Chapter 28
I've Decided That I Hate Trains
(-¤-)
Citrine was having an odd day.
He had expected to run into some odd situations during his journey, that was a given. He thought it would be more along the lines of helping a pokemon in distress or maybe helping a trainer with an odd task. But stopping a train heist wasn't something he had considered. And Alice is involved in this one, as well as their last odd adventure. He hoped that this wasn't the start of a trend.
He liked Alice, she wasn't afraid of him in the slightest despite meeting him on his more aggressive side and she enjoyed a good argument, something that Lazuli avoided at all costs. Not to mention that she was more than willing to jump to a friends aid when they were in trouble. While she certainly had a bad attitude at times and was maybe a little nosy, she had proven to be a good friend.
He really hoped her showing up at times wouldn't end up being a bad omen throughout his journey.
He was currently trying to cut a passenger out of their seat as Lazuli paced near the back. Probably worried about Alice who had *climbed onto the roof of a moving train*. He needed to give her something to focus on.
"Lazuli." She perked up at his voice, "Try to find an emergency phone. We might be able to get some rangers out here to help us." she nodded and rushed to the front end of the car with purpose, probably having already memorized where the phone was when they boarded. She was overly cautious like that.
He had just finished freeing the arm of a mother to a little girl who was trying to comfort her when Lazuli came rushing back.
"Report!" She had fallen back on her ranger training that her dad had given her, she only did that when she was stressed or something was going down. "A secondary combatant has teleported in on the car ahead of us via a natu, likely the same one as before. Subject is wearing a similar uniform to previous combatant. Secondly the phone lines are down, this was most likely sabotage."
Crap!
He jumped to his feet and ran to where she had pointed, notably in the opposite direction that Alice and the magician had gone. Sure enough he could see what might be a girl about their age, or at least height, in the train car ahead of them. While it was hard to tell from the limited view both door windows gave, he could at least see a very similar mask covering her identity, and a small natu perched on her head.
She was looking at a small device in her hand, he couldn't tell what it was before she shoved it back into her pocket.
He looked back to the rest of the passengers who were still bound, most now calmed but muttering amongst themselves about what was going on. He ran back to the lady whose arm he had just freed and shoved his knife into her hand.
"Sorry, we have to take care of something."
She tried to protest but he ignored her and rushed through the doors to the next car. The gap inbetween was lined in rails with a small metal bridge linking to cars.
He slammed through the door with Laz in tow. The new girl twirled around to face them, a cape flicking behind her and the natu perched on her shoulder peeking around curiously.
"Oh, hello!"
He sneered and dashed forward, intent on ending this as quickly as possible. She scrambled back unnaturally in response. Her arms flailing and legs jerking around in a bizarre manner. Though she wasn't quite fast enough to outrun his dead sprint.
His foot came up high above his head and straight back down in an axe kick aimed for her head. She jerked to the side as if moved by some odd unseen force. His heel split air before he planted his self firmly on the floor and went for a punch towards her solar plexus. She again jerked out of the way in a position that should have put her completely off balance and seen her crashing to the floor. Instead she scrambled backward to gain some distance. He glanced at the natu, suddenly aware of what she was doing.
"Your puppeting!" Puppeting was a bizarre fighting style in which you let yourself go completely limp and have a nearby psychic literally puppet you around via their telekinesis. It allowed the user to perform impossible moves and dodge with inhuman precision.
It was also cheating.
"Guilty!" She swerved out of the way of another strike. "Please stop, this is already hard enough without someone trying to punch me."
"No, you robbed my friend!" He tried to pin her foot down with his own but she simply slid away from him.
"Fair enough. Natu if you would." With a pop and a flash they disappeared into nothingness. No wait, there they are, in the next car up. He pointed her out to Lazuli before spitting out a plan.
"Lazuli, try and get in front of her. If we can pin her we might be able to take out the natu with Don." Don was the only dark type they had at the moment and while the thing was still a terrible little trouble maker he liked to battle. So hopefully getting a chance to pick on a psychic will convince him to listen.
Lapis stood stock straight and gave a salute and a "Yes Sir!" Before running back to the outside of the train.
Hopefully Alice is having more luck with the first one.
(-¤-)
For once I had a bit of good luck.
So, the guy ran up the train for awhile trying to get to, somewhere. Pretty sure he either thinks I'm dead or at least off the train. So when he went back down into the cabins, presumably because train top travel isn't historically the most safe form of getting to where your going, I was already down in the cart trying to figure out where he was.
We were both very surprised to see each other again. For very different reasons. See I've got absolute shit for luck. And he-
"OH THANK ARCEUS! I thought Snips might have gone to far that time." Well at least he didn't mean to attempt child homicide.
Still going to break his legs though.
I let out Luke and Mark, the latter of whom had been riding my shoulder like a very ugly parrot.
He immediately let out his pinsir again as three of the passengers that were riding in this car quickly left through the front and rear exits in the face of a pokemon battle in a very enclosed space. The last one got to one of the corner seats and whipped out a small portable camera.
I stared at him for a second, "Are you fucking serious!?"
He shrugged "I'm a photographer!"
"You're an idiot!"
"Pinsir use Fury attack!"
"Stay away from its horns! Luke, Confuse ray! Mark get under the seats and use Low kick, keep it off balance!" Both immediately set to work, Mark diving underneath the cushioned seats, intent on some revenge and Luke using his second ghost type move. Confuse ray was yet *another confusion inducing move in our arsenal, and was fairly similar to sweet kiss but in true ghost fashion made the pokemon jump at shadows in fear, often seeing things that weren't there.
At least thats how it works in theory, the bug shrugged it off and charged the over sized bat, death in its eyes. Mark struck from below into whatever counts as an ankle on a beetle and forced it to stumble, but not fall over. That's not good, Lowkicks power comes from the pokemon hitting the floor. If it doesn't it's no better than a regular kick.
Ok, so it can shrug off Confuse ray and I'm pretty sure it did that with Swagger earlier as well. I'm guessing that confusion techniques are useless on it, I wonder if that's an ability or just training. Or maybe my guys aren't up to snuff on them. We are going to do some hardcore training after this.
Luke started to flit around as Pinsir tried to catch and crush it in its massive horns, occasionally taking pot shots with air cutter when he had a decent shot. Mark skittered below moving from seat to seat doing his best to keep the insect from catching my bat.
I whipped out the pokedex while I tried to strategize. Lets see, its big and he's only sent out the one at the moment, meaning his others are either too big to fit with Pinsir in the small space or he only has the two. All of mine are small enough to fight in here but Jack is trapped in his ball until I can free up my hand. Karen could be useful here but her weakness to bug makes me nervous against something like this. I don't know shit about pinsirs so I'm hoping I can find something I can use here.
I scanned the pokemon with the black pokedex and waited for it to pull up data. An almost nasally synthesized voice spoke from it.
"Pinsir The Stag Beetle Pokemon, This Fearsome Pokémon Uses Its Powerful Claws To Put The Squeeze On Its Opponents."
"I fucking know that you cheap plastic bitch," I snapped at it as I rapidly scrolled through the shortish description of it traits. "How do I fucking beat the damned thing?!"
Lets see uh, mating habits, favorite foods, habitats, temperature tolerances, THERE! Says that Pinsirs live in warmer climates as the cold makes them sluggish and slow. That's fantastic, except we don't have any ice type attacks.
I looked around rapidly trying to see anything else that could help us, and then I saw it, my next stupid idea. A fire extinguisher. Those are just big ass aresol cans right? If you turn those things upside down and spray them they freeze shit so in theory I can freeze the bug. Slight problem.
Its next to Mike.
So there's a monster fight between me and it and my guys weren't doing great.
Pinsir had pinned Mark down by his tail with its clawed foot and no amount of biting and punching was making it budge or care. Luke was battering it with Swifts and Aircutters but it was surprisingly tanky, shrugging off the super effective moves
"Pinsir, blast it!" What the fuck does that mean?
It grunted as it was battered by the blows but ignored them otherwise, lowering its body until the horns were pointed in Lukes vagueish direction. Luke to his credit was proving an extremely difficult target with his flitting about and aerial acrobatics.
A ball of glowing bluish white light appeared between the monsters horns before firing towards Luke. Fortunately, whether from poor aim or my bats random movements it went wide and sailed towards the ceiling and over my head at the back of the train.
The car jumped at the impact, it wasn't a boom so much as a resounding thump as it tore through the ceiling and out of the roof leaving a screaming hole to the sky outside and letting the air inside get stirred from the pressure difference.
Note to self, it can fucking do that.
I really hope they don't try and make me pay for the train repairs. Because I'm not gonna.
I returned Mark before releasing him again immediately, freeing him. The little guy snarled before trying to jump back into the fray, but I stopped him with a foot on his tail. A confused look was my reward.
I needed to distract it enough to get around it without getting chopped in half via its terrifying horns. Scraggys were fantastic distracters but its shell was too tough to get through, and swagger seemed to have little if any effect on it. I wonder if he's trained it against confusion techniques. This effectively means he can ignore Mark all together to focus on Luke, who at the very least was doing a little damage with his super effective moves.
Well, its not like the bug's the only target.
"Get the trainer, make him scream."
Of everything I've ever said to my lizard. From 'dinner time' to terrible puns, I think this was by far his favorite. I have never seen him smile so wide or maliciously before.
Then a thought occurred before I raised my foot. And I very quickly inacted a second part to my plan. He scrambled off under the seats with his new charge and a violent dream in his heart right after.
Ok, time to make sure this actually works.
"Luke," I don't need to beat it I just need to keep it busy. "Astonish!"
Luke dove into a swoop before getting right in its face, his own mug contorted into a nasty visage of fangs and maw.
Astonish was a very weak ghost type move that was designed to make the opponent flinch back from a small but startling shock of ghost type energy pumped into them. Its main use in battle was to stop pokemon from using charge up moves by making them flinch out of them. The only real down side was that the user needs to get incredibly close to do so.
Pinsir jumped back, the faint glow in its horns as it readied its next attack fading away as it did so.
"Pinsir use- YOOOW! WHAT!?" Magic man yelped and flailed as Mark presumably tried his best to remove the mans ankle.
"Luke, keep using Astonish. Keep it off of us!" I clambered over the left side seats, intent of grabbing the fire extinguisher. The pinsir was absolutely *pissed* that its trainer was being attacked and was ignoring me in its attempt to get to him. Luke was doing his best with his weak ghost technique but he could only slow it down so much. But it was enough.
I clambered over the last seat to see Mike on the floor tangling with an positively ecstatic scraggy that was just completely torturing the man. I gave my lizard a slight hand as I used Mikes crotch as a spring board to hop over that mess of a- well I wouldn't call it a fight. More of an enthusiastic bullying.
I got two things for that, a delicious squeak of pain, and the fire extinguisher.
I turned to the dude with the camera. "Make sure you get this, it's gonna awesome!" I got a thumbs up for that.
What? If he's gonna be here he might as well do his fucking job.
"Mark, on me!" I stomped on Mikes head as I passed over him again, hoping that was enough to knock him out. Quickly reading the instructions for the extinguisher and ignoring a very specific warning against turning it upside down. My lizard abandoned his current prey to jump on my shoulder. I pulled the pin out with my teeth as I closed in on the bug. "Squeeze the silver handle thing!" My hand was still trapped so I could either squeeze the handle or aim the hose, not both. Mark would have to act as my other hand. He clambered down to it as I held it in place with my webbed arm.
Oh I really hope this works.
"Luke put it in a Whirlwind!"
White gas spewed out from the simple rubber hose as we sprayed the thing down with what was probably carbon dioxide. My bat throwing wind into a sphere around it sucking up the gas and trapping the icy breeze in with the bug. The sheer cold of it leeching through the rubber and into my palm as I did so.
It tried to blindly rush us as we tried to desperately freeze it. Horns swung from the white cloud, glowing and deadly.
Mark threw up a protect just before impact. I felt the strength of the thing as the shield failed to distribute all of the momentum but the volatile energy it carried snuffed out at the green shield.
I backed up as it got closer, and closer. But even now I could see it working. It was slowing down considerably as we worked. And just in time too, the can was starting to empty.
The can sputtered as it ran out, the bug no longer moving for us. Infact... "Drop the whirl wind. It's done."
The wind died down releasing the gas and letting it drain through the hole in the roof. As it left we could see exactly what we had done.
"Oh, that looks good."
It had a near uniform coating of white ice all along its shell. It was still moving, but just mere inches as it shivered. Despite being conscious it was pretty much out of the fight. It couldn't do anything even if it wanted to.
"HA, winter came and fucked you good hu-"
FLASH
POP
Everything went white and a monstrously loud noise slammed into my skull as I was deprived of both my sight and hearing. A horrible tinnitus like ringing filling my ears as i stumbled back.
A flash bang!? That mother fucker has FLASH BANGS!? GOD DAMMIT!
I called for my pokemon as I stumbled around. The assault on my senses had disoriented me. What way had I been facing a second ago? The bug, right. So he was behind me!
I whipped a leg towards what I hoped was Mikes general direction but hit something soft instead. A seat cushion? But then I'm not facing backwards. Shit!
All I could do was wait for my eye sight and hearing to come back. This only took around a minute, but that was more than enough time for the bastard to get away.
Ugh.
This job sucks.
(-¤-)
Alice Thorn
May 8
Team
Jack
Buneary
Moves: Pound, Foresight, Frustration, Sweetkiss, Defense Curl, Baby Doll Eyes, Quick Attack, Jumpkick, Shadow Ball, Low Kick, Swagger, Protect, Fire Punch
Ability Limber
Luke
Golbat
Moves: Absorb, Super sonic, Astonish, Bite, Whirlwind, Wing attack, Confuse ray, Air Cutter, Swift, Protect
Ability Inner focus
Karen
Cottonee
Moves: Absorb, Fairy Wind, Growth, Leech Seed, Stun Spore, Mega Drain, Poison Powder, Protect, Swift, Razor Leaf, Cotton Spore
Ability Infiltrator
Mark
Scraggy
Moves: Leer, Headbutt, Sand Attack, Feint Attack, Swagger, Low Kick, Dragon Dance, Protect, Endure, Facade, Pay Back
Ability Moxie
3318¥
In Box
N/A
Yeah I don't have an excuse, I just didn't feel like writing for awhile.
Sorry.
But no worries this fic is still very much alive. I'm just a slow writer.
