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Chapter 11: Battle

"And that is everything?" Murasaki asked, picking up and flipping through the pages of notes Mr. Stone had written out. "You're certain? There's no point in lying. If something doesn't work when I test this, we will simply begin where we left off, and I promise I won't stop so easily this time." Her eyes narrowed as she gave him a warning look.

"This is everything," Mr. Stone assured her, head bowed and shoulders slumped tiredly.

She hummed in acknowledgement, neither agreeing with nor rejecting his claim, and tucked the papers under her arm. "We'll see," she said simply. Wordlessly, she gestured toward the door — it was time to take him back to his temporary cell.

Mr. Stone seemed to consider making some other protest, but in the end he only shook his head and sluggishly rose to his feet.

The life energy machine had been built in one of New Mauville's generator rooms, using the shell of the ordinary power generator there. They had been using the large control room that looked over the generator room, and now moved out into it, onto the creaking metal ladder that led down to the catwalks running around the perimeter of the chamber.

Mr. Stone had been in the lead, Mawile at his back, and Murasaki bringing up behind them. Her Mawile would be enough to keep one man in line, but thinking ahead to when they would reach the makeshift cell, she unclipped a couple of Poke Balls from her holster. A pair of Honedge should discourage Steven from trying something, she thought distractedly...

None of them noticed anything — until a smoke ball exploded directly in front of them.

Showing the skills Carat was paying a truly exorbitant amount for, Oboro appeared crouched on ladder's railing next to them, together with a Zangoose.

"Go!" Oboro ordered, pointing at Murasaki.

The Zangoose lunged toward her, claws flashing. Her Mawile reacted instantly, spinning around to block the strike with its horn-jaw. The metal stairs under it creaked from the force of the impact between the two.

It had been just a distraction, of course. "Now!" Oboro called out.

Mawile screeched in outrage as a Ninjask struck from the thinning smoke screen, plunging its sharp forelegs into the metal of the case Mawile had been carrying and dragging it out of Mawile's grip. Still pressured by Zangoose at its back, Mawile couldn't stop Ninjask from zooming away, Steven's Pokemon in its claws.

"This way, quickly," Oboro urged Mr. Stone, jumping in between him and Zangoose — and Mawile and Murasaki beyond.

"Not so fast! Go, Honedge!" Murasaki called out, her voice cold and furious. "Stop them!"

A pair of Honedge appeared in twin flashes of light and shot forward without hesitation. One drove into the stairs in front of Mr. Stone, blocking his escape. The other aimed for Oboro, slicing into the place the ninja had been standing — though Oboro managed to sidestep.

Jarred by the Pokemon's attacks, the metal staircase screeched and jerked loose from the wall. Everyone, human and Pokemon alike, was thrown roughly to one side, as the staircase continued to twist further into the open air. Murasaki managed to grab hold of the railing, and the Pokemon held on in their own ways, but the only thing stopping Mr. Stone from falling off was Oboro's hand snapping out to grab hold of his jacket.

"Dad!" Steven called out, running up to the remains of the staircase down below. He smoothly caught the metal case Ninjask dropped toward him and snapped it open to pull out a Poke Ball. "Metagross! Help them!"

Two of its powerful claws closing around the edge of the staircase, Steven's ace held it in place, stopping its descent.

Reacting quickly, Oboro took the opportunity. With unexpected for such a lithe build, the ninja hauled Steven's father over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and vaulted over the warped railing to jump onto Metagross's flat top.

"Stop them!" Murasaki yelled.

The two Honedge were the first to react this time, their ghostly levitation giving them more freedom to maneuver. Spinning to point at Mr. Stone and Oboro, they launched like arrows.

"Pursuit!" Oboro countered.

Disengaging from its losing impasse with Mawile, Zangoose vanished from sight and struck at the Honedge pair, too fast for the eye to follow — it was a ninja's Pokemon, after all. The Dark type attack struck the Honedge across the back, doing extra damage and sending them careening off course.

Murasaki gritted her teeth in frustration, an ugly scowl twisting her face. "Enough!" she snapped. "Now! Mega Evolve!"

The rainbow stone in her hairpin flared, in time with the Mawilite tied to her Pokemon's horn. Energy burst out from Mawile as it transformed, its body growing larger and its massive jaw splitting into two. It launched itself at Metagross and its passengers, twin maws open and hungry.

"Claydol! Reflect!" Steven called out. The metal case clattered onto the floor next to him, empty, his Poke Balls safely clipped back in place inside his jacket.

Appearing in midair, its arms already spinning, Claydol summoned a barrier with its psychic powers. Mega Mawile crashed against the Reflect, its sheer power making the barrier waver and begin to warp. But it held long enough for Oboro to jump down to the catwalk, still carrying Mr. Stone — freeing Metagross to join the battle.

Metagross rocketed past Claydol, one claw slamming into Mega Mawile and pinning it back against the increasingly misshapen metal of the staircase. The physical attack was barely effective, only angering Mega Mawile.

"Dad, get out of here!" Steven called out. He exchanged a quick look with Oboro, confirming their agreement. "Claydol, fall back and go with them!"

"Steven!" Mr. Stone protested worriedly, tugging against Oboro's grip as he was guided toward the nearest way out of the generator room.

"Please follow me, Mr. President," Oboro said firmly, pulling him along insistently. "Our presence will be a liability." Returning Zangoose to its Poke Ball, the ninja gestured sharply to Ninjask. It circled around sharply, buzzing by the Honedge and disrupting them as they followed, and sped ahead of the fleeing pair while Claydol brought up in the rear, setting up another psychic barrier.

"Dad, go!" Steven yelled.

He couldn't spare the concentration to do more than that. Snarling, Mega Mawile had begun to push Metagross back — it was a truly powerful, well-trained Pokemon. There was no time to trigger Mega Evolution either.

"Use Bullet Punch!" he commanded instead.

"Sucker Punch!" Murasaki preempted.

Metagross reeled as Mega Mawile struck it with the super-effective attack. But it pushed through and retaliated with a lightning fast barrage of punches. Even without its trainer's direction, Mawile hardened its body with Iron Defense, leaving the hits clanging off.

The grating that made up the floor shuddered as Murasaki leaped off the broken staircase and landed heavily on the catwalk below. Her glare was chilling.

"You really insist on making this difficult," she said, her lips twisting in a vicious, humorless smile. "I should have expected nothing else from Alexander's line..."

Metagross had fallen back, letting Mega Mawile slip free and retreat as well. It hovered protectively closer to Steven instead, putting itself between its trainer and both opponents. He'd been in direct danger too many times in the last few days, and Metagross was too worried to leave him undefended.

"It's alright," Steven murmured, realizing his ace's reasoning. "I'm fine. But we have to beat them and put an end to this. Are you ready?"

Across from them, Murasaki had pulled a small device out of her obi and quickly typed in a code. "I won't hold back anymore," she said — and pressed the final key.

The lights went out, all at once. The machinery in the walls and the ceiling moaned as it powered down abruptly, the entire reactivated level shutting down at once. It would shut down the elevators too, making Oboro and Mr. Stone's escape more difficult.

But also—

"Mega Evolve!" Steven shouted.

Bright power flared around Metagross as it transformed, pushing back Mawile, which had tried to take advantage of the darkness to attack. Even when the light of the evolution faded, Mega Metagross continued to glow enough to illuminate the area around them — well experienced from the many excavations with Steven.

"I won't hold back either," he said coldly, meeting Murasaki's eyes across the battlefield. "Meteor Mash!"

"Protect!" Murasaki snapped out, and her Mega Mawile obeyed perfectly. A barrier blocked and nullified the force of Mega Metagross's shining charge. "Torment, stop it from using that move again!"

As Mega Mawile stomped its foot against the grating, an evil aura emanated from it, making Metagross shudder. Steven gritted his teeth. Mawile's typing protected it from Metagross's psychic attacks and its Giga Impact as well. And its high defense made any weaker Stell type moves do little more than chip damage. Mega Metagross was stronger, he was certain of that, but...

"Go up! Get out of the way!"

"Fire Fang!"

...the super effective damage was going to add up quickly.

Fortunately, Mega Metagross dodged this time, hovering sharply upward, out of the way. Mega Mawile's burning jaws struck just under it, but it was too close, close then it should have been. Steven's eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what he'd missed.

He could just pick up a faint aroma... 'Sweet Scent?' he guessed. Murasaki hadn't given the order, but an experienced enough Pokemon could use a more passive move like that on its own continuously — and Metagross's ability changed when it Mega Evolved, making it vulnerable to stat changes.

Attacking from range would be best, to limit Mega Mawile's ability to retaliate... Unfortunately, long range wasn't exactly Steven and Metagross's specialty either.

"Stay back and use Shadow Ball!" Steven shouted.

A sphere of dark energy formed between Mega Metagross's forward claws and rocketed at Mawile, which hopped back quickly to evade. Making the same connections as Steven, Metagross continued shooting off one Shadow Balls after another, as quickly as it could form them. Their eerie purple glow danced over the railing, the catwalk, and the looming shape of the life energy machine, as they flew past — each missing and phasing through whatever it hit instead.

"Enough!" Murasaki snapped. "There's no point playing this game. We'll draw you out!"

Steven had only a moment to realize that her gaze shifted to him, and what that meant.

Pivoting in the middle of its next dodge, Mawile shifted to dash at a target that couldn't' fly away out of reach — Steven himself. As Murasaki had intended, Metagross abandoned its distance attacks and raced to protect its trainer with a furious, screeching roar.

Steven threw himself aside, but the fangs of one jaw still caught his arm, shredding the sleeve and gouging deep enough to draw a splash of blood.

That was as much as Mawile could do before Mega Metagross crashed down into it, making its bite release instinctively. They tore through the grating and impacted into the floor far below in the darkness, making the entire room shake like an earthquake. Electricity arced out — they must have torn into the machinery.

The force of the collision was too much for the catwalk, and in the next moment, the section Steven and Murasaki were standing on dropped out from under their feet like a trap door in Flannery's gym.

"Oof!" Steven groaned as he hit the floor, hard.

His head was ringing, and he couldn't make out what was happening in the battle any longer, Metagross's glow spinning dizzily as it and Mawile tore at each other. They seemed to have fallen to little more than a furious free-for-all, both wailing on their opponent with no tactics. Sparks flew with each blow between the two metal bodies, accompanied by the rare flash of a half-formed move.

Unlike Steven, Murasaki had managed to land on her feet, but whatever she had done hadn't made her superhuman, and and she collapsed as her knees gave out from the landing. In the disorienting mess of unsteady lights, it took Steven a moment to realize that she wasn't getting up — clutching her head with one hand, she had gritted her teeth against the pain and disorientation.

The piercing whine that made it so hard to think wasn't just in his ears. It was something in the walls, under the floor, beneath the central platform nearby and in the life energy extractor above. Despite Murasaki's shutdown, the battle must have jarred something into reactivation.

An unstable light and energy was gathering in the device above and in the air. Steven shuddered, feeling increasingly ill.

"M-Metagross—!" he called out, his voice catching as he suddenly found himself struggling to breathe.

It wasn't affecting just the human either. In the next moment, the extra mass of their Mega Evolutions bled off Metagross and Mawile, leaving them in their normal forms again. Taking advantage of the moment when Mawile stumbled a little, thrown off by the changes in its size and shape, Metagross managed to bat it aside and banked sharply toward Steven.

Scooping up its trainer with its front claws, it began to ascend quickly. "Wait!" Steven protested. "Those two are still—"

Something exploded, shaking the room and sending Metagross careening off course before it managed to right itself.

The generator room was coming apart, electricity and the strange unstable energy shooting wildly through the air. The device on the ceiling had opened again, gathering a wavering light in the center of its petals, but there was no telling if it was operating correctly anymore. Steven couldn't even make out Murasaki or her Mawile below.

"Metagross!" he yelled, his voice nearly drowned out by the cacophony. "Use Flash Cannon! Take it out before it gets any further!"

Metagross's red eye swirled toward him, then to the life energy device he was pointing at. He couldn't hear it, but he could feel it rumble in acquiescence, and a bright light quickly gathered in front of it.

Roaring, Metagross fired.

Steven clung desperately to the claw holding him, shielding his face with one arm from the Flash Cannon's shockwave at close range. Metagross's aim had been off, hitting the ceiling somewhere overhead, and it had to pivot in midair to drag the beam of Flash Cannon toward the life energy extractor. As it neared the device, the beam began to warp and strain against an invisible barrier. It unravelled, splitting into twisting strands...

Energy erupted outward, sweeping across the chamber.

Metagross, and Steven with it, was flung aside. They hit the wall with a jarring bang — then everything went dark.

~.~.~

Notes: Man, this battle was hard. I've never really written Pokemon battles, and I haven't watched much of the anime in a long time, so it's a bit hard. But I hope it wasn't too underwhelming.

Next time, just a short epilogue. As always, please review!

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