A/N: Sorry for the delay. Chapter 3 is actually already ready, but I won't post it just yet.
Zilyana blinked, sitting up and rubbing her head with a groan.
"Sorry, folks!" The manager called out from the door. "But as you know, those Lamian folk come first, and we're short of rooms. As a token of apology I'll give you a little discount on the rent." He scooped up the group's barely-filled coin sack –ignoring Wisteria's wail of protest- and tossed a fraction back out before taking the rest with him back into the hotel.
The back door was then slammed into the group's faces, leaving them out in the street in the dead of the night.
"Did we just get thrown out of the hotel to make space?" Zilyana asked bleakly, looking around at her friends.
"We're sitting out in the street and not in some cosy hotel bed." Orion replied flatly. He paused, and then added as an afterthought; "do the math."
Some of the group laughed weakly; that line had become Wisteria's catchphrase over the months.
"Speaking of 'doing the math'," Wisteria piped up, "we should all take the time to do some math now. That hotel manager just took almost all our earnings. We're out in the streets with no idea what to do next. We only have enough money for perhaps one meal, and we definitely won't be able to afford staying anywhere else. While I'm the one usually doing all the calculations, solving for 'how we're going to end up' should be simple enough for you."
The rest of the group all stared at her.
"Sleeping in a field." Orion answered.
"Shut up, Wisteria." Steven groaned at the same time.
A pause.
"What are we going to do now?" Wallace wailed, breaking the silence.
"I guess we're going to end up doing what Orion suggested;" Cynthia sighed, a resigned edge clear in her voice. "We go find the nearest habitable field."
Fields turned out to be better than expected. The group found a little paddock in the outskirts of the city- one that led up to a cliff overlooking the harbour. They climbed over the dirty picket fence that bordered the path and cleaned up the leftovers of the last group of homeless wanderers- empty cans and bottles, mutilated rags which once could have been clothes or a blanket.
Other than the trash, it wasn't too bad- better than anything the city could offer, at any rate. The night air was cold and sleeping on uneven ground was uncomfortable -not to mention dirty- but the grass provided some comfort.
"This isn't too bad;" Cynthia said in a rather surprised way, making herself comfortable on a random patch of grass. Further off, Wisteria was screaming about bugs and Zilyana was complaining about burrs.
"Must be better than those ruins you used to explore." The nearby Steven joked, not at all bordered about his lack of a bed.
"Yes, quite better." Cynthia agreed. "And your caves, too."
"And my caves. Obviously." A pause. "I'd even venture to say that this might be better than our old Champion's quarters-"
"Head's up!" Wisteria yelped, making everyone start in surprise. "Bunch of people heading our way, and they don't look very happy!"
"Of course we're not happy, wretch!" One of the approaching figures growled, sinking onto all fours and bounding even faster towards the little paddock. "You're on our turf, trespassers; and we don't look very well on trespassers."
It was clear by now that these were not normal people. The man that had spoken stood up on two feet again, exhaling heavily. His features were doglike and his hair was a tangled dark grey, along with the fur growing on his limbs and the sides of his face. A tail swept the ground where he stood, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Cynthia, now standing like the others, held out her hands hurriedly. "Wait! We didn't know this was your territory- we're sorry, and we'll just leave now-"
"Too late." The wolf-man snarled. "Unless, perhaps, you'd like to pay me and my boys a toll?" He waved a paw, indicating the five other people. Some of which were as deformed in appearance as he –one sported shrivelled and leather wings, another had his skin turned into some horrible rough hide. A few seemed normal and wielded guns.
"We don't have much money." Steven replied, offering what little they had left. "So I don't think mugging us would be worth it-"
"No!" Wisteria snapped, springing forward and snatching the precious coins away. "No toll, muggers; go earn your money like you're supposed to." Catching the dubious glances of her friends, the blue-haired girl added; "we're circus performers! We can take them!"
The gang laughed. The wolf-man leered at the group. "Circus performers? And they want to stand up to us? Fergus, go show that lass what exactly they're up against."
A muscled thug –fully human, but just from the looks of it- lumbered over to Wisteria, unsheathing a sharp knife that glinted in the moonlight. Fergus thrust the knife under Wisteria's chin, holding the blade against her neck and forcing her gaze up to look at him.
"Nice knife." Wisteria commented idly, to the guffaws of the gang. Then suddenly-
-Crack!
The whiplash crack started the gang members- especially Fergus who cried out in shock as what looked like a silvery serpent lashed out and coiled around his knife. Wisteria flicked her wrist and the serpentine thing flexed, sending the knife flying into the air.
Another flick of the wrist, and the 'serpent' let out the whip crack again. That was all it was. A modified whip, the very shiny and very metal cords that wove to form the rope gleaming silver under the moon's glow.
"We're circus performers." Wisteria repeated as her groupmates fanned out behind her, getting ready for the inevitable fight. She stepped aside, making room for Wallace- who stood at the head of the formation. His impeccable ringleader's act was up again, but there was a dangerous glint in his eyes and if you looked carefully, he was shaking just a bit.
Wallace casually swept his hand out, then flicked his wrist in the same way Wisteria did- the wolf-man yelped as a stream of water materialized out of nowhere, arched towards his face and slapped him on the cheek.
The resemblance between the two was almost too much- Wisteria gave her whip an experimental flick again, and Wallace mirrored her with a small tendril of water that he seemed to have control over. The two groups stared down each other again, before Wallace coyly spoke again.
"We wouldn't be able to amaze an audience if we didn't have a few tricks up our sleeves, now would we?"
The wolf-man snarled in fury. "Attack!"
The assault started with a rapid blazing of guns. Little explosions of light and noise erupted from the muzzles of the manmade weapons- mostly machine guns and a few revolvers- but amazingly, the group remained standing. A little tightly huddled together, but none fell from the spray of bullets.
Wisteria had hopped back, dragging Wallace along with her- the silver-haired Steven stepped forward and flung out a hand, the bullets heading towards him simply ricocheting off some invisible thing before they could hit anyone. A little smirk tugged at the side of his mouth as he snapped his fingers- the mysterious shield revealed itself to be…well, a shield. The barrier flashed a dull blue-green for a while before fading into invisibility again, but the few moments was enough to signal to everyone that it was there.
Wisteria let go of Wallace after the first assault of bullets, confident that Wallace would at least not be smashing into any protective force-fields now that he'd seen where the barrier was. Like the girl had expected, Wallace skirted around the shield and lunged towards the heart of the attacking gang, his gestures somehow calling forth a stream of cold water to jettison up from the harbour below and smack into random gang members. With an irrational surge of viciousness Wallace started attacking anything within attacking radius.
More rounds were fired, but they ricocheted off the now-invisible shield with increasingly bright sparks of light. With a snarl the wolf-man charged forward on all fours, stopping where the shield was last visible. With a howl claws erupted from his knuckles, sharp and bright under the full moon. The wolf-man tested his blades, and the slashed.
Three bright claw-marks shimmered on the invisible shield, and then he was through. Cynthia tensed and unfurled her twin black fans, but Orion was already there, parrying and dealing dull blows with his double-bladed staff. Angvar, the one with horribly thick and armoured skin, charged after his leader, but was blocked out. Wisteria and Wallace took it as their chance, and moved to the edge of the shield to exchange blows with the giant.
Zilyana took the oppoturnity to tear off her cape – to reveal strong and muscled wings erupting from her back. They were dark violet on the insides and a bold maroon on the outside, but what set them apart from normal hawk wings were the serrated blades protruding from the leading edge. She picked up a random pole lying around – from a broken streetlight, perhaps – and did a running takeoff to soar into the air.
From the other side, Moran did a vertical takeoff and glided to meet Zilyana in the air. His wings were noticeably larger and were draconian in nature, but his flight was laboured and it took longer for him to change direction. He was unarmed, but there seems to be something else he had under his sleeve.
"Die, wretch." Seeing Zilyana rush towards him brandishing a pole, Moran took the liberty of a brief curse before he inhaled deeply. A plume of iridescent flame spurted out between his jaws, catching his opponent by surprise. Zilyana lost height to avoid the flamethrower, but she quickly gained upon her attacker.
On the ground, the duel was just as fierce. The gang members alternated between firing rounds at wherever the shield could not cover and using Angvar as a meat shield to block Wallace's surges of water. Orion's rapid blows with his staff proved ineffective, and he withdrew behind Steven's shield for the umpteenth time. Cynthia's dual bladed fans took their turn at slicing cuts into the gang members' back, but after Angvar was dispatched this was not of much use as well.
With a hiss of frustration Wallace did a dramatic gesture, summoning up a tremendously large column of water which coiled itself into a vague serpentine shape. He sent it at the gang members with a cackle of glee, but in a moment of inattention the serpent went for Steven instead.
Cynthia screamed as everyone else shouted, "WRONG TARGET, WALLACE!" at the top of their lungs. Noticing his mistake, Wallace grinned sheepishly and sent the serpent at the gang with a flick of his wrist, however letting a small jet of water continue along its original trajectory. Steven huffed, but couldn't spare any time to retaliate.
The blue torrent of water glowed a luminous blue under the moon's light for a few moments before smashing into the gang. Of the members, only Angvar remained standing, shielding his boss with his body. Moran was still aloft, trying to fry Zilyana with his fiery breath.
At last Zilyana couldn't dodge anymore. A plume of flames caught the tip of her metal pole, and she screeched as the heat conducted through the metal to her hands. Bringing the pole upon her assaulter's head with a very audible bang, she dropped her weapon and immediately descended to land behind her teammates. Moran was unprepared for the attack and was knocked unconscious, falling to the ground with a thump.
Steven winced. "That's gonna hurt."
Orion stepped forward confidently, and with a snap of his fingers brought Angvar around to face him. The two stared at each other for a few moments. Slowly, the giant became rigid, and with a loud bang fell, hypnotized, upon the floor.
Zilyana blew upon her burnt palms as she landed. The wolf-man, seeing most of his gang incapacitated, gave a howl of frustration and charged for the nearest target - Wallace. However, before he could reach the ringmaster, someone had entered the battlefield between them.
"Stop!"
The command instantly brought everyone to a freeze and they turned to look at the newcomer. He was deathly pale, with the almost transparent skin and golden eyes of the Lamia. However, he seemed to have run here, and he seemed to be quite tired out from the effort.
The wolf-man hesitated for a few moments, then bounded towards the supposed Lamia, claws outstretched at the ready. His target did not flinch and instead held out his hand. The assaulter was instantly frozen as a silver thread inched its way out of his chest and into the Lamia's palm.
A few seconds passed before he released the draining hold, and the now-defeated wolf-man fled along with the conscious members of his gang. The Lamia now turned to the rest of the group.
"Thank you, Lucian." Cynthia said.
It was certainly very weird to be in the former Elite Four Member's presence. After a mysterious event had transformed him into one of the hated rulers of the planet, the relationship between the two had become strained. Sure, Lucian had lacked the dexterity and physical prowess of the pure-blooded Lamia, but there was still an element of danger from being around him. He was the supposed 'agent' in control of the traveling troupe, but he had been nicer to them than other Lamia agents.
Lucian inclined his head. "I have come to find you. I convinced the hotel manager to get us a reduction in rent, so now I suppose we wil have enough to travel onto the next town if we have the earnings from the job tomorrow." He handed a small satchel over to Wisteria.
The girl opened the pouch and gave a cry of disappointment upon discovering that his statement was indeed true. "Couldn't you have done a little more?" She grumbled.
Steven gave her a warning glare, but it was too late – Lucian's eyes narrowed briefly, then he sighed, "My place in the hierarchy isn't that high to guarantee more. I have done all I can." Turning to Cynthia, he addressed her, "I believe you will heal them promptly, and I shall not disturb you." With that, he turned and vanished into the night.
A/N: Time for review replies!
Snowkittyn: Don't worry, Pokemon will be back soon. However, the form that they are in might not be familiar to you.
Pink Bottle of Kiseki: :D Cliffhangers are fun. Expect more to come.
Perpetual Dreams: I haven't mentioned Lance. I currently don't have plans to include anime characters (includes Gary), but Alder may appear in the future.
Thanks for reviewing!