"Don't cry. I'm here."
"There are laws against that."
Protector of Silence
Chapter Forty - Together Fighting
Kellyn tumbled down the chute. It could only really be described as tumbling. It wasn't really plummeting, because although the chute went straight down, he was doing that awful 'spinning over and over' thing that results in one banging their knees, elbows and chin against just about anything and everything.
And so, after about 10 seconds of this tumbling (that felt more like an hour) Kellyn felt himself impact against the bottom, propelled forwards and out of a hole that thankfully took him out of the darn chute! Now he only had to hold himself together for the impact with the floor of whatever room he was tumbling out into.
Somehow, he managed.
He was in pain. Like, real pain. As in 'someone beat both your funny bones and both your knees with a metal pipe' pain. He automatically remembered he shouldn't move, checking to see if there were any serious injuries. He noted, with a sigh of relief, nothing appeared broken, so he sat up and rubbed his eyes.
"Well, that was one crafty escape you came up with. It appears you're not as useless as you appear."
Kellyn bolted upright at that. Sure enough, to his dismay, Hunter J was standing at the other end of the Battle Arena-sized room with a Salamence and Torterra either side of her and a Zangoose just behind her.
'Anyone else invited to this party?' Kellyn thought sarcastically, climbing to his feet and thanking Arceus that darn Banette wasn't here.
"So Kellyn, is this what it's come to?" J shook her head "A big game of Hide-and-Seek across multiple dimensions?" She smirked. "But now you haven't got your little friends to hide behind. Nor your brother to come and rescue you."
Kellyn grit his teeth and clenched his fits. Yes, he wished he had some backup, but he was also glad no one else was here to get hurt. Shaking a little bit, he drew his capture styler and activated it, his little fist clenching over his heart.
J rolled his eyes. "If you must fight, you must." She motioned with her arm, and Kellyn tensed as he thought she was going to launch her gauntlet, but she was just signalling for the Zangoose to attack him.
As the Pokémon leapt over it's commander and bound towards him, Kellyn launched his capture disk. It was easily the hardest capture he'd ever performed, but not because the Zangoose was a hard target - but because it was intent on attacking him. Normally the Pokémon were only after his capture disk - meaning he only had to worry about keeping that out of their path. But this Zangoose was determined to attack Kellyn himself, meaning a lot of dodging and jumping was required - a true test of his agility and stamina. He tried being invisible, but apparently that didn't remove his scent so he quickly abandoned this idea. The only plus side was that at least it wasn't after his capture disk so the capture was over sooner than he had feared it would be.
J scowled as the Zangoose stopped, lost the angry gleam to it's eyes and took off down the corridor behind her - jumping right over the top of her Torterra as it did so. "I suppose you're patting yourself on the back for that."
Kellyn was actually doing no such thing. He was hunched over, panting and sweating and trying to get his breath back. That battle had been more intense than any capture competition he'd taken part in with the other boys. But, to his astonishment and slight horror, J started laughing.
"So this is your plan?!" she laughed, clacking like a maniac "You going to take on every Pokémon I send your way?! I have dozens of Pokémon at my disposal, and you're not even a proper ranger!" Kellyn screwed his eyes shut, trying to keep the image of J's smirking face out of his head. "Poor little psychic being, little orphan, all alone an—"
"He's not alone!"
Kellyn startled at the voice that called out. Opening his eyes and spinning around, he looked up and saw another ladder cemented into the wall and a another ledge with a submarine-hatch door in the wall. That door had been thrown open, and standing on the ledge with their back pressed against the wall was the one person Kellyn wanted to see more than anything.
'Kate!' Kellyn's face broke out into a grin, trotting a few steps towards the ledge where the ginger was giving him the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. 'You're okay! You're here!"
Kate's eyes never left him, or neither did that smile leave her face as she told J: "He's not alone and he never will be!"
I can't even begin to tell you how happy Kellyn was feeling when he heard those words, because I don't believe anyone can feel as happy as that.
Anyone that isn't him, at that precious moment in time.
...and then, that moment ended.
"Torterra! Razor leaf!"
In a spit second, Kellyn found himself pinned to the right wall by four razor leaves - two in his cloak just about his shoulder to keep him mostly still and two in his sleeves near his elbows to stop him from moving his arms. He couldn't stand up nor sit down, or even straighten his legs or bend them properly. The pain was back, and it burned like fire.
"Tooorrrrrrrr..." the grumble echoed inches from Kellyn's face, and the brunet found himself staring right into the eyes of J's Torterra that was practically standing on top of him with same evil gleam in its eyes as the Zangoose had had.
'Please. Please don't hurt me.' Tears of fear started to run down his cheeks. No, it couldn't end now, it couldn't!
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"
Something whizzed between Kellyn and the Torterra, momentarily blinding him. The Torterra grunted and trudged off somewhere else - probably to follow the capture disk.
Kellyn sagged down in the position he was in and cried - just cried. His shoulders shaking, his face in his tear-stained hands and his breaths coming in gasping sobs. It felt good it let it all out, to try and get rid of his mental pain at least.
"Kellyn!" Kate's voice was suddenly beside him, and he felt the razor leaves being pulled from his cloak.
Released, he fell forwards, his arms stopping his head from hitting the floor. He took a few breaths to calm himself from his scare and cry, and then rubbed him eyes and looked up. Kate loomed above him, smiling but more uneasily and worriedly now.
She slowly extended a hand down to him. "Don't cry. I'm here."
She offered a hand, and he took it. And let her pull him to his feet.
The first thing he noticed was a lack of Torterra - probably captured and left. Second, he noticed a nervously brave Shadow (nervously brave? Ugh, seriously Shadow you're so confusing) growling at Hunter J. Finally, he noticed the only person holding a capture styler was —
'Solana?' he raised an eyebrow at Kate.
She hastily signed: Later
Kellyn just shrugged and went with it.
"Here" she bent down and retrieved his capture styler from the floor. "You okay?"
He rubbed his eyes with his sleeve to hide any left over tears, and accepted his capture styler with a confident nod. Then the four of them turned to face Hunter J and her Salamence. She didn't look happy.
And that was putting it mildly.
"Can't do anything without your little cronies, can you?" she grunted. She then turned to Solana and the blue-haired girl shied under her gaze. "So there are now three of you on this suicide mission." She looked at Shadow now. "Or is it four?"
The Umbreon whined, drooped his ears and ran to hide behind Kellyn's legs like a frightened Zorua. J all but laughed.
Kellyn tried not to think about the fact their only Partner Pokémon was wussing out on them, when he saw something that made his eyes light up 'Keith! Sparks! And Luna!'
Shadow squinted and thought he could see three blobs, a big orange one, an indigo one and a white one, running up the corridor towards the back of J and her Salamence.
"Are you sure?" Shadow asked. And then a voice rang out loud and clear:
"KELLYN, YOU BLOODY MORON!"
Kellyn sweatdropped. 'Yeah. That's Luna.'
J turned to see what Kellyn was looking at, only to have to jump on top of her Salamence to dodge a Psybeam that would otherwise have hit her in the face.
"What the?" Kate muttered as she ducked under the Psybeam that went on to scorch the wall behind her. Then she brightened up. "Keith!"
"Yo!" Keith grinned, doing the Star Trek hand - middle and index, and fourth and pinky fingers pressed together. He then noticed Solana and his grin faded just slightly. "Dare I ask?"
Kellyn shook his head and Kate said: "I recommend later."
Keith looked like he was gonna say something along the lines of 'uh-huh' or 'sure', but then he glanced at Hunter J and yelled: "KELLYN LOOK OUT, SHE GONNA HIT YA!"
Kellyn whirled around to face the Salamence - just in time to see the gauntlet being fired in his direction. He quickly leapt to the right, Kate taking her cue and leaping to the left. Shadow failed to leap.
'Oh Shadow!' Kellyn's face fell in horror as, in explosion of gold particles, Shadow was a terrified golden statue.
He didn't have much time to lament though, as J's gauntlet attempted another hit on him, and he had to jump away again. He found himself standing next to Luna, who had been sprinting to get to Shadow when he nearly ran over her.
'Hey' he greeted her, quickly so he could turn his eyes back on J nearly immediately.
"Great to see you too, now later I will bestow upon you the punishment of GETTING US INTO THIS MESS!" Luna did not sound happy. Oh joy.
'Don't dump this on me!' Kellyn protested, the pair of them jumping to avoid one more gauntlet blast before J turned her attention to Keith and Sparks.
"If J doesn't kill ya, I will" Luna informed him.
'There are laws against that, Luna' he reminded her. Luna snorted.
"Laws huh? Well what about laws against insulting an a—"
'Finish that and you'll loose one of your ears!'
"Kellyn look out!" Kate's sudden yell ended the slowly-getting-more-violent conversation.
Kellyn whirled around to find J on the now flying Salamence right behind him. Just as she was about to take aim, he flipped invisible and bolted for it. Unable to aim at an invisible target, J quickly gave up on her hunt for Kellyn and focused on a target that already knew her ways of capturing well: Sparks.
"SPARKS!" Luna yelled, and the invisible Kellyn turned his head to see what she was yelling at.
That was how he nearly tripped over the now-statue of Sparks.
His sudden fallen broke his concentration and he became visible again. He had to duck behind Sparks' statues to avoid the oncoming gauntlet blasts, his eyes fixated on the profile of the panicked Luxray's frozen face.
'I'm sorry this keeps happening to you Sparks' he apologised, careful not to touch the statue so to avoid unfreezing it. He didn't want Sparks to have to suffer being turned into a statue a fourth time - and his large size meant he was an easy target. 'Just give me a few minutes. Then you'll be right as rain again.'
Flicking invisible again, he bolted from behind his hiding place and headed straight towards Hunter J. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he knew this was a place to start.
Then the unthinkable happened.
It started when Kellyn tripped again. He wasn't sure what on, but he hit the floor and lost his concentration again. J immediately turned towards him, a smirk on her face. Whilst looking up to see this, Kellyn saw Keith coming up behind the hunter, a look of determination on his face. J followed the psychic being's gaze and her gauntlet was fired probably before she realised what exactly she was firing at. Keith barely had enough time to skid to a halt before the gauntlet's fire.
'Keith no!' Kellyn threw his palm out, hoping his power of stopping that gauntlet's fire would help his friend. But his powers apparently didn't expertise in saving other people.
It was in that moment they realised that gauntlet was capable of freezing humans whole.
And J was willing to use it on a child.
Kellyn just stood there, frozen to the spot at the sight of his friend's frozen and terrified face. He couldn't even breathe he was so horrified. Keith's screaming face made his stomach lurch and he was almost sick. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pretend Keith was okay and that statue didn't exist.
He opened them again. It was still there.
"You leave Kellyn alone ya big bully!"
"Luna look out!"
Kellyn looked up and saw J and her Salamence flying practically on top of him. Then, from the corner of his left eye, he saw a white blur jump up as if to bite J. But the hunter was hardly deterred. She swung round and launched her gauntlet at the Espeon at point-blank range. Luna squeaked with alarm and then, in a cloud of gold and white light, plummeted as a golden statue towards the ground.
'Luna!' Fearing Luna would be smashed into a million pieces if she hit the ground, Kellyn quickly dove beneath her and caught her. The impact winded him and sent him skidding, but it protected his partner from a, quite literally, smashing landing.
"And where do you think you're going?"
The sound of the gauntlet being fired.
"Solana look out!"
A scream.
The blast hit. A statue was created.
All these noises raced into Kellyn's head as he lifted Luna off of him, setting her carefully to the side and sitting up. He was a bit out of the line of fire. Some way away, Kate had both her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with fear. Just in front of the door, it appeared Solana had tried to bolt for the exit upon seeing what had happened to Keith. And directly in between the two was J and her Salamence.
"Missed one" she smirked, turning her Salamence to face the twelve-year-old and raising her gauntlet level with the terrified girl's head.
Kellyn was struck with horror. A worse horror than when he'd first seen Keith's statue. No! She couldn't! Not to Kate! Not to sweet little Kate!
Not to his Kate!
The horror started to be replaced by anger. He scrambled to his feet, pounding towards the scene of the soon-to-be-crime. But he knew he would never get there in time. But he had to; it wasn't Starlight or Luna or even Keith on the line this time - this time it was Kate.
It was Kate he was going to fail.
Kate...
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"LEAVE HER ALONE!"