Chapter summary: Mewtwo's group finally confront Thalleom, but do they have what it takes?
Chapter Seven: The Strike of Twelve
"I call upon powers beyond my domain, to save mine and defend your own." Those are the words that rouse the pair from sleep, and those they present to the others the next morning at the behest of Mewtwo.
"So, we are doing someone's dirty work."
"I at least hope they're a nice person…"
"Collective dreams aren't completely new to me, but with this many people?"
"We must not let this new directive deter us from our current goal," Mewtwo says.
"What if this is exactly what this mystery person wants us to do?" Falcon speculates.
"We don't have enough information to assume their allegiance," says Roy. "Either way, contending with the robot is the only way we can leave."
"And it would be the right thing to do," says Pichu.
"You two are absolutely right," says Falcon. "When's the village head dropping by?"
"Seven thirty sharp," says Mewtwo. "Forrest said she is never late for an appointment."
"And she wasn't able to secure some weapons for us."
"No. They may be too hazardous to use, given our environment."
"We'd better impress, then. Let's get to work."
*.*.*.*.*
When Snake and company depart from Tayll village at mid-morning, the sky is cloudless and the air is warm and dry. They rumble along south for a short while, perched atop their foe turned mount, before curving east, following a wide, well-worn path beside a towering wall of grey rock. The path eventually curves away from a rocky outcropping and persists through open grassland.
In that time, before the sun reaches halfway across the sky, a blanket of clouds dumps three separate bouts of rain atop their heads.
The unpredictable weather has slowed their progress to a crawl compared to their initial speed, and now they see some strange shapes approaching from the sides of the muddy path.
Lucario peers ahead with her aura, and deduces a cloud of crimson figures heading their way.
"They're hostile," she warns.
"How'd you figure?" Snake asks.
"Aura. I'm certain they're not friendly."
"Anything else?"
"They're on foot—beyond that, I cannot tell. Be prepared to fight."
Popo and Nana disembark from the robot, landing to the side of a large puddle. They raise their mallets.
"Haaaaaaaaaaa!" they scream in unison as they dash at the approaching figures.
The smaller figures in the enemy party scatter, leaving two bulbous, lumbering white monsters in their course towards Indeom.
"Popo, belay!"
"Yes!"
Nana falls back as Popo darts ahead, throwing their rope at the comparatively small head of the first monster. He pulls himself up, and Nana behind him goes soaring over his head.
The monster reaches a hand out, but Nana blasts it with ice, then swings her mallet down as the hand stops moving. The monster unleashes a rumble and reaches with its other stubby hand. Nana smashes that hand and anchors her legs around the monster's neck. Popo sends ice at the monster from the ground to divide its attention.
The smaller, red-eyed monsters bound like stringless marionettes towards Indeom. Lucario and Jigglypuff spring off Indeom's shoulder as Snake fires a round of missiles at the approaching crowd. The mud clears and most of the puppets have melted into purple smog. The few stragglers are handled easily by Jigglypuff and Lucario.
Jigglypuff turns around to see Nana punched off her mount's head by the other monster. She squeaks in horror before curling into a ball and throwing herself at the monsters.
There's a yell as she makes impact.
She skips to a stop to find one monster as well as Popo on their backs in the mud. She squeaks an unsteady apology to Popo as Lucario finishes off the monster, and then the two Pokémon set their sights on the remaining one.
It's getting to its knees, and Nana lies within its arms reach.
Popo shrieks her name and slips in the mud as his stomach flips and his legs fail him. "Get up!"
The monster throws its arms up and begins to tip over.
There's an explosion just before Lucario can reach the monster. She coughs as mud and dirt engulf her. She switches to aura vision in desperation, and finds only a small blue aura ahead of her. Her relief escapes in a ragged sigh.
"That was a risky move," Lucario says to Snake, who has Indeom's smoking missile arm pointed in their direction.
"It's a risk we can take," he replies curtly, withdrawing the arm. "Anyone hurt?"
"Nana!" Popo cries. He runs over to her as she sits up.
"You're all gross!" Nana exclaims, holding her palms out to stop his advance.
"So are you! Don't you know you nearly got crushed?"
"Yeah, and it didn't happen."
Popo growls and turns away in a fit of rage, inadvertently kicking some mud into Nana's face.
She grabs a handful of dirt and lobs it at the back of his head.
"Hey!"
Jigglypuff intercepts the approaching mud fight. "Are you two betting on it raining again?" she reminds them, pointing to their muddied clothes.
"Great job, Nana," Popo grumbles, shaking his arms to little avail.
"Hypocrite," she returns.
"Let's go!" Snake calls. "We need to move on, quickly."
"What was that?" Lucario asks Snake when they're all back in their places on the robot, Snake in the pilot's quarters, the parka siblings on one shoulder and the Pokémon on the other.
"Don't know. Probably the same lot that belongs to this robot. That last incident wasn't too worrying on its own, but we should leave the area before more wear us down."
Lucario hums a worried agreement.
*.*.*.*.*
The village head is a short, severe human woman in a regal emerald robe. Forrest quite clearly hears her knock on the door after sundown, but barely catches her greeting as he welcomes her into the house.
"Shall we set out?" She gets straight to the point.
"I'll grab them, make yourself at home."
He reaches his backyard to find the seven-strong crew seated cross-legged in a circle in the grass with Mewtwo in the middle, except for Pichu, who is nestled in Roy's lap.
He bites his tongue for a moment as he observes them. Their eyes are closed and their breaths are quiet and even, almost synchronised—save for Captain Falcon, whose head is drooped forward so that only the top of his helmet is visible.
"Falcon!" Mewtwo's voice booms through their minds, now including Forrest's, who reels.
The captain straightens and blinks open his eyes with a start. He looks around to find the others are still concentrating, thought perhaps a little broken by Mewtwo's outburst.
He grins sheepishly at Forrest.
Mewtwo counts down slowly from ten before letting them open their eyes.
"So, she is here," he says, without turning his head.
"Y-yeah, she's waiting in the front room."
The group, who were mostly calm and a little sluggish from Mewtwo's session, soon regain a nervous energy as the village head greets them with her piercing gaze and a quiet greeting.
"I've heard your plan, and I am satisfied enough. You shall have my watch."
Falcon accepts her cooperation on their behalf.
"Good luck, everyone," Forrest says, and sinks into a bow before turning to depart.
The village head grabs him by the sleeve. She says nothing for a while as he tries and fails to hide his growing horror.
"How do you expect me to help?"
"I'll need a local in case something happens."
She leaves the house, the rest following on her heels. Forrest lags behind, daring not entertain the thought of defying her will, mildly comforted by Infernape's presence. She keeps a strong pace despite her height, forcing Olimar to a jog and Pichu into Roy's arms as was now his prerogative[1].
They had set out far from the village entrance, so the village head has time to step back and interrogate her party as they move in the coming darkness. She falls into step next to Wolf, who hadn't dropped the scowl from his face for most of the day so far.
"You may call me Enn[2]. You are from Lylat, am I correct?" she asks. "I heard your predicament from the doctor. If, in some twist of fate, you ever decide to stay, Tayll Village is home to most of your brethren."
"I don't plan to stick around," he grumbles. "Once this is over I am gone."
"That's understandable."
She says nothing further. Wolf finally looks at her and finds her lack of expression inscrutable, and suddenly feels a rush of anger. At least be offended, woman.
She works her way through to the rest of the party one by one, offering some impersonal words of encouragement and invitations to stay in their new world a little longer. Eventually, she finds Forrest again, regarding him with an inquisitive eye.
"You said they were no one special," she whispers, "yet some of them allude to duties back in their homeworlds. Are you sure you were not privy to this?"
Forrest feels his throat constrict. "They didn't tell me."
"Regardless, we are dealing with some interesting personalities."
"Y-you could put it that way. The closer we get to this robot the less I'm inclined to trust them."
"Perhaps they are just out of your league."
Forrest inhales sharply and shuts his eyes, stung by her blunt jab. You're right.
They reach the final bend in the road to see Thalleom rounding up three villagers who had wandered too close and had now incurred the robot's wrath.
"Let's hope its memory isn't too good," Wolf says as he and Mewtwo step forward, joining Enn at the front of their party with Roy. Pichu jumps down and joins Falcon, Olimar and Link as they fall back, concealing themselves behind a nearby house.
"Are you ready?" Enn asks them.
There's no protest.
"Alright, then."
*.*.*.*.*
"Snake, your left!"
"Whoa! Thanks for the heads up. Popo, fall back."
"Come on, Nana!"
"Alright. Jigglypuff, look out!"
"Puff!"
"Lucario, don't lower your guard. Lucario, are you listening?!"
"Lucario!"
"Get off her, you fiends!"
"Lucario!"
*.*.*.*.*
Roy breaks into a run. Thalleom sees his approach.
He readies his sword. Thalleom pulls back an arm and swings low. Wolf whips out his blaster and shoots at the arm, missing two shots and connecting with three. Roy's blade flies out in front and collides with the arm, leaving no mark but softening the blow. Roy stumbles back but remains on his feet.
Mewtwo flies at Thalleoms head, arms engulfed in crackling darkness. Thalleom swings but Mewtwo ducks and smashes his fists into Thalleom's chest. Wolf sends another volley of paralysing shots, and Roy leaps with his flaming sword at one of Thalleom's elbows. The blade smashes into the joint, sending a shower of sparks into his face. He loses his footing and hits the ground. He throws himself out of the way as Thalleom throws a fist down into the dirt where he'd been a second ago.
Mewtwo ducks and weaves between Thalleom's other attacks. He shoots up into the air to avoid a downward headbutt and jostles its upper body with rapid blows. While it's occupied, Wolf approaches and jams the bayonet of his blaster into its other elbow.
Roy scrambles to his feet and quickly looks over the damage they've done.
"There's no effect!" he yells. Both of Thalleom's joints are sputtering furiously, and its movement is slightly impeded by Mewtwo's attacks, but neither of the appendages seem to be incapacitated to any degree.
"Shit!" Wolf snarls. He ducks beneath another swipe and stabs the wrist of the arm, ducking beneath Thalleom's legs as the sparks fly out. Thalleom steps back and Wolf darts back through, only to be intercepted by a kick to the abdomen that sends him through the air at Roy.
Roy twists out of the way and runs to pull Wolf to his feet. The clawed hands grab onto his arms and immediately fling him away as soon as he's back up. They make their second approach as Thalleom continues to swipe at Mewtwo.
As Wolf leaps onto an arm, Mewtwo is swatted out of the air and into a nearby tree. Wolf smashes his bayonet into the elbow twice, three, four times, gritting his teeth through the sparks. The arm beneath him shudders and he grins, but he doesn't see the other arm reach around. Roy sends a burst of flame at the incoming arm, then jumps up and follows with a slash at the wrist that halts its approach. Through the dazzling light, Wolf manages to work out what happened.
"Thanks, kid," he says, before springing onto Thalleom's head.
Mewtwo appears behind the head and sends a jolt of dark energy through it. The energy laps at Wolf's hands but graciously, Mewtwo holds back enough to avoid hurting him. Wolf stabs his bayonet into a weak-looking globe in Thalleom's jaw, which smashes on impact. There's a burst of fire behind him, and another one to the side as a shadow rises up, halted momentarily before reaching to the head and plucking Wolf off its face. A third burst of fire loosens Thalleom's grip and Wolf slashes at the gargantuan thumb. It remains attached by a single tangle of wires. Mewtwo sends a Shadow Ball at the hand and it finally relents. Wolf instinctively hooks his arms around the wrist to stop his twenty foot fall, but his blaster slips from his grip.
He hangs on tight as Thalleom brings the arm back to fling him away.
Mewtwo throws himself at Thalleom's shoulder, paralysing it with dark energy. Its other hand comes around, smashing Mewtwo into its metallic shell. Mewtwo drops out of the air and barely manages to crawl out of the way of Thalleom's stomping feet. Roy slashes at the wrist, to be rewarded by a backhand that sends him tumbling in the dirt.
Thalleom shudders as a fiery punch from Captain Falcon signals his appearance.
"Let's go!" he commands. Mewtwo and Roy rise weakly and head past the captain, away from the robot. Falcon then looks to Wolf, who is still hanging from Thalleom's hand.
Wolf spots the captain and swings his legs up into the hand in a kick, then lets go, landing violently on his back. As he recovers from the jump and snatches his blaster, Falcon intercepts Thalleom's grab at Wolf and then hastily offers a hand as the two of them fall back.
"So, Plan B," Wolf grumbles.
"Yeah," Falcon replies. "Not the worst news you could be receiving."
*.*.*.*.*
"I'm sorry I worried you like that. I'll be more careful next time."
"You already said this, and I already forgave you. I'm considering taking it back."
"You are cruel when you want to be, Lucario."
"This makes it two battles now where we've been unable to cover each other. Are we really wearing out so soon?"
"But we're almost there, aren't we? We'll be safe soon. I am concerned, though—this is the first time you've let your worry show through."
"Forgive me, Jigglypuff."
"There's nothing to forgive."
"Lucario! Two groups approaching from our right!"
"Oh no."
*.*.*.*.*
They manage to retreat safely, with Thalleom divided between its duties of sentinel and finishing them off—and chooses the former. The robot continues to drive off the villagers that had become emboldened by the attack, though to a noticeably lower degree of efficiency, shuddering a little more with each mammoth footstep. The group huddles around a lantern in the oncoming night, across the street from their previous vantage point. The temperature has dropped dramatically, unseasonally so, as Forrest observes. The clouds had since cleared after the morning's brief but dramatic shower, but he senses a storm brewing. Perhaps all of them can.
"The villagers will be shielded by this world's laws[3]," Enn says. Link opens his mouth but Enn beats him to it. "It appears cruel, but the confusion will be short-lived, and perhaps to our advantage."
Link sighs, looking on at the robot with a harrowed frown. Pichu nestles himself in Link's lap to offer some comfort.
Roy, Mewtwo and Wolf are disheveled. Wolf is raking the dirt out of his fur.
"Forrest," Enn says, suddenly enough to startle Forrest out of his musings. "Will you take up a post outside the forest?"
Face creased with worry, he asks, "What for?"
"Stop people from getting in, for safety. I think you can slip out at this point."
He nods a little too fervently, shaken by Thalleom's display of power. "Of course. Come on, Infernape."
He cranes his neck to look for Thalleom before leaving with his Pokémon at his side. With Thalleom at the other end of the village, they watch as Forrest and Infernape disappear into the trees.
With some effort, Enn convinces the rest of them to ignore the chaos and regain their strength. They all remain seated until Link begins pacing back and forth, channelling his nervous energy into swinging his grappling hook in a tight circle. Roy, who's wrapped himself in his cape and is examining a particularly large rip in the fabric, mutters under his breath.
"Wanna share any of that with us?" Wolf teases.
Roy looks up with a start but says nothing.
"Alright, then."
"I was just thinking," Roy finally says.
"Here we go."
"'Powers beyond my domain', the voice said. It's encouraging. Someone has faith in us."
"If it's not reverse psychology,," Olimar says.
"I think if it was reverse psychology, the game would already be up," Falcon says. "But we're still here. Isn't that nice?"
"I'm praying for smaller and smaller things..." Olimar trails off.
Link settles back down. They sit in silence and darkness, blocking out the havoc outside their small circle.
After an oddly immeasurable amount of time, Enn stands up, with Link quick to follow.
No one protests as they head back towards Thalleom.
Overhead, the clouds darken, distant thunder echoing.
*.*.*.*.*
Snake and company tumble out of their last skirmish with even less vigour than before, with travelling in a foreign world alone terribly draining. Popo had been transformed in that last one, and was nursing a furious headache that had come to characterise their returns from trophy form, as best he could with their ride's rattling across the uneven ground.
The path had tapered off into grassland long ago, and the sun vanished below the horizon. They had followed the edge of a dense pine forest until they came to another path, this one oriented north-south and perpendicular to their previous trajectory, with one end disappearing into the forest.
"Nearly there," Snake announces. Nana can only manage to pump her fist in the air weakly.
As they turn up the path, Snake sees two humanoid figures at the treeline, their features obscured by the darkness but one of them glowing orange. Snake wonders if he's beginning to see Aura.
"Lucario," he whispers, rousing the Pokémon from a drowsy stupor propped up against Jigglypuff. The jackal looks ahead and finds their auras are a welcome blue, breaking the streak of red that had hounded them all day.
Snake disembarks and goes ahead on foot. He's approached by a man and his flaming monkey.
"Thought the robot might startle you," Snake says. "Is this Orfan?"
"Y-yes!" the man says after taking a minute to find his voice. "Is that yours?" He points at Indeom.
"Yeah. We didn't have many options."
"Are you from Tayll?"
"How'd you figure that out?"
"I heard there was a situation."
Snake stares at him in suspicion before his mind clicks.
"Have you had any outbound traffic lately?"
"No."
"Good."
"W-why?"
"Means we've come to the right place."
"You—excuse me?"
"We've been looking for someone. We suspect he's here."
The man stares back at Snake for a while. "I can't just let you in. We've got a situation as well."
"Ah." Snake grits his teeth. "We took control of this robot," he gestures to Indeom, "so I think we're up to the task."
"I—" the man's voice fails him again and he can only glance worriedly over his shoulder. He nods quickly and points Snake down the path into the forest.
"We have some people on our situation," he finally manages. "They'll need your help."
*.*.*.*.*
The storm arrives suddenly, and the raindrops beat down hard enough to sting the skin. Lightning and thunder dance overhead, filling the sky with threat.
Falcon ducks beneath the leg as Mewtwo swoops up and slams his heavy tail into Thalleom's face. Roy and Wolf stab at the globe at the base of Thalleom's back. Sparks fly but little effective damage is done.
Thalleom swivels around and stomps at them. Mewtwo jabs the back of its head with dark energy. It shrugs off the blow, but provides just enough time for Roy and Wolf to back out of the way. They skid in the mud. Falcon comes in with a flaming punch as Mewtwo prepares another jab. Their attacks connect in unison, stunning Thalleom for a noticeable moment. Mewtwo is unhindered by the rain, but his ground-bound allies are considerably more troubled, enough for their hopes of victory to be considerably diminished.
Link and Olimar sling out their ropes, each on one of Thalleom's arms. As the ropes soar through the air, Link realises the miscalculation they've made.
"No grip on the ground!" he cries to Olimar. "Don't hold if it swings!"
Olimar at this point trusts Link more than his own hands.
The ropes latch on. Perhaps distracted by the force of the rain, Thalleom doesn't notice for a moment. When it does, it raises its arms and swings. Link feels his feet slide through the mud and lets go, tripping in the mud. Olimar remains latched on.
Roy and Wolf advance with a hard combined slash to Thalleom's back, the attack weakening its dismissal of Olimar. He and the tiny Pikmin go flying nonetheless.
Pichu squeals from the outskirts of the battle, running back and forth for a good angle to attack from.
No, no! I can't find a way! Electricity escapes his cheeks and stings his fur. It shouldn't sting! It shouldn't be this way!
Enn looks on, concerned, a statue in her soaked robe. She sighs, resigned to her own powerlessness. She hadn't thought witnessing a battle would be so complicated.
There's two bursts of fire. The second one is extinguished suddenly as Roy is battered away like a fly. His blade spins out of his hands, glinting in the lightning and moonlight.
Wolf mounts one of Thalleom's arms and stabs at the elbow that glows in the darkness, and finally sees the hand go slack. But it's not enough. He disembarks, and in the darkness lands on Falcon's head.
Lightning flashes, and thunder quakes through the consciousness.
There's thunder, lightning, and an explosion.
A scream. Several screams from several directions. "Get out of the way!"
The trees quiver as something huge bursts through their curtain, the lightning illuminating its metallic form for a brief second. Something with arms pushes itself into Thalleom. Thalleom ignores its smaller, scattered adversaries and pushes back.
The groan of metal rings fills their ears as Thalleom begins to rise, pushing its new opponent into the ground.
Pichu forgets all else and charges forward, crackling. A great fork of lightning twists through the sky, bouncing through a robotic spine and setting the ground ablaze.
Another fiery flash from the heavens sends a nearby pine toppling, crashing into Thalleom.
[1] *whispers* (Melee rejects). This latter bit is kinda inspired by some fanart I saw.
[2] Enn debuts in this story, she doesn't appear in my SSE story like Forrest and Carmen did.
[3] That they are protected from grievous injury by transformation into trophy.
Guest replies:
Guest: Apart from the Stadium (wink), I don't think so.
Brick: I didn't plan to have Sonic appear in this story. But considering the way I'll be wrapping this up (wink), it's not impossible.
a/n: Forrest alludes to the events of this story in the chapter he appears in Space and Time. I'd retcon some of the things he says there but I'm lazy.
So... our heroes have a shared dream that they'll have to pursue—if they can defeat Thalleom, that is!
Just a note—I intended this to be a rather small-scale story compared to the SSE, so there won't be any dimension hopping in this one. The main conflict was meant to be the twin sieges, as a background to the main plot of the SSE that my other older fic covers—backed up by some character studies, of course. One plot arc and a conclusion/merge with my SSE story is what I intended, but I haven't planned the conclusion, so I don't know how complicated it will end up being ;) ...Actually I didn't give my first story a proper ending as I still had to figure out how to tie the two stories together, so the end of this story is in fact partially a conclusion to the SSE, and a proper conclusion to my older fic. A sloppy thing to do but it was within my ability at the time. Now I'll be concluding a longer story... wish me luck.
Have a nice day, and feel free to review!