On hiatus while I decide whether it's worth fixing. Yes, I know that usually means "abandoned". It pretty much does in this case. Go and read Almost Like Flying by Starling-Night instead. It's in my favourites. It says most of the things I was going to say, but shorter and sadder and better, damn it.
I mean, what was I thinking? I don't even particularly like scyther.
Long Claw's Daughter
Swords Dance is almost always used by trained scyther solely to boost attack, but in the wild it serves a variety of purposes, from a territorial threat display to a mating ritual.
Safe Hold sat under a tree at the edge of the forest and looked out at her clan. Shining Blade and Long Claw were beside her, resting in the shade, picking their teeth with the bones of the clan's last meal. Smooth Stroke and Broad Wing were sparring together, casually, their thrusts and swings slow and gentle. Bright Chitin was watching Keen Eye's son and Broad Wing's daughter, both too young to have a name yet, as they played together. All was well there - Keen Eye's son wasn't being too rough with the younger female, and she wasn't complaining. Swift Flight and Sharp Fang were teaching Light Step and Long Claw's daughter the fifth routine of the swords dance, move by move. Long Claw's daughter... it really was time she thought of a name for the child. Safe Hold settled her gaze on them.
Sharp Fang swung her left blade diagonally up at Swift Flight. He crossed his scythes and caught her blade on their backs. She brought her right blade down at him from above, and he deflected it with his right, sending her blade sliding harmlessly down beside him and forcing her into a turn. As she spun to face him again, he swung at her head. She ducked, and his momentum carried him round in a spin of his own. At that point, they stopped. "Your turn," Sharp Fang said.
Light Step caught Long Claw's daughter's left blade perfectly, but was too slow bringing up his right blade. She noticed, but not in time to do more than pull to the side and miss his head, instead hitting his shoulder. He yelped and sat down rather hard. "Oops," she said guiltily. "Sorry."
"Oh dear," said Sharp Fang, hurrying over to see if he was injured.
"Sorry," Long Claw's daughter said again. "I didn't mean to."
Light Step glared wordlessly at her. Safe Hold decided it was time to intervene.
"Swift Flight, why don't you take Long Claw's daughter and find some berries for Light Step?" she suggested.
Swift Flight nodded. "Come on, kid." They jogged away along the treeline.
It turned out that Light Step was not hurt enough to need berries. There was bruising, but nothing permanent, and his shoulder plate wasn't damaged. The main thing hurt was his pride. "Hope she gets eaten by pidgeot," he grumbled.
"You're fine," Sharp Fang said. "Stop going on about it."
"I'd've taken her head off if I hit her that hard."
"Stop whining," Shining Blade snapped, "you're annoying me. It was as much your fault as hers."
"But Ma, you saw what happened."
"I saw you were slow! You have to be faster than that! Soon you're going to be an adult, and the females you're dancing with won't be your cousin. What will you do when one of them's too quick for you? You're not hurt, so shut up and do better next time!"
Broad Wing's daughter started to wail. Broad Wing hushed her.
Light Step glowered at his mother and stomped away to sulk. Shining Blade sighed. "I'm too old to still be raising a child."
And no-one thought any more of it until some time later, when Swift Flight and Long Claw's daughter hadn't come back.
"I didn't mean to hit him," Long Claw's daughter said. "He wasn't fast enough."
"You were hitting too hard, kid," Swift Flight told her. "It was only practice, and even when it isn't, you won't be trying to kill the poor male."
"I know. It's just..." She slashed at a sapling. "You and Sharp Fang were going so fast, and it looked so good..."
"We've had years of practice," Swift Flight said. "Sharp Fang's ready to dance the fifth routine for real, and I almost am, but you and Light Step need to start slow."
"Why didn't you go with me and Sharp Fang with Light Step, if you're both so good?"
He laughed. "Because you're too short, little scyther-child. I couldn't reach down low enough to dance with you."
"Hey!" She took a swipe at him. He dodged easily and darted away. She chased after him, and he sprinted away into the forest, seemingly randomly but really heading for a clearing he knew oran plants grew in. She followed behind, threatening to cut him down to her size when she caught him. He slowed to let her catch up as they reached the clearing, but by the time they came out of the trees she was too puffed to press her attack.
"That's odd," Swift Flight said. There were plenty of oran plants, several of which should have been in the fruit bearing stage, but from what he could see none of them had any berries.
"Gust!" a voice yelled, and as Swift Flight spun to face it a great blast of wind struck him. He was thrown bodily and slammed into a tree. He heard Long Claw's daughter cry out. As he climbed back onto his feet he looked around wildly. She was lying crumpled on the ground, having slid to a stop rather than hit something. He wanted to rush over to her, but fifteen metres away was the one who had hit them with the gust - a pidgeotto, with a human standing behind her.
"Gust again," the human said. "Aim at the big one." The pidgeotto flapped her wings obediently, but Swift Flight was ready this time and braced himself as the wind hit him. He was buffeted, but not thrown, and he pushed forward through the gale towards the pidgeotto. She stopped, glancing behind her at the human. Swift Flight ran at her. "Aerial ace!" the human shouted. The pidgeotto thrust herself into the air - and disappeared.
Swift Flight stopped, bewildered. Where had she gone? He saw her out of the corner of his eye, and spun around, but she was gone again. He spotted her again, and again she was gone before he could get her in his sights. She was unfairly fast, and if he didn't know where she was...
"Behind you!" Long Claw's daughter screamed.
The pidgeotto smacked into his back, knocking him over with her on top of him. He felt plating crack, but it barely hurt. One of his scythes was trapped under his body, and he couldn't reach the pidgeotto with the other. He twisted his head to get his face out of the dirt, and she pecked at his eye. He roared and, with a furious burst, managed to roll over and throw her off. She screeched angrily, scrambled upright and then squawked and leaped away as he slashed at her. He missed, for the most part, but he sliced through most of the feathers of her tail, and she was unsteady as she flapped back to her human.
Swift Flight stood up, blinking rapidly. She'd missed his eye, but she'd hit the soft skin beneath it, and it was already starting to swell. The human was inspecting the pidgeotto's tail.
"Are you all right, kid?" he said, keeping his eyes on the pidgeotto.
"My leg's hurt," Long Claw's daughter said.
"Can you use it?"
"I don't think so..."
The pidgeotto laughed. "Why don't you just give up? You can't beat me, and even if you do you can't beat whoever comes next."
Swift Flight didn't understand that, but it didn't matter. "I can beat you and a thousand others," he growled.
"We just want the little one," the pidgeotto went on. "My master will look after her, heal her up, make her strong. Why don't you let us have her now and save yourself the trouble?"
Long Claw's daughter gasped. Swift Flight glanced at her. She was sitting up now, her back against a treetrunk, her eyes wide with fear. "Never!" he snarled. "Why don't you go-"
"Quick attack!" the human said. Swift Flight tensed. Pain shot through his back from his cracked plating, but he ignored it. The pidgeotto beat her wings and flew at him - fast, but this time, to his relief, not too fast. He dodged to the side just before she hit him. She tried to turn to hit him anyway, but with her tail damaged she didn't have the control she was used to, and all she hit was the blade he swung at her wing. She screamed and crash-landed, her wing bent at an unnatural angle.
"What's wrong, little bird can't fly?" Swift Flight taunted, stalking towards her.
She struggled to her feet. "You stupid!" she shrieked. "We'll kill you!"
"I'll kill you first." He kicked her in the face, knocking her over backwards, and planted a clawed foot on her chest. She struggled, and scratched at his leg with her talons. He hissed and brought his blade down across her neck and she vanished.
Swift Flight nearly fell. His blade hit the ground with only a few smears of blood on it. He hadn't killed her. She'd disappeared before he'd killed her properly. He whirled around and limped towards the human. No-one was protecting it now.
The human threw something on the ground in front of it, and another pokemon appeared: this one smaller than the pidgeotto, red, a flame burning on the end of his tail. Swift Flight stopped.
"You beat Topaz?" the charmeleon said, looking around at the torn-up ground, the feathers, the bruised and battered scyther. "Not bad."
"Run, kid," Swift Flight said desperately.
"But my leg, I-"
"Limp, fly, whatever! Just get out of here!"
"I'd listen to him, little bug," the charmeleon said. "You might even get away."
Swift Flight threw himself at the charmeleon, knowing his only chance was to get it out of the way quickly-
"Ruby, flamethrower!" yelled the human.
Long Claw's daughter did try to run. She hobbled through the forest, buzzing her wings furiously to take some of the weight off her leg. Her breath rasped in her throat. Swift Flight was facing down a charmeleon. But he couldn't beat a charmeleon! Oh, legendaries, let him not be dead!
"Come back, little scyther," she heard the charmeleon call. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."
She was slow, so very slow, but she couldn't go faster. Her ankle and knee screamed in pain with every step she took. She was scyther, she was tough, she could handle a bit of pain...
The human's heavy feet stomped along behind her, gradually growing louder. She could hear the softer pat-pat-pat of the charmeleon. They were too close.
"There it is!" the human said. "Go on, Ruby."
She stopped, put a tree at her back, brought her blades into the guard position. "Scy..." she hissed.
"I don't want to hurt you, child," the charmeleon said. He didn't look at all injured, as though Swift Flight hadn't managed to land a single blow. "I won't if I don't have to."
"Oh yes, and what have you done to Swift Flight?" she snarled.
"The male?" the charmeleon said. "He's fine. He's unconscious, that's all. He's back there. He'll recover just fine. Are you going to calm down and let us catch you?"
"Never," she growled defiantly.
The charmeleon sighed. "I'm very sorry to have to do this. Remember that."
She couldn't beat the charmeleon that Swift Blade hadn't scratched. She had one last chance. She was too far away, but maybe... "Help!" she screamed. "Ma! Safe Hold, Shining Blade! Help! Help-"
The world caught fire. She choked on flame, cutting off her frantic cry. Furious heat burned her skin, her eyes, even through her eyelids, and finally stopped. It couldn't have lasted longer than ten seconds, but that was far too long.
"You shouldn't do that," the charmeleon said.
She growled, blinking her streaming eyes until her vision cleared. Minor burns sent twinges of pain all through her body. The charmeleon was advancing on her. She slashed wildly at him. He ducked under her scythe and swiped steely claws across her good leg. She shrieked and fell as the leg crumpled. Gasping, she tried to stand up, and the last thing she saw was the charmeleon's tail swinging at her head.
It was Long Claw who first noticed. She asked Light Step if he knew where her daughter was. "No," he said sullenly. "She went off with Swift Flight."
"They shouldn't have been this long. They were only finding some berries," Long Claw fretted. She raised her voice. "Have my daughter and Swift Flight come back?"
The clan realised that they had not. "I suppose we should go and find them," Sharp Fang said. "You come with us, Light Step."
"What?" Light Step said. "Why?"
"She might be feeling guilty about hurting you." After that fuss you made, she didn't add. "So you come along, she can apologise, you can say it's all good, and we can all be happy friends again."
"Just go." Shining Blade ordered.
So Light Step went with Long Claw and Sharp Fang, and to his credit he didn't whinge about it. They followed Swift Flight and Long Claw's daughter's tracks along the edge of the forest and finally into the trees. "I know where they're going," Sharp Fang said. "The oran plants." They sped up, the occasional footprint or slashed branch confirming their direction rather than leading them. What they found when they reached the clearing was not what they expected at all.
"Swift Flight!" Sharp Fang cried, running to his unmoving body.
Light Step looked horror-struck from Swift Flight to the torn-up ground to the brown and beige feathers scatted around. "I didn't mean it," he whispered. "I didn't want her to get eaten by pidgeot."
Long Claw rounded on him. "Don't say that! She hasn't been eaten by pidgeot! We don't know what's happened!"
"He's alive!" Sharp Fang announced. "He's hurt pretty bad..."
"Find some berries," Long Claw ordered. "Quickly!"
A search of the clearing turned up only three berries; the oran plants had been very thoroughly stripped. Long Claw chewed up two and smeared the paste on the worst of Swift Flight's wounds: the cracked plating on his back and a bad burn on one arm. The third she crushed and put in his mouth.
Swift Flight coughed. His eyelids fluttered. At last he swallowed the berry. "Ooh," he moaned. "It hurts..."
Sharp Fang crouched next to him. "Swift Flight?" she said hesitantly.
"Ma?" he mumbled groggily.
Sharp Fang was rather taken aback at being mistaken for her aunt. "No, it's me, Sharp Fang. Are you okay?"
Swift Flight shook his head and winced. "Why did you wake me up?" He levered himself painfully into a sitting position. "Do-"
Long Claw's patience ran out. "Where's my daughter?" she growled.
Swift Flight blinked uncertainly at her. The swelling under his left eye was giving him half a squint. "Um... your... Long..." His eyes widened - at least, his right eye did. "I don't - there was a charmeleon-"
"What happened to her?" Long Claw snarled.
"She ran away," Swift Flight stammered. "There was a charmeleon - and a pidgeotto, but I beat her - but the charmeleon knocked me out, I didn't see what happened..."
"Which way did she go?" Long Claw demanded.
"Um, um... that way, I think." Swift Flight pointed with a scythe to the other side of the clearing.
Sharp Fang was there in a moment, scanning the ground. She was joined by Long Claw just as she found the tracks of a charmeleon and a small scyther. "This way!" She darted away. Long Claw followed, trusting the younger female's sharper eyes. Long Claw's daughter's tracks were uneven, one foot's prints lighter than the other's. "She's limping," Sharp Fang reported. Long Claw growled under her breath. "There's a... charmeleon, I guess... following her," Sharp Fang continued, "And something else, I don't-" She broke off, and stopped running.
"What is it?" Long Claw said, coming to a halt beside her.
"I don't know," Sharp Fang said. "Your daughter stopped there, and the charmeleon attacked her-" The tree she indicated was scorched and blackened. There were spots of yellow blood on the ground before it. "-but then they both disappear."
Long Claw's head whipped around. "What?"
Sharp Fang stepped forward carefully, studying the ground. "I can't find where they go. There's lots of prints from something I don't recognise, and a few from another pidgeotto of all things, but I can't find where any of them have gone. The only tracks leaving are the rattata and things that live here." She shook her head ruefully. "I'm sorry."
They searched for a while, but it was useless. Long Claw's daughter had vanished into thin air. Long Claw seethed with impotent fury as they made their way back to Swift Flight and Light Step.
"Did you-" Light Step jumped to his feet when he saw them, but subsided when he saw the look on Long Claw's face and the lack of Long Claw's daughter. "Oh."
Swift Flight was half-sitting, half-lying against the base of a tree, his head tipped forward and his eyes closed.
"Swift Flight?" Sharp Fang said gently, kneeling beside him.
She thought he might be unconscious again, but though he didn't open his eyes, he murmured, "Yeah?"
"There was something else," Sharp Fang said, "as well as the charmeleon and the pidgeotto. I couldn't tell what it was. Did you...?"
Swift Flight opened his eyes, but looked past her, not at her. She turned her head to see what he was looking at. Long Claw was taking out her feelings on some innocent trees. She didn't look to be listening. "Didn't I tell you?" Swift Flight said quietly. "There was a human."
Long Claw stopped mid-swing. "There was a what!"
"I agree," Safe Hold said. "She has to be rescued." They were back with the rest of the clan. Bright Chitin had taken Swift Flight sitrus and rawst berries from the emergency cache, and he was rapidly recovering, though he would be sore for a while yet.
"How can we?" Sharp Fang said. "We don't know where they went."
"We can split up." Long Claw was pacing restlessly, wearing a track in the grass. "If we go in groups of-"
"You won't have to," Safe Hold said firmly. "The human will follow the edge of the forest south to the route. You can too. You said there was a pidgeotto?" Swift Flight nodded silently. "Then it will be flying. You'll have to hurry."
"Yes! Let's go now!" Long Claw exclaimed. Her wings buzzed impatiently.
"A little longer won't make a difference, Ma," Smooth Stroke, Long Claw's adult daughter, said.
"There are some things you have to hear first." Safe Hold spoke very quickly, as though she had a lot to say and little time to say it. "Humans have a way of making pokemon very small and putting them in round shells to carry them. Long Claw's daughter may be in one when you find her. It will be about this big-" She held her claws a short distance apart. "-and it will be white and another colour, probably red but maybe not. There will be a small place on its surface that you will have to push to let her out. Do you understand so far?"
Long Claw nodded. "Why do you have to tell us now? Aren't you going to be there?"
"No," Safe Hold said bluntly. "This is important, so listen. The humans can... do something to a pokemon's mind. When you find Long Claw's daughter, she may not want to come home. If you kill the human, she'll recover. This is part of the reason you have to hurry, as the longer she's with the human the more likely she'll be affected - but the human will be trying to keep her safe, so you can afford to wait and plan." She tried to think if there was anything else she needed to tell them. No, that should be all.
Long Claw had stopped pacing to listen, but she was shifting her weight from foot to foot and she kept casting anxious looks south. "Why won't you come with us? We might need your experience."
"I'm not as fast as you," the old scizor said. "It's better I stay here with the children - and some of you will have to stay too."
It was quickly arranged that Bright Chitin and Broad Wing would stay with Safe Hold, Light Step, Broad Wing's daughter and Keen Eye's son. Shining Blade, Smooth Stroke and Sharp Fang would go with Long Claw. There was some disagreement over Swift Flight.
"He'll slow us down!" Long Claw snapped. "He's hurt, he won't be able to keep up."
"I'm fine!" Swift Flight lied. "If I can't keep up, I'll just turn around and come back and you can go on without me, but that won't happen. I'm faster than you anyway. And you might need me."
"Fine," Long Claw growled. "Now, are there any other delays we just have to wait for?"
Safe Hold shook her head. "Good luck - good hunting!"
Long Claw was off, the other four scyther following. "Be back soon!" Smooth Stroke called back jauntily.
"Be careful!" Bright Chitin shouted, but they were running fast and might have already been out of earshot.
Safe Hold watched them dwindle into the distance. Light Step fidgeted next to her. "Come, child," she said as she finally lost sight of the rescue party. "We'll go find some berries to replace the ones Swift Flight ate."