Dead Men Walking: 3
Three psychos and a lunatic jogged down the street through the misty rain. They shared equal parts in a reckless and dangerous mission to infiltrate the criminal underworld and free the mythical rainbow pokemon trapped within. Success was debatable. Survival unlikely, and still John ran next to his comrades with a smile on his face simply because he wasn't the only one considered crazy anymore. And surely, bystanders would have deemed them mad to rush so willingly into such unnecessary danger.
John, Liam, Mr. Bentley, and Marcus, kept their eyes and ears alert for any signs of trouble as they made their way towards the business tower. The streets were clear. Brambles of litter occasionally rolled by in the run off. Several poorly parked cars blocked an intersection nearby, abandoned under the drone of the emergency sirens still blaring in the background. Ho-oh shrieked up above, passing close enough to a skyscraper to rattle the windows. She circled the business tower, drawn to its rooftop by the four pokemon lures glowing at its corners. Rain shattered against her light screen. The reflection camouflaged her to the naked eye, especially when she smoothed into a glide.
"Fascinating," Liam muttered as he stopped to admire the unique visual distortions. With his riding goggles in place, he saw the bird more clearly than the others. With fire hot enough to change the weather, Ho-oh didn't need to rely on a storm to cloak her comings and goings. No wonder history had lost sight of her across the centuries. Such powerful light bending energies built the foundation of modern physics and the natural world. Ho-oh's multicolored legacy suddenly made perfect sense. Rainbows truly were bridges that lead to a crown full of gold!
Marcus couldn't care less about the science. 100% of his attention focused on the growing grunt population in the area. He roughly grabbed the awestruck idol and dragged him onto the sidewalk. John withdrew his two pidgeotto and linoone in a similar manner. Pokemon often preceded battle and the group hoped to avoid confrontation as long as possible. They would need every ounce of experience in order to beat the boss waiting at the end of this rainbow. Clearing the levels up to it might prove just as taxing. Luckily, most of the grunts were on their way to the rooftops. Reinforcements weren't needed on the low lying streets, especially when panicked bystanders crisscrossed over their toes every step and stop light along the way. With all eyes aimed at the sky, a couple of anxious civilians minding their own business went unnoticed in the chaos.
But it wouldn't stay that way for long.
One suspicious thought against them and it would be an all-out assault. One they would have blindly walked right into if Mr. Bentley wasn't taking point. He caught movement up ahead and ducked into a nearby alley close to the entrance of the tower. John, Marcus, and Liam quickly followed. A black outfitted patrol strode by down the street. With various pokemon released and pokeballs in hand, they were ready to enforce martial law onto any unheeding citizen. Luckily, they had orders that didn't involve chasing out trash diggers or the group of four that currently presided in their gutters. Liam cautiously peered out from behind the bricks. The patrol moved on, leaving the street outside the entrance eerily quiet. The business tower was the center of the battle yet no one moved in or out.
"Mr. Bentley," Liam called, his voice hushed in respect of the danger before them. Benny quickly came up beside him. "Find us a ride out of here," he explained, "and send an SOS. I think we might need a little help on this one."
"Now you want back up?" Benny hissed.
"We are the back up," Liam quickly reminded with a smile. He patted his friend on the shoulder. "But it wouldn't hurt to dip into that life insurance policy you put on me."
Mr. Bentley nodded, although to call the Calvary and pray that they made it before the ace did something incredibly stupid was less than agreeable. At least, the ace was now willing to consider the value of his life. Benny glanced to Marcus and John. It wasn't a body guard's choice to leave his responsibility in the hands of someone else but they weren't up against common run of the mill bad guys either. They were facing hard core villains. Ones equipped to handle the task of subduing a legendary pokemon. Luckily, under all that pressure, much of that "legendary" equipment would be left unattended. Given John's newly acquired uniform, it shouldn't be too hard to confiscate a few useful items.
Against his better judgment, Mr. Bentley temporarily resigned his protective duties to his comrades. It was for the betterment of the Valenis family, after all. Nothing needed to be said to Marcus about the transition. The fighter looked at him, they exchanged a glance, and both nodded in understanding. John was a little less than reassuring. The trainer winced as he pulled off his jacket and removed the bullet proof vest strapped around him. It was safer to keep it on given his magnetism for misfortune, but the trainer's aching ribs would need as much flexibility as possible in this upcoming sprint into disaster. It was also an unspoken Cork City tradition to remove one's clothing before a fight. Luckily, Liam never picked up the habit.
Mr. Bentley sighed, unable to find the words expressing the importance of John's new found role in this ragtag group of heroes. The trainer didn't realize it, but every decision up until this point had been made because of him. The power duo, Marcus Hailbringer and Liam Valenis, could not be controlled but they could be swayed, and for some reason, John had the power to push them one way or another. Skinny as his arms were for a muscle head.
Benny only hoped it was in the right direction.
Either way: north, south, to destiny or to disaster, it was Mr. Bentley's job to provide the transportation, and he wouldn't disappoint. He was a professional after all, and the Valenis family didn't hire good men, they hired the best. Mr. Bentley peeked around the corner, glanced from side to side, and dashed across the street in pursuit of his task. He cleared the roadway and looked back at the others before he darted off in the other direction. Both groups needed to get moving if they wanted to make it to the top before the end of the encounter. Liam hugged the brick edge again. The coast was still suspiciously clear but the front entrance was the fastest way into the building and Ho-oh's shrieks grew shriller by the minute.
"Let's go," he whispered.
It was now or never.
The three filed out into the street under the boom of another pressurized cannon. John slowed and glanced up at the sky in a moment of terror inspired doubt. Would the net catch Ho-oh this time around? Had her luck finally run out? Fire spilled over the edge of the roof in the wake of the rainbow pokemon's passing. Her wings beat back the anti-pokemon gear easier than the rain. Marcus pushed John back into motion, not wanting to fall behind any more than they already had. Liam was already at the revolving glass doors of the entrance. He pushed through and stopped just past the other side. John bumped into him trying to exit the revolving door and stopped the mechanism, trapping Marcus inside the cylinder. An awkward fit of shuffling freed the fighter. He brushed past the others and stood at the front of the small group, but even his lumbering steps quickly came to a halt at the sight before him.
Liam slowly removed the goggles from his eyes. They expected to come across some grunts.
Just not like this.
Two men were sprawled across the lobby. Both were clad in all black with the distinctive flare of apathetic oppression, clearly of Onyx's crew. Several pokemon surrounded them. All were unconscious. Whoever, or whatever, had subdued them had done it quickly. The released pokemon didn't make it far beyond their materialized positions and there wasn't much of a mess between them. No scorch marks, puddles, leaf litter, or other debris classic of a pokemon battle marked the floor. Nothing except a few scuffs on the linoleum. There wasn't even any blood. Maybe a drop or two on the lip of one of the grunts, but nothing explicitly indicative of a massacre. Trained as a first responder, John walked over, crouched down next to one of the men that could have very well been one of his tormentors in the Cage, and placed two fingers against his skin.
Cold, clammy, and very much dead.
John quickly removed his hand, but it wasn't his first carnival of carnage. The Cage had seen to that and Liam didn't miss the subtle desensitized response as John continued his examination from afar. No cuts or punctures defaced the grunts' black uniforms. Just like the lobby, there wasn't any battle dirt on their bodies suggestive of a pokemon battle despite their pokemon being present. Any exposed skin was clear of bruising. Nothing broken, blackened, or missing. Whatever killed them must have been internal, probably the result of smashed organs and torn tissue. John wasn't completely sure of his deduction, but he had experienced enough pain on his own to recognize a professional beating when he saw it.
"This was done by a pokemon," he said. "A fighting type."
Marcus' entire body clenched, his dojo's heritage threatened by the acts of a single unlawful fighter trained in the same arts as he.
"Looks like someone beat us to the punch," Liam tried to jest, knowing full well how the fighter hated such remarks. It failed to unlock Marcus' jaw.
"More like a trainer," John corrected with a motion to the elevator across the lobby. "Or two."
A ding slid the metal doors apart, revealing two fully functional grunts inside. Red accents adorned their newly woven uniforms. Why were Boss Ruby's men here? Despite their rather apparent discrepancy in size, they matched one another almost perfectly in disposition.
"That takes care of the first two floors," the first grunt exclaimed as he kicked the boot of another unconscious man on the floor out of the way.
"Now, all we have to do is wait for Onyx to catch that giant pidgin," the second added with a curl of his scarred lip. "Then, we steal it and bring Big Red the legendary pokemon prize he's always been waiting for."
"It'll put us back in his good graces."
"Work smarter, not harder." The shorter grunt jolted to a halt halfway through his disfigured wink when he looked up and saw three new arrivals in the lobby. John quickly stood up and the grunt's scar twitched.
"You!" he snarled.
"You!" John mimicked with much more innocent surprise. Marcus glanced between them and Liam smiled.
"Rocky! Bullwinkle!" the ace greeted. Neither grunt nor fighter understood the reference. John quickly filled in the gap with a glare.
"These are the grunts that kidnapped me outside McAlister's," he explained.
"And called me bad names at the festival," Liam pointedly added.
Marcus clenched his hands into fists hard enough to throw sweat off of his knuckles.
"What?!" he bellowed. "These are the grunts who thought they could get the jump on me?! How the hell could you mistake me for this twerp!?" John didn't address the accusatory point flung in his direction. He hardly believed the mistake himself. Marcus tore off his cotton T-shirt, threw it to the ground, and stepped over the unconscious man on the floor, smoke spewing from his nostrils
"How 'bout it fellas'?" he continued. A broad square toothed grin pinched his cheeks back, stretching the unshaven shadow across his chin. "Still want to go a few rounds with ol'Hell Raiser?!"
Every letter rang in the challenge. Liam stepped forward to follow the charge but the fighter suddenly whirled around, put a flat hand on the ace's chest, and shoved him backwards so roughly that he tripped over the fallen grunt on the floor. Remorse did not follow. Grunts never fought squarely. They almost always invoked the use of poison or trickery. Marcus wasn't about to expose Liam and his hypersensitivity to it, especially since this mistaken identity crisis was his grudge to bear. John was also there to catch the falling ace without hesitation.
Rocky stepped out of the elevator with a click of a pokeball off of his belt.
"Today is our lucky day," he said. "First, Sapphire loses her House. Then, Onyx does all the heavy lifting, catching that bird for us, and now Ruby's most wanted walks right into our laps!"
Bullwinkle came up beside his much smaller partner. Marcus sneered. Two against one. Not bad odds, or at least, that's what he thought until John suddenly came up beside him and took Liam's place. The fighter aimed a scowl at him. It was met with a side-eyed smirk.
"You're not the only one holding a grudge," John explained.
Marcus, despite his long awaited reckoning, couldn't refute that.
"Really?" Rocky asked from across the room, turning his attention once again on John. "We whipped your ass once. We can do it again." He tossed one of his classic balls to Bullwinkle and raised its reflection with a shake. "We got a little upgrade since the last time we met, compliments of the Red Dragon."
Rocky and Bullwinkle released their pokemon and two hitmonlee materialized in front of them. Identical in body and form, they bounced into position.
"That's new," John remarked.
Steady, unwavering, and defiantly not raised by two bumble headed idiots like these, Marcus immediately acknowledged the skill before him by lowering into position, one reserved for his tournament belts and titles. The blood clot fusing his sock to his skin around his ankle broke free and the stabbing pain of raw flesh pinched the fighter's eye. Raticate's tooth had cut him deeper than he realized. Warm blood seeped up to his toes in his shoe. John pretended not to notice the flinch. It was a curtesy gratefully accepted.
"When they push," Marcus said, the notion of a battling partner no longer so outrageous.
"You punch back," John finished, lowering into an identical stance.
The two glanced at one another through the corner of their eyes. John smiled and Marcus couldn't help but smirk. Whatever secrets the trainer harbored or resentments the fighter felt, they all vanished under the Mountainside logo branded into their bodies. Both students turned to the battle ahead.
"You better not make a bad name outta our gym!" Marcus warned.
Aiming to do exactly that, the two hitmonlee sprang into action. They raced across the lobby, bent their elastic legs to full power, and leapt into mirroring jump kicks. Marcus and John threw up their arms in defensive positions and repelled both hitmonlee in counter pitches. One flew farther and faster than the other, boosted by Marcus' sheer difference in strength, but still managed to land at the same time as the other. They propelled themselves back into action. Each coil of their spring like legs flawlessly transitioned potential and kinetic energy with every movement. The momentum of the backfired kicks, now the agent that fueled their next attack.
Humans couldn't hope to keep up.
Cork City gym students could.
Marcus and John expected instant retaliation and were already in motion in anticipation of the blows that struck faster than their sight could follow. Muscle met muscle in another absorption of energies. Both kicks once again failed against the maneuvers of the students, trained to handle the powerful manipulations of a fighting type. With the momentum now lost, Hitmonlee and its kin transitioned into close combat, hoping to keep the speed advantage over the powerful sturdy human forms. Shin to shin. Elbow to elbow, every blow caught a parry.
The two students shifted effortlessly beside one another, making room for their thrusts and deflections without separating more than an inch or two apart. When one fighter caught a kick in the side, the other bent an elbow to compensate for the curve. When a leg went up to block, the second set of hips moved down. Their backs and shoulders never once bumped into each other. They slid in and out of each other's movements with the ease of mechanical gears and pulleys. John worked without fear of the powerhouse beside him. Neither competing nor trying to catch up to the deadly strikes. Instead, he filled in the gaps, leaving Marcus completely focused without worry of running into the smaller fighter or accidentally catching him in a blow. So in tune were their styles that Marcus almost considered John an extension of himself, as if they had fought beside one another for years. Swelling with sudden unspoken passion created by the success of their symbiotic styles, both students retaliated in their first offensive attack.
Both hitmonlee immediately bounced back from the aggressive assault, putting enough distance between them to pause the fighting. Identical vs. fraternal twins: The hitmonlee had finally met their match. Sweat fell down their smooth bald brown heads. Muscle spasms shuddered down each leg. Their slanted eyes pinched in recognition of the talent before them. John and Marcus panted just as heavily. Neither dared break their stance to wipe the sweat from their eyes. Together, their defenses were unbreakable.
But what if they were apart?
One hitmonlee took off in a sprint to the left. He curved around towards the human pair and jumped off of the front desk into another high jump kick. John turned to one side to avoid it. Marcus the other. The second kicking pokemon wedged between the two fighters and spun, pushing them further apart. His partner joined him in the middle and another wave of sweeping legs followed. Marcus ducked to avoid the serrated feet, unconsciously moving backwards to avoid the hitmonlee's advance. John jumped away from his own pursuer, dodging every blow that followed. Each strike and counter pushed the two humans farther and farther apart. They felt the distance, and the openings it created, almost immediately.
Misreading the distance with the extension of the pokemon's flexible muscle, John caught a foot in his side instead of a coiled leg. Two of the three diamond hard toes pierced the trainer's side. He grimaced, but the wound was shallow against the curl of his torso. Better to shorten the distance. John grabbed the leg, lunged forward, and thrust an elbow into Hitmonlee's face. He then spun and threw the pokemon to the floor. Marcus couldn't see the tackle, engaged in his own series of attacks, but the second hitmonlee could. He quickly popped up in a nearly impossible vertical jump over the fighter's head, and landed on John's back to rescue his partner. Comradery between fighters wasn't just for humans. It pushed John down into the hitmonlee beneath him. Its coiled legs acted as a spring. It absorbed the downward push, threw John backwards in the release towards his fellow student, and launched the second hitmonlee, who was still on the trainer's back, into a reverse leap across the lobby.
One hitmonlee landed in front of Marcus. The other sprang into position to complete the pincer on the other side. John rolled over his shoulder and popped up just as readily beside Marcus. He bounced back to back with the much wider fighter, arms up and ready for another round.
"Did you see that, Sensei?" he laughed. "I'd say I've gotten better!"
Marcus sharply turned his head.
Sensei?
The identical twins settled to gauge their next assault, one on either side to keep the humans back to back instead of the more perilous side to side arrangement. It was the best human competition they had in years. So uncertain and intoxicating was the challenge that they completely forgot about the world of pokemon they lived in and the ace trainers that wielded them. They never saw the two volcano pokemon as they rolled into action. Sonya hit first in a rollout that flattened the hitmonlee in front of Marcus faster than a dump truck. Beats was a close second, bowling his target over and into a spin across the linoleum with a flame curl.
Both volcano pokemon unraveled with the finesse of a celebrity ace stepping onto a red carpet. Beats lit his torches with a sneeze and Sonya's back roared to life simultaneously. The lobby instantly brightened in a flood of light. Rocky and Bullwinkle backed away in the heated assault. Marcus and John endured the flames, stuck between the two pokemon. Sonya snarled in a sudden burst of blue energy. It lit her entire body on fire, summoning an otherworldly specter before their very eyes. Rocky and Bullwinkle tripped over themselves gunning for the exit. Marcus scoffed. At least they had the decency to withdraw their pokemon before they made it out of the door.
Grunts.
Threat extinguished, Sonya and Beats put out their coats. The lobby instantly quieted without the roar of battle and flames, leaving an awkward silence until the fire alarm suddenly went off and drenched the entire lobby. Finely sprayed pipe water cooled the fighters' heated blood, forcing them out of their stances. Liam quickly withdrew his pokemon and walked up between them, unaffected by Marcus' scowl or the stale rain.
"What is it with you Corkie gym nuts?" he scolded. "In a pokemon fight, use your pokemon!-"
As if on cue, a loud screech suddenly interrupted the Ace's advice. The building shook in a tremor. All eyes flew up to the ceiling, winking against the fire suppression system working just as well on the rooftop as the sprinklers in the lobby. The roof was their final destination and Onyx was currently there, John knew, battling a legendary pokemon.
"What kind of pokemon do you use in a fight against a god?" Marcus sarcastically replied, still clinging to his natural finger to fist instincts. He wasn't looking for an answer, but John came up with one almost instantly.
"A devil," he replied.
One doused in gunpowder and venom.
