloth and splintered wood which had caught him. 

Time went by and Xerneas simply lay, facing the sky. Foggy thoughts slowly began to creep out amidst wisps of soft pain approaching from a far-off place. Or so it seemed. It grew closer and closer, finally reaching the Pokemon. Realisation began to dawn as something clicked into place. That pile of manged flesh over there belonged to him. Then came the question. 

[i]How?[/i]

How had Giratina managed to pull of a stunt like that? Against [i]him[/i]?

The anger began to fade. At this stage, that didn’t truly matter. A simple, dull throb pulsed out from where a pair of legs once rested. It was paltry, nothing more than a niggle, but the reasons for that weren’t comforting. A good deal of nerves had been damaged to the point of nonfunction, and for the time being at least, his body was in a state of shock. When that wore off, he was in real trouble. Of course, the blood spurting out from the gaping wound would kill him long before the pain became an issue.

It seemed such an odd time to note, but Xerneas was becoming aware of an incredible fatigue. So much power had been used up since this morning and he’d never really taken a break. The small meal in the cafe had been instantly burned with the round of aggressive alterations. Closing his eyes, a soft breeze washed over. 

Wait.

Hazy eyes snapping back open, things became clear. This exhaustion, this defeat, it wasn’t him talking. Not truly. The shock was working on more than simply pain. Every thought felt like it were wrapped up in cotton wool, fuzzy, soft and unclear. Xerneas was dying. That was a fact and if he was unable to remedy it by the time the shock wore off, he would be dead. Past tense. That was another fact. Which put the clock at roughly 4 minutes. Now was [i]not[/i] the time to be wallowing in self-pity. 

A plan was needed. And fast.

Knitting the wound closed with his natural power was possible, but it would take every ounce of energy left inside. Sure, it’d save him, at least for the time being, however Giratina would go unpunished for this act of sacrilege. Whatever he was going to do had to deal with both problems, or none at all.  Being unable to put the healing bill on his tab, as usual, was going to make things much more difficult.

For a moment, countless possibilities swam through his mind like fish, each one as utterly useless as the last. There was simply no way to do this. Hilariously, both parts of his body still pusled with the soft glow from Geomancy. Willing his legs to move on their own, regrettably, did nothing. So, he was back to square one. Growling under his breath, with all the strength in his lungs, Xerneas began to lay out the actual obstacles in an itemised list.

The first issue was his arteries. Various vital ones had been severed clean through. This was going to result in him bleeding to death, sooner rather than later. Next up, we had the hole itself. The more blood running out of that, the more likely a vital organ was going to up sticks and leave at any given moment. 

And they weren’t going to fetch his legs.

Last and most certainly least, was Giratina himself, whose hulking form was once more beginning to poke through the portal into the Distortion World. Stopping himself from dying wasn’t enough. Giratina [i]needed[/i] to be made an example of. Xerneas found a familiar fire in his gut - or rather, where his gut could once be found - and that determination to succeed was going to ensure his victory. But [i]how[/i]?

His familiar smirk returned - albeit blood-stained - even in the face of this adversity. 

A burst of coloured ribbons tore out from his wound, stitching together severed arteries and veins as closely as he could. It would never be perfect, of course, but it would stop him from continuing to pulse blood out, and cost but a sliver of remaining energy. What came next was inspired.

He reached down, into the cavity and focused an entirely different power into it. Once more came colourful light. Soft pain rippled through his lower chest as the blood around it began to [i]freeze[/i]. More and more power poured into the gap as the ice crystals expanded. Creating the cold beam was easy compared to manually repairing the skin. Finally, the entire wound was encased with a layer of medium-thickness ice. That would keep him alive. Rehabilitation and full recovery could come later. 

Xerneas had a job to do.

With a cackling, uncontrollably-hysterical laugh, he repositioned himself bolt-upright. Trying to speak, words couldn’t bear through the twisted laughter acting as a focal point for all his efforts. It was soothing, a reminder that he wasn’t dead yet. 

Xerneas gathered every scrap of his remaining energy, funnelling it into a last-ditch attack. This would either work perfectly, or fail miserably, but he was confident. Raising both hands skyward, each one shrouded in a varicoloured energy, a single lance erupted from both hands, bathing the street in vibrant colour. The individual strands twirled into a double-helix style beam as it ascended through the sky and crashed into the underbelly of the beast. 

The assault was relentless and ongoing, accompanied by a soundtrack of utterly hellish laughter. Ice-cold energy focused directly onto a single spot of Giratina’s frame, the lance of brilliant colour providing little force, yet a lot of power. The aim of the attack was simple. Nothing Xerneas had could pierce his hide, and certainly not at this range. However, his foe currently floated high above the ground. No direct attack would work.

But the beast was [i]cold-blooded[/i].

His own stabilisation was a test. If the beam would freeze the blood of a human, enough focus would allow the same to be true of Giratina’s, despite the carapace separating the two. He would find himself suddenly weighted down by a tremendous extra load, and tumble from the sky, slamming into the ground in a storm of shattering body parts, made brittle by the ice. His face contorted in mad glee as he launched this attack borne not of body, but of mind.