Ch 31: Icy Caverns
The atmosphere in the partially-submerged massive ice chamber was both extremely tense yet almost euphoric in how things seemed to have come full circle and that, of course, I would be getting ambushed by the original scumbag who attacked my team nearly a year ago in the Gord Woods - keep in mind, this is happening whilst under the heavy pressure of it now being nighttime, roughly 7 PM, and the League would be starting in two days. And I still had no fourth badge. And I still wasn't in Naporia. If I came all this way just to be denied entry into the Ilragorn League after a year of dedicating my life to this shit, I don't know how I would react. Not well. All that stood in my way left was Snake, the piece of garbage associated with Team Anonymous who had become obsessed with me to say the least and wanted my head on a stick to say the worst.
"I realized after witnessing Marvin Bloom's embarrassing display against you - if you want something done right, do it yourself. Hell, I didn't even need to be there, Eelektross and Huntail were more than up to the job." Snake stroked the chin of the Huntail wrapped around his neck in appreciation while Eliza and I dismounted off of the weathered Lapras who was breathing rapidly and hunched forwards, halfway beached onto the icy floors of the cavern while her bottom half was still in the ocean water that had filled the chamber halfway. Thankfully the chamber arched upwards. "I see Eelektross didn't make the trip, but no matter. I've learned from past mistakes. This time, I don't just have one mon on me, or two...I brought 6."
I had only battled Snake once before, and it was against his Arbok - his Arbok had electrocuted my Spearow to death with Thunder Fang, mashed my Togepi to pieces with its poisonous fangs, and terrified my Emolga enough to abandon my team after rescuing us in the nick of time. While they weren't powerhouses the way my current roster was, they were still trained by me and had their moment of potential. A Fearow or a Togekiss might have been perfect to fill that sixth slot on my team, but I'll never know thanks to Snake. Now having faced his Huntail and his Eelektross, I saw they contained just as much viciousness and power as his previous snake. And I couldn't forget he had that Gyarados in the back, that he had ridden away on in No Man's Land, so while I had no clue about its strength, I imagined it was his strongest member. The Gyarados to him was what Drapion was to me.
"Was this your master plan?" I asked him in a taunting voice. "Hijack and flood Fairies Ferry to force us to travel this way and bring us here? That's...pretty good, actually. Shit. Well, what is this, your team base?"
"No, Sir would would never allow the base to be in someplace as unstable as in the middle of the ocean, especially so close to the common routes the ferries take to get from Naporia to Ilragorn. He's not that dumb." Snake laughed to himself over some private thought. There it was again, that name - Sir. The poachers back in Exeter had mentioned him before with great respect and fear. I presumed Sir was the head honcho of Team Anonymous.
"Adam, I'm scared," Eliza whispered in my ear while Snake was lost in his boisterous gawks, though the Huntail caught it and hissed threateningly. I didn't have time to say anything consoling back to her before Snake's eyes were back on us.
"I find myself wanting to speak to you, pick at your brain a little, after spending so much time hunting you down in secret. You see, my pesky little bug, I was told not to 'waste my time on you.' I was told I couldn't get my revenge on the piece of shit who raised the monster that ripped my ear off! Do you know how fucking hard that was?! What you've cost me?! How many sleepless nights I had to spend waiting outside the base for the final security guard to go home at 4:21 in the morning before sneaking in to get just a peek at your file?! To track you down based on your gym records and analyze where to meet you at every corner?! But it was all worth it. For tonight. I'm going to finally get to kill the piece of shit that cost me my marriage and my respect with everyone at Anonymous! You understand that, right, Adam? You understand that I'm not letting you leave this fucking ice prison! This is going to be your cold tomb, along with your pretty little girlfriend there. And for whatever pokemon of yours that don't join my team, I'll kill. And when I'm done, I'm going to go over to Lunaris Town and pay Mom and Dad a visit so that they'll never get to see their son again because their eyeballs will be ripped out of their sockets. Do you understand everything I'm telling you, you dumb lucky brat?"
"Eliza," I turned away from Snake who was near close to frothing at the mouth with the amount of hatred he had building up against me. Arceus All Mighty, he really wanted me dead. We could see it in his eyes, that crazed look, the look of a man willing to do anything. And Eliza was trembling in terror at it, and I knew she couldn't handle battling against someone in Snake's condition. "Run away into the caverns. Just go. I'll stay here and keep him busy. When I'm done kicking his ass again, I'll catch up and find you, and we'll come out the way we came and keep going. This is nothing but a minor setback, that's all this is."
While I was making a molehill out of a mountain, Eliza listened and began running in the opposite direction of the chamber than Snake was on, where a passage curled around the corner and Eliza ran out of sight, further into the confines of the massive fused glaciers. While Snake couldn't get to her, I then considered the fact that she just might (and probably would with our luck) bump into an ice type, and ice types ravage her team. I grabbed a pokeball off my belt and with a flick of the wrist, Passimian emerged standing before Lapras and I.
"Go that way!" I pointed down the passage Eliza was just at. "Guard Eliza with your life! I'll come get you soon! Go!" Passimian sprinted down the passage and was gone in moments.
"Go kill that monkey, Huntail," Snake cooed in the ear of the snake still coiled around his neck, and Huntail instantly dropped to the floor and started slithering with purpose toward the passage on the other side of the chamber, but he had to pass through me and Lapras to do that, which the Huntail seemed to find as either a non-threat after capturing us so easily, or was too focused on only obeying his direct orders and nothing else, because he paid us no mind and that was cost him sorely.
"Freeze Dry, hit it hard," I blurted out, and a second later Lapras had fired off her beam of slushy ice from the horn on her head and it was a direct hit right on top of Huntail's head, striking the orange fin at the crown. The super effective hit along with Lapras using up what I think was the remainder of her energy into that attack was too much for the Huntail, and when Lapras let off, Snake gasped at the sight of his precious blue water snake knocked out from one hit.
"Such slow reflexes," Snake insulted his Huntail as he selected a new pokeball from his belt, not even bothering to recall the fainted Huntail that lay bruised and defeated several feet to the side of Lapras and I. He was abandoning the Huntail simply for getting knocked out, not even giving it a chance by leaving it in the wild while conscious to defend itself. A true scumbag.
Snake's next pokemon he released with a radiant glow of red filling the chamber upon its arrival, a black snake with slashes of gold and purple along its skin, but the highlight of it was the red arrowhead tail, the red eyes and the red fangs that really made the Seviper pop.
Wasting no time at all, Snake ordered Seviper, "Frustration the Lapras, quickly!"
Seviper uncoiled itself from the wound up spring it had been, then slithered in an S-pattern across the bare ice, getting a surprising amount of traction and moving with much more precision than I would expect a poison type snake to be moving through the inside of a glacier. The Seviper had a better grasp on moving outside of water than the Huntail seemed to.
"Ice Beam it before it touches you," I told Lapras as the Seviper fast approached, and while Lapras did succeed in firing off a light blue beam of energy from its horn towards the Seviper as it drew closer, the Seviper darted to the side as the Ice Beam approached, narrowly dodging the move. Lapras was firing his Ice Beam into the ground just as the Seviper used the momentum from swinging his long, flexible body to the side, to coil his body like a flexed muscles as he prepared to fire off his own move. Then, the Seviper surprised Lapras and myself by leaping its whole body into the air, and bringing it down right on top of Lapras' face, with Lapras jerking her head back and forth in vain as the Seviper wrapped his body around Lapras' neck and choked the air out of Lapras until she fainted.
Even though Lapras fainted, the Seviper still did not let go or ease his grip on squeezing his entire body around her neck. In fact, Seviper only coiled even tighter around her neck, and I saw as Lapras's face went beyond purple to white as she was experiencing the terrible and drastic line between knocking a pokemon out, and killing one.
"Stop!" I screamed as common sense saved me and I used her pokeball to retract Lapras to safety, leaving the Seviper dangling in mid-air momentarily as the unconscious Lapras was recalled, then flopping to the ground.
"Go down that tunnel" Snake called to his triumphant Seviper, pointing down the passage Eliza and Passimian had went through. "Kill the girl and the monkey down it, then come back, or don't come back at all." Within moments, his Seviper had vanished down the same passage, hunting down Eliza and Passimian. But having already lost Tropius and Lapras and Passimian, I only had Drapion and Gengar left, while Snake still had three.
What followed was a brief moment where we both had our guards down since there were no pokemon present - it was just two men who hated each other and wanted the other one out of their lives forever.
"How do you think this will end for you?" I couldn't help asking Snake, who still remained standing still on the other side of the chamber, not wanting to approach me as if disgusted by my mere presence. "Because it's not looking good."
"With me telling Sir that I have finally eradicated the annoying insect who's been a constant source of irritation to this organization-"
"Sounds more like a constant source of irritation to you."
"Both answers work," snarled Snake.
"Listen to me, Snake, and I can't believe I'm actually calling someone that. This is your one shot to turn around and end this battle and go collect your Seviper from that tunnel before you lose it like your other mons. I decided to take a chance on Marvin and I gave him this same opportunity, except I needed to completely blow his team back and leave him with no options before he settled on walking away, but I'm just hoping against my intuition that you're smart enough to not waste your time or your pokemons energy on a battle you're not going to win. So I'm telling you - walk away."
"Unlike that rookie Marvin Bloom, I follow through with my word. And I am telling you, neither you nor that bitch of yours is walking out of here alive. You know what happened to your little sympathy project, Marvin? After you let him go, I circled back around and looked for him until I found him in Scalding Springs. He had used the water there to replenish some of his pokemons health, and he probably had the skills to make it back to Wintervale. Hey, maybe he might even have turned his life around and done some good after you spared him. But I killed him right then and there because he embarrassed me and failed me and I can't have loose ends. So all the good you giving him a second chance did, eh, Adam? No, I'm not walking away. I'm standing right here until my pokemon skin you alive."
There was a long pause that filled the chamber that spoke volumes as we both let those words settle in.
"If that's how it's got to be," I said simply, reaching for one of the only available pokeballs left on my belt as Snake did the same.
Eliza had been running, panicking, arms flailing to her sides with no control as the only thought in her head was to just put as much distance between her and that horrible monster called 'Snake' as humanly possible. While terrified about her situation considering she didn't think either of her two pokemon were up to the task of fighting off any wild ice pokemon as well as any pokemon Snake might send after her, Eliza was smart enough to remain quiet as she sprinted, despite wanting to scream for help. She didn't want to attract any attention, figuring it best not to take any chances. It was just the sound of her heavy breathing as she ran deeper and deeper into the glacier that was the size of the slum-like Goldenleaf City when she tripped over a part of the trail where the ice jutted out in particularly uneven portions, and Eliza lost her footing, sending her entire body sprawling across the slippery floor, which had a burning cold to it against her skin.
"I want to go home," Eliza whimpered to herself in a low voice, blinking away the tears in her face. She didn't know if they were there due to the low temperatures or the stress. She started to hear footsteps rapidly approaching from behind her, and she scrambled on her hands and knees to get up, but only ended up slipping out from under her palms and falling back onto the ice, hurting herself more. She cried out in pain and terror from the approaching potential threat, though her heart rate settled once she saw with relief Passimian bolting around the corner and rushing to her aid, a look of worry on the monkeys friendly face he examined the scrapes on Eliza's knees she sustained from tripping on the ice.
"Oh, Passimian," Eliza said tenderly, petting her old team member across the side of his face, the way she remembered he liked best because his leg would start reflexively kicking at just the right spot. "I pray to Arceus we just get out of this alive." Feeling restored by the arrival of her former pokemon, Passimian helped Eliza to her feet and the two of them continued on down the trail away from the entrance to the caverns, though now slowed due to Eliza limping from her fall.
"Once we find a place with enough room to fort down, we can stop," Eliza assured Passimian, confident that he - like her - felt somewhat compelled to turn around and help Adam from a potentially deadly situation. But she had faith that Adam could win. So they twisted a left here, two turns to the right there, and eventually the passage bloomed into a new massive room. Scattered along the snow and icy floor were the dead bodies of Snorunts that looked like they had all been pierced with massive bullets that had all gone clean through, leaving huge holes in their bodies. There were red splotches and splatters staining the snow all around the Snorunts, who all had contorted faces of horror. No doubt from the last memory they had being made into swiss cheese.
Eliza's heart dropped to her stomach and she scanned the room with her eyes, searching for the source of the damage to the Snorunts, half-expecting a terrible pokemon to be dangling from the ceiling waiting to pounce on her when she looked up. The room was just as big as the half-submerged entrance chamber where the Huntail had brought them, but there was no water in this room. There were several more tunnels to go through at the far side of the room, but Eliza was complacent in taking advantage of an area where you could see from all sides coming if you remained in the center of the room, watching the entrances from both sides. She relaxed slightly when she was confident that her and Passimian were not in the company of whatever had harmed the Snorunts, but an unfamiliar hissing coming from the passage her and Passimian had come from made her jump.
Eliza and Passimian whirled around to see Seviper come slithering into the room with his head raised, alert, tongue prodding the air and eyes locked on Passimian. Passimian moved from standing beside Eliza to in front of her, guarding her. Passimian lowered his head and slammed his knuckles into the ground aggressively in an attempt to scare off the Seviper, though it did not work.
"It must belong to Snake," commentated Eliza, unsure if she had the right to order Passimian when the Seviper undoubtedly attacked. It was Adam's pokemon now, after all. But then Eliza came up with a better idea, and within seconds she had released her long time partner Staraptor from his pokeball, and he was soaring high into the air above the Snorunts' grave. "Staraptor, help Passimian beat this ugly snake."
Staraptor lowered himself back down to Passimian's side, facing the Seviper that had wrapped itself into a protective coil while now alternating its gaze between his two opponents. For having to face two perfectly healthy pokemon in Staraptor and Passimian, the Seviper didn't seem fazed one bit. What did finally get the snake's poker face to crack, and what caused Eliza and the rest of the pokemon to turn around was the incredibly heavy smashing sound coming from behind them all, from somewhere in the direction of the Snorunts mass grave - a bulky Cloyster had buried itself underground, and was now smashing through the icy floors directly underneath the pile of Snorunt bodies. As the Cloyster emerged, briefly lifting all the bodies on top of its durable shell, complete with horns and spikes jutting out in various directions, once the Cloyster had fully emerged from the ground, it used Rapid Spin, and with two efficient twirls, all the bodies of the Snorunts went sliding away in various directions around the chamber. It reminded Eliza of a game of pool she played as a kid, remembering how she had to make the first shot of the game and hit the cue ball into the 15 balls huddled together, sending them flying everywhere.
Briefly entertaining the notion that the Cloyster was here to assist her and give her an easy 3-1 ratio advantage over the Seviper, Eliza soon discovered otherwise when she really paid attention. The Cloyster's eyes were an unnatural red, and the spikes along its shell matching the holes in the Snorunts along with the way he made his entrance pushed Eliza into thinking that this Cloyster was not here to help.
Sandwiched in the chamber with the Seviper blocking off the path she had come from, and the Cloyster suddenly laying claim to the center of the room, Eliza's heart rate went wild as her worst fears came true - she didn't just bump into a dangerous ice type. Snake didn't just send a disgusting pokemon of his own after her. Both happened, and the odds of escaping this alive were looking less and less likely.
I chose Gengar to fight alongside me while Snake whipped out a Serperior, which was a surprise considering I had yet to bump into any of the standard starter pokemon handed out by pokemon professors to their favorite pupils while traveling around Ilragorn. I appreciated the advantage Gengar had over the grass type naturally, and felt confident going into this battle from the get-go.
Gengar was levitating in mid-air while eyeballing Serperior below, looking unimpressed by his competition as Serperior slithered her long, green body along the icy floors, though she moved with less confidence than the Seviper had. Being a grass type, even a fully evolved one, Serperior probably still had her reservations about rubbing up her body against so much ice.
"Gengar, Sludge Bomb," I went on the offensive instantly, pulling no punches with this scumbag.
"Leaf Storm to shield yourself!" Snake commanded.
Gengar almost lazily thrust his hand in a limp-wristed motion, summoning a droopy lump of wet, purple sludge from his wrist that went hurtling towards the Serperior, who during that time had used the attack I had grown so proud of my Tropius for learning and had summoned up a tornado compiled of razor sharp leaves that remained in front of Serperior, attempting to be used as a barrier to block the poisonous sludge. While there were many more leaves flying through the air than there was sludge being carried in the Sludge Bomb attack, the poison burned and ate through the leaves with ease. I'd say the Leaf Storm swallowed up about 60% of the damage that the Sludge Bomb would have done to the Serperior, though several splatters of poison had filtered through the hurricane of leaves and landed on Serperior's grassy skin, burning her and drawing blood at certain points.
"Now Leaf Storm Gengar!" Snake ordered.
"Sludge-" I began to say, then stopped as I noticed that the barrage of leaves being conjured up in front of Serperior was now twice in size, and the leaves seemed to have both grown larger as well as spin with more fervency than before. "Double Team, double team!" I just had to hope Gengar could switch from mid-attack to an evasive move before being swept up in the leaf tornado with a quick enough response time. Curse Serperior's awesome ability Contrary, making moves that would normally weaken it boost it instead.
Gengar created a copy of himself, and even in the heat of the moment, even with a Leaf Storm being fired right at them, both Gengars took a moment to high-five each other because that's how stupidly confident my Gengar was. Usually for good reason. Then they both went firing off in opposite directions - one straight up toward the ceiling, the other into the icy ground below. The Leaf Storm mostly focused on attacking the Gengar remaining airborne which it succeeded at - luckily, it was the copy and it dissipated into nothingness the moment the tide of deadly leaves swept it up. The real Gengar - that clever bastard - emerged from the ground behind Serperior with his finger over his lips in a shushing gesture so that I wouldn't give his position away by reacting to his arrival in any visible way. Due to his impressive stealth, Serperior didn't even notice Gengar was right behind her. Snake, however, did.
"Behind you, Serperior, idiot! Dragon Pulse!" Snake screamed in frustration over Serperior's lack of awareness skills, as the grassy snake had been too focused on taking down the faux Gengar and had momentarily let her guard down enough to take a massive hit.
Gengar had fired off a Sludge Bomb into the back of Serperior's rubber-like body before she could even turn around, and it was like watching acid eat through paper. The Serperior cried out in horrible pain over the hit, because Gengar really did manage to get the entirety of his Sludge Bomb all over her back, and it essentially changed Serperior from green to purple with how much poison was covering her body. Unable to cope with the pain, Serperior's mind gave out on her mid-scream, and she fell to the hard ice floor with a solid thunk, knocked out.
"What the fuck!?" cried out Snake, astounded yet furious all at the same time. "You're not even good! Why are my mons losing!?"
"If I'm not good and I'm tossing your ass left and right, what does that make you?" I countered back.
"You're fucking dead!" Snake grabbed one of the last two pokeballs he had left and tossed it angrily at the ocean water on the other side of the cavern, where with a ping and a brief crimson glow casting along the cavern walls, a 7-foot tall Gyarados was levitating over the ocean that had come to become a calming lake inside the glaciers. The Gyarados had the most ferocious roar I had ever heard uttered from a pokemon's mouth, and though I had gazed upon this monstrosity once before, never this close. It was by far the largest of all the snake pokemon I had seen Snake use, and I was actually surprised that he was bringing it out, as I was sure he would keep this in the back since I thought the Gyarados had no other option but to be the strongest member of his team. And the strongest member of the team should always be stored either in the very front or in the very back in serious battles, and battles didn't get more serious than this. Then again, it wasn't unlike Snake to make questionable battling decisions.
"Gyarados?" I said in a bemused tone, cocking my head and crossing my arms over my chest. "Interesting choice." I didn't want to give away my surprise that he was giving me a free Gyarados if all went accordingly.
"That's right you stupid fucking kid, you finally got something right. This Gyarados is the pokemon that killed Marvin Bloom and his pathetic team. This is the Gyarados that sunk Fairies Ferry. This is the strongest pokemon I've ever trained, and you better get your dumb little ass ready for the beating of your life time. Gyarados, Dragon Dance!" Snake said excitedly, eyes wild with anticipation. He was so, so confident.
"Gengar, Thunderbolt."
Just as Gyarados performed several angelic spins and twirls with his flexible body to boost his attack and speed simultaneously to begin sweeping my team, Gengar brought down a crack of lightning from the icy ceiling above right on top of Gyarados' head, electrocuting his entire body and sending him in convulsions, splashing and flailing into the still waters of the lake and sinking down. A water and flying type taking a Thunderbolt from a pokemon as powerful as my Gengar - he wasn't coming back up.
"No!" screamed Snake in shock, on the verge of tears if the glaze in his eyes was any indication. Though during all of this, he still remained standing upright, rooted to his spot on the opposite side of the cavern from me. Small miracles.
"If you'd like to still forfeit, I'm willing to overlook all the stupid shit you've just tried to pull with me if you give me some information about Anonym-"
"Forfeit against the likes of you? I'd rather die."
"You just told me that Gyarados was the strongest member on your entire team. And I beat it in one hit. It was pretty boring. This whole ambush thing you tried to pull here today has just been massively underwhelming, to be honest. You've had all this time to train and to plot and to strategize, and this is the best you can throw at me? I'm embarrassed for you, man."
His entire body was trembling with rage towards me. But he had an insane smile on his face, topped with drool hanging off his lips.
"I said Gyarados was the strongest I've ever trained. He wasn't the strongest on my team. The strongest on my team is a pokemon I got as a gift a long time ago. Because of you, actually. My boss, Sir, the head of Team Anonymous himself gave me this pokemon. I didn't want to have to use it against you...thought it'd be more poetic or something if I killed you with my own pokemon...oh well. As long as you're dead, I'm happy."
"Well, as long as you're happy," I joked at him, wary of how to receive this information. He had one pokemon left. I had Gengar and Drapion. While most of Snake's pokemon I had come to learn weren't the biggest threats, a pokemon that had been trained and honed by the leader of Team Anonymous himself very likely was.
The overly aggressive wild Cloyster was the first to fire off an attack: 5 long knives carved of ice from a powerful Icicle Spear attack shot out from the horns on its shell aimed at Eliza, Staraptor, Passimian, and Seviper, like they were bowling pins. Staraptor took to the air once more, using its powerful wings to its advantage to dodge two of the spears. Passimian used his strong legs to boost his jump enough so that he swept up Eliza in his arms with grace so that the two of them dodged the two spears that were going to pierce them. Seviper had remained in place, because he had started to Coil in order to boost his attack, defense, and accuracy through flexing his muscles by contracting into a tight wind for a short period, but this left him an open target that had no choice but to allow the fifth spear of ice to stab right into the black scales on Seviper's side.
"Oh, Staraptor, Close Combat the Cloyster if you can!" Eliza cried out to her airborne team member, recognizing that the Cloyster was a much bigger threat than the Seviper and wanting it to do down first. Eliza felt out of shape from battling as it hadn't felt like fun in a long time, but their lives depended on her giving her Staraptor strength right now, not doubt. "And I know you can!"
As Staraptor dived and dipped in circles around Cloyster to find a good angle to attack from, Cloyster remained in place occupied firing repeated Rock Blasts from his shells, always five small chunks of rock being fired out like a cannons, though Staraptor dodged them all with ease. Eliza heard a hissing coming from the entrance to the chamber and saw Seviper had finished Coiling up and was now looking slightly larger and slightly more dangerous as he began slithering towards the screaming Eliza. Passimian was still close, and leapt from Eliza's side, the coconut on his head turning a solid metal as Passimian used Iron Head and aimed to land right on Seviper with it. Seviper was quick, too, and within moments the arrowhead tail of his has turned a chrome metal as well, and Seviper whipped his tail forwards to meet Passimian in mid air, the Iron Tail collided with Passimian's Iron Head with a clang. Passimian realized in pain as his brain rattled that Seviper wouldn't be so easy to beat as just spamming it with steel moves.
Spitting toxic venom out of his red fangs, irritated that it was getting so much resistance, the Seviper used Poison Fang as it struck its face out at Passimian's ankles. Though Seviper's aim had heightened, it still was no match for Passimian's natural superior speed, and Passimian bounded to the air once more as Seviper sank his teeth into solid ice on the floor.
Passimian was caught dead in mid-air when he felt a strange pulling as he was jumping away from Seviper, looked down, and noticed that the arrowhead tail of Seviper's long body had snagged around his ankle. Passimian was wrenched from the air back down to the icy floor where Passimian fell with a loud whack that cracked the ice underneath. Catching his bearings quickly, Passimian recovered rapidly, lifting himself back up, grabbing onto the end of Seviper's body, just under where the dangerous arrowhead began, and thanks to Passimian's opposable thumbs, yanked the tail free from his ankle without difficulty, then proceeded to spin in circles with his arms extended far out in front of him, the Seviper swinging in circles right along with the Passimian, getting dizzy and spitting venom threateningly as the force of gravity along with his long, contorted body impeded the Seviper from being able to do anything but be locked into this roller coaster nightmare to the point the snake was about to regurgitate from motion sickness. At last, when the Passimian could take it no longer, Passimian let go, and Seviper went flying with incredible momentum built up by his own strength right into the hard, uneven, icy walls of the cavern. The portion of the wall that the Seviper ended up crashing into was particularly jagged, and the Seviper had the misfortune of its eyes and most of its face being penetrated by the razor-sharp edges of the icy walls, drawing massive amounts of blood that splattered the white walls and blinding the Seviper forever.
Seviper was thrashing wildly and without purpose against the wall, just in pain and confusion from the forever darkness that it would now see. It was only a threat to itself at that point, and Passimian and Eliza turned away from the bloodied mess of a pokemon to the real threat - the red-eyed Cloyster that was attacking them for no reason.
Passimian took the opportunity of no distraction to set up a free Bulk Up since Staraptor was keeping Cloyster's attention. Eliza felt useless in the moment and wanting to be able to do something herself, deal any kind of damage to the Cloyster she could, Eliza searched through her own backpack, fumbling through the contents with urgent, scared hands. She came up with two things: one - an empty pokeball. Two - an old Pokeflute made of iron she had been given from her father a while ago. Though she would never want to actually keep and raise this terrifying Cloyster, the only thing Eliza could think to do in the moment to assist her partner was clear - stall it out by trying to catch it for a few moments to buy her allies some time. Eliza chucked the pokeball with expert aim right at the unaware Cloyster, who was in the middle of firing off more Icicle Spears up at Staraptor, and though it landed right on top of the Cloyster - it stupidly bounced off of its shell and just rolled several feet away, having no effect whatsoever upon coming in contact with the Cloyster. Eliza was baffled, as that was only supposed to happen if a pokemon was already with a trainer. She had never heard of a pokeball just bouncing off a wild pokemon, and she refused to believe that this Cloyster belonged to anyone.
The pokeball being thrown at its back did catch the Cloyster's attention, though maybe not in the way Eliza hoped. The Cloyster instantly turned its sights on Eliza and Passimian, who it seemed like the Cloyster had forgotten about in his raged tunnel vision on Staraptor - then launched another assault of five Icicle Spears right at the girl and the monkey. Passimian once again swept Eliza up in his arms and used his strong legs to bound away from the arrows of ice, Eliza yelping, her arms hanging around his neck for dear life.
That one moment of Cloyster's attention diverted was all Staraptor needed to finally get off that super effective Close Combat right into Cloyster's thick back, which was some much-needed damage in Eliza's opinion. Staraptor attempted to flee back to the air with a quick U-turn to kick off of Cloyster and get just a little bit more damage off rather than just fly away, but hanging around to get off that extra bit of damage cost Staraptor dearly - five more Icicle Spears fired out from a subtle hole in the back of the shell that Staraptor hadn't even noticed. The drops in his own defense from using Close Combat as well as it being an ice move meant the first spear made Staraptor fall to the floor, wings clipped badly. The second spear slashed through Staraptor's tail as he was lying on the ground, splattering feathers and blood on the slippery ice floors, making them even more slick. The third and fourth spear hit Staraptor's unconscious body and head, slashing the bird open even more, drawing more red on the floor. But the fifth and worst one was the one that did poor Staraptor in - it landed right at the back of the bird's brittle neck, and the shard of ice was so sharp that it cleanly severed Staraptor's head, ending any pain he may have been in in his final moments while Eliza screamed in horror over the death of her pokemon and Passimian let her go so that he could focus on taking down this Cloyster that was becoming a bigger and bigger threat by the minute.
"It all ends now," Snake said in an almost whisper, as if soothing me.
It was with that that Snake then cast the last pokeball from his belt, and a burst of energy that glowed not red but black emerged from the pokeball to form a being that I knew from my late night readings as an ultra beast named Nihilego. It was an oddly shaped being, and I wasn't entirely sure if it was considered a pokemon. It just had such an alien quality to it, from the bell shape of its head to the creepy tentacles reaching out in every direction while it just floated serenely in the middle of the cavern. Nihilego didn't have eyes, but rather stars laced around its head, though I still had the eerie sensation that it was watching me intently.
"Nihilego, I call upon you to eliminate this nuisance to our master's organization!" Snake bellowed out across the chamber. Nihilego began drifting through the air, slowly, heading right towards me.
"Gengar?" I called out nervously, and out of thin air, Gengar appeared right in front of my face with his back to me, looking ahead at the threat fast approaching, its many tentacles swaying and sweeping at the air around it as it drew closer.
Phew. Lord Jeezis. Apologies to those who enjoy my story for its shorter/simpler segments, but I feel like the last 9 chapters of my story are essential, and so I needed to bulk this one up much bigger than any other chapter before but rest assured I don't plan on the rest of them being this long or taking this long to finish. Except maybe the very last few, of course, in the climax. Also I've been building up to this since Chapter 4, which is my personal favorite chapter still after all this time, so I really wanted to go all out with showing that Snake's learned from his mistake of only bringing 1 mon, and he'd be a total fool to bring anything less than 6 after that and I thought bringing anything less than 6 would be unfaithful to the character, even if it meant I had to make the whole segment a lot longer and extend it to a two-chapter arc to squeeze in Eelektross and Huntail since I never really got to play with the fact that Snake loves snake pokemon until now. Getting closer and closer to the total mayhem I want to write about finally being unleashed - so exciting that my story's really gaining traction and more and more followers with each update, and just as it's getting to the best parts. Thanks again to every reader, fan or foe. Any insight onto improvement or highlights is always appreciated.