Celebi's Revenge
Celebi stood before the heart of the forest and gazed up with her usual sense of awe and reverence. A massive tree of unknown species, its branches spreading out hundreds of feet in all directions to cast the forest floor into a dappled golden twilight, the heart of the forest had stood for uncounted centuries. Even celebi herself, being a timeless and near-immortal Pokemon, couldn't remember when the sacred tree had first sprouted. For as long as her forest had grown, the heart had blessed and protected its green-shrouded paths.
There was little reason to visit the heart of the forest on that particular day. Although humans had been moving into her forest with increased frequency and bringing trouble with them, that day had been quiet so far. Perhaps it was that peace which had brought her here, she reflected as she fluttered over to the weathered, ancient trunk and sat upon an exposed arc of root that was itself thicker around than her entire body. The gigantic tree did so much to protect and watch over her, she felt obliged to pay her respects. It wasn't fair to be a friend only when she needed something, after all.
After a few minutes, Celebi rose from her seat and fluttered about the circumference of the great tree. On the far side of the trunk, nestled into a cave-like crevice, was a little wooden shrine. The structure wasn't much more than a shed, its walls covered with a thick layer of moss and lichen, its roof half buried beneath years of cast-off leaves. The bell contained within had long since been turned as green as the forest around it with verdigris, its once-sweet sound having not echoed through the glade in a hundred years. The shrine had been built by humans in a time when the foolish creatures still respected the forest. Looking over the disused shrine, Celebi frowned and shook her head sadly. Those had been happier times for both her and the other Pokemon who made the forest their home. Now, it seemed all the humans cared about was catching stronger team members and chopping down the trees to build more roads.
"It just isn't the same anymore," she mumbled to herself, tapping the bell with one hand and watching it swing silently, its motion nearly displacing a few kakunas who had been hanging from the ceiling by silken threads.
While the bell remained silent, a different sort of noise drifted to Celebi's ears at that very moment. Rustling and snapping twigs, entirely unlike the sounds a wild Pokemon would make, grew steadily louder. As she strained to hear more, she caught snippets of laughter and conversation. Humans had entered her forest and were headed straight for the sacred tree! Determined not to let them find it, she flew off straight for the sound, ready to intercept them and fight if necessary. She was a weak Pokemon, but she knew enough tricks to frighten away the foolish humans who didn't know any better.
She didn't have far to go before encountering the intruders. Two human boys were making their way along a path, too busy laughing among themselves to pay attention to their surroundings. Judging by the Pokeballs prominently displayed on their belts, they were trainers and Celebi knew that could mean only one thing: they were here on the hunt.
"Have you heard about the legend of this forest?" one of the pair asked.
"What, about the Celebi? I don't know if I believe that old fairy tale."
"It's true, though! I have a friend who was out here catching bug types last summer. He camped under this giant tree, and late at night he saw it."
The other trainer shrugged indifferently. "It could have been anything he saw. Maybe a Caterpie that learned Flash or something."
"You know Caterpies can't glow, don't be stupid."
In Celebi's opinion, both of the trainers were being incredibly stupid. What was more, it was clearly time for the duo to make their exit before they had a chance to cause any problems. She continued to follow them within the cover of the undergrowth until she was certain they hadn't noticed her presence. Then, mustering what power she had, she pointed at the two. Her eyes and hands glowed softly violet for a moment, the air rippling around the trainers as she used Confusion on them. The move hit unerringly, stopping the two trainers in their tracks as they looked about with dazed expressions.
"I think we were going this way," one of the two said, turning around and stumbling back the way he had just come from.
"Oh, yeah. This way." The second trainer bumped headfirst into a tree and nearly fell over before continuing to teeter along the trail after his friend. Both trainers fell down repeatedly, muttering about imaginary obstacles each time.
Celebi remained hidden until the sounds of the two crashing into trees and tripping over their own feet faded into silence. Once she was sure it was safe, she let out a tired sigh and fluttered out from the clump of ferns she had been sheltering in. She had managed to chase these two away without any trouble, but they were weak as far as humans went. There had been plenty of closer calls than this in recent years and things only seemed to be getting worse. If she was to truly be a good guardian of the forest, she needed more power. Where exactly such power could be found, however, she hadn't the slightest clue.
Gradually, Celebi made her way back to the sacred grove and sat before the great tree, gazing up at its majestic form with a note of sadness. "Oh, mighty tree," she said, surprised that she suddenly felt moved to speak her wishes out loud, "If only you could give me the power to keep the humans away, I might become the guardian you deserve. That is my only wish." Unfortunately, she could see no way in which that wish might be granted. She was just too small and weak. If she had the might of the great tree, things could be different, of course, but a little grass-type like her could only do so much.
Celebi awoke the next day and immediately felt something had changed. Fearing that it was her intuition telling her that more humans had arrived in her sleep, she bolted upright and looked around the little glade that served as her bedroom. Everything was exactly as she had left it the night before and, focusing all her senses, she couldn't pick up any suspicious sounds deeper in the forest. After a few minutes of tense listening, she let herself breathe a sigh of relief. For the moment, at least, everything seemed undisturbed.
But if it wasn't humans intruding upon the forest, then what was it that had woken her up? There weren't any other Pokemon around that she could see, and the morning sun was gentle and calm as it filtered through the green canopy. Still musing over what could have changed, Celebi hopped off the woven nest-like bed and moved to flutter away, but was stopped in surprise as her feet hit the ground. Just yesterday, she would have flown, not walked.
"Oh my," she said, looking down at herself and realizing at last what was different. "I've grown bigger! How in the world did that happen?"
Just as she said, she had indeed grown significantly taller. Where before she had been a petite two feet tall, she had nearly tripled that size. Not only had she grown larger, but her proportions had changed as well. Her legs and arms had grown longer in comparison to the rest of her body, giving her a much more human-like appearance. Her chest and hips, too, had undergone a noticeable expansion, her breasts now standing out like those she had seen on humans before.
"This must be the great tree granting my wish last night," she said to herself, flexing her arms and running her hands up her newly transformed body. "I wonder if this new size comes with more power, too."
Almost as if her wondering had summoned them, the sound of two humans crashing through the forest in the distance reached her ear like a beacon calling to her. Her lips twisting into a frown, Celebi set off in the direction of the racket, ready to put an end to whatever mischief was afoot. Whether she had truly grown more powerful or not, it was her job as guardian to at least try to keep the humans in check, after all.
When she drew within sight of the noise's source, she found herself on a path cutting through the trees. Two trainers had cornered a Stantler and were throwing Pokeballs at it, loudly proclaiming their frustrations whenever the normal-type managed to headbutt the balls away. "Come on, just let us catch you already!" one of the humans complained, tossing another ball that sailed wide of the Pokemon's head and hit a tree trunk instead.
Celebi had seen enough. Hands on her hips, she stepped out of the cover of ferns and stood on the path, clearing her throat to get the two humans' attention. "Excuse me! Just what do you two think you're doing here? Don't you know this forest is sacred?"
The humans turned and stared at her open-mouthed, the Pokeballs dropping from their hands in their surprise. "Are you... Are you the legendary Celebi?"
"No way," the other one said, eyes wide in disbelief. "Celebi's just a myth. Besides, the pictures I've seen didn't show it looking so... so..."
"So what? Beautiful? Powerful?" Celebi countered, turning to give the two a good look at her from all sides. "Well, you're in luck, because I am Celebi, and I'm feeling good this morning. If you two leave the forest right now, I will allow you to go in peace."
The two trainers looked to one another for a second before snatching more Pokeballs from their bags and taking aim at Celebi. "Catch her, quick!" the shouted, completely ignoring the Stantler as it bounded off into the deep forest behind them.
Celebi held out a hand, her eyes flashing with a violet light as she stopped the Pokeballs in midair with her psychic power. Then, with a frown of disdain, she flicked her wrist and sent them hurtling back into the trainers, each ball smacking loudly against their foreheads and sending them stumbling back, crying out in surprise and pain.
"That's what you get for disturbing my forest," she said. Then, to finish the job, she wrapped the two in psychic energy just as she had done with the Pokeballs and lifted them both off the dirt path. The trainers shouted insults at her, but she didn't care in the slightest. Her powers had grown tremendously and she was enjoying every second of using them. "Never let me see you two in here again!" She brought both hands down in a dramatic arc and the trainers were sent hurtling through the air, pushed by the psychic energy straight out of the forest.
Celebi watched for a moment until the pair were out of sight. Then, a grin of satisfaction lighting up her face, she turned to go pay her respects to the great tree as she did every morning. She was stopped in her tracks, however, by a strange feeling welling up deep within her. The sensation was similar to the joy and power she had felt while using her new strength against the intruders, only this time it was directed more inward than outward. Looking down at herself, Celebi gasped as she saw the ground slowly growing farther away. She was getting taller again!
The feeling of growth was unlike anything she had experienced before in all her long, long life. Pure power surged through her body, filling her to the point of overflowing with vitality. Even the plants around her seemed to be catching some of the growth as well. The ferns seemed to stretch out, the leaves of the trees becoming a more vibrant shade of emerald in the golden morning sunlight. Her breasts, too, swelled up with the new surge of growth, expanding from petite curves to a decent, but still reasonable, size.
When the wave of growth finally abated, Celebi was left standing perhaps ten feet tall, nearly double the height she had woken up with that morning. "This is incredible," she said, looking herself over and feeling immensely pleased. "It must be that every time I defeat someone, I grow larger. Still, I should find a way to test this, just to make sure I'm right."
For the first time Celebi could remember, she found herself spending the day actually hoping more humans would try to intrude into her forest. There was a chance this strange new blessing would work if she fought and defeated Pokemon as well, but what sort of a guardian would she be if she went around beating up the other forest residents just to see if she grew at all from the battle? No, she thought, much better to wait for more bothersome trainers to make their presence known. Besides, if there was anything she had learned of humans from all her years guarding the forest, it was that they were an insatiable bunch. There would be more to test her new powers on soon enough.
At last, as the day wore on toward afternoon, Celebi got her wish. Following the telltale commotion toward the edge of the forest, she found a group of half a dozen trainers in the middle of a heated argument. They were huddled around a map, two of the humans gesturing animatedly at various branching paths leading off from the glade in which they had stopped.
"I'm telling you, the heart of the forest is this way," one said, pointing at the path Celebi would have taken if she wasn't trying to conceal herself behind the trunks of some gnarled trees.
The first trainer's companion shook her head and pointed in a different direction. "No, you're looking at the map upside-down. We need to go this way. Your path will just take us in a big circle."
Celebi chose that precise moment to make herself known. "If you ask me, you should all go that way, back out of the forest completely," she said, stepping into the glade and relishing the looks of confusion, alarm, and awe on the trainers' faces. She towered over them now at twice their height, and just feeling that size difference was enough to fill the grass-type with delicious pleasure. Suspecting that the difference was about to grow much more pronounced only heightened her enjoyment.
The trainers stared in stunned silence for a moment before any of them recovered enough from their shock to act. "What... What is that?" one of them asked.
"I think it's supposed to be Celebi," a second answered, although the doubt in her voice was plain to hear.
"It can't be," one of the others replied, his eyes never once leaving the massive grass-type for fear she might attack when his guard was down. "Isn't Celebi supposed to be, like, two feet tall or something? This monster's gigantic!"
"Hey! Just who are you calling a monster?" Celebi said, her face wrinkling in indignation. "I was considering letting you all leave peacefully, but if you're going to throw around insults, then I'll have no problem with kicking you all out myself!"
Several of the trainers reached for the Pokeballs attached to their belts, but Celebi was faster. Holding both arms outstretched before her, she conjured the psychic power once more. All six of the trainers were wreathed in a violet glow as their feet left the forest floor.
"H-Hey! Put us down!" one of the trainers protested, legs kicking futilely in the air as they were levitated slowly but steadily higher.
"Oh, I'll put you down soon enough." With a smirk and a wave of her hands, Celebi sent the six trainers rocketing backward through the air like shooting stars, leaving glimmering trails of psychic energy in their wake.
No sooner had the trainers flown out of sight than the pleasurable sensation of growth once again filled Celebi's body. From her head to her feet, the grass-type began to swell with power. When the growth spurt finally stopped, she looked around in surprise and joy at the results. She had grown to the size of the trees around her!
"Now everyone will have to admit I'm a worthy guardian of the forest," said said to herself with a laugh, looking down at her newly enlarged proportions. Then, as she gazed about her at the familiar yet strange scenery, a thought came into her mind like lightning. She was so big now, she could take the fight to the humans. No longer would she have to skulk about in the forest's depths, waiting for the humans to despoil the sacred space. And if she was going to chase the pests off, she knew exactly where to start her conquest.
"Don't worry, forest. Those humans won't dare to even look in your direction when I'm done with them! Just you wait!" With that, the massive grass-type set off for the forest's edge, a vengeful grin on her face.
Celebi emerged from the treeline and stepped into the bright, unfiltered sunlight beyond. A rolling plain of short-cropped grass stretched out for a distance, leading eventually to a city. The city had once been a village filled with humans who respected the sacred forest. As of late, however, it had been expanding faster and faster, the buildings going from thatched-roof cottages to brick rowhouses and at last to towering skyscrapers of steel and glittering glass. It would have been an affront to the senses anywhere, but what made matters worse was the fact that it was constantly expanding closer and closer to her forest. In another decade or so, the humans would be chopping down the trees to put in more of their ugly buildings. The thought used to frighten Celebi, but now she could at last deal with the infestation on her own terms.
"Attention all humans!" she shouted, her voice thundering across the open fields and echoing through the canyon-like city streets. "This is your only warning! You have one hour to leave this city. Do so now, or be destroyed along with it!"
Moments later, her challenge was answered by the wailing of sirens. Swarms of vehicles began to zip about among the buildings. Some left the city as she had suggested they do, but others apparently were lining up and organizing a resistance. Celebi only shrugged at the sight. If they wanted to play that way, then she wouldn't stop them. The city was going down, with or without its inhabitants.
Celebi would have been true to her word and waited the full hour for the humans to evacuate, but those foolish enough to fight her forced her hand early. Once enough of the vehicles had amassed at the city's edge, they began to advance on her, weapons pointed out the armored openings.
"Oh, what a bother," she said with a roll of her eyes. One hand went up and a dozen vehicles lifted off the ground, their wheels still spinning uselessly. With a flick of her wrist, she sent them flying to the horizon. As she took a step forward toward the city, she felt her body once more expanding. The armored vehicles still remaining in front of her seemed to shrink down to the size of mere toys as her head became level with the smaller of the buildings on the city's edge. And as before, the increase in size came with an increase in power as well.
There was no no longer a reason to even use her psychic powers on the assailants. As she waded into their last line of defense, she kicked the vehicles away like pebbles on her path, her massive feet barely even feeling the metal impacting against them. The buildings, however, would be a different matter. Both of her hands came up, the psychic aura flickering powerfully across her splayed fingers as she put all her focus on the closest building. Power flowed from her to the brick walls like an aurora, steadily building between them as she put everything she had into this one attack.
The building's supports creaked and groaned in protest, their engineering pitted against the unfiltered rage of the forest guardian's psychic powers. It seemed that the walls would hold for a moment, but as Celebi shot forth a fresh wave of power, the aurora-like light flared brighter and at last the building began to crumple. Bricks tumbled out of place, windows shattered, and at last the roof itself came tumbling down as the whole structure collapsed into a heap of rubble.
The grass-type hadn't been expecting anything to come from destroying the building aside from the satisfaction of one less human-made creation to blight the landscape. She was quite surprised, then, to find her body growing a few feet taller from the act. The growth was no longer as dramatic as it had been at first, but it was nonetheless still happening.
Celebi grinned broadly as she realized the implications of this new power. With each building she demolished, it would get easier to knock down the next. "Time to put this to the test," she said, looking around at the city's edge for her next target.
The gigantic grass-type began her rampage in earnest. One building after the next fell before her wrath, each destroyed edifice fueling her size and strength more. After an hour of gleeful destruction, she had grown to perhaps a hundred feet and no longer needed to use her psychic powers for the smaller buildings. Even the sturdiest of walls was no match for a swift kick of her huge feet, her toes shattering windows and her soles grinding down the rubble to dust as she stomped away toward her next target. The humans foolish enough to resist her still milled about her feet, but they were little more than specks to her now, far too small and insignificant to be worth her attention. Let them flee if they wished; otherwise, they would meet the same fate as their precious infrastructure.
Celebi continued to grow all the while. Soon, she had leveled a ring of destruction wrapping around the entirety of the city, leaving only the largest of the skyscrapers in the city center still standing. Those had been left due to their size, as even her initial giant stature wasn't even half their height. Now that she had grown even more, however, she eclipsed even their mightiest pinnacle. Destroying these buildings now, it turned out, was as simple as giving one a properly-aligned shove. The toppling skyscraper smashed into its neighbor, setting off a domino reaction that left the commercial district in ruins.
"That's what you get for bothering my forest!" Celebi proclaimed, her voice echoing like thunder over the vast swath of destruction left in her wake.
As before, the wave of growth came over her with its now-predictable sensation of pleasant warmth and building power deep within the grass-type's very core. The destruction of the skyscrapers, however, had a much more dramatic effect on her than the lesser buildings had wrought. Celebi's size quickly ballooned upward much more quickly than any of the times before. She braced herself as she watched the city grow smaller and smaller at her feet, her head stretching up toward the clouds. The feeling was more intense than any she had felt before, too, filling her heart with triumph of a sort she had never known in the centuries of guarding the forest. Not only was she able to destroy the city single-handedly, but now she was larger than the city as a whole!
When at last her growth slowed down, Celebi looked down at the landscape with a mixture of awe and smug self-satisfaction. After destroying the entire city, she was now truly the size of a mountain. She could see the entirety of her sacred forest in all its beauty stretching toward the hills on the horizon, blue and hazy with distance. She could see, too, that even in its destroyed state, the city continued to be a blight on what was otherwise a perfectly lovely open grassland. The only thing to do now, she thought, was clear the land in earnest.
"Here we go!" she shouted, her voice like that of a goddess. Celebi gathered her strength for a moment before leaping into the air and drawing her knees up to her chest. The force of her titanic rear impacting against the ruins of the city was enough to send shock waves through the countryside, the miniscule flying-types roosting in the trees of her forest taking to the air in alarm.
Celebi stood and wiped a few bits of broken buildings from her rear and thighs, then turned to survey her handiwork. Where there had once been the sprawling gray waste of the city was now a deep crater, pencil-thin trails of smoke rising from the depths.
"Almost done," she said to herself as she gathered her power. Arms spread wide, Celebi used Grassy Terrain focused not on herself, but instead on the crater. Fueled by her monumental boost in size and strength, the move grew to blanket the entirety of the pit in lush grass and wildflowers. Unlike a more mundane use, however, she knew this move's effect wouldn't fade with time. She had successfully turned the wretched human city into a sanctuary which her own forest could grow into and overtake.
At long last, Celebi felt content with her place in the world. Gone were the days of hiding in the undergrowth and hoping the humans left her beloved forest alone. Now, with her new size, they would do well to fear even looking in the direction of her cherished trees. She would be as a goddess to the tiny humans, now so small compared to her that she could barely see them even if she cared to.
But of course, she thought with a smug grin, there were other cities too close to the sacred forest. Destroying just one would never be enough. No, she thought as she began to make her way to the next city with strides which cleared hundreds of feet at a time. No, the humans would still need to be taught a lesson. And if she were to grow even larger because of it, who was she to complain?
She was, after all, the goddess of the forest. She deserved to be even larger than the largest mountains. And soon, the whole world would see her achieve those very sizes. She would be sure of it.
As the day wore on into night, Celebi continued her rampage across the countryside. The moon rose on the scene, casting the overgrown remnants of what were once mighty cities in silver light. As far as the grass-type was concerned, it was a beautiful sight. So beautiful, in fact, that she had made up her mind to continue to spread her destruction beyond the sight of her forest. There were others forests out there in the world, after all. She was so big now, why should she limit herself just to protecting her own home? She could be the guardian of all the wild spaces in the world with her newfound power.
She had leveled two additional cities that day after completing her work on the first. With each one, she brought forth a lush carpet of greenery to cover the ugly gray of the crater. Even the plumes of smoke disappeared by the time the sun had set. To any who didn't know better, the cities were ancient ruins bearing the marks of centuries upon their moss-covered sides. But of course, it was hard to make such a mistake with the towering mythical Pokemon looming ever-present on the horizon, like a statue to a long-forgotten goddess come at last back to life in the world of mortals.
Indeed, the comparison to a goddess was apt. While the subsequent cities had granted her comparatively less growth than the first, what growth they had given her was easily noticed even by the speck-sized humans huddled out of her notice on the ground. She had easily grown to be a thousand feet tall, her beautiful form standing out like a mountain in the moonlight. Each step she took sent tremors through the earth, a warning to all cities she had yet to demolish and return to nature. The wise humans would flee at the first warnings of her approach, although that would do nothing to spare their cities. Celebi had grown certain in her convictions: All cities would be wiped off the face of the earth, returning the land to a pristine, primeval state.
As she walked under the bright light of the full moon, Celebi wondered just how big she would become after clearing the entire region of its urban centers. Could she reach two thousand feet from one region alone? Perhaps she would end up growing even larger. After all, the biggest cities had yet to be ground to dust beneath her heels yet. From what she had seen so far, larger targets yielded larger growth spurts. She smiled as she imagined the lofty heights she might reach in the future. The growth had gotten her addicted, even beyond her desire to protect the forest. The idea of finding the upper limit of her size potential thrilled her in ways few other things had in the past.
A glimmer in the night sky made Celebi pause for a moment and look up. What appeared to be a comet glowing green streaked far overhead, beyond even her titanic frame's ability to reach. She stood transfixed by the sight for a moment, amazed that even now, there were still some things in the world that were above her. As she gazed on, however, the green glow grew progressively closer until at last she could make out its form. What she saw certainly looked unfriendly.
While Celebi had never met most legendary Pokemon, she had heard enough tales to recognize the green serpentine creature streaking toward her as none other than Rayquaza. The dragon-type let out a roar, louder even than the sound of the crumbling cities Celebi had demolished earlier in the day, and fired a concentrated blast of violet flames from its mouth as it strafed along her titanic body.
"Hey! Just what did I do to make you angry, huh? It's not like I came up into the sky to wreck whatever it is you do all day!" Celebi retorted, the dragon's flames stinging her lightly but doing no lasting harm. "Just go back up to wherever it is you live and we can leave each other alone, alright? My complaints are with the humans, not fellow Pokemon."
Rayquaza roared again, once more shooting its dragon fire along her side as the serpentine Pokemon flew in dizzying circles around her.
It was then that Celebi noticed the collar around the legendary's neck. Rayquaza had been captured by a trainer, as unlikely as it seemed. That must be why it's attacking me, she thought as realization dawned on her. And if that was the case, the only thing to do was beat it in battle. Celebi would have liked to get the trainer at the same time, but the human was too much of a coward to show themselves. She would just have to settle for getting rid of what was likely the trainer's strongest Pokemon. That, at least, would be something.
The grass type got into a defensive stance, hands up and ready to grab Rayquaza on its next pass around her. Sure enough, she didn't have long to wait. With another roar, the dragon-type came soaring down toward her out of the night sky, mouth glowing with the fire as it charged its attack.
Celebi waited until the last possible moment before making her move. Right as Rayquaza was poised to attack, she lashed out with one hand, catching it about the body. The beam of destructive energy shot harmlessly into the sky and while Rayquaza thrashed about in her grip, Celebi was far too big for even the giant dragon-type to resist any longer. It was barely longer than the width of her palm.
"Be free," she said, and crushed the collar off its neck with a squeeze of her index finger and thumb. As she released her grip, the legendary gazed at her with newfound respect in its eyes before taking off to the upper atmosphere once more. Clearly, it had no love for its trainer, wherever the human might be hiding.
With a quick clap of her hands to remove any lingering dust from the tussle, Celebi continued on her way into the heart of the human territories. From her lofty height, she could see the gleaming lights of the capital glaring up like a beacon inviting her to scatter the buildings back into verdant darkness. What better place to destroy next, she thought with a smug grin. It wouldn't take long at all with her current power.
The sound of sirens rose in the night as the minuscule residents of the capital city swarmed about. Most had already evacuated, but the human military had amassed what power they were capable of mustering in such short notice minutes after the first city had fallen. Celebi had been expected to attack the capital before long, so as she drew nearer, she was able to look down upon line after line of tanks, trucks, and barricades, each smaller than even the smallest of toys. A single toe would be all it took to wipe out an entire convoy at her present size, and yet the humans still tried to defy her.
"How amusing," she said, her voice echoing like thunder. "But if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!"
For a moment, Celebi considered sitting on the city as she had the first time. She knew the puny attacks would do nothing to her and she could afford to take her time. This time, however, she felt like showing a different side of her power. She was a mythical Pokemon after all, and capable of far more than mere stomping rampages. It was high time she reminded the humans of this.
Taking a step back which sent tremors through the earth, Celebi brought her hands up over her head. Emerald lights began to flicker upward, channeled to her from the plants she had let overgrow in the wake of her previous destruction. The lights coalesced into a flickering orb as big as her head. The tiny sounds of weapons firing on her could barely even be heard over the powerful hum of the energy ball. Then, bringing both arms down in a grand sweep, she sent the orb flying, crashing into the city with a blinding green flash.
When the light and dust settled, an entire quarter of the capital had been leveled. The once mighty buildings, the roadways, the old statues... all of it had been reduced to a smoking crater. Celebi laughed at the sight, beyond pleased with her new power. Although some of the humans still fired at her ankles, she barely could feel the sting of the bullets and already she was starting to grow from the fresh wave of demolition. Not waiting for the growth spurt to even out, the grass-type Pokemon waded straight into the capital with glee in her heart. She fired one energy ball after another, each getting progressively more powerful and causing even more buildings to tumble, each feeding into her growth.
It didn't matter if the humans fled or not. Let them run if they thought it would make a difference in the end. There wouldn't be any cities left for the pests to live in regardless. At her new size, Celebi truly did feel that the humans weren't so much a threat as a pest to be dealt with. Their greatest city in the region crumpled like paper beneath her onslaught of attacks, new grass and flowering vines rapidly growing to cover the wreckage as she used her enhanced Grassy Terrain to clean up the unsightly craters left by Energy Balls and her own feet wading through.
As she stepped out of the verdant valley where a sprawling metropolis once had been, Celebi's growth finally slowed down once more. If it hadn't stopped completely, it had at least reduced in scale to the point where the giant Pokemon could no longer feel it affecting her body. Not that she needed to feel the growth at that point, anyway. She was already a head taller than the tallest mountain in the region. While she no longer had any use for the insufficient measurements of the human scale, she had to guess she was around a mile tall now, massive enough that she could block the light of the full moon from entire swaths of the landscape merely by standing still. To the humans, she would be more of a landmark than a living creature, a terrifying goddess to be venerated and admired from afar but never approached and certainly never interacted with. She was so big now, she doubted she could meaningfully interact with a human even if they tried. Most of all, however, she was confident she had seen every weapon the pitiful humans could bring to bear against her. Their own arms were useless, even the legendary Pokemon could scarcely make their presence known now.
No sooner had the thought popped into her mind than a light on the horizon caught her attention. At first, she thought was a shooting star, then Rayquaza returning. Then, only after a minute of watching the strange way the light arced through the night sky did she realize what it was: A missile. She had heard trainers in recent times speak of something they called nuclear bombs before and how, if used, they would destroy entire cities in a single blow. While she had no idea what the nuclear part meant, she understood bombs well enough. There was no point in wondering what the humans were targeting with such an attack now.
For the briefest of seconds, fear flared up in the mythical Pokemon's heart. Surely this was the true strength of the humans. Almost as quickly as it had appeared however, the fear turned to smug confidence. So what if these strange bombs could level a city? She could do the same now. In the worst-case scenario, she and the blast would be equally matched. This would be the test to see if she had truly grown strong enough. Celebi turned fearlessly to face the approaching missile, laughing her defiance as she braced for the impact, not knowing how hard it would hit.
Seconds later, the nuclear bomb impacted with the soft canyon of her cleavage. The blast was like a warm breeze flowing across her skin, the resulting cloud restricted and obscured by her mountainous breasts. A warmth spread across Celebi's body, but there was no pain. She looked down and saw with a note of triumph that the bomb hadn't even scratched her.
"I really am invincible!" she proclaimed. Even before she had finished speaking, the feeling of growth overtook her yet again. The ground around her feet was gripped with tremors as she began to increase in size faster than ever before. The power of the nuclear bomb was apparently worth more than all the cities she had smashed combined, as her form began to dwarf even the tallest of mountains within her sight.
Suddenly, a note of worry cut through the pleasure of getting even bigger. What if she accidentally stepped on her forest? She was so massive, such a mistake would be all too easy to make. The only thing to do now was to move away from the land altogether. If she sat in the ocean, there would be no risk of wrecking the very thing she had set out to protect.
Celebi walked to the shoreline still glittering in the moonlight, each step carrying her a mile or more in distance. Wherever the lights of human settlements marred the pristine silver glow of the night sky, she would pause just long enough to grind the buildings underfoot and cover them over with foliage, adding their size to her own even as she continued to grow out of control from the nuclear blast. The earth beneath her soles started to crumble into craters just from the force of her stepping, her titanic size casting the entire continent into deepest night.
Then, after a matter of minutes, Celebi reached the ocean. She waded into the cool water slowly, reveling as she watched the waves she created crash against the land. The deeper she waded, the more powerful the waves became. The entire planet's coastlines would change from her bulk displacing the seawater, a thought which thrilled the mythical Pokemon to her very core.
When at last she reached a spot she found to be to her liking, she sat down and reclined in the ocean's cool embrace. Celebi had become the size of a continent. She would be a goddess now in earnest, she thought as she watched the moon drifting serenely over her head. Not only a goddess to her forest, but to the entire planet. From that day forward, no humans would be able to get in her way or harm the forests of the world. There wasn't a thing in the world that could stand against her and her rule would be absolute.
"This is the dawn of a new era," she said to herself, even the quiet words echoing across the land like subdued thunder. "The era of forests. My time to shine." And indeed, Celebi felt every word of it.
Over the course of the next week, Celebi continued to grow. The increase in size was barely noticeable to her, merely a continuing reduction in size of the already microscopic landscapes around her. To the people still remaining on the planet, however, the new goddess was beginning to rival even the moon itself in both size and unreachable majestic.
Upon waking from her sleep on the seventh day, Celebi realized at last just how large she had grown. Her comparison to the moon was no longer a mere metaphor: She had truly grown to be its equal in size. The mythical Pokemon drifted in orbit around the Earth, her impossible size granting her a gravity field and atmosphere of her own in ways she had never even considered might be possible while still a tiny forest guardian.
As she watched the gleaming blue planet rotate serenely before her, she frowned at a blemish on the otherwise pristine surface. The ugly gray of a vast metropolis spread like a rash across one of the continents she had missed while still able to walk upon the planet's surface.
"Oh dear," she said to herself. "I had better take care of that."
A single finger reached out and pressed down on the metropolis, the sheer size of her hand casting the entire section of continent into an eclipse. The tip of her index finger crashed into the side of the planet, rubbing the unsightly city away as if it was nothing more than a stray bit of mud. From her new perspective, she couldn't even feel the crumbling buildings beneath her fingertip. Then, as she slowly pulled her hand away once again, a familiar green glow briefly flared in the wreckage.
Celebi leaned back and smiled. The entire planet was hers to shape now. At last, the cities of the foolish humans would never threaten the sanctity of her forests again.
Lambent-North !
