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Pokemon 12: Arceus and the Jewel of Life
Trying to beat up God is a pretty bad idea. |
"This time YOU die, Tim!" he laughed,"Not me! You! Every new movie, you kill me in some stupid way for a joke! But not this time!"
"Now Brandon, we don't want any trouble," said Lex,"Tim was kind enough to invite us to his Grandfather's mysterious dinosaur park at the same time as the new Pokemon movie came out and you immediately assume he's trying to murder you. It's just paranoid!"
"It's not paranoid if they're out to get you!" he yelled,"And I.... hey, Lex and Tim? That's the name of the kids in that movie! Anyone ever tell you that bef-"
"YESSSSS!" we yelled together, and Lex continued,"It's a complete coincidence, people need to just get over it!"
"I'll get over it all right," grinned Brandon,"Once Tim is dead, I'll get right over it!"
And with that he launched himself at us, an oncoming death impossible to escape, we'd run and dodged and hidden all we could, but now our time was u-
"ROAAAARRR!" roared the T-Rex, bursting in out of nowhere and snatching Brandon out of the air in its fangs, tossing him easily about and causing a small disc to fly out of his pocket and into my hand.
"Let's go!" I shouted, and we ran as the T-Rex crunched on Brandon.
"Laaaaaaaame...." Brandon's voice trailed after us.
Climbing onto the helicopter, we watched the island fall away behind us. Lex pressed her head against the window and watched the birds with curiousity, then turned to look at me as I placed the disc that had flown from Brandon's pocket into a slipcase.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Hmmm?" I said,"Oh nothing, the new Pokemon movie.... what an amazing stroke of luck eh? He must not have realised he had it."
Lex was quiet for a moment, just staring at me.
"Hmmmmm," she said at last, and went back to looking out the window.
Pokemon Movie 12: Arceus and the Jewel of Life
The movie opens as all these movies must, with the narrator telling us all about Pokémon as we get to see.... lots of Pokémon! They've given up on pretending they know how many there are, with the jerk of a narrator declaring there are probably thousands if not more (Nintendo Animation Concern are VERY pleased with this concept), showing both wild Pokémon, legendaries, and trained Pokémon battling each other.... one of whom is Cynthia, kicking ass and setting off nuclear bombs with her Pokémon as she battles it out with a competitor. And then, of course, the twerps, Ash's buttocks presented in glorious cinema animation and Dawn's buttocks... hidden away so nobody gets arrested.
But beyond the seas and land and sky, deeper within the metaphysical aspects nature represented by the likes of Groudon and Kyogre, within the very realms of time and space itself, the confrontations between Dialga, Palkia, and the eldritch horror Elder Gold itself - Giratina - has created an intolerable situation. Deep, deep, deep within an asteroid flowing deep within the nebula of space.... something.... is sleeping, dreaming of an ancient betrayal by humanity. Finally it shifts in the vast everlasting darkness of space and opens its eyes.
Gentle Dodgers, God has just woken up.
And he is pissed.
Through high fields of corn (relatively speaking), Pikachu, Piplup and the twerps appear to be trespassing on some farmer's field as a shortcut to where they're going. They reach a small pretty stream leading into Michina Town, stopping on a bridge to look at the town which is presumably high-tech BUT surrounded by nature - green fields, high mountains, etc.
They call out their Pokémon, change into their swimming costumes and leap into the stream for a swim, Brock and Sudowoodo exercising and Ash needing himself a goddamn haircut!
After a surprised perve at Dawn's legs, Ash - who really isn't entirely sure why he suddenly found them fascinating - splashes her with water and roars with laughter as she scowls, before splashing him back, and then both of them splashing Brock and unspiking his hair.
Mamoswine and Croagunk go and relax in the shade... or at least Mamoswine does, while Croagunk just sits hunched and uncomfortable.
And then some watermelons come floating down the stream. Ash grabs a couple to his chest in a remarkable impersonation of former companion May, and then a couple of jerky kids show up and explain the watermelons belong to them, they were cooling in the stream but got caught by the current. They tell Ash and Dawn they can have them though... if they can beat them in a Pokémon fight!
Cue to a remix of the theme song as Ash and Dawn proceed to beat the living shit out of the siblings, watched by some local townspeople from the bridge while an exhausted Team Rocket pedal their decidedly low-tech balloon overhead until Jesse has had enough, stops pedalling to complain and sends them crashing into the ground.
After a particular vicious finishing combo by Pikachu and Piplup, Brock declares the battle over and everyone returns to the shade of the tree to eat the watermelon, and then set off into the town with their new "friends" who tell them they have to head to the local tourist trap - the ancient ruins.
The twerps agree and then lose their new friends as they head up the hills into the mountainside, delighting in the beautiful streams and the sight of the ancient ruins of the temple high up in the mountain. As Pikachu takes a drink though, a noise catches their attention and a spiral of water bursts out of the lake. Ash has Pikachu use Thunder for no real reason on the water, and then Pokémon come swarming out of the forest in an effort to escape whatever is causing the disturbance. The spirals of water begin sucking in the air, and the twerps find themselves being pulled up into the air - Ash grabs Dawn and Brock grabs Ash to anchor them down, but Pikachu and Piplup are sucked up towards the water funnel, Piplup desperately using Bubble beam to try and keep back.
Just then a young man and woman rush out of the trees, the woman calling on Dialga to please come and save these Pokémon.... and it does!
What the Christ!?!
It flies up towards the vortex that the water funnel is lifting into and catches Pikachu and Piplup on its back, bringing them back down to Ash and Dawn before flying up to the vortex and blasting it with a burst of energy that closes it, causing the water funnels to crash back down and sweep a wave of water in towards the twerps who have to run from it. As the waters calm, though, purple light shimmers from a circle on the surface, opening a smaller vortex into the reverse world from which emerges Giratina, still not done with trying to throw down with Dialga!
Dialga flees, chased by Giratina which smashes it into the water, and the young man tells them to get clear.... so they just stand and watch the two colossi fighting within the water, shouting at Giratina to leave Dialga alone.
The young woman puts her hands together as if praying and mumbles that she wishes to transcend the confines of time and space, catching the attention of Giratina within a strange shimmering void as she communicates with it, perhaps psychically..... and it slams her backwards dismissively, its rage too much for her to do anything about.
And then Ash of all goddamn people saves the day.
Running stupidly into the shallows of the water, he cries out to Giratina that Dialga saved them. It turns its eternal gaze onto the small spark of nothing that is Ash and actually remembers him, and finally calms down, allowing Dialga to flee.
The woman - Sheena - communicates with Giratina once more now that it is calm, telling it that it has misjudged Dialga. It stares at her, a mind beyond comprehension, then disappears back into the reverse world.
Sheena and her male companion - Kevin - introduce themselves to the twerps, explaining that Sheena is a "Guardian" and has the ability to connect her heart to the hearts of Pokémon. She strokes Pikachu's cheek and tells Ash that part of the legend of the town is that a Thunder Creature and its Master changed the fate of the town. Dawn picks up that Ash is the "master" of a "thunder creature", while a confused Ash thinks that the person from the legend might be him and Pikachu and can't figure out why he doesn't remember it.
Brock takes the opportunity to take Sheena by the hand, declaring dramatically that he is a fated person too, fated to scrape his elbow so she could kiss it better! Also fate would have her stroke him with that beautiful hand of hers!
Damn son, going for gold.
He rushes back up to her and drops to a knee to take her hand.... and finds himself holding Croagunk before it Poison Jabs him straight in the belly and drags him away.
Suddenly the vortex tears open in the sky once again, the water spouts returning and catching up Dialga as Kevin grabs Dawn out of the path of an uprooted tree. Kevin shouts that they have to escape, but before they can go, reality is torn asunder again as the God of Space - Palkia - emerges and catches up the distortion in a bubble and removes it from space, saving Palkia.
Well, shit has changed since these two dudes tried to wreck reality and Croagunk had to step up and put paid to them.
Sheena "transcends the confines of space and time" once more to communicate heart to hearts with the Godly beings, thanking them for their help before they disappear into their own realms.
Watching from the bushes are Team Rocket, and Jesse is abso-fucking-lutely delighted, they've seen the Time/Space Pokémon AND a woman who can control them.... and she wonders if maybe SHE could do that, and grabs Meowth by the cheeks and looks deep into his extremely nervous eyes.
As he freaks out, Jesse sees something, something wonderful and beautiful and precious.... her reflection in Meowth's charm!
As she primps and Meowth and James moan, the twerps have been taken high up on the mountain and down beneath the ancient temple ruins, where an archaic mechanical contraption of rotating globes and wires they call the Time Space Axis, which they use to check on minute changes in the space/time continuum, such as at Alamos Town and hole in time and space near the glacier where Regigigas was released.
Sheena shows the globes, including their realm, Dialga's, Palkia's, Giratina's and.... Arceus'? They describe Arceus as a Pokémon that created its own world AND others, and the warning of an ancient prophecy that when it awoke it would send ripples through reality that have brought Dialga and Palkia's worlds together in a way they were never meant to do, and in turn brought them into contact with Giratina.
Thanks to Sheena's ability to communicate with the hearts of Pokémon, she resolved the battle between Dialga and Palkia, but Giratina took longer to deal with due to its rage preventing her from reaching it.
Well that's good to know, especially since.... God just woke up ANGRY!
Sheena explains that the legend says Arceus means to bring judgement down on humanity due to a "grudge" it has against humanity.
Oh great, God has a grudge against us.
They have been using the Time/Space Axis to pinpoint where they believe Arceus will appear, fearing that it will wipe them all out. Sheena shows them an ancient slideshow explaining the legend of Arceus, of how it saved the world from meteors crashing into the Earth and wiping out Pokémon. How the Life Plates that surrounded Arceus protecting it from all possible avenues and types of attacks were damaged in the process and Arceus crashed to earth sure to die just like Jesus Christ. But then a man named Damos tracked the crashed Life Plates down and returned them to Arceus, saving the life of God and gaining its gratitude. In order to thank them, Arceus removed five of the Life Plates - water, grass, ground, electricity and dragon and combined them into the Jewel of Life. It bestowed the Jewel of Life on Damos, making itself vulnerable but allowing Damos to turn Michina into a fertile paradise. But on the day when he was to return the Jewel to Arceus (during a solar eclipse) he broke his promise and attacked Arceus, fearing that Michina would fall into ruin without the jewel. In a fury, Arceus destroyed the temple and then placed itself into a long sleep to recover from its wounds before coming back to finish the job.
As the twerps all comment on what a HUGE jerk and asshole Damos obviously was, Sheena steps over to a container and takes it down, telling them all that SHE is a direct descendent of Damos.
Oh snap.
And then she opens the container and reveals the Jewel of Life itself, much to an eavesdropping Team Rocket's show, awe and delight.
Jesse can't believe it, they've hit the motherlode, the actual real honest to God motherlode, not some crazy Meowth fantasy but something honest to God incredible and rare and valuable that Giovanni would actually want!
But being Team Rocket, of course, they take things too far and decide that not only will they steal the jewel.... but try to capture Arceus too!
They're going to try and capture God.
Sheena reads out the message left by her ancestors telling them they must return the jewel to Arceus, realising too late their mistake and the peril they had put all of reality in. The Axis beings to distort and twist in warning, and Sheena tells them that it is time, God has returned to Earth, Judgment Day is upon them.
Appearing through a distorted ribbon of space/time, Arceus declares with a pretty weird voice for God that the time has come for justice, and then in true Old Testament style starts raining down death and destruction upon Michina. As it unleashes destruction though, it approaches the entrance to the ruins and sees before it for a moment Damos, staring up at it, and then the vision clears and it sees reality.... Sheena approaching with the Jewel of Life, begging it to stop. She explains who she is, and that she knows what her ancestor did was wrong, asking for forgiveness. As the priestess stands staring upon the face of God and offers the Jewel of Life back to it, Team Rocket sneak in to watch and Jesse tries to send her boys in to grab it.... only for all of them to try and send in the others out of misguided chivalry, misogyny and outright fear.
As they argue and shove each other, Arceus drifts down to just above the Jewel.... then shatters it with one foot!
Well uhh.... shit. That ain't.... that ain't good.
With fury, Arceus tells them that the Jewel of Life is a part of it and that it cannot be broken, the thing that Sheena and her family have been protecting and guarding all their lives is a fake!
Kevin hauls Sheena out of the way of a tremendous burst of destruction that sends Team Rocket plummeting down into the depths of the mountain and into an underground lake, spilling out into one of the twin giant waterfalls that can be seen from the approach to the mountain.
Back up by the temple, Sheena is shocked that the Jewel was a forgery, and insists to Arceus that she did not know, and attempts to make contact by staring into the heart of God.
That's.... that's not a good idea....
It blasts Sheena back for her presumptuousness, then blasts into the air to call down more death and destruction. As the hellfire falls though, Dialga and Palkia enter from their realms and protect them, crying out to Arceus to leave Sheena alone.
Oh, that's a... that's a bad idea, guys.
Masters of Time and Space they may be, but Arceus is pretty much God, for all intents and purposes, if not the actual thing then close enough that you'd never be able to tell the difference. It absorbs their attacks easily and blasts the fuck out of them for siding with the humans, and for all their own vaunted power they can't do anything.
So Ash has his tiny little yellow rat attack God.
And it works!
Jesus Christ, Ash, ignorance only takes you so far.
Thanks to the lost Life Plates that make up the Jewel of Life, Arceus can be affected by electric attacks. However, that is not enough to actually do it any damage, and it blasts at them all with a mighty wind and then prepares to blast them out of existence, leaving them with only one last possible protection.
Satan!
Giratina bursts out of the Reverse World with a roar and blasts at Arceus, which takes the blast easily enough, but fails to put it down as easily as it did Dialga and Palkia. It does manage to distract Arceus momentarily though, allowing Dialga to turn its gaze onto Sheena, surrounding her and the twerps with energy and lifting them up before they fade away to nothing, disappearing before Kevin's eyes.
They find themselves standing on the steps of the Temple at night.... or at least a semblance of night, as Sheena points out that the moon has passed in front of the sun in a solar eclipse. The damage to the temple is not only gone, but the temple itself is not in ruins. Sheena guesses that Dialga sent them backwards in time.... but how far?
Before their eyes, Arceus appears out of a ribbon of energy, but not in rage, it seems content, because the time has come for it to be whole again. It floats down to where Damos is waiting, holding a sceptre, and tells him that the time has come to return the Jewel of Life to him. He agrees, opening the sceptre to show the jewel attached to it, and asks Arceus to follow him inside. The twerps move inside too, moving amongst the shadows of the balconies as Damos leads Arceus into a central chamber and places the jewel on the altar, then moves on so that only Arceus is inside.
And then the attack comes.
From the rings of levels surrounding the central chamber, Arceus is hit by blast after blast of energy from Pokémon chosen because their powers match those of the missing Life Plates. Arceus is staggered, and the hits keep coming, crashing down on it, bringing down the roof in shards all over Arceus, relentless. Arceus struggles through and looks upon the jewel on the altar, but Damos goads it by revealing it is a fake, and the real jewel is still on the tip of his sceptre. More and more blasts rain down on Arceus, till the roof collapses almost entirely on top of it, burying God as Damos rants that he will never give up the Jewel and thus Michina will never fall into desolation.
Pissing off God probably wouldn't be the best way to go about doing this, Damos.
With a roar, Arceus smashes out of the rubble and unleashes hellfire upon the surrounding balconies, sending the assembled Pokémon running fright, weakening the very foundations themselves so that the floor beneath the feet of Damos and his men falls away and they plummet to almost certain death, Damos losing his grip on the sceptre as he falls.
The floor falls away from beneath the twerps and Sheena too, and she calls to Dialga which can hear her across time, asking it to send them further back. As they plummet towards their death, temporal energy surrounds them and they disappear again.
In the present, Giratina's bizarre anti-nature is affording it a tiny amount of protection from Arceus, which means it can take a thrashing without being smeared across reality. Arceus slams in with force into the lake at the base of the mountain as Team Rocket break the surface and take in a huge lungful of air, relieved to be alive. Unfortunately for them, God and Satan are now facing off within the body of water they're treading water in. A massive wave overwhelms them and crashes them into the shore, where we get to see something VERY important!
No, not Jesse's ass you perverts, the thing tucked down her shirt!
NO NOT THOSE THINGS! THE OTHER THING!
Palkia tries to join in and is slammed into the lake as well, while Kevin is concerned to see Dialga pass out from the pain it is in.
Across the temporal time vortex, the twerps feel the difference too and find themselves once more on solid ground, back at the temple in daylight, once again obviously before Arceus laid waste to it. As they look around though, a bizarre rock-gecko like Pokémon - Heatran - scampers down a grassy hill and blasts at them as guards with strange hooked pikes surround them.
A split-eared Pichu emerges from a hole in the temple wall (oh Jesus fuck not a Pichu) and watches as Piplup and Pikachu try to hold off the Pokémon and a sneering, lean man in red toga, sandals and bandaged arms comes down the steps with a Bronzong, wanting to know what is going on.
As he approaches, Dawn recognises him as the man standing in the shadows behind Damos when he betrayed Arceus. He has Bronzong use hypnosis on the twerps and their Pokémon, and declares they are clearly "not of this land". Sheena agrees, explaining that they come from the future and are here to warn of the dangers of betraying Arceus. He takes this in his stride well enough, saying she speaks strange words but he will listen to what she has to say, instructing that the "children" be taken to wait in a cell. Pikachu and Piplup are separated, dropped out of a sack through a grate in the roof to the Pokémon cells where miserable looking Pokémon that will attack Arceus in the future are sleeping.
They look around their cage, and then a rock in the wall is popped loose and the split-eared Pikachu comes out and says its hellos with Pikachu by zapping their tails together. Piplup tries to do the same and is electrocuted for its troubles, and then they head for the hole in the wall to leave.
Down in the cells, the twerps snap out of their hypnosis after being locked in, and are told by a kindly elderly guard that they were hypnotised by one of Master Marcus' "Magical Creatures".
Damn, they are a LOOOOOOOOOOONNNNGGGG way back.
They demand to know where Pikachu, Piplup and Sheena are, and the guard tells them Sheena is talking with Marcus. Ash wonders who he is, and a voice from deeper in the cell tells them he is a backstabber. They turn and look... it's Damos!
Well, shit is getting confusing now!
They demand to know why he is setting a trap for Arceus and won't return the Jewel, and he angrily tells them he has every intention of returning the jewel and THAT is why he is in the cell, because Marcus is trying to prevent him from doing so. The elderly guard says this is the truth, though he doesn't know if that is the right thing to do or not. Brock guesses that Damos was hypnotised by Bronzong in the future betrayal they saw, and Ash explains to Damos they are from the future, and proves it by calling out Monferno from its Pokeball and then returning it.
Up in Marcus' dining room, Sheena is none the wiser despite being able to see heart to heart, and is telling Marcus all about how Damos intends to betray Arceus and this will prove bad for Damos AND Marcus.
Inside the rocky paths running through the mountainside the temple is built into, Piplup gets a scent of something delicious and leaves the path to find it. In the kitchen where the scents are coming from, a guard is rather cruelly pressing a Chikorita and a Cyndaquil to work harder chopping vegetables and stoking the flames of the oven. Piplup pops out of a hole in the wall and reaches for a hanging basket of fruit, then slips and falls only to be grabbed by the foot by Pichu, which itself is grabbed by Pikachu, all in a losing effort against gravity.
Piplup falls headfirst into a strange many legged goblet, freaking out the guard who has never seen anything like it. He stumbled backwards into the wall and knocks a large shield onto his head. As he clutches at his head, Pichu and Pikachu greet Chikorita and Cyndaquil from their harnesses, letting them all rush out as the guard sits clutching his head.
Directly above them by many thousands of years in the future, Team Rocket enter the kitchen and discover an ancient helmet, tiara and crown that are in fact the old cup, pot and trident head from the past. As they celebrate their finds, outside Dialga, Palkia and Giratina are continuing their losing struggle/holding action against Arceus.
In the past, Damos cannot believe history remembers him as a monster who betrayed Arceus. He remembers the time of the meteors, when the world itself was threatened until Arceus appears from nowhere to save them, Life Plates still whole and untouched as he it rode directly into the path of the great meteor and disintegrated it at the cost of the loss of its Life Plates.
Arceus had crashed into the ground, sacrificing itself for the sake of what legend and mythology told was its own creation. Fragments of meteors still cratered the land with great swatches of destruction, but the word itself was saved, and Damos emerged from hiding to find the Pokémon gathered around Arceus' body.
Transcending the confines of Time and Space, Damos had seen a trail of light running from Arceus to one of the broken free Life Plates, and he ran to retrieve it, bringing it back to God like a reverse Moses returning the Ten Commandments. The retrieval of one allowed Arceus to recall the others to it, and Damos watched a miracle, the return to life from death.
Whole again, Arceus rose up and asks Damos if he saved it, and he said that it was the other way around. The next day, Damos surveyed the destruction of his land, and showed Arceus what was in his heart, his vision of the beauty of Michina as it could be. Arceus looks on what - to it - was an infinitesimal dream, and replies rather coldly that his dream was pitiful, but agrees to lend its strength to him by granting him the power of ground, water, grass, joined by the power of electricity and strengthened by the power of dragon, forming the jewel of life.
Arceus granted a great trust to Damos in giving him the Jewel and diminishing its own life, and he gave his word that he would return the jewel back to it, before lifting it high and achieving his dream.
As time passed, the people tended to the new life, the fields and the grass, trees and water, building the town and improving the land. Arceus remained or visited from time to time, and Damos promised he would return the jewel, Arceus telling him that it would return for the jewel when the moon covered the sun. He thanked it again, and after it left he built a shrine that over time developed into the great temple. And now, all these years later, the moon will cover the sun this very day.
Oh dear!
In Marcus' dining room, he is asking Sheena for more information about what attacks Damos used on Arceus, and she explains he used several different types of electric attacks before dropping a boulder onto it. Marcus asks if Damos used Silver Water and Sheena looks surprised, which leads Marcus to guess that he did not. Still, he appears to have made up his mind, standing up he declares that they will change history by ensuring that the Jewel is returned to Arceus, and SHE will be the one to return it. He opens the sceptre and reveals the Jewel, then steps past her and takes the opportunity to remove the jewel and hide it in his toga.
Deeper inside the temple, Pikachu and Piplup are lowering Pichu down to get at the prison cell keys. Pichu is stretching but can't quite reach.... and then the door opens and they panic for a moment until a delighted Totodile steps through and spots them. It doesn't have a harness on, so apparently it just wanders about happily within the temple causing trouble, just like a good Totodile should!
It blasts Pichu with Water Gun and knocks it and the key up into the rafters with Pikachu and Piplup, then smiles a happy goodbye and heads back off on its delighted meandering ways.
Back in the present, Team Rocket are exhausted as they try to get their "priceless" relics out of the temple, and can't figure out what has happened to the twerps. They have bigger problems on their hands though, as they step out onto a crumbling balcony and are reminded that LITERAL ACTUAL GODS ARE THROWING DOWN RIGHT NEXT TO THEM!
They cheese it down the stairs as fast as they can, Jesse furious at all the running and exhaustion, slamming the sceptre that landed in her hair earlier into the ground and.... causing it to open and reveal the Jewel of Life!
She grabs it with delight, and then the ground beneath them falls apart due to the outside fighting, and they fall deep down into the lake.
In the past, Damos declares it is time for him to return the Jewel, revealing he has other friends inside the temple. A rock in the floor is loosened and Pichu pops out with the key, followed by Pikachu and Piplup. Pichu rushes up to Damos with the key, and the twerps realise that as Sheena's descendant, he can see into the hearts of Pokémon and communicate with them just as she can. He unlocks the cell and tosses the key to the guard who takes it without a word, apparently happy to let them go if not actually break them out himself. Damos thanks the "children of the future" one more time, then rushes away up the stairs to find either the Jewel, Arceus, or both.
Arceus emerges from the ribbon of energy outside of the temple, entering it calling out for Damos, telling him the time has come to return the Jewel. Looking down, it sees Sheena on a stage far below, and she calls out that she is returning the Jewel. It asks where Damos is and she reveals that he is not coming, explaining he is not injured but was planning to betray Arceus. It doesn't believe her, but she says it is true and now she will return the Jewel, she opens the sceptre and..... there is no Jewel!
And then Marcus strikes!
The assembled Pokémon blast it before Sheena's horrified eyes, and Arceus calls her a deceiver. Shocked, she drops the staff into the water far below, while Marcus calls for the release of the Silver Water, and molten lead is poured down over Arceus, knocking it down to the ground where the water has been drained, the "Silver Water" solidifying and holding its feet in place as the Pokémon continue to blast it and more and more Silver Water is poured in as Marcus gloats and reveals the Jewel, telling Sheena that this is all thanks to her warning of the future. She calls out to the Pokémon to stop, but then Silver Water pours down over the platform and she has to jump back, not in time to stop from falling.... till Damos grabs her wrist and pulls her to safety.
She asks who he is and then both their abilities to see into another's heart activate and they see inside each other (GETCHA MINDS OUTTA DA GUTTA!), and she knows who he is and that he is not to blame. They prepare to get out of there, but then a giant flood of Silver Water comes pouring down towards them. Brock rushes up to join them, calling out Sudowoodo to use Hammer Arm and smash a whole in the floor for the Silver Water to pour down.
Meanwhile, Marcus is watching satisfied as Arceus is buried alive, clutching on to the Jewel of Life and ranting that now Michina will forever flourish. Just then Ash and Pikachu arrive, meaning to get the Jewel back, and Marcus discovers he is facing somebody who actually KNOWS how to fight back against a Pokémon. Pikachu blasts Heatran from its psychologically menacing place on the roof and causes it to drop to the floor, and Piplup blasts a burst of energy from Bronzong out of the way when it tries to take them out. Marcus insists that they will thank him some day as he is changing history by preventing their future from taking place - if Arceus dies here, then it cannot return in the future to administer justice on humanity.
Deep down in the bowels of the temple, the steadily buried and attacked Arceus can only wonder why Damos has turned on it.... as higher up Damos is doing everything he can to save it.
Together they "transcend the confines of time and space" and communicate with all the Pokémon attacking Arceus, reminding it that it once saved them all and their land by sacrificing itself. Upstairs, Bronzong and Heatran are trying their best to blast the ever-loving fuck out of Ash, Dawn, Pikachu and Piplup when their attacks are countered by other Pokémon, surprising Marcus when he sees unharnessed Raticate, Chikorita, Totodile and Cyndaquil and discovers that there are "magical creatures" living in the shrine. Then to make things even worse for him, the attacks on Arceus stop, ending the relentless unending pressure on Arceus deep below.
Damos and Sheena communicate directly with Arceus.... or try to, but his rage drives them back, knocking Sheena out of their communication and leaving Damos to try and make the effort all alone.
Ash charges at Marcus to grab the Jewel, and he shoves him away and demands Bronzong and Heatran take him out..... and they refuse! Pikachu and Piplup smack loose their harnesses, and Ash charges Marcus again, scrabbling with him for the Jewel which is knocked loose and falls to the ground, rolling down a trench in the ground designed to channel water and other liquids (surely not blood!) down into the drainage system that runs deep down to the underground lake. Chikorita tries to catch it within the drain with its head-leaf, but the Jewel is too heavy and slips down the drain and out the spout to fall and probably shatter to pieces on the hardened Silver Water far below.... until Ash does the most Action Hero Ash thing he has done in YEARS! Perhaps forever.
Motherfucking freedive!
Yes, he actually leaps OVER THE SIDE of the giant platform, plummets through the air and grabs one of the wooden sticks jutting out of the wall and swings himself forward to grab the Jewel with both feet as somehow his shoulder isn't wrenched out of its socket!
Goddamn, Ash, goddamn!
Pikachu jumps down the wooden sticks to a platform below and Ash drops the Jewel down to it, and they show remarkable balance by hopping along the wooden sticks as the world's most dangerous stairs and shouts out to Sheena and Brock that he has the Jewel. They yell at him to return it to Arceus, while Marcus prepares to either intercept him or just get the fuck out of dodge... but finds himself surrounded by angry "Magical Creatures".
Damos is still trying to reach the furious Arceus, leaping through the mental vortex towards it as Ash reaches the base of the temple and finds Arceus silent and half buried in Silver Water, eyes red and body non-responsive. More Silver Water pours down and suddenly Pikachu and Ash find their bodies fading, the same thing happening to Brock and Sheena, Dawn and Piplup. Marcus is delighted, this means that Arceus is dying and the future is changing, meaning that he never attacked the future, meaning the twerps never came back, meaning he wins!
Down at the base, Ash is crying out to Arceus not to die, desperately holding out the Jewel of Life as Arceus is almost completely buried in the Silver Water, crying that it can't die hating them, he won't let it.
Dawn hugs Piplup closely as Sheena and Brock are reduced to uselessness, and Damos forces his way through the circle of rage around Arceus to try his best to get to it. In the physical world, Pikachu disappears entirely and Ash begins to discorporate from the legs up, as their last hope dies.
And then Damos touches the face of God.
Screaming Arceus' name, he presses his hand against its forehead and does his very best to reach it and make it understand..... and finally his tiny mind touches the mind of God and makes it aware.
In the physical realm, the last remnants of Ash watch astonished as the Jewel floats out of his hand and changes into five Life Plates, absorbing down into the Silver Water as Pikachu returns and Ash's own body solidifies. Piplup and Dawn are hugging each other in preparation for non-existence when suddenly they return to full corporeal form, the same happening to Sheena and Brock, while Damos comes back to his senses in his physical body.
And God is awake with the kind of question for Ash that would drive a less stupid boy into an existential crisis.
"Who are you?"
Silver Water floods in one last flurry, but Ash and Pikachu are surrounded by energy as the now fully omnipotent Arceus protects them and lifts them up to rejoin the other twerps, including Dawn and Piplup. Marcus is still up high, resting against the wall as he moans to himself that for them there is no future, Michina will become a wasteland.
And perhaps he is right, the temple shatters beneath his feet, and everyone plummets - Marcus, the twerps, Damos, Sheena, the Pokémon, everyone and everything, falling amongst rubble and Silver Water towards their death.... before everything is frozen in place and they find themselves face to face with the unfettered might of God.
It glows blue and the light surrounds everyone, moving them to positions of safety, then green light shines over the Pokémon and breaks free their harnesses, as the camera lingers on a lone headpiece on the edge of a shattered temple rock.
God may be merciful, but sometimes the punishment fits the crime, Marcus.
Outside of the Temple, Arceus thanks Damos and the others for saving them, including all of the Pokémon gathered on the steps. It has used up a great deal of power and must go and rest now, but leaves whole and proper unlike what happened before in the past. After it leaves, the twerps find themselves shining and Sheena tells Damos it is Dialga calling. He doesn't seem to know what Dialga is, and says he wishes he could have more time to talk with her, but it isn't to be.
And then the twerps return to their own time..... and find Dialga, Palkia and Giratina knocked down into utter exhaustion, and Arceus still going fucking nuts up above, launching a series of meteor like missile energy attacks towards the land below. They can't understand why Arceus is still so full of rage, and Ash screams out to it and amazingly catches its attention as it once again asks the question that would make a boy with more than half a brain ask himself serious theological questions.
"WHO ARE YOU!?!"
And freezes time to find out!
With the imminent annihilation halted, it stares at Ash and a flood of memories catch up as the changes to history catch up and the errors are corrected..... including all the destruction already wrough... including the once ruined temple.... and Team Rocket's great fortune!
The waters of the lake wash over them and they take it all with remarkable good grace, sighing that they're "washed up again".
The clouds part and the sun shines over everything, awakening and refreshing Dialga, Palkia and even the abomination Giratina. The missing Life Plates reform around Arceus as its underlings fly up and "get thee behind it", while Brock tries to figure out why the area isn't desolated since the Jewel of Life was returned so long ago.
Arceus floats down and tells them that their ancestors dedicated their life to cultivating the prosperity that the Jewel initially brought them, and the twerps celebrate a successful ending.... at which point Kevin rushes up to rejoin Sheena and Brock realises that for him there never will be a happy ending.
As the sun sets (much like the ending of an episode!), Dialga, Palkia and Giratina return to their own realms, where they rule alone but fall under the dominion of Arceus.... even bizarre old Giratina. Kevin calls their attention to a NEW plaque in place of the previous one, where a hieroglyph of what is clearly them can be seen returning the Jewel to Arceus, and a message from Damos wishing the best for the future of all his "future children".
Arceus calls Ash over to him and tells him that the world is truly a magnificent place, then lifts up into the air and declares that for the first time it has come to truly understand that it is a part of it.
Thus ends the movie, with the requisite credits sequences showing the twerps making their way through the fields, meeting those siblings from the start and getting a free ride and a meal, Team Rocket escaping to a field of food which turns out to be a Pokémon, and revelations of what happened to many of the characters from the last couple of movies as well. We see the twerps continuing on their journey through sun, snow, towns, country, day and night, town and city, taking in the sights as they continue their journey.
But we're left with a strange question for a show like Pokémon. What was Arceus? Was it God? Was it just a mighty and powerful Pokémon capable of incredible acts of creation? At that level of power, the answer is really.... is there a difference? Nobody knows. Nobody will ever know. But isn't that really the point (and the fun)? Trying to figure this stuff out for yourself?
