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During the train travel, the Big Arms Inc boys had the time to make a better acquaintance of Al.
The Gengar, since his childhood, was absolutely fascinated by the legends about the gods of old who watched over the world, and of the Divine Guard, people chosen as messengers of their will, blessed with power.
And of the Great Schism, the disaster that had no witness, no explanation, but because of which all the gods disappeared one thousand years ago, leaving only the gift of the Mega-Forms.
"People now think the Mega-Forms are nothing but a genetic fluke. But as I said, there always is a seed of truth in legends. I'm sure that the gods, in a way or another, truly existed, and I want to prove it!"
"Oh yeah?" had snarked Cid. "How?"
The Gengar glared at him, but had no answer...

Eventually, the train finally stopped at Lostole, a charming little village, next to the Broken Lake where the monster roamed, according to the news.
"Okay, we're there," stated Ralph. "Now what?"
"Now, we go and see the mayor," answered Arno. "According to the news, he's the lake's landowner and the guy in charge of the tourists."

"You want to see the monster too?" asked the mayor, a Raichu. "You'll have to wait until the last group of tourists comes back. I don't want too many people around the lake at the same time, too dangerous."
"Too dangerous?!" repeated Bill. "You mean the monster attacks people?!"
"Nah, it generally stays away or flees. No, it's the lake itself that is dangerous."
"The lake is dangerous?!" repeated with incredulity Don.
"My predecessors were money-hungry bastards," grumbled the mayor. "They had a contract with some pharmaceutical lab. Tons of money if they could let them dump their failed experiments, residues and other shits in the lake. Until 50 years ago, that's the moment where the monster brought its mug here, and demolished their crap. Because of it, they got exposed and thrown in jail, but even today, the lake is extremely polluted and toxic. That's why it's called the Broken Lake."
A somber silence followed.
"So!" said cheerfully Al to try and break the mood. "What does the monster look like?"
The Raichu made a face.
"Because of the pollution, a huge fog often surrounds the area, making it very difficult to see anything, sometimes even creating illusions. So beyond being huge, four-legged, and having green-red eyes, no one knows what it looks like. We don't even know what its cries are like, it doesn't do them."
He looked by the window.
"Oh, hey, here are the tourists. You can go now."
"Wait, no guide or security?" said Anton with surprise.
"Why? The lake is the dangerous thing. Just stay on the shore and away from the water, and you'll risk nothing. And if the fog comes, just stay still. It never lasts long."

Al tried to ask the tourists for details, but nothing came forth except what the mayor already said.

The group then went to the lake.
It was actually a long walk, that took half an hour.

"Damn," eventually said Ralph. "He wasn't kidding about the whole polluted thing."
"No shit," sighed Clyde.
The lake was indeed in a sorry state. The water was extremely muddy from far, but a closer look showed that it wasn't just mud...
Surprisingly, the surrounding forest was normal.
"So?" finally asked Angus. "Do you feel something, Bill? Something unusual? Some pressure, tingling, anything?"
"No," answered Bill. "Nothing at all."
Al made a sad face. Sad enough to kill in Cid the mood for a sarcastic gloat.
"We try and find the monster then?" he asked instead.
"The day's almost over, and I'd rather be back at Lostole before the night comes!" protested Anton. "We'll try tomorrow."
"Okay."
But as they started leaving, all of a sudden, a dense fog covered the shore and the lake.
"Shit!"
"Calm down, guys! The mayor warned us!"
"Yeah, we just wait and..."
SCREEEEEEEE!!!!
There was no way to describe that scream that suddenly appeared from nowhere, except that it inspired absolute terror.
"AAAAAAAAHH FUCK!!"
"WHAT THE FUCK!!"
"ARCEUS, RUN!!"
Forgetting the advice of the mayor, they started running everywhere in terror.

A few minutes later, they had miraculously reunited outside of the fog, in the road to Lostole.
"HE DIDN'T WARN US ABOUT THAT, THAT ASSHOLE!!" yelled furiously Clyde. "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!"
"Surely the monster..." stammered Al, his heart pounding.
"He said it didn't do it!"
"Well, it made an exception for us."
"Yay!" snarked Arno. "We're so luc..."
"GUYS!!" yelled in panic Anton. "ANGUS AND BILL ARE MISSING!!"
A quick check up showed the horror of the truth.
"What do we do?!"
"We go back in there, that's..."
A booming, resounding sound cut him off.
"Oh, what now?!" exclaimed Don.
During a few instants, the sound kept going, amplifying.
And then, the fog lifted.
And what it revealed sent their jaws hit the ground.

A few minutes earlier...

"Guys!! GUYS!!" yelled panickedly Bill. "WHERE ARE YOU?!"
That fog was so damn dense he couldn't see a single thing, which creeped him out a lot.
And prevented him from seeing that he was now on a small rocky protuberance over the lake.
And that he was going to fall in it.
SPLASH!!

"Someone?!" exclaimed Angus, hearing the splash.
"Angus?! Oh, thank Arceus!! I..."
Bill's voice suddenly trailed out.
"Bill?! BILL?!"
No answer.
"BILL!!"
Finally, he managed to see something through the fog. A silhouette in the water.
A silhouette similar to Bill...
But the proprtions were incorrect. The silhouette was much bulkier than the young Swampert.
And it was, as Angus realised with a start, growing.
The thing was growing, bigger, taller, bulkier... Angus saw that the lake's level was, with an increasing speed, going from its shoulders to its middle torso to its waist...
Its muscles grew even faster, making the thing become as wide as tall...
And suddenly, a booming, resounding sound filled Angus' ears.
The Conkeldurr realized what that sound was: laughter.
And then, the fog lifted.
And Angus saw that it WAS Bill, flexing, posing, laughing...
And still growing...
Bigger, bigger, always bigger, until the lake, in spite of its immense expand and depth, was nothing but a shallow puddle for that absolute mountain of pure muscle and power.
Only then did the impossible growth finally stop.

Angus' mind desperately tried to compute what just happened.
And managed to compute enough to speak:
"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!"
For anyone who would have been around, it was an impossibly loud, powerful yell.
For Bill, it was an indecipherable squeak, that still managed to attract his attention toward the almost microscopical dot on the shore. He leaned towards the dot, still flexing and grinning widely, and recognized his boss.
"What? You can repeat, Angus? I didn't get that."
"WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!"
"Isn't that obvious?" teased the giant. "And why do you react like that? We came here to see if it'd happen, no?"
"Yeah, but... But I didn't really think it possible!"
"To be fair, me neither. And yet, it is."
Seeing that in spite of the overexaggerated growth spurt, he still was the same old Bill, Angus started calming down.
"And... You feel okay?"
"If I feel okay?! I feel GREAT!! You have no idea how fucking good that feels, even better than in that dream! And the best thing is, that's not my limit!"
"Not your limit?!" exclaimed a voice behind Angus.
It was Cid. He and the six others had joined back and heard the conversation.
"You mean... You could get bigger?!"
"I've got no idea how, but I know that I can grow infinitely!! Fucking awesome, no? Oh, and I can shrink back to normal too."
Al would have loved to sarcastically gloat to the Emboar, but he was too in awe for that.
"See, it was a prophetic dream!" he yelled excitedly instead. "A call to help from a god!"
"But I still don't get how that'd help the god!" protested the Swampert that could perfectly contend for the title of god right now.
"Well, we'll figure it out!"
"And also how it purified the lake," commented Anton.
Only then, the others noticed that the lake had mysteriously turned back to a beautiful, pure blue.
"And how the monster's related to all this," added Don.
"Tomorrow, okay?" asked Angus. "That's WAY too much excitement for one day."
Everyone agreed.
"Okay, Bill, get back to normal, now."
"Aw, come on, Angus! Five more minutes!"
The sight of an absolute, unstoppable titan whining like a kid sent to bed was just so paradoxical that it was hilarious, and the normal ones exploded in laughter.
"Hey, Bill!" launched Ralph between two hiccups. "How's the weather up there, big guy?"
The laughters redoubled.
"That just sucked, Ralph!" replied Bill, even though he couldn't help laughing too.

Art by  takataka
Original here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/17506996/
Bill © me
Mega-Swampert © Game Freaks