After we reached that accord, I thanked Dusknoir for being cooperative and for sharing all that interesting information with us before bidding him goodbye. I then left the core chamber using the tunnel Gaara/Gabite made, before making my way a bit further into the tunnel. Once I had put some distance between me and Gaara's tunnel, I called out to Hades/Gengar, who emerged from my shadow. I asked him to look for an empty room that I could use to talk to the ghostly boss trio since I did not want to do it out here in the "open"/tunnel.
The reason I wanted to talk with them now instead of doing so inside of Utopia was to get a preliminary understanding between us before Utopia's effects began working on them. I was 90% certain that Utopia's optimization and healing/restoration process would help them recover at least a part of the damage caused by the seal drain, so I wanted to use that to obtain the cooperation and hopefully even their submission.
Well, the majority of the negotiation was still going to be held inside Utopia since I did not want to openly/explicitly talk about the things Utopia could do with so many high-level ghosts around that could spy on us without our notice, but the shift itself was going to have an impact that would hopefully have a positive impact on the negotiation. Besides, I wanted to show them that weakened as they were right now, we could absolutely suppress them without relying on anything or anyone else which would hopefully make them more accepting of us/me. You know, in case they were not willing to acknowledge/accept the beating Mothra/Butterfree, Horus/Xatu and co gave them.
Anyway, Hades saluted and hurried down the tunnel while we settled down and began to telepathically talk about the things Dusknoir told us. Mothra and the others were rather excited to hear about the exploits/feats of the gods and deities of our world, and while I had no problem assuring them that I, a 100%, believed that they would reach their level as well when they talked about Hoppa and the other Legendaries battling/dealing with the Ultra Beasts, I couldn't in good conscience do the same when they brought up Palkia and his feat of casually isolating universes.
Frankly, I could easily see my Pokemon reaching the heights of Minor Legendaries, at least their potential made it possible for them to do so. Heck, for some of them, such as Mothra and Fortuna/Togekiss, the path to the same realm as that of the Major Legends was probably a paved one; Well, at least I thought that was the case, though I might be wrong. Yet, even the confidence I had in my Pokemon and their potential had its limits. Even before I heard of Palkia's incredible feat, I had been unsure if my Pokemon could reach the Primal trio's level, at least in their primal/origin state since they were literal world creators in that form.
The less said about their chances of reaching the creator quartets level the better, and that doubt only grew now that I heard about the ease at which Palkia exerted universal feats. Nonetheless, not wanting to dampen their spirits I simply told them that we would strive for the peak and see how far we could go. They certainly seemed to appreciate it since even Horus let out a pumped "ooooo".
Impromptu pep talk aside, I greeted Hades, who had just come back, and we followed him as he led us to the room he found. I observed the room and after estimating how many of us it could take I released roughly half of the dark gold ones. I arranged them around me for maximum effect/impression before considering for a moment if I should bring out the Ceruledge individually or if I should bring out the boss trio as a group. I eventually brought out all three of them together, though the first impression I wanted to give probably failed since the trio lay slumped on the ground.
I could not help but feel a bit awkward when I noticed that all three seemed to have fallen unconscious, and the others snickered when they noticed that our posing ended up being for naught. I went up to the three with Mothra, Horus, and Nyx/Umbreon in tow to check up on them. Seeing their state I decided to heal them up a bit to ensure that they could at least participate in the negotiation, though fully healing them would have to wait until we had come to an arrangement.
I used one of the recovery potions I prepared for Hades' training and split it among the three. I felt them regain consciousness as the potion got to work, though the trio remained unmoving, pretending to be unconscious. It was obvious that they were trying to check out their situation, but I decided to tell them that the gig was up and they stopped pretending when I did that. The others surrounded us upon my signal so the three ghosts got to see our lineup once they stood/sat up.
There was a moment of silence where we just stared at each other. The silence was eventually broken by Ceruledge who spoke up and asked us what we wanted, so I went ahead and told him as well as his two fellows what I wanted from them, namely their unconditional and sincere submission in exchange for a safe as well as prosperous place to stay, along with my help in their recovery in addition to resources to train.
They straight up told me that we were too weak to make them submit and that we merely took advantage of their injured state which was not enough to make them or their subordinates acknowledge us. I candidly told them that that might have been the case before, but that it was no longer true since their strength had fallen considerably after what the seal had done to them.
I knowingly provoked Ceruledge, who was the obvious leader among the three, and told him that we could easily beat them if we ganged up on the three even if I healed them up, though I added that seeing how much they had fallen Mothra could deal with him on her own. It might have been a pretty obvious provocation, but it worked nonetheless and Ceruledge asked me to put money where my mouth was. He added that any further negotiations would have to wait until Mothra had beaten him 1 on 1; After he had fully recovered obviously. Well, he was referring to his health here and not his (high) platinum-stage prowess.
I naturally agreed and directly moved all of us to one of the more desolate areas of Utopia. Since I did not plan to help Ceruledge and his companions before they officially joined us, I ensured that Utopia's optimization did not trigger due to their appearance, so the three ghosts remained in their handicapped state as they studied their new surroundings. While they did that, I held my breath and waited to see if Utopia would initiate an upgrade, which it sadly didn't. Either the conditions were not fulfilled yet, or maybe they had to go through Utopia's optimization first.
I gave them a few seconds before giving Ceruledge a warning to behave, only then did I allow Utopia to heal him. I observed as Ceruledge and the two Aegislash watched with fascination how Ceruledge's health, stamina, and energy swiftly recovered. It took less than 2 minutes for Ceruledge to fully recover and I certainly enjoyed seeing their disbelieve. The others teased the three ghosts and told them that this was nothing compared to the other stuff their home could do, hyping Utopia in the eyes of the three.
Everyone was able to see the yearning that appeared when the three became aware that there might really be a way for them to swiftly regain what they had lost, so when Ceruledge tried to appear unaffected while prompting us to "get on with it", I had to smile. The others had no reservations at all and directly began to laugh, though Ceruledge ignored them and stared at me instead.
Seeing him like that I raised my hand, causing the others to quiet down, and once they were calm, I told Mothra that she was up. I then used my Utopia admin powers to manipulate the area around us. I transformed the ground beneath our feet to form a proper battlefield with defined borders, before raising some tall stands at one of those borders. Following that, I moved all of us except the two combatants to said stands, which frightened the two Aegislash whose position suddenly shifted. Ceruledge was surprised as well, though much less so than the two who got to experience the shift.
Anyway, with us now having a good view of the battlefield, I decided to start the countdown for the battle, though I noticed that the ghost trio's attention was drawn to the stream/display I projected into the sky. After casually flexing by telling them that I was just projecting the battle for my Pokemon that were not present, I told Ceruledge to focus on Mothra instead before I began to countdown.
As soon as I gave the starting signal Ceruledge tried to blitz Mothra but she calmly released a Sleep/Stun/Poison Cloud before teleporting a safe distance. Mothra then began to stack debuffs on Ceruledge while buffing herself, and she naturally did all that while ensuring that Ceruledge was unable to hit her. Ceruledge seeing where the fight was going became frustrated and managed to use Curse on Mothra, though his happiness was short-lived when he saw her stacking up healing moves to offset any damage Curse could cause.
Ceruledge, who was witnessing firsthand how broken Mothra's move pool was, was not the only one who could not believe what was happening. The Aegislash duo had gone very still at some point and were practically oozing disbelief. That disbelief turned into shock when Mothra returned the favor and used a proper Curse on Ceruledge, before turning to horror when she recovered from the self-inflicted damage in around a minute, and that while still dealing with Ceruledge, who had momentarily frozen in shock when he got Cursed.
Their battle went on for another 5 minutes because Ceruledge refused to give up and Mothra had to beat him until he was down for the count, which caused my Pokemon, who had been cheering for Mothra, to quieten down during the last minute or so out of respect for Ceruledge's persistence. Once Ceruledge was down, I reactivated Utopia's healing effect for the two, causing Ceruledge to regain consciousness right away and Mothra to become Curse-free.
Ceruledge seemed to have been very impressed by Mothra's performance. He began to chat with Mothra and after we joined them, I heard him grill her on her moves. Mothra stopped their conversation when I joined them, turning Ceruledge's focus to me. He acted pretty straightforwardly and pledged his allegiance to me, causing the two Aegislash to follow suit. What surprised me a bit was that Ceruledge actually went to the half-kneeling position to perform his pledge, like some knight out of a story. Well, he looked like an armor come to life after all, so it kinda fits the theme, I guess.
Anyway, my own senses told me that they were genuine in their submission, but I still used my admin mode to confirm that I was right in my assumption using Utopia's scanners. Once I was sure that they had submitted, I told them that I would help them recover from the drain as much as I could before I allowed Utopia to initiate its optimization process. The bad news was that the Utopia upgrade I had been hoping for still did not happen even after the three had gone through the optimization process, but there was still hope that it would get triggered once the other platinum stage ghosts got released. That aside, the good news was that the result of the optimization process was even better than I had expected.
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