Pokemon Next
Round 10:A brave bird
The deck of the ship was fully surrounded by the flying snowflakes who were now obviously attempting to sink the ship with its passengers distressed for far too long to be comfortable it was now time for an offense and the trainers spared no expense some sending out entire teams.
Choices for fighting teams were for the most part obvious trainers sent out fire types mostly with a small legion of tepig attempting to blast them out of the sky to no avail.
Lora still holding on to Hanna's arm squeezed even tighter as she threw out her pokeball containing dewott she screamed affirmatively "Razor shell now!" dewott shot out from the beam of light emitted from his pokeball with his scalchops at the ready he flew toward the monsters and slashed a group of two lowering their mobility to just above the ground.
As he was quite the ferocious fighter it was apparent to the group that of monsters that amongst the low level pokemon he stood out and as a proper countermeasure he was swarmed "Dew?" he chirpped puzzled by his new predicament.
Hanna was quick to see realize the situation and released Dinah from her pokeball "Thunderbolt." she commanded, Dinah nodded silently and summoned as much supercharged static as her fur would hold and shot out three bolts of bright neon electricity that hit three of the creatures that surrounded dewott and knocked them into the ocean below with a splash, he looked to her and said in a proud voice "Dewott." from afar they looked like soldiers bantering in the midst of battle.
Hanna took hold of the moment and cheered for Dinah from afar "Hah. So that's the trick to mastering thunderbolt, large groups means more to hit."
Lora forced a smile "Whatever works, I suppose."
Despite the strong efforts of both Lora and Hanna the creatures came in larger numbers than fresh out of the gate trainers could handle and the ship was slowly being seized by the creatures, they started with using ice beams to freeze the pokemon into submission and then proceeded to freeze the deck and were currently attempting to freeze the passengers.
All the while the waters around the boat had become impendingly treacherous as the group had come together to create a set of artificial icebergs for the ship to collide into along its course. From the interior of the ship came the captain who Hanna vaguely remembered was the virbank gym leaders father, his left arm half frozen he struggled to speak to did so at his own urgency "Everyone, stop fighting! It's futile, there are too many of them we have to get to the lifeboats before the ship sinks."
One of the younger trainers turned to him and stuck out his tongue childishly "You kidding? We got to kill these things before they kill us, we won't make it If we don't fight back."
Next to him a young girl folded her arms and gave a similar response, the captain approached the children and slapped the both of them before picking them up against all forms of protest, the wild shaking of the children ripped off pieces of the ice covering that the onlookers hoped wasn't flesh.
"I'm the captain of this ship dammit, I don't have time to deal with everyone's egos. It is my job to get you all out of here alive, and I do believe that is possible, if we head for the boats now."
The captains pluck had moved the other young trainers into action and they had all decided to follow him inside, behind the passengers the creatures hovered behind ominously red eyes glowing bright and firing beams of ice at the trainers.
By now the creatures had figured out that focusing on a center point was a better tactic than attacking the humans one at a time and with this they successfully created a wall of ice blocking the pathway.
"Psychic!" commanded Hannah pointing toward the block of ice, Dinah shattered the wall witch a quick blast of energy, the debris created a cool mist that seemed to obscure vision within the cramped hallways.
As the group ventured deeper the monsters continued onward chasing after them a stray beam of ice decimated the floor ahead.
The captain growled at the head of the group and began speaking under his breath "Outside...those are cryogonal, this isn't like something they would do."
Lora overheard and asked "What exactly do you mean?"
"cryogonal are very unassuming and docile, they would have needed someone or something to rile them up to get like this."
The roar of cryogonal were not willing to wait and continued as before without remorse rhyme or reason the rain of ice beams were shot at the center of the passengers group and froze a good number of them in place, the rumbling from outside continued just as before and helped in separating the groups.
Lora did her best to thaw out the frozen trainers to the best of her ability but soon found the task to be much more difficult than she first realized.
Hanna in the midst of the chaos had forgotten that her badge case was still inside the storage room and found this to be the best opportunity to retrieve it. The captain in his half awake state did what he could to get everyone as organized as possible.
"Everyone stick as close together as possible, those with fire types lead the front of the line." he abruptly ordered and without struggle the trainers present complied and held the front line with mostly starters.
Lora continued to thaw out the frozen trainers but her effort was futile the captain and those that followed him both realized this and one young trainer at the back of the group grabbed her arm "We can't save everyone, we don't have the time."
Lora refused the young girls arm and pushed her away still attempting to melt the ice that covered the trainers "How can you say that? You're just being selfish because you still have a life to live, and you don't think these people do."
The girl just looked at her with a scowl as the captain interjected "She's right, this ship has maybe ten minutes left to float, after that it sinks and you'll still be trying to thaw these people out. C'mon, please." his voice was soft and the girl felt she had no choice, she was defeated and even more so she could not let her journey end here.
In the moment it took Lora to rethink her actions and cooperate with the rest of the group she looked around to notice Hanna was missing. Hanna was in fact running as fast as her feet would carry her to the storage bay, she gave a split second glance of sadness as she passed the gambling hall and thinking to herself how she would not be able to exact revenge on the machines.
The storage bay had no signs of being frozen and minimal signs of water leakage coming from the rest of the ship, her backpack was to the far right of the room and surprisingly completely intact she could not help but hug the bag tightly before leaving the room to see a figure dancing in the air of the halls.
Whatever it was it couldn't be a cryogonal it was too graceful too large and carried to distinct a shape. Hanna decided to follow the creature until it turned around and shot out a blast of wind shaped like a buzz saw, the attack was so fast that Hanna only barely dodged it and figured it was meant as an obvious warning shot. Clicking her tongue she continued to follow the creature as it began to squawk through the hallway.
And then it turned again this time diving straight forward with its body and long beak pointed at Hanna, again she only barely dodged it by doing a combat roll and dropped the contents of her backpack onto the floor, but she for split second got a full view of the creature and was now prepared to attack.
Dropping Dinah's pokeball and releasing her with a yawn "Trainer Hannah? We are still on the ship?"
Hanna gave her a worried look and nodded "Yeah we may not be getting off too soon either."
From the far end of the hall the attacker returned to hover above the both of them with cold and menacing eyes Dinah looked up at the creature puzzled "A swanna?" the creature did not respond and shot out a blue straight beam from it's beak that Dinah barely dodged as it traced the floor beneath her with thick ice.
"Thunderbolt!" shouted Hanna swanna was quick to dive down as a countermeasure but Dinah had already begun dispersing electrical charges all over the room, and because of the tight spaces within the halls they moved extremely fast.
Swanna forfeited his attack and returned to a more elevated position before flying away into the game room with a squawk "Follow him Dinah."
"Why are we fighting him trainer Hanna? Were we not running away from the snowflake monsters before this. Hanna spoke in between huffing and puffing "Yeah at first, but I think that guys the leader, we saw him a few days ago in the forest and before the attack started, I think he's following us."
"Did we hurt one of his friends?"
Hanna exhaled "Hurt one of his friends? We haven't hurt anybody this whole trip." she said in a tone that was a mix of annoyance and disbelief.
Entering the game room the swanna perched itself onto a slot machine near the entrance and made a low guttural sound reminiscent of growling as it looked upon the both of them with disgust. Raising one wing above it's head triumphantly it began to speak quite enthusiastically "Swann, swanna. Swa!"
Hanna raised a brow in confusion as she listened to the bird rant "What the hell is he saying?"
Dinah scratched her head "I don't fully understand. He is saying we must be terminated for the company."
The explanation did a miraculous job of leaving Hanna even more confused than before, but swanna himself decided that was unnecessary, it now raised both of it's wings above its head with it's chest puffed out and slowly reentered the air. This was a declaration of battle without a doubt.
"Use thunderbolt again." Dinah complied and shot out three burst of electricity that followed swanna along a hackneyed path that nearly hit him several times but mostly sparked the lights of the corners ceiling, before finally blowing out one of the lights and creating a large hole in the ceiling.
The countermeasure for this attack was another strong slash of wind that hit the ground beside Dinah and sent her into a barrel roll that helped her dodge once again, but the bird was ahead of her in this battle, it dove to the ground with wondrous precision and speed and pierced her stomach hard enough to leave a horizontal scar that bled on the floor as she was knocked into the wall of slot machines behind her.
Returning to the sky with a chuckle swanna prepared his second attack on the recovering Dinah and barred his long beak once again diving straight for her, but his body lost momentum as his wings were scarred with a blast of incredibly high pressured water that knocked him into the wall with a loud thud as he completely smashed the machine that worked as his cushion.
"Dinah hurry and heal yourself Marlon will fight until you can fix yourself." Hanna ordered with the motioning of her hands, Marlon sat on her shoulders with a stern look on his face, she pointed her index finger out like a gun "Keep your eyes on my finger." she said, just as swanna had regained wing control from the rubble and taken to the air once again she cried out "Water pulse!" at the top of her lungs Marlon fired off the blast of water like a rifle but missed.
"Swa!" screeched the bird as it fired off an ice beam that grazed Hanna's right arm as she again took to running, she grabbed her arm in pain but remained focus "Don't give him time to recover, use psychic Dinah."
From the walls the slot machines were being tossed at swanna who gracefully dodged them all, though his preoccupation made him susceptible to another bout of water pulse from Marlon and he was hit and smashed into the ceiling, his left wing showed signs of intense bruising by now.
Marlon who's translator was still attached to his head took this time to gloat "Hah, ya see that boss? That duck has no chance against me and the fuzzball, not even a small one."
Hanna chipped off the remains of the ice that covered her arm, in time to not have lost any sensitivity, in fact the ice left a cold burn that she did her best to resist touching.
Another heavy shaking tantrum erupted through the ship and knocked Hanna to the ground. The ground felt very slippery all of a sudden, and before she knew it she was falling to the rear wall where Dinah was resting, and then it hit her. She was too late. The ship was officially sinking.
"What now boss?!" Marlon chirped from her shoulder as they lay against the wall of the ship. Hanna's face did not show it but she was in a fully panicked state by this point, she felt as though her life was soon to be over.
"Dinah how is your head feeling?"
Dinah herself shook off the last of her wounds and crawled on all fours to Hanna to speak to her via psychic link "My headaches are completely gone for the moment."
"OK I need you to do your most powerful psychic ever. I want you to lift us all up through the hole in the ceiling.
She was hesitant but felt the courage Hanna had mustered to have asked this of her and gave a strong nod before putting both of her hands to the center of her forehead, her eyes began to glow a strong blue as she concentrated Marlon felt himself without a sense of gravity and began to float.
Hanna cheered as she felt herself without gravity "Yes Dinah! You did it." she was quickly propelled upward through the hole at the top of the ship, but was followed by swanna who growled angrily behind them as they shot to the portion of the ship that remained above water, from far up in the sky Hanna could see lifeboats heading back in the direction of virbank city.
More ominous though were the massive group of cryogonal who circled the sinking ship with glowing eyes. Swanna gave up the pursuit but instead flew to the center of the circle where the cryogonal had hovered and began to yell at them.
"Swa! Swanna, swaaa!."
"Eh, this is bad." Marlon chirped gulping.
Hanna looked over to him as they were lowered onto the still sinking ship "What's happening?" she asked fearfully.
Dinah removed her hands from her forehead and obviously drained of all energy motioned over to the girl panting "They are all going to create a storm, now that the ship has sunk they are going to kill all the humans that were on board."
In the sky swanna's eyes began to glow and it's wings stretched out wide, it began to cry out "Swa!" the group of cryogonal beside it danced around it with their glowing red eyes, storm clouds began to form above, and the clear blue sky had disappeared for good.
"Swa-" the bird was met with a large impacting ball of fire that knocked it out of the sky and into the sea below. Hanna sitting on the sinking deck of the ship followed the trail of fire and smoke to see that it led back to one of the small lifeboats in the distance, though no pokemon were visible from where she could see.
In actuality the passengers of the boat were Lora and the captain who had just fired a flare gun with his nearly destroyed arm the pain he felt was obvious as he clenched his teeth, Lora did her best to bandage his arm with her blouse, but the numb pain he felt was a clear indicator he would get no use out of it any longer.
"Captain, we are getting in signal tracing distance we can make a call soon and get help." Lora reassured rubbing the captains arm tenderly.
The man just rested on his back and gasped for air "That's good. We can get help for the people in the other lifeboats too, a lot of them have similar injuries. I'm the captain of the ship so they are going to need treatment first."
"Why would you say something like that?"
"As the captain it is expected of me to sustain injuries in the stead of those on board... don't act so stupid that's sailors code one-o-one."
Lora just frowned at the man as he closed his eyes to catch his breath, but he very suddenly jerked and pushed Lora into the water, as she felt herself being pushed away by the waves she looked at the lifeboat intensely confused, as she soon noticed though, swanna had dove out from under the water and attacked the captain.
Murderous intent ruled the birds eyes as it ferociously pecked at the man with its long beak, the captain used the last of his strength to swat the bird off only to sustain more injuries to his hand.
The swanna suddenly clenched down hard on the man's hand and refused to let go until he had ripped it off completely.
A devious smirk took over the captains face as he readied the flare gun once again, he pulled the trigger with a grin as wide as his muscles could manage and shot the swanna all the way back to the ship cooking in a blaze of fire, it hit the ship with a thud so hard it disrupted Hanna's balance as she attempted to stand and all the way there it screamed in pain "Swanna! Swaana!"
It's feathers had grown tedious his body tired and his mind wicked, fanning off the flames with a strong gust of wind swanna looked back at the lifeboat with the captain and shot forward like a jet plane. The captain smiled warmly as the bird approached and removed his hat dropping it to the ocean where he felt it belonged and thought aloud "Well I guess I don't have a ship to captain anymore. So I can't go down like a sailor, but I did save a pretty young girl, so hopefully I can at least be remembered as a good person."
Swanna's beak collided with the man's abdomen so quickly that it looked as though he flew through him he shot into the ocean with a trail of blood following him as he descended with a smile plastered on his face, he could not remember where he was or what had transpired up to this point, his pulse had faded completely.
Without missing a beat swanna returned to his arbitrary course and flew to the center of the ring of cryogonal and continued his rain dance with one last triumphant squawk "Swanna!" to bring forth clouds so dark that they blanketed the sky with a disastrous storm that rippled through the seas.
"Damn!" Hanna cursed as felt the ship going all the way under, she regretfully returned both Marlon and Dinah to their respective pokeballs with a "Sorry." before organizing her things and sprinting for a lifeboat.
Lora's heart sunk as the water around her was stained with the red blood of the captain she lay motionless floating, her body was full of tears that refused to come out, she looked down at her own insignificant hands in disgust and covered her face.
Dewott released himself from his pokeball suddenly and grabbed her tight, swimming toward the lifeboat as the waters around them raged he saw the captain's corpse sinking below him and turned his head away, he successfully tossed Lora inside of the lifeboat and braced for the storm, she cried and he had no way of stopping it, it was the lowest point of his day.
Swanna hovered over the wreckage as the cryogonal dispersed he watched silently as the raging storm destroyed the lifeboats beneath it and the waters crashed atop the screaming human's he was not as he had portrayed himself thus far. With his wings burning and his body battered he simply flew onward past the wreckage without so much as a word.