Untitled11 The three of them rushed through the trees, heading to where the amulets claimed to be sensing James. They'd learnt from last time, and were avoiding any pokemon patrols they saw - Keira had moved ahead to scout. They'd still stumbled upon one group, and had beaten them as quickly and soundly as they could, making sure they couldn't give chase, before moving on.
The amulets gave directions, homing in on James's signal. He'd become seriously lost in the chase, by the distance he seemed to be from them. Unless the pokémon were moving him away from Jess and the others.
Nobody wanted Meowth dead, or James captured. The pokémon would take Meowth along with them, either thinking he was James's hostage or suchlike and 'rescuing' him, or knowing him for the traitor to the species he was and taking him prisoner.
They were drawing close... The amulets urged them on, they were within half a mile! Jess, upon hearing this, sped up suddenly, and Liam did likewise to keep up. Keira didn't notice until they'd drawn level with her. She turned down to Jess as she swung.
"Careful! They could be anywhere around here! Whoa!"
Keira's vine wrapped around nothing as the forest suddenly came to a halt. She managed to avoid falling down like she had the day before, landing on her feet and doing a spectacular skid. Jess and Liam skidded to a halt beside her.
"Close one."
"No kidding."
They stared off into the distance, across the grassy plains. It was dotted with a tree here and there, but it wasn't anything compared to the forest behind them. The pokémon weren't in sight, and the grass made it hard to look for tracks - but they had the ultimate tracking device, and weren't hesitating to use it.
They set off again without a word between them. Their amulets whispered encouragement and direction. Jess and Liam found they were leaving Keira behind - she had become a little unused to running, and was nowhere near their height or speed. They slowed down to accommodate this, and soon they'd set a pace acceptable to them all.
The pokémon, it seemed, didn't yet know they were being followed - they were closing in fast. The amulets claimed they were just over the next hilltop...
A deafening warning screech rent the air. Liam cursed as they all looked up - they hadn't thought to search the skies, and as such hadn't seen the Pidgeot, but it had certainly seen them.
It was only with the grace and agility in the air credited to its species that the bird managed to avoid the rocks, leaves and icebeams shot up at it. It created a small whirlwind to divert further projectiles and flew up out of range.
But they soon had bigger problems on their hands. These consisted mostly of about fifteen pokémon heading their way with intent to fight. They realized with a sigh that these didn't carry James, but they'd have to get past them to get to him.
They came running down the hill towards the trio, but were caught rather by suprise as Liam unleashed a Rock Slide on the hill beneath them.
They slid hopelessly down in a mini-avalanche, and were then hit by the falling rocks and dirt behind them.
"Good one, Liam." Jess said, then ran off to the left to face some when they came as Keira ran to the right. The pokémon picked themselves up, and attacked.
The battle, in a word, was tedious. They soon realized the strategy the pokémon had been told to employ - it was a kamikaze mission to delay them, nothing more. Sure, if they could take them out they would, but their main target was to buy some others some time to get away with James.
And so instead of facing them straight-on and trying to overwhelm by force of numbers, they were evading attacks. Running around their opponents, working with perfect teamwork. One or two would get their attention while a couple more would sneak behind and hit with a sneak attack from behind. There were about five to each person, and their strategy was working.
Jess had once tried to run from the battle to chase those holding James, and had been stopped in her tracks when a pair of Venonats tackled her from behind. When she'd unleashed her Icebeam at them, a Victreebell had stopped it in its tracks with an incredibly well-aimed Razor leaf, the beam hitting the leaf, freezing it, and not going any further.
Liam was becoming frustrated. His attacks were constantly missing, the pokémon were showering him with Razor Leaf and Vine Whip attacks, and his anger was doing nothing for his judgment. One of the Weepinbell had tried pausing to charge a Solar beam, and was now lying moaning under a fairly large boulder, but the others were still at large.
Keira was faring a little better - she was the only one with any resistance to the grass-type attacks, and she could compete with the others on their own grounds. She currently held a Beedrill captive in vines, and used it to block any attacks by the others while lashing out with her own.
The battle raged on for some time. A couple more pokémon were taken out, but it was obvious the humans were getting the worst of it. Liam, having suffered some pretty heavy injuries, went for the tried-and-true method of attacking from underground. The pokémon, realizing their target had gone subterranean, charged wildly towards the hole.
However, as the first - a Tangela - leapt into the hole, they heard a horrible dying scream. The Tangela was tossed out, a mass of vines wrapped around a dangerous-looking spike of rock.
They decided that it might not be such a good idea to face him in his own territory, and so charged at the next-easiest target, Jess.
Jess was fending off attackers wildly, appearing to be completely stressed and helpless. The appearance of three more antagonists looked like bad news...
But suddenly she laughed, and raised her hands to the sky. The pokémon, taken aback by this, actually backed off a bit.
Not far enough.
Her eyes glowed icy blue as energy swirled around her in the form of the most powerful ice attack - Blizzard. It formed into a mini-whirlwind around her, whipping her long black hair around, and soon she could barely be seen in the storm of ice shards and wind. Then she let go.
The pokémon were cut and damaged by the biting cold winds and flying ice shards, and those that weren't taken out immediately were picked off easily shortly after, as Liam jumped back up from his hole. The three of them then made short work of Keira's lot.
They spent a short time licking their wounds, then set off once again in search of James and Meowth...
~-~-~-~
"What the hell is this?!" Jess yelled over the crack of thunder.
"No idea!" Keira yelled back.
It had been incredibly sudden. They hadn't even seen the storm clouds gather. But suddenly it was pouring, they were all soaked to the skin. This couldn't be natural.
And by the look of things, it was culminating directly ahead.
A huge pillar of lightning slammed into the ground with a powerful blast, right where they were heading. They looked at each other, and Liam cried out, "Let's go!".
The three of them ran through the gale-force winds, pummeled by the rain. Liam would be faring the worst, but he didn't seem to be caring much. Between the thunder and the wind, very little other sound could be heard, and visibility had become extremely limited. But they knew which way they were going, even if they had to correct themselves every ten steps to keep going that way.
It was a long and tedious battle against the elements, made only the slightest bit more comfortable by the thought that the pokémon they hunted would be facing the same hardships. Lightning crackled, thunder rolled, another huge strike fell in front of them, but still they pressed on...
They hit a more powerful area of wind, managed to get through, and the rain... stopped.
The wind still buffeted them, but not nearly as powerful. They had apparently come to the eye of this storm - the sky above crackled with energy, the storm clouds boiled... and below them, down a short, sudden drop, lay a battlefield.
Pokémon fought fiercely - or at least those that were left did. Several smoking carcasses could be seen littered across the battlefield. And in the middle, two humans fought.
Actually, they realized after watching the battle some time, only one of them fought. He was short and had a rather thick, squarish build. Electrical power flowed through him in yellow, white and blue sparks as he threw bolts at the pokémon, and any who tried to vine whip got a rather nasty shock.
The other was even smaller, and running around, avoiding the pokémon and sticking behind the other.
Jess, scanning the battlefield, pointed to something. Another human figure could be seen in the grass. James!
They watched the guy fight for a while. He was faring far better against the pokémon than they had been - the area was completely soaked, and Electric attacks were good at finding targets. And even the attacks they managed to hit back with didn't seem to be doing much, if any, damage. As they watched, a large Razor Leaf scored a fair-sized cut on his arm... and it healed within twenty seconds. The cut closed over and turned into a scab, which rapidly vanished until there wasn't even a scar.
They stood there in shock, looking at this, until something else grabbed their attention - a Beedrill had managed to circle around and get behind the two guys. It paused for a moment to do a quick Focus Energy then dived at the smaller of the two. They cried out in warning, and Jess readied an Icebeam, but it looked too late...
He spun around and saw the pokémon attacking, and put his hand up, as if motioning the Beedrill to stop. A useless guesture, it seemed, but no... the Beedrill suddenly slowed! It swerved aside from him. They just gaped, but Jess released her attack anyway, the pokémon froze. The two looked up at them in suprise, and they decided it was time to make their big entrance.
Keira and Jess leapt down, powering up attacks as they went; Liam took the easier route, and walked out of the cliff face as the two landed. The few remaining pokémon looked completely defeated at the arrival of three more, and were picked off in seconds.
They walked up to the duo. "Well, thanks - that's our friend over there... Aaah!"
The Pidgeot which had seen them earlier was diving down towards James. The electric holder simply pointed, and a column of lightning slammed down on it with a huge, deafening thunderclap. The Pidgeot, now rather crispy, was thrown back and away, into the swirling maelstrom, out of sight.
"Whoa..."
"Not bad."
He looked around for any other dangers and, finding none, powered down. The electricity crackling around him vanished, his hair - thrown up by the sheer static energy - settled back down, and suddenly the storm above began to subside. Storm clouds dissipated, the rain returned as the eye disappeared, but much lighter.
"You were causing that?"
He shrugged. "I wasn't trying to. Get enough electric energy in one place, you make storms."
"Well, thanks. I'm Keira." Keira held out her hand for him.
"I'm Rob." He said, shaking it absently. "And this is Patrick." He motioned to his partner, who they actually saw clearly for the first time. He was extremely young, he couldn't be any older than ten while Rob seemed more along the age group of the others, late teen-early twenties. He looked extremely nervous, and had curly blonde hair.
Nobody said anything for a moment, then Rob wandered off towards the pokémon. Some of them were still alive, but badly charred and crackling with electricity - he would go up to these and administer a fatal burst of electricity - putting them out of their misery.
Patrick flinched every time the loud BZZT sounded - he obviously didn't approve. The others didn't look hugely happy either, but it was probably the best move.
However, they did cry out in protest when he picked up a limp white form. "Stop! Don't kill that one!" Cried Jess.
He looked up. "Why?"
"That's Meowth's with us."
"Huh? Why would you travel with a pokémon?" Rob looked skeptical.
"Just don't kill it, Rob!" Pat cried out. He rushed up and took the pokémon from his friend's hands... then shuddered.
"What's wrong?"
"This Meowth is sick. Very sick." He said sadly.
The rest of them looked at each other. "James said something about it being poisoned."
Patrick closed his eyes, cradling the pokémon, then nodded. "A very strange poison. I'll see what I can do."
The three of them were taken aback - his voice had suddenly changed to something else, ringing with power and kindness. He closed his eyes, and a rainbow aura suddenly appeared around him and especially the pokémon. It stayed there for a few seconds then, just as suddenly, vanished.
"I think it'll be fine." He said, a little shakily.
Rob noticed their amazed and confused looks, and explained. "Pat's a healer. He can take care of most injuries, poisoning, the works. Better than a visit to a pokémon centre."
They looked even more amazed. Pat looked a little embarrassed, and handed Meowth's sleeping form to Jess.
"See what you can do for that one, Pat." He nodded towards James. "I'm off to fetch that Pidgeot. Food for a week, that'll give us. You don't mind us coming with you? Safety in numbers and all..."
"Sure..."
"No problems here..."
"The more the merrier."
Rob stalked off into the rapidly fading rain. The others clustered around Pat as he stood over James.
"Hmmm..." Pat said curiously, and put his hands to James. The same rainbow aura surrounded him and James, and... nothing happened.
"He's been swamped with Sleep Powder." Pat said. "He'll break out of it in a couple of minutes."
"Good." Jess said, for lack of anything better to say.
Then they all sat down and waited for Rob to return with the food...