Title: Chief
Estimated Length: Oneshot
Genre: Romance, Action/Adventure, etc.
'Verse: Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald Versions
Characters: N/A (all Original Character Pokemon)
Summary: Ignis might have been the leader of his tribe, but he often called upon the help of one of his oldest friends to lead his people. She had never done him wrong. Blaziken/Sceptile, Base120Startershipping. For Blazing Sceptile.
Starring: Ignis the Blaziken and Calixte the Sceptile; along with Ani the Weavile, Orrick the Zangoose, and Zenith the Gallade. (Brief mention of a jolteon named Raijin.)
It ended up not being as humorous as I thought, sadly. :| Sorry, Blazing!
When one becomes a leader of a tribe of hungry mouths, one must step up to the plate and take whatever life dishes out to them.
In Ignis' case, that was nearly everything.
He didn't much believe in gods, but he sure as hell believed in Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. And his life was a perfect example of that law, because no matter what, he couldn't seem to please the one person whose opinion mattered to him because he kept mucking things up.
The blaziken slanted his eyes towards the silent figure beside him and gave an inaudible sigh. Still as stoic as ever, I see. It was probably odd that the tall, green lizard didn't speak much, but he never really cared about what was normal about her. It was her uniqueness that drew him, even as she pushed him away with a cool word that shot through his defenses. She always knew what buttons to push.
"Chief! Aren't you listening?"
Shaking his head, Ignis returned his attention to the white mongoose before him, taking note of his agitated expression. "Yes, go on, Orrick."
The normal-type huffed but didn't comment any further on his inattention. "The tribe to the west of us is demanding we give them more land, or they'll take it from us by force. They've already sent a small force to take the southern boundary." He moved a few colored stones—one white, one violet, and one yellow—towards the area he spoke of on their makeshift map. "Right now, Zenith, Ani and Raijin are already there keeping them at bay with some other warriors, but they're employing a strategy we haven't seen until now."
Ignis scratched at his chin, glancing momentarily at his silent companion before humming in contemplation. "Right. Create a smokescreen to cover the battlefield so our elite can get past the main force and attack the ones in charge." He paused. "Perhaps a Healer wouldn't be amiss as well."
He nearly jumped when a soft voice came from beside him. "The smokescreen will blind our warriors, too." The sceptile's bright yellow eyes were sharp and unblinking as she studied the map. "And how would anyone be able to maneuver carefully on the cliffs in such darkness?"
The fire-type winced at the reminder, wondering why he hadn't thought of that. "Ani can maneuver through it, being a dark-type herself. And Zenith has his psychic abilities to aid him." He hesitated, not sure how to adjust for the jolteon in this fight, when Calixte spoke up once more.
"Pull back the lesser warriors before the Smokers arrive, and then cover the elites' tracks by sending a few decoys into the screen as well." She glanced at him, a faint smile on her face as she added, "Preferably ones who won't stumble in the dark."
His shoulders sagged in relief as Orrick dismissed himself, becoming a white-and-red blur as he raced off towards the battlefield with the new instructions. "Thanks, Cali," he murmured, watching her as she ignored his smile to examine the stones scattered across the map. A large gray rock symbolized the rivaling tribe to the west, but that was the only indication of competition in the area. It was the biggest threat they had had to face in a while; they had scared off the smaller groups of pokemon, but this tribe wasn't going to leave without a fight.
"You wouldn't need to thank me," she replied smoothly, "if you would simply use your head."
He deflated, once again hurt by her words. "But Cali, I—"
She interrupted him, although her voice never rose in pitch or volume. "Go survey the battlefield. Assess the situation." She pinned him with a stern look, stressing minutely, "Think."
"Yes, ma'am," he mock-saluted, sighing when she gave a soft huff before leaving the tent. "The things I do for love," muttered the bird as he exited after her and began making his way south.
"You do realize you were supposed to dodge that, don't you?"
The little orange chick looked up from his spot on the ground to find the grovyle towering over him, wearing a slightly bored expression on her face. He ruffled his feathers and hopped to his feet, flapping his wings irritably. "Of course I do!"
"Then why didn't you?"
"I . . ." He hunched down, embarrassment heating up his face as he softly admitted, "I didn't see it in time."
The lizard sighed before reaching down to wipe the dirt off of his cheek, muttering, "You will have to learn to do that, so no one will be able to beat you before you're prepared." Standing up straight, she looked down at him with a frown. "Try that again, but this time, duck."
The weasel grimaced at the cut across her leader's forehead. "Chief, you don't look so good."
Ignis gave a dry chuckle. "It must be bad, if you're calling my Chief." He wiped at the blood cascading down his face before giving it up as a lost cause and simply squinting at her with one eye. "Report?"
She nodded and straightened her spine, reciting the information she had gathered. "The attackers are small pokemon with light yet swift attacks, many of them poisonous. However, we discovered quickly that some of them . . ." She hesitated then. "Are disguised."
He furrowed his eyebrows. "Disguised? How so?"
"Well," Ani explained slowly, "once they're attacked, they reveal themselves to be small, black foxes and escape with a distraction such as snarling or nipping at our ears or feet. They also have a tendency to steal our items when we're not looking." She scowled, fingering the feathers around her neck that had once cushioned a blue pendant. "Little bandits."
The blaziken recognized the description but couldn't place the species. It was inconsequential in the end, however, so he lifted his chin and commanded, "Try to get our poison and earth fighters out there to counter their poison. We can't let the foxes keep running away and transforming; it's bad for the warriors' morale if they think they're fighting an army much bigger than their own."
Ani nodded and left the tent, leaving the bird to tend to his wounds. He cleaned up as best as he could without seeing his face, and then a claw grabbed the wet cloth from him as he heard Calixte's faint sigh. "What have I told you about dodging?"
"To do it," he replied jokingly, then grimaced when she handed him a bitter aguav berry. "Cali, I can't afford to eat this. You know those disorient me for a while."
She frowned disapprovingly at him, wiping at the cut above his eyes as she muttered, "A positive side effect if I've ever heard one. It will keep you out of trouble for a while."
He really didn't want to be on the sidelines for any length of time. They needed his help on the battlefield. "But Cali, I—" He was prevented from protesting further when a scaly finger was placed on his beak, and he looked at her solemn expression with pain. He knew that she knew how he hated being helpless, and so he silently pleaded with her to understand.
"I know you have a "saving pokemon" thing," she began calmly, pinning him with a cool stare. "But you risk further injury to yourself if you don't fight at your best. You need to heal, and then," her mouth twitched into a light smile, a rare moment of her expressing humor, "you can go back to being a hotheaded fighter. But only then."
He sighed and leaned back, his head lolling to the side as he watched her straighten up and turn to leave the tent. Just before she exited, he called out, his voice soft with memories. "I really don't know what I'd do without you, Cali."
She paused, a claw propping the flap open as she stared out at the tribe's camp. Without turning around, she quietly replied, "There's not much you can do without me, Ignis." She left him to reflect over her words and wonder just how true they were.
"Ignis!"
Distracted by the call, the combusken turned just as a green foot slammed into the back of his head, throwing him to the ground with a cry. Groaning and clutching his head, he squinted blearily at a green figure that offered a helping claw. "What was that for?"
"You were supposed to dodge," was her simple reply, and he sighed before grasping her arm and letting the grovyle pull him to his feet. Shaking off the disorientation, he turned to see a kirlia bent over nearby, hands on his knees as he panted heavily from exertion. The psychic-type glanced up, a wild terror overtaking his normally calm face.
"Ignis! Your father . . ."
In response to Zenith's tone, the bird's spine straightened as a trickle of dread began to leak into his spirit. "What happened?" Before he could get his answer, though, an alarm sounded just outside of camp, and he was surrounded by a writhing sea of bodies as the warriors raced to defend their territory. A pair of green claws was all that kept him from being either mauled by the invading force or trampled under their own.
The blaziken ducked under the fox's kick only to discover it was a feint as a right-hook caught him in the jaw. He stumbled backwards to put some distance between him and the dark-type, narrowing his eyes as he popped his jaw back into place. He wouldn't let the illusionist beat him with his smoke and mirrors.
A feral grin formed on the zoroark's face as he purred, "Did I hurt you, little bird?" His teal eyes sharpened, and it dropped into a snarl. "You're nothing compared to your old man!"
Ignoring the sounds of combat around him, Ignis gave a battle cry before leaping forward with his wrists ablaze, pulling back his fist to deliver a heavy blow. But the fox merely oozed around the punch as if his body was a liquid before returning the favor with another swift jab in his gut. He followed it with a swift round-kick to the side of Ignis' head, sending him soaring through the air until he collided with a tree. The wood groaned from the force.
The zoroark was confident as he walked over to kneel on one knee beside the bird, cocking his head like a curious pet as the grin returned. "You see? I can break you." He reached forward and tapped the fighter a few times on the forehead while he was still groggy. "Just. Like. Your. Dad." His face nearly split from the size of his smile as he grabbed Ignis' arm to fling him back across the battlefield, knocking over a few of his own warriors. "At least now, you can fly!"
A pair of green arms dragged him to his feet, but it wasn't Calixte's voice that cried, "Chief!" A gallade stepped into his field of vision before a berry was shoved into his mouth, and he swallowed it with difficulty and felt his strength return to him as Zenith muttered, "Their leader's too crafty to take on alone, Chief. You need back-up."
Ignis was still too sore from his collision with a tree to argue that point, but they were both distracted by a short cry that pierced the battle's atmosphere like an arrow. They whipped around just as a green blur slammed into the approaching fox with such force that they both dragged across the ground for twenty meters. They skidded to a stop to reveal a sceptile clutching the leader by his throat, and she pulled back her arm to slice at him with a leaf blade when a purple glob clipped her shoulder, startling her into loosening her grip.
Zenith immediately throttled the pokemon responsible, but the damage was done; in a flash, the zoroark was out of her grasp and on top of her, claws wrapped around her throat as she struggled to throw him off. Adrenaline fueled Ignis' charge to interrupt them and was brought to a searing inferno when the fox simply ducked around his fist. His feathered leg snapped out without a thought and connected with the dark-type's skull, but amazingly he didn't release her. He merely raised his free paw to throw a wave of darkness at him, blinding him to reality as he heard the fox hiss, "Try flying blind, little bird!"
A whoosh of air alerted him mere moments before he was backhanded, and he slid a few feet as laughter rang in the air. Opening his eyes did little to change the darkness that clouded his vision, so Ignis focused on his other senses while memories of nocturnal practices tickled the back of his mind. He could almost hear Calixte whispering as she had back then, "You need to listen, dodge, and seize the opportunity to retaliate. Don't let your lack of sight hinder you; be just as effective with your eyes closed as you are with them open."
He reacted instinctively and weaved to the right, and a whistle just beside his cheek revealed he had just dodged a fist. He immediately snapped his leg out and felt it connect with a furry midriff, and he didn't bother hiding his smirk as the fox snarled in frustration. The dark-type's presence disappeared from his side, but he simply stood and waited for another attack to reveal his enemy's whereabouts.
A shriek of energy made him jerk to the side, and he dropped into a crouch as a leg sailed right over his head. His hand shot up to twist the foot he grabbed, and he didn't even wait for the thump of his enemy hitting the ground before driving his elbow into the gut to knock the wind out of him. Someone approached them, and he nearly swept another warrior off of their feet before a calm, familiar voice made him pause.
A sense of déjà vu overwhelmed him when something collided with the back of his head during his distraction, and he felt the fox slip from his grasp as he tried to orient himself with his blindness. Claws steadied him when he stumbled to his feet, and he cursed after Calixte whispered hoarsely, "He's gone."
Ignis realized that, while he could fight in close quarters if need be, it was impossible to search for the trickster without his vision. He sighed heavily at this realization, but a palm on his face made him start and look down pointlessly at the lizard. "Are you all right, Cali?"
He winced at the husky "I'm fine" she managed to say. "You are most certainly not fine. We need to get you to a healer."
A finger stroked his cheek. "Says the blind bird."
He couldn't help the smile that came over his face—he was sure it looked absolutely goofy—as he threw his arms around her and embraced her tightly. "I was about to kill for you."
Calixte was still for a heartbeat that stretched for an eternity, but his worries eased when she bowed her head to rest against his shoulder. She reached around to clutch the feathers on his back, and her voice was the shakiest he had ever heard it (probably from her injured windpipe). "I nearly did the same." He rubbed soothing circles into her back, realizing that the sounds of the battle around them had vanished. As if reading his thoughts, she told him in a whisper, "The fox took his army with him."
He nodded in understanding. "We'll have to follow him to see whether he's going to come back." For once, though, the urge to chase after his enemy wasn't all encompassing; he blamed the lizard that surprisingly hadn't moved to escape his hold. "There'll be time for that later, though."
He could feel a slight smile against his feathers. "And what do you propose we do now?" If it was even possible, his grin became even goofier.
"I'm going to get my vision back so I can properly enjoy you smiling at me."
"Cali, will you still be my friend when I become chief?"
The grovyle stared blankly at him. Shaking her head, she replied, "Of course I will. What made you think I would suddenly stop being your friend?"
Ignis twiddled his feathery fingers, looking rather embarrassed he had asked the question after hearing her confident reply. "Well . . . I make a lot of mistakes, and I was afraid . . ."
Understanding what he was having trouble putting into words, the lizard wrapped an arm around his shoulder in a rare gesture of support. She squeezed him lightly. "I may get on your case about what you do wrong, but that doesn't mean I'm angry at you." She huffed lightly at his snort. "I may sound angry, but that's just because I'm worried about you. Any mistake you make in battle could be deadly."
He squirmed in her grip, once again sourly reminded that she was older than him. He hated it when she sounded like she was lecturing him. "So, if I do anything incredibly stupid as chief, you won't give up on me?"
This was the first time he saw her smile; it was barely there, and it disappeared rather quickly, but it softened her features enough to warm his heart for an eternity. "I'll never leave your side . . . Chief."
Yay, I've finished it! *throws confetti* Hope you liked it, Blazing! (Even with my horrible fight-scene-writing-skills, ehehe.)
Lots of dragon-y love,
~DL