I just want to thank everyone for coming this far into the story and watching Nova and her friends become stronger and better throughout their endeavors!
Nova watched nervously as the Clefairy colony hastily retreated back to their cavern.
"Let's go!" The vulpix-roan eevee told Missile, Igglybuff, and Azurill and with out further ado, they gave chase to the flustered pink star Pokemon.
A chorus of shrieks alerted Nova and her group to the fact that they had found Gold. As the Pokemon burst into the cavern, Gold jumped back over towards them, turning the Clefairy's attention on the intruding Pokemon as a whole. Nova knew this was a very bad situation for them to be in, they were five members short and facing off against more than two dozen angered Clefairy.
Nova stepped up to Gold, ear twitching at the high-pitched voices registering the impending battle. "Did you dismantle it?" She hissed softly.
Gold snorted frustratedly. "Could barely get a dent in it."
Nova took a second to register what he had just said and gave him a hard stare. "You could've just started pulling wires, not punching it." She pointed out.
"Do I look like a mechanic?" Gold grumbled, gesturing to himself and Nova mentally conceded.
A loud throat clearing interrupted their conversation before Nova could explain to Gold what she knew and both of them looked up to see Luna standing a few feet in front of them.
"If you intend to prevent us from reaching liberty-then we are forced to do battle. Let me point out that the odds are stacked against you my small adversaries, we outnumber you significantly." Luna warned.
Nova tried to explain futility, "No-we just don't want this to have fatalities-"
"We are weary of this now. Leave this moment or prepare for combat." Luna hissed, obviously done with any attempts at ending this civilly.
Holding back the ever-present shiver through her spine, Nova attempted to speak up again, desperate to talk down the Clefairy. She knew that Luna was a rational Pokemon by the way she showed regret and had tried being cordial. This only frusterated her further though. How could a sane Pokemon willingly blow up dozens of lives, even as a means of escape? "I'm sorry. We can't leave..."
Nova suddenly realized that what she had just said wasn't her decision to make and glanced towards Gold to see what he thought of her words. Gold was staring straight ahead at the Clefairy, rotating his shoulder in anticipation of the battle. He always said he fought best with his back against the wall. Our backs are definitely against the wall right now, Nova reflected. She glanced at Missile and other others. They were ready too. Nova breathed an audible sigh of relief. She had learned not to underestimate the Police Pokemon a long time ago and she knew, without a doubt that she was surrounded by great Pokemon. Make the call, make the call...
"...then let us fight." Luna cried, charging at them. They were painfully outnumbered-more than three Clefairy for each member of the team but if Gold knew it was a lost cause, he didn't let on; charging into the massed a whacking them with powerful punches and blocks.
Nova found herself facing off with a smaller, probably newly evolved Clefairy. She lifted up her paw, preparing to strike with Pound. Nova swallowed the thoughts connecting parallels between Cleffa and her opponent as she swung her body away, narrowly avoiding the attack. Nova had to admire how such a unalarming Pokemon seemed so strong however. Deciding to go on the offensive, Nova snapped her jaws at the Clefairy but she rolled out of the way. Closing the distance again, Nova charged after it but she turned around and delivered scorching slaps to the side of Nova's face until her muzzle burned and tears stung her eyes.
The discolored Eevee, now angrier, approached again, this time using an agile quick attack, effectively knocking her back a couple of feet. Only slightly winded, the Clefairy sat slightly stunned that it had been pushed back. Now posing no threat, Nova looked around, searching for a new opponent and scouring the battlefield.
It seemed that several other smaller Clefairy were also creeping away from the fray and pressing themselves against the walls, unready and inexperienced in battle. Nova knew it wouldn't be easy if she had still be challenged so much by such a young Pokemon.
Nova saw Missile who was now parrying one Clefairy's Doubleslap attack away with his stingers. Even as some of Clefairy's attacks made it through Missile amateur defenses, he seemed to block faster and stronger until his attacks started landing, not strong or powerful but deathly fast. Nova realized that he was using the move Fury attack and the unknowing Clefairy was playing right into it. Missile had come a long way since he was a weedle.
Satisfied with Missile, Nova looked for Azurill and Igglybuff. Azurill was unleashing a small steam of bubbles on an offending Clefairy, assisted by Igglybuff who was pummeling it with tiny Pounds. The Clefairy seemed to have fallen victim to the duos Charm attack and was temporarily incapacitated. They had the upper hand.
When another Clefairy tried to assist however, Nova jumped in front of it, blocking its way, wishing desperately for Sam to tell her what she should do.
Facing off with the large Clefairy was probably not what she had imagined herself doing even as they entered the cave. Their plan was to map out some tunnels, come back out and have earned enough money for lunch and a few supplies.
Nova guessed that that was just how life is. Unexpected.
Now for a battle strategy. Gold probably didn't have one but was unhindered by everything and was facing off with three at the same time: something Nova knew from experience she was incapable of.
Alright. Let's see. Clefairy are Psychic right? I know I have one move that will do just the trick! Nova thought to herself, calling a tumbling, fuming energy from her chest into her throat where she experimented carefully with its potency.
Charging a Shadow ball was not something she would consider easy. Though difficult for her to describe, she likened it to a human recipe. Her nerves, taste buds and even scent receptors all gave her input. Though she didn't know what to do with the sensory information on a conscious level, she instinctually corrected and tweaked the formula of the growing sphere. Through tensing her throat and willing tiny degrees of the energy to shift, even air was sucked into the spinning form of what she knew to expect of the shadowy purple form. Unfortunately, Nova had not yet perfected it though she had considered herself relatively good at trying to practice the ability.
Finally, as it fully charged and the Clefairy approached, arms oddly in front of it, Nova released the Shadow ball. While it spun through the air, Nova smirked at its non-translucency. Then, like some of Nova's worst moments, she watched her beautiful Shadow ball, dutifully revolving around an energy-laden axis, spin straight through Clefairy.
Nova barely had time to register her horrible failure before a loud noise echoed around to cavern and resounded in her ears.
CLAP!
Startled she stared at her foe Clefairy whose paws were still pressed together. Nova looked around, but in the chaos, no one seemed to notice or care why this Clefairy had clapped. Briefly, Nova debated whether the Clefairy was being snarky with her and was now making fun of her fail. Was this a crazy Clefairy? Was there a designated portion of the cavern portioned off as a mental asylum and she had unknowingly waltzed over the threshold?
Shaking the thoughts out of her head, Nova decided to try a Quick attack, as it had worked before on the younger clefairy.
Instead, her legs refused to push off running and instead she nearly stumbled to the ground. Was I hit? Nova wondered, but mentally checking herself over, she noticed nothing wrong.
No, something was wrong. She felt the familiar trickle of power rising in her throat-this time like bile-as she knew this power had failed her more times than helped. Nova tried to cut off the growing Shadow ball but she had no control over her own powers. Are you stupid? Come on! You just saw what happened? IT WENT RIGHT THROUGH IT! Nova yelled at her brain. She released it at the Clefairy involuntarily. What surprised her was that the Clefairy did not seem surprised or shocked at her apparent stupidity of using a completely ineffective move. Instead, it just approached walking straight through the faux attack and powered up its fist.
Nova took a defensive step back in order to hope to placate her spinning mind and have a chance to re-assess the situation. She couldn't stop using her Shadow ball!
Nova tried to calm herself down by taking deep breaths but she felt her body forming another Shadow ball instead. Now the only thing she could think of was 'Shadow Ball Hiccups' which, she reflected moments later, was completely stupid and also non-existent.
SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLA-
The flustered Eevee tried to refocus as she realized she was being attacked. Doubleslap. Again. Her face being thrust from one side to another and she found herself completely unable to defend herself against its attack with all her energy going into the not at all useful Shadow balls. The one Nova had in her mouth shot uncontrolled at the wall, making a small crack in the frame of the cave.
Black spots seared across her vision as she fought to control herself. All she could focus on was a pink clefairy taking her time to punch the living daylights out of her.
Then it stopped, regaining sense, Nova pulled herself up and assessed what had happened. Missile had just landed right next to her and had just finished an attack on Clefairy, causing it to retreat, obviously not wanting to fight two opponents.
"...Are you alright?" Missile buzzed nervously, awkwardly steadying her.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Nova sighed, then registered that Missile was indeed speaking. Something she had only heard two or three times.
"That move you used...Shadow ball...it does not seem to affect them." Missile spoke as if he was just testing out his vocal cords, taking pauses between words, yet this voice rang clear. His voice was deep and somewhat pleasant. Like honey, Nova thought, laughing to herself, I always imagined he would talk in a high pitched voice and mumble.
Through him speaking to her, Nova knew that somewhere along the lines of the past two weeks, she had unwittingly earning Missile's respect. This thought warmed her heart and she smiled at their comradeship before she cleared her head to focus on his question.
"Ah-no. I was trying to use Quick attack but everything I did turned into Shadow ball. It was really strange." Then a thought popped up in Nova's mind. "Hey, your attacks worked really well, you got a lot stronger."
Missile's face shifted into what she guessed was a smile but was a little creepy. "No...I did not do much training...only some with Sam sir and Kurt. My attacks seem...stronger against them...than ever before..."
Sam sir? I bet he would like that. Kurt doesn't get an honorific, I guess. Well, he is pretty weird. Nova thought, smiling inwardly.
"Ah...we...I should rejoin the battle." Suggested Missile and wide-eyed Nova agreed, inwardly hitting herself on the head.
Through fighting off the masses of clefairy, Nova somehow found herself nearly back to back with Gold. It was when she saw him that she realized that, though this battle had seemed like hours, in reality, it had only been five minutes. Remembering this, a wave of dread shook Nova to her core. Missile was now defending an exhausted pair of Police Pokemon. That meant there were only three Pokemon to face the foe clefairy, who, excluding the young clefairy who lost the battle and a few who had been bested in battle and dragged themselves off to the rocky walls of the cavern, still had a score of fighters.
Gold, however, was still battling harshly, knocking one down before curling up and nailing them again, turning only to repeat it for another one while the last was recovering.
Feeling the need to help her teammate out, Nova tackled one of the clefairy away from him. Gold gave her a grateful smirk as he wiped blood from above his eye. The clefairy was recovering now. Seconds earlier, it had had scratches and the beginnings of bruises but as soon as it stood back up, it looked as good as new. Renewed, it ambled over and aimed its three sharp nails at her face. Startled, Nova took a step back and avoided the attack, defending with a Quick attack that nailed the larger Pokemon in the chest. Quickly, she jumped back and countered with her own attack, not a Shadow ball thankfully, she could use her other attacks again, Quick attack.
She nailed the larger Pokemon in the chest successfully, causing them to both fall backward. As soon as they landed, Nova sprung to her feet and put distance between them again.
She needed the upper hand.
If you have any comments, ideas, suggestions let me know and I'll consider every one of them!
Have a lovely day full of rainbow sunshine.