Shedding Skins

Chapter Thirty Eight

Assault

I awoke to a crash and a scream. I sat bolt upright and looked around the room, finding nothing amiss. I thought I had dreamed the sounds but just as I started to relax, the door to the room was broken down and three people entered.

My first thought was that this was a nightmare. They were dressed in grey hoodies that they wore with the hoods up, hockey masks, black combat pants and black boots. They were also all armed - one with a baseball bat, one with a kitchen knife and one with a crowbar. It was like some kind of uniform.

I didn't hesitate to pick up my knife - which I had thankfully neglected to put away - and dive out of the bed at the nearest opponent. It happened to be the one with the bat. He brought the bat back and was about to swing it at me, but I was faster and slashed at him, opening up a large cut on one forearm and causing him to drop his weapon. I followed that up by bringing the the handle into the side of his head, knocking him out.

Ares had been sleeping on one of the walls and hesitated about as much as I did. He flew at the one with the crowbar, grabbed the man's head in his jaws, flew at the nearest wall, dragging him by the head and cracked the thug's skull off of it. His hockey mask didn't offer much protection against that amount of force.

Skyler simply stood up and used a dragonbreath attack to melt the remaining thug's mask while he was still wearing it. He collapsed to the floor, screaming and trying to scoop the burning, liquid plastic off his face. There was far too much, though, and he stopped moving before he could remove it all.

I was strangely unperturbed by the violence.

I took a closer look at the mask of the thug I had knocked out. I noticed that it had a slit at the mouth. Unusual. I also noticed that the slit had been crudely hacked at, making it into a creepy little smile. Lovely.

I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that the Center was being attacked. Who would be stupid enough to attack a place that could have any number of powerful Pokemon in it? That's when I realized why; the trainers that stayed in Azelea were almost all beginning trainers. Azelea was also one of the most isolated towns or cities in Johto - Ilex Forest sat on one side and Union Cave on the other. They were attacking Azelea because it was an easy target.

I heard another scream. I quickly pulled on my clothes and headed out the door, knife clutched in my hand and my team of two following behind me.

I walked along the corridor, listening at each door for sounds of violence. There weren't many trainers in the Center compared to other towns and cities, which was good because it meant less people would get hurt, but bad because it meant there would be less people to fight back. On the sixth door from my room, I heard noise.

I turned to Ares and Skyler then drew a finger slowly across my throat. I wasn't sure if they got the message or not, but I figured they would use lethal force if they had to, anyway. In fact, Skyler would use it even when he didn't have to. I took a deep breath and barged in the door - the lock had thankfully been broken.

There were four thugs inside and two trainers - one boy and one girl. They couldn't have been much younger than me - I had been training, what, five months? - but they had that look about them that told me they were beginners, and I couldn't help but feel much older than I actually was. Two of the men were kicking the boy to within an inch of his life and the other two had the girl pinned to the bed. I didn't even want to know what the bastards had planned.

"Fuck!" One of the thugs bellowed when I barged in. He had been kicking the boy but turned his attention on me. He threw a haymaker, aiming at my face. It was a wild, clumsy swing and I ducked under it easily. I was about to ready a punch, but then I remembered his hockey mask. I decided on a hard knee to the groin instead, which doubled him over in pain and brought tears to his eyes. He wouldn't be throwing punches any time soon. Or walking straight for that matter.

I had never been a particularly good fighter, but five months of training had honed my muscles and toughened me up, as well as putting me in situations where I was forced to fight. I'd had to learn how to defend myself.

Meanwhile, Ares had destroyed one thug's mask and opened up a large gash along his jaw - presumably with night slash - which looked like it would leave him disfigured for life. I saw another thug lying on the ground. He had a hole in his side and was swiftly bleeding to death. I guessed that he had used bug bite to do that.

Skyler had been more creative with his violent assault. He had used dragonbreath to burn the remaining thug's legs off. The man was still alive and screaming, but Skyler refused to put him out of his misery. I approved of Skyler's decision, I didn't think the bastard deserved that luxury either.

I left the traumatized trainers in their room and went to try and save some more.

The next occupied room held a boy whose face was so swollen that it would have been unidentifiable as a head had it not been attached to his shoulders. The thugs had presumably ran away to terrorize more trainers.

The next room was inhabited by a Scyther and a screaming boy. Both were covered in blood and the boy was kneeling near the corpses of three thugs.

The next victim was a girl who was being held down, bent over the bed. I didn't give the three thugs a chance to do the sick things they had in mind.

Two girls were in the next room, one dead, the other weeping over the corpse of her friend. There was nothing I could do.

I was about to check the next room, but found that I couldn't bear it. I let out a scream of frustration and punched the wall to my left. I felt tears coming to my eyes and angrily wiped them away. This wasn't a time for tears. Tears could come later, when people weren't being murdered.

I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself. I was about to barge in through the door when I smelled something that made me stop. I smelled smoke.

"Shit!" I cried, turning around to see the fire that had crept up on me. It was a lot of fire. I turned around and started sprinting down the corridor in the other direction. Ares cruised along beside me, a leisurely pace for him. Skyler was managing to keeping up, but he wasn't finding it easy.

I had a plan. If we could make it outside, Skyler could get a clear shot at the Center and put the fires out with his hydro pump attacks. He couldn't use the move for very long without getting tired, though, so I couldn't afford to have him waste any to get us out of the building.

"Dragonbreath!" I called to Skyler, pointing at the window at the end of the corridor. He shot a stream of flames past my head and into the window, melting the glass away. "Ares, outside!" I pointed at the window frame and he understood. He zoomed and hovered outside the window. I took out Skyler's pokeball and returned him just before I reached the window.

I threw myself forward and shot through the window, hitting my hip painfully on the frame. I was acting on pure instinct, not using the rational part of my brain. I collided with Ares just outside the window and managed to latch onto him without impaling myself on his spikes.

"Down!" I pointed towards the ground and struggled not to scream as I looked at the drop below us. Ares hovered down to the ground below us, carefully so that I didn't slip off.

It was a nightmare scene. Trainers who lived in the town were being dragged out of their houses and beaten senseless. There were even a few burning houses, and the Center was obviously burning.

The thugs were even attacking Eve. One was holding each arm back and she was on her knees. A thug in front of her swung a boot into her stomach, doubling her over in pain. Another thug was standing to the side, clutching the belt that held Eve's Pokemon. She was defenseless. The whole thing was taking place outside her own Gym.

"Hydro pump! Put out that fire!" I shouted to Skyler, pointing at the burning Center. "Ares," I shouted to my dragonfly, starting towards the Gym with him following behind me. I wasn't worried about Skyler being on his own - anyone unfortunate enough to attack him would end up with a melted face.

I knew that our best chance of driving these thugs away was to get Eve's Pokemon. They were just thugs, armed with bricks, pipes and an assortment of other melee weapons. They weren't the army, they weren't even the police and there was no way they could stand up to a Gym Leader's team.

I had my knife in my hand and was walking towards the one that was hitting Eve. My plan was to simply stab him in the back. One of his friends warned him that I was approaching. There went that plan.

He picked up a hockey stick and swung it at my face. He was quick, but I was marginally quicker and managed to duck in order to prevent my face from being rearranged. That was far too close for comfort. I thrust forward with my knife but he managed to jump to the side just in time. He retaliated by swinging his hockey stick into my knee.

"Fuck!" I screamed, falling on the floor and clutching my knee with one hand. All I wanted to do was curl into a ball and scream, but my life was on the line, so I reached out with my other hand to pick up a brick. The thug raised the hockey stick above his head. I swung the brick into his knee. He dropped as quickly as I had. I raised the brick and brought it down on his head.

Meanwhile, Ares had opened up a shoulder to hip gash on one thug and had picked up another, flown twenty feet into the air and dropped him. Eve was straddling the last one, beating his face to a bloody pulp. Her belt - with six pokeballs attached - was lying on the ground about ten feet from her.

I struggled to my feet, ignoring my injured knee, and kicked the belt, sending all the pokeballs flying.. When they hit the ground, they burst open, releasing the Pokemon that Eve kept on her at all times, her strongest Pokemon. The Gallade from earlier, a Slowbro, a Meganium, an Altaria, a Lucario and a Skarmory. They started raining down attacks of all sorts on the thugs.

The thugs who weren't dead or crippled by the attacks of Eve's Pokemon were scattering and Skyler had managed to put out the fire. Disaster had been averted. I was thankful.

I was leaning against the wall of the Gym, breathing heavily. I was burnt out, exhausted. Eve was directing her Pokemon in battle, mostly instructing them to try and heal the injured.

"Slut!" The last of thugs screamed at Eve over his shoulder as he retreated. I had the feeling we would see them again.