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Critical leans down to pick up a rock sitting on the ground. He reels back, and throws it at full force at me. I barely react quick enough and move out of the way and the rock hits the pillar behind me with a loud crash. Startled, I look behind me to see that the rock is deeply embedded in the pillar and there's cracks along almost the entire pillar now. So what, is his power just super strength?
"With the power to change the weight of anything I touch, there's no way you can beat me. Especially since you're powerless." Critical walks forwards, grabbing another rock and juggling it in one hand. Ok, so super strength with extra steps. Great.
He lobs another rock at me, I move out of the way but it grazes the top of my head, and it hits the cave wall way farther behind me. Some rocks and crystals fall from the ceiling.
"So, you change the weight of things as you throw them, you make them light while holding them and make them heavier as they're leaving your hand." I say, a little exasperated. If I ever let him get a hit on me this fight is over.
Critical smiles. "Perceptive, eh?" There's no rocks around him. Nothing to throw at me. What can I do?
"Are you unsure how to beat me, without powers? No normal Pokémon has beaten us… If you beat us, then surely we'll get demoted by Glass. But, that'll never happen." He laughs, Critical keeps his slow march forwards, closing the distance between us. Gotta think of something, come on! Aren't psychic types supposed to be smarter? Upon thinking that, I get an idea.
That idea?
I start to run away towards the rubble where rocks and crystals were knocked from the ceiling. "H-Hey! You can't run away! Coward!" Critical tries to run after me but he's slower so I reach the rubble first. I pick up a white glowing crystal. It's super pretty and slightly reflective. I turn around and point it at Critical. He has a slight reaction to it, slowing down for a brief moment but the starting up again. I focus a psybeam…
"You can't hurt me with a crystal!"
I fire a psybeam into the crystal. Some of the psybeam reflects back at me, hurting a little, but the rest goes into the crystal and comes out a multicolor beam like light going into a prism. The beam hits Critical, a massive hit! I close my eyes to shut out the blinding light.
"Irk-! You-" No, there's no way it was that easy. Sure that made a big dent but how big of a dent? Enough to faint them for a while. I open my eyes and I get punched in the chest, knocking me into the rubble. I crash against rocks and crystals and hit the wall. I must've made him really mad. I struggle to get back up, trying to find a spot that won't hurt to stand on with all the rocks everywhere. I hold my arm.
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Marble keeps up with the fireballs and Comet just keeps blocking every one that comes her way.
"Can you think of anything better as a strategy?" The Ribombee scoffs. Marble has to think of what he can do. His power can allow him to transform into almost any Pokémon he can think of, with limitations of course. Only Pokémon that are similar in size to him.
Marble leaps to the right and fires while circling Comet as she blocks each shot, trying to zig zag as he goes and gets closer. The closer he gets the shorter the fireball has to travel, and that means she has less time to react. Marble lunges in for a bite and misses, Comet flies up a little and crashes down on him with her shield, pinning him down.
"You're not even able to get a single hit off, meanwhile your friend over there is beating the snot out of that moron. Without a special power too." She pushes the shield against Marble harder and he winces, but then smiles shortly before poofing into a cloud of purple smoke. Comet pushes her shield into the ground thanks to the sudden absence of Marble being there. Her eyes dart around looking for him and she's caught off guard by a falling Ralts landing on her with arms swinging. She screams in surprise before getting a hold of them and throwing them off.
Marble had transformed into that Ralts and used teleport to get on a stalagmite above to drop down to attack.
"AGH! You little nuisance!" Marble stands up confidently. Comet lunges forwards, her star shield transforms into a bunch of little stars, all coming together to make a patchwork sword. There's no sharpness to the sword but the heat of active stars is enough to do a little damage. She takes a jab at the Marble turned Ralts which simply teleports away. The same thing happens again, and the third time she strikes she suddenly pivots and slashes behind her, hitting Marble sending them sliding across the stone floor of the cave, but Marble stays standing. Teleporting wasn't going to work forever, it's only purpose was to anger the opponent which seems to have worked out.
It seems she can manipulate her stars into different things but she can't change the shape of her stars, that's why her sword is the way it is, stars aren't sharp.
Marble transforms into a Murkrow and flies up, and Comet follows.
"I guess I was wrong, you can really really change up your strategy. Keeping the pressure on."
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I cough a little, wind being knocked out of me. "A powerless Pokémon got a hit off you, huh?" Like a moron, I taunt him. The worst idea. "If it helps you feel any better, I'm not powerless." I'm bluffing. I fake a grin and Critical seems to buy it, he steps back, looking a little afraid. Bluffing was the only way I was gonna get out of that situation.
"Then what's your power? And why won't you show it?" Critical asks.
"W-Well…" My voice is slightly shaky. Whatever fear Critical had immediately fades at my words.
"Tell me, do you remember the exact way to the exit of this place?" I ask, it catches Critical off guard. "What are you saying?"
"My power is to bend the world to my will when it's out of others sight. I couldn't use it during our fight but I can very well use it to close this cave off or turn it into a winding maze. If you defeat me, there's a good chance I don't remember where the walls were originally." Critical studies me for any tell-tale signs. I'm blatantly lying, but it could be working still.
Critical once again has some fear, some hesitation in him. I'm buying time at least. He's stopped to consider what my words mean. I have time to think! No, there's nothing here for me to use. Just a bit longer…
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Comet breaks off a star from her sword and chucks it at Marble which he dodges but it puts him off balance in mid air. "You're a good fighter, but you're not aware of your surroundings!" The star that was thrown comes flying back to return to the rest of the stars and hits Marble again from behind, staggering his flight. He falls down a bit, but he flies back up to Comet's level.
Comet waggles a finger at Marble. "I like your persistence!" Marble flies in to try and tackle Comet out of the sky with him, Comet arrangers her stars back together into a shield and Marble stops just short of it. He moves back as she moves her shield out of the way to swing at him, missing. Marbles then darts forward with that opening and tackles her out of the air. They both come crashing down into the stone floor of the cave. Marble gets up and makes some distance between them, Comet stays downed. "Y-You know, you should be glad you're fighting me and not Critical, he's way stronger battle wise, I'm more utility than anything."
"Walker's handling that pretty well I think! I'm sure he's just as strong, strong enough to stand up to your boss!" Well, he sorta was handling it ok for the moment. Marble takes a step forward.
"OK! Ok! You win! N-no more! I'll be off on my way…" Marble watches carefully to make sure Comet doesn't make any sudden moves. Her stars dissipate into a brief shine of yellow light before they're gone and she floats away and out of the cave.
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"No, I don't believe it. If your power is lying, then you're horrible at it!" Critical takes a step forwards, I have to commit to this lie and commit to it hard. "It's no use! Defeating me would only trap you here!" I shout. He doesn't buy it. He takes a step forwards and I press myself against the wall.
"A lesson to never mess with… Mess with us… Hnuughn… Tired…" Critical's voice trails off and his eyes struggle to stay open. What's that singing?
He falls over into the pile of rubble and crystals. Ow. Behind him is an Eevee that's just finished singing. He smiles at me and transforms back into a Zorua.
"Hey hey, got you out of a sticky situation huh-"
"Holy CRAP THANK YOU!" I pipe up, I let out an exasperated sigh.
"No problem! I'm a perfect guild member after all!" We did it! We beat those two. Critical is sleeping soundly and I don't know where Comet went, but Marble dealt with her. Now we have all the stolen goods. We both run over to look at them. The shiny gold coins, the gleam of random tools like mining picks, hammers, some escape rope, all the berries. I go and grab an Oran Berry from the pile and eat it, Marble looks shocked. "H-Hey! These are stolen goods! You can't eat the berries from it!"
I roll my eyes. "It's ok! I'm just taking one, you should take one too- We both got beat up hard." I grab one and toss it to Marble. It takes him a moment to consider it, before he simply smiles and says "Ok!" before eating it.
We plop all the bagged goods onto Corviknight's desk. "Young ones, what is this for?"
"It's for the Glass Cannon job! We went and got the goods back!" Corviknight looks surprised. "You two managed to beat the Glass Cannon?"
Marble shakes his head. "Nope! We just beat two of his goons." The way he says it makes it sound way less impressive than it actually is for the battle we had to go through. Is he not even gonna mention that they had superpowers we had to deal with?
"Oh. I see." Corviknight stores it away under the desk and brings out those gold coins in a bag.
"Here, 3000P for your efforts as per the job board reward. Dhelmise will be happy to hear they got their stuff back." Marble eagerly takes the money and splits it in half, handing the rest to me. I stare in awe for a little bit and I'm took back to reality by hearing the words "Walker! Let's go back to our place for the day!"
We take a stroll through the town back to his place. The entire place is dark and there's no noise, only silence and the sound of us walking on the wooden board platforms and bridges. The moon shines from above. We push open the curtain to Marbles shed and I immediately fall onto the floor. The sudden exhaustion hits me like a truck. Marble goes to sleep in his crate again.
"Hey Marble?"
"Yeah?"
"Next time let's do less stressful jobs..."
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