Venipedia
The Infernal Machine (Tale)
Summary
Team Roppyaku and Team Profundo team up to defend the Infernal Machine from Zoroark the Unkillable. Though they succeed, it is at a heavy cost, as Dondozo of Team Profundo perishes. Arctibax, Larvesta, Zweilous and Zweilous evolve.
Tale
As originally told by Kricketune, Minstrel of the Dawn:
DELELELE WHOOP! I know many stories of Zoroark. Would you like to perhaps hear one about… Zoroark and the Infernal Machine?
Let me set the scene for you then. The Infernal Machine was an ancient device said to have been made at the dawn of industry by the legendary engineer Volcanion. It is said that the Infernal Machine holds within it the power to make any device from raw materials combined the user’s power of Creation as inherited from the One Above All.
With the Infernal Machine, Volcanion is said to have shaped the base elements of the One Above All’s creation and Types into the Looplets and Pendants we now give to our explorers as they journey into the Mystery Dungeons.
But then came the Great Devouring, spurred on by darkness and distortion and death. Volcanion, ever the engineer, created weapons for the heroic warriors who fought the Great Devouring. She forged sword and shield and scroll and crown and orb and bell and every Looplet she could.
She worked and worked and worked herself until she could not work any longer and then she worked some more. When the dust settles and the Great Devouring was defeated, the legendary engineer was found in her workshop, the steam in her veins having gone cold.
The Infernal Machine, without its engineer, was lost to time.
But then a map was discovered, a map dating from this Era of Legends believed to have been written by Uxie itself!
A great thief heard of this map, a thief cloaked in souls and malice. A thief we call… Zoroark the Unkillable.
Zoroark sought out this map, contained under heavy guard in the Great Library that stands to this day in Hisinoh. The fight was brutal, malicious, and saw the sad demise of the Head Librarian when he was dragged out into the cold abyss of snow with his body burned by hate and frozen by malice.
Zoroark escaped with the map and a trophy, the Librarian’s Expedition Medallion as a symbol of his victory over a former member of the Ampharos Expedition Society.
A call was put out, the largest bounty on any criminal ever, for 5 million . So many members of the guilds and collectives and federations of the world sought to claim the bounty. So many of them claimed they had taken him, that they had slain this monster, and so many of them must have been been right because they had the proof to back it up but Zoroark kept returning. Finally, it was two teams that joined forces to stop him once and for all at the sight of his final goal. Team Roppyaku, led by a Larvesta and aided by her beloved Arctibax and her best friend Zweilous; and Team Profundo led by a Dondozo and aided by his compatriots Rillaboom and a different Zweilous.
This is where our tale comes to its head. It was Larvesta who sought the aide of Uxie, the initial creator of the map, and passionately pled with it to tell them where the Infernal Machine was that they might save it from the thief, from the Unkillable.
We know not what Uxie said to Larvesta, but what we know is that the two teams converged upon the Infernal Machine and managed to beat Zoroark there.
Armed with a fervent wish within Larvesta’s heart, the teams opened the door to the Infernal Machine in hopes to use it to create something to protect it with. But just as the door opened, Zoroark appeared.
The teams rushed into the machine to protect it… With one exception.
Dondozo, determined to make his stand there and then, remained outside and closed the door behind his companions. If Zoroark wanted into the vault, he would have to go through him.
We do not know what happened to him. Nor do we know what happened within the Infernal Machine. We only know the aftermath, as shared by those who witnessed this history.
Bursting forth with solar fury like the Lion of the Sunne came Volcarona, followed by mighty Baxcalibur smiled upon by the Cold Void Dragon and a shining Hydreigon with emerald skin like that of the Great Ancient Serpent. Close behind were Rillaboom and another Hydreigon with azure skin like the One Whose Heart Beats Time.
Before them lay their friend. Zoroark stood over one last victim, scorched and frostbitten.
Baxcalibur called upon the power of his newly-forged Looplet and channeled the power of the Cold Void Dragon into a mighty silver pulse of glaciating ice.
Hydreigon came next, ascending with draconic power and crashing down into Zoroark.
The second Hydreigon came next, following his wife’s lead and roaring with rage of past, present, and future as he unleashes his fury.
Volcarona unleashed a strike with the sun’s power hot enough to melt steel.
Rillaboom came last, not blessed in the same way as the others. He did not claim the power of primordial dragons or figments of light.
Rillaboom called upon the power of a king, the power of the Laurel Monarch of Galtunar, and surged with gigantic power as the drum beat of the earth itself sounded.
Their powers surged… And Zoroark lay dead beside Dondozo.
Relinquishing the power of legend, our heroes remained as they were. A reward, perhaps, from the spirit of the engineer whose Infernal Machine they saved.
Dondozo was buried with the utmost respect at the entrance to the Infernal Machine so that when a new arrival comes to Yveltal’s hallowed halls and asks why he rests among the honoured dead, he may point to that grave and say that he stood alone at the Infernal Machine.
And that, my friends, is the story of Zoroark and the Infernal Machine!