Brushing the dirt off himself, Light got to his feet and slowly walked up the gradient and out of the crater. "So you're the Olympian. I was expecting someone more… intimidating." Light said as he struck a fighting pose.
"Oh my abilities are plenty intimidating, you just need a firsthand demonstration." Grace said as she raised her fists in preparation.
"I could say the same thing about mine." Light countered before rushing in with a Night Slash.
Instead of dodging, Grace blocked the Night Slash with her raised fists and proceeded to counterattack with right and left jabs.
"Crap, I need to create some distance. Shadow Ball!" Jumping backwards, Light launched his attack, which was promptly blocked by a well-timed kick from the charging Grace.
"Straightforward attacks like that aren't going to work on me!" Grace yelled, materializing a basketball from thin air. "Jump Shot!"
"You're one to talk." Light said, easily dodging the move. "That was as straightforward as they come!"
"That's where you're wrong. Rebound!"
The basketball, which had long since passed Light, suddenly reversed direction, as if hitting an invisible backboard, and slammed into his back.
"Gah!" Light cried in pain as he fell to one knee.
"Shotputs fire!"
Not giving her enemy any time to recover, Grace continued her assault by throwing shotputs at the downed Light, each landing on the ground with a loud BOOM.
As the dust cleared from the attack, Light charged once again, realizing his best chance in this fight was to keep things close quarters. "Night Slash!"
"That again? You're making this too easy on me." Stepping to one side, Grace grabbed the attacking claw and put the former NAA commander into an armlock. "Now do you see how pointless fighting against me is?" Grace whispered menacingly into Light's ear.
"I… still… have a chance." Light replied through grunts of pain. "Thunderbolt!"
The close range electrical attack caught the opposing commander off guard, releasing Light from the armlock and giving him a chance to regroup.
Her defenses are too strong. Light thought. I have to press the advantage here. "Thunderbolt!"
Additional sparks of electricity flew from Light's body and struck the enemy commander head on. "Now, Shadow Ball!"
Several spheres of the Ghost type energy were rapidly fired toward the still reeling Grace, who yelled, "That won't work on me!"
She then proceed to materialize a metal baseball bat and began to swing at each of the approaching Shadow Balls, knocking 5 of the 7 back toward Light with twice their original velocity.
Crap. She's regaining her momentum. Light thought. "Thunderbolt!"
The returning Shadow Balls were detonated by Light's attack, but they had taken a toll none-the-less. Light was breathing heavily and clutching one arm tightly, the one which Grace had put into the armlock. Grace on the other hand, was also slightly winded from Light's assault, but not worse for wear.
Seeing her opponent's condition, Grace said, "That little outburst took a lot out of you didn't it? Too bad for you I'm still raring to go!"
"Who says I'm not?" Light said, obviously bluffing.
"Really? Then let's see you dodge these! Fireball Drive!" Keeping the baseball bat in one hand, baseballs began to materialize in Grace's other hand, which she then proceeded to toss into the air and hit at Light.
"Gah!" Light cried as he twisted and turned to dodge each of the oncoming baseballs, which had caught fire due to air friction. "Shadow Ball Shield!"
Suddenly stopping, Light threw up his Shield and began to absorb the fireballs thrown his way.
"You're tired!" Grace yelled as she continued to materialize baseballs. "You can't keep that up forever!"
She's right. Light admitted to himself. That assault before used up a great deal of my energy. I need to think of a new strategy, but what? I don't even have enough energy to escape into the air.
The Shadow Ball Shield held for another minute before visible cracks started to appear. A few Fireballs later, the entire Shield broke down, subjecting Light to a barrage of baseballs he couldn't avoid.
"That's the longest someone has held out against my Fireball Driver." Grace commented offhand. "Impressive as that may be, it's time to finish this, Shotputs away!"
The metal spheres rocketed toward Light like cannonballs. On the ground defenseless, all he could think was So this is how it's going to end.
As Light closed his eyes and accepted his fate, the shotputs were shot out of the air by an energy cannon.
"Who goes there?" Grace asked, turning to see who fired the shot.
"You think you can start a battle without me?"
Light opened his eyes to see the unexpected, Grunt's knight standing a few feet away, it chest cannon freshly fired.
"Grunt?" Light asked wearily. "You were in a coma…"
"And now I'm not." Grunt replied very nonchalantly. "Who's this chick?"
"She is the enemy commander who's attacking us."
"Really?" Grunt said, "Well it's time for her to learn what happens when you mess with the NAA!"
In typical Grunt fashion, he pulled out his Rocket Launcher, fired a shot and charged forward guns a blaze.
"A new foe joins the fray." Grace said as she bobbed and weaved her way through the curtain of bullets. "Let's see if you're more entertaining than your friend over there."
The way she's dodging those bullets. Light thought. It's unnatural!
Reaching the Knight unscathed, Grace materialized a fencing blade and began to take swings at the new enemy, who merely dodged to the side and continued to fire at the AK pilot.
"You think you can win just by firing bullets and keeping your distance! That won't work!" Dematerializing the fencing blade, Grace pulled out a bow, already strung with three arrows. "I can play that game too!"
"Amazing." Light said, "By materializing the arrows directly onto the bow, she's nearly matching the firing rate of Grunt's machine guns!"
The two combatants began to circle the battlefield furiously, one firing arrows the other bullets, neither one landing any more than a glancing hit on the other.
"Chest Cannon! Full power!" Suddenly stopping, Grunt lowered his guns and fired a huge energy blast from his chest cannon. The width of the blast cleared the air of all of Grace's oncoming arrows but unfortunately did very little damage to her.
"You are more fun!" Grace said, "But even you will fall in the face of superior athletic ability!"
"Feel free to try. I can keep this all day lady." Grunt said.
"Oh, you can be sure I will." Grace replied, "Now let's-"
She was suddenly cut off by an incoming communication. "Commander! The rest of the NAA higher ups have entered the battlefield. What are your orders?"
"We've accomplished our goals for today." Grace said. "Tell all troops to retreat to rally point alpha! Looks like we're going to have to finish this fight another time."
"What? Are you afraid now that a couple new fighters have entered the battle?" Grunt said, trying to bait Grace into staying.
"I'm here to win the war, not the battle." She replied, slowly lifting off the ground. "Until next time, New Age Alliance." With that, Grace flew off into the distance, following her troops to their rally point.
Once Grace was out of sight, Grunt's Knight slumped visibly.
"Grunt are you OK?" Light asked, struggling to his feet.
"I'm not at 100% yet." Grunt replied, "And I was bluffing about keeping that up all day. My gauges have been flashing red this entire time."
"Expertly played." Light said, "Let's get back to base and get patched up."
"OK boss. Once we're there you can fill me in on what I missed."
"Well first of all, I'm not your boss anymore, Silver is."
"What?!"
A couple hours later
"Can someone please tell me what the heck happened out there?" Light said.
Silver had called a post battle meeting to discuss the new enemy.
"Momo was training in the woods" Silver explained, "Nate and I had some important things to discuss with her so we left the base to speak with her."
"You should've sent someone to get her!" Light replied, "You three being away from the base has cost us the opportunity to capture the mainland!"
"Dude, calm down." Nate said, "We understand what was given up today but you don't have to be a jerk about it."
"What did you guys need to discuss with Momo?" Grunt asked, starved for information after so long in a coma.
"We needed to discuss… uhhh…" Silver stammered.
"We were discussing the NAA's plans for after the capture of Petalburg." Momo finished, trying to cover up their discussion about Shoteneko.
"You need to capture Petalburg before you can do anything." Light replied.
Tired of Light's remarks, Silver stood up and said, "Light, don't forget who your commander is here!"
"Yeah, I command I gave you."
"If you think you can do a better job why don't you just take the position back?!"
"The thought had crossed my mind!"
"Just try." Silver replied, calling Light's bluff, "The people won't follow you. They'll follow me."
"Both of you! SHUT UP!" Momo yelled.
Taken aback by the outburst from the normally soft spoken Momo, both Light and Silver quieted down and sat back down.
"The more we bicker amongst ourselves, the bigger Grace's victory becomes. Now what information did we get about her?"
"Her code name is the Olympian." Light began. "She seemed to be proficient in a couple different forms of martial arts, basketball, baseball, shotput-"
"And Archery! Don't forget about that." Grunt popped in, "She was keeping up with the firing rate of my machine guns with those things."
"What's the common denominator here?" Momo prodded. "If we can figure out her AK's power, we're that much closer to defeating her."
"Martial Arts… Basketball… Aren't those all sports?" Nate offered.
"Those are but what about Archery and the other thing?" Grunt replied.
"If I remember right, those weren't mainstream sports that you'd watch on a Sunday afternoon, but I'm pretty sure they were Olympic events back in the day."
"Which would explain why her code name's Olympian! Great work Nate!" Silver said.
"Do we have any idea what their next move is going to be?" Light asked. "Did any of our troops pursue when they retreated?"
"Unfortunately no." Silver admitted, "Our defenses were in shambles all we got was a general direction. They retreated back in the direction of Petalburg."
"What's your command, new boss lady?" Grunt asked, direct as ever.
"We can't waste any more time here." Silver declared, "We've been preparing for this battle for weeks. It's time to take action! Tell the troops to start preparing, we march tomorrow at dawn."
"Yes Ma'am!" Grunt yelled while saluting in response.
"Light? Could you being work on a battle plan?" Silver asked.
"Of course. I'll start right now." He replied before walking out of the room.
"Is that everythin'? I'd like to get back to fine tuning my Knight." Grunt said.
"We actually need to talk." Silver said, Nate and Momo gathering at her sides.
"Am I in trouble or something? 'Cause nothing good ever comes from the words 'We need to talk'."
"It's nothing bad I promise." Momo said, "We still need to get your debrief on the last battle is all."
"OK." Grunt said, before reciting his account of the last battle, from his capture, to his torture and the appearance of Light on the scene.
"Based on when you fell unconscious, do you have any idea why you didn't wake up for so long?" Silver asked.
"I'd have to guess that the torture did more damage than I thought." Grunt replied.
"That isn't the reason buddy." Nate said, "After you blacked out, Light fought the commander and the cavern collapsed."
"Thanks for the info." He replied, getting out of his seat, "That seems like something that Sceptile would do."
"It wasn't Knight who collapsed the cavern." Silver said. "It was Light."
"Light?! That's impossible!" Grunt cried in disbelief, "He was there saving me!"
"It's true buddy. I was there when it happened." Nate replied calmly. "Have I ever lied to you?"
"It's… true. That JERK!" Grunt yelled, disbelief quickly turning to anger. "Who does he think he is?"
"Wanna find out?" Nate said, pulling out The Slash: A Legacy of a Hero
AN: Sup everyone! I'm not dead yet! Sorry it took me a while to update but school's back in session meaning more regular updates for you guys. I know I said that the last couple of chapters too but I mean it this time!
Next time we'll continue our multi part Second Arc finale! How will Grunt respond to the truth about Light's identity? Will Grace get the better of our heroes? And what is Silver planning? Find out next time on Pokemon New Age!