"So what's your plan?" Kurishimi asked Akuma as they left Chad to his battle while rushing out to face the larger army.
"I get one half of our fans, you take the other."
Kurishimi shook her head. "Oh no no, that's bad planning. You're at half battle strength if that while my Pokémon team got a recent power upgrade. If anything you can only handle a third of them at best."
"While I would normally enjoy watching you eat your own words, I did promise to be honest and open from now on. With that said: shut up. I'm still strong enough to beat half of them before you come close to catching up with me."
"Cranky, cranky you are!" Kurishimi said almost mockingly. "Seriously though, what are your plans for dealing with this problem?" She threw out Vulpix's poké ball ahead of her and had her Pokémon use a confuse ray to stun the two fastest bandits that had closed in on them.
"Let's see, we're getting ambushed by a mob of bandits, the kid is facing a strong undercover member of Team Rocket, and I'm fighting at minimal battle strength. I actually had time to plan for all this in advance."
"Wait, seriously?"
"Of course not you idiot! I have to make this all up as I go!"
Vulpix used a faint attack to knock out one of the confused bandits before he could recover and open one of his poké balls. Akuma took out the other with a punch to the jaw as they passed then grabbed a couple poké balls of his own while the rest of the bandits closed the distance.
"Misdreavus, Dodrio, prepare to fight!"
"Magnemite, come back out and help!" Kurishimi announced.
From the moment Dodrio appeared there was a fierce fight already in its eyes – all three pairs. Misdreavus, lacking in extensive battle experience, was less confident about the odds. Having a confident battle partner and trainer gave it some reassurance, but not by much. Magnemite, being mostly made of steel, was unable to show expression while Vulpix shared Dodrio's combat tempered fierceness as Kurishimi tried not to show signs of nervousness.
Each of the bandits released a single Pokémon of their own, and since it wasn't an official battle the odds were drastically against them. Even though three bandits had been previously crippled there were still fourteen enemies remaining. Also with that many Pokémon in opposition the small army was quickly able to surround the duo and their fighters. Their first opponents were three Muk, a larger and smellier evolved version of Grimer, two Weezing – Koffing's evolved form, Mankey, Primeape, Farfetch'd, two Staryu, a fire type slug made of lava appropriately named Slugma, one Beedrill, and an upside-down Pokémon that spun on its head like a top. Fortunately their opponents were not experienced enough to use more than one Pokémon each, but that certainly didn't help their chances.
"Akuma, what Pokémon is that one?" Kurishimi quickly asked before the enemy could attack.
Akuma glanced over his shoulder briefly. "It's a Hitmontop. Brother evolution to Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan. It'll use its tail for its special attack, triple kick. It isn't naturally balanced so avoid close combat and keep your distance for as long as possible. Don't divide your attention from the other threats though."
Forgetting that Akuma had his back to her now, Kurishimi still nodded instinctively before commanding her Vulpix to use a flamethrower on the closest Muk. The toxic waste within Muk's body quickly caught up the flames leaving a nasty burn in the center of its body.
Dodrio positioned its heads in the shape of a triangle as the heads gathered up energy. The energy blast was then fired at the Mankey who was knocked over and inflicted with paralysis. The remnants of the tri attack continued past the small fighting type to hit its counterpart, Primeape, doing very minor splash damage.
Misdreavus used its shock wave attack to hit the Farfetch'd and both Staryu for significant damage. The spare trails of electricity licked at the ground in front of Slugma who used a flamethrower attack to fight back which Vulpix quickly intercepted with its own body, absorbing the fire attack and increasing its own power as well.
After emitting an ear-grinding metal sound attack, Magnemite began to shoot sonicboom pulses to keep the enemy from getting too close. One of the Muk tried attacking Magnemite with a sludge attack, but the poisonous waste had no effect on Magnemite's steel body.
From there the battle quickly escalated. The first attacks were simply to test the waters because now every Pokémon attacked the smaller group at once. Fire, water, poison, punches, kicks, and needles came into the group all at once. Misdreavus vanished instantly to avoid being caught in the middle. Akuma realized Dodrio's size would be too much of a hindrance and returned it to the poké ball as he dove under a Beedrill and threw a blue poké ball outside the ring when everybody's attention was distracted. Vulpix again ran through Slugma's flames, but was soon struck by a mega punch attack from Primeape. Kurishimi was panicked into running in Hitmontop's direction which had begun to spin toward her with increasing speed as its legs and tail threatened to beat the fight out of her. Magnemite had avoided the majority of the damage by mimicking Vulpix's strategy of ignoring the attacks which could not hurt it. With five poison type attacks sailing through the air out of fourteen the threat was diminished by just that much, but Magnemite could still not help its trainer avoid Hitmontop's attacks. Fortunately one of the Beedrill crashed into Magnemite's steel body which knocked it out. The magnet Pokémon didn't even notice until it saw the bug type crumpled on the ground beneath it.
Kurishimi took the force of two hits from Hitmontop's attack in her stomach and one in her chest which caused her to fall to her knees as Hitmontop passed her by to look for another enemy. She didn't have time to catch her breath as she realized the Slugma and one Farfetch'd were right in front of her now and about to attack. Acting only by trainer's instinct she snatched Vaporeon's poké ball from her belt for defense and opened it as Slugma began to blast a flamethrower toward her. Vaporeon took the flamethrower without flinching as she shot the Farfetch'd with a point-blank aurora beam. When the duck dropped Vaporeon slapped it away with her tail as she turned to blast Slugma with a water gun, but not before using mimic to copy the flamethrower attack for her own use.
"Kurishimi, are you alright?" Vaporeon asked quickly. Kurishimi could only nod as the kicks seemed to have done more damage than she had first thought. The strike to her chest had also knocked the wind out of her. "Stand up quickly before they target you to pick off one of the trainers. We need Alakazam's psychic power to help us now!"
Kurishimi nodded again as she blindly grabbed for Alakazam's poké ball. When the psychic powerhouse appeared the battle started to shift in their favor. Using its mental abilites, Alakazam grabbed Hitmontop and flung it toward Akuma's direction into a large brown monster of a Pokémon whose trainer had just replaced the fallen Beedrill with. Following that it took out both Weezing as well as the remaining Muk with psybeam attacks (in the confusion Kurishimi realized the other two had vanished when she wasn't looking). Alakazam then redirected an incoming water gun attack from a Staryu into a nearby Charmeleon before knocking the former out with two more psybeams. Kurishimi rose to her feet after catching her breath just as a Farfetch'd struck her in the back with its leek.
As Gastly's poké ball sailed away from his hand Akuma somersaulted past a Muk that had tried to crush him with its huge hand. He leaped behind the foul smelling creature and opened up Sableye's poké ball when he had the chance before moving on to the partner Muk beside it. For this one he opened Dodrio's poké ball again allowing it to appear above the toxic creature and come down hard on top of it. Dodrio then assaulted Muk with a triple drill peck until the creature sank underneath it. Dodrio then moved on to assist Sableye in defeating the first Muk while Akuma searched for his ghost Pokémon. He found Misdreavus torturing a Beedrill with a continuous shock wave attack while Gastly was mocking a Staryu whose health was being drained by a curse attack until it fainted.
Replacing the injured with new Pokémon, the bandits now gave optional targets in the forms of a Charmeleon, Charmander, Kangaskhan, Ivysaur, and another Mankey. Akuma had lost track of Akashi and her Pokémon in the confusion and didn't have the luxury of looking for her, but he did spot Vulpix and Magnemite working together to take down the Primeape from before. As he was trying to decide his next move the Hitmontop from before came flying through the air and crashed into Kangaskhan, knocking the beast down but not enough to take them both out. He looked around and spotted Akashi's Alakazam protecting her from a water gun that was redirected into Charmeleon as well. Behind her Vaporeon felled a Raticate with a quick attack. It seemed Alakazam had been clearing the field of the remaining enemies they had started out against with ease.
"Totodile, we're going to war," Akuma stated as he opened the plain poké ball in his hand. "Fire your water gun at the Charmander and Charmeleon. Run away from enemy attacks until you can get a clear shot if necessary."
As he finished the command Akuma felt Dodrio approach his side protectively and heard Sableye's impish laughter from atop Dodrio's back. Seeing it had backup, Totodile began to spray the fire Pokémon it had been ordered to with a water gun. Hitmontop quickly rose to its feet, or rather the drill point on its head, and spun toward Akuma's group at full speed, hitting Charmelon's tail briefly as it closed the distance. Sableye took the initiative before Akuma could decide who could best handle the approaching threat. Sableye first disabled Hitmontop's balance by firing a night shade at the ground and then attacked with a close range fury swipes. Hitmontop switched position to stand on its feet for a moment to hit Sableye with a pursuit strike, but the damage done was minimal and Hitmontop finally dropped. Charmander fell soon after as Totodile's water gun struck it at full force. The Ivysaur then assaulted the group with a barrage of razor leaves which the team was unprepared to counter. At Akuma's command Dodrio protected the group with its own body while using a triple fury attack to keep some of the leaves away. Akuma was nearly out of ideas, so in desperation he brought out Cleffa to help them.
"Cleffa, I need you to help us. Take aim at Ivysaur and use your metronome attack. We can't get close without taking major damage."
Cleffa was unsure of her assignment, but did as requested. She waved her fingers back and forth to find a specific energy attack she could use properly. Totodile began to assist Dodrio by using water gun to counter the dangerous razor leaf attack to buy them more time. Before Cleffa had finished, Akuma saw Hitmontop get replaced for a Venomoth and wished all the more for Charizard's poké ball then. Finally Cleffa's fingers stopped shining and began to unleash an energy blast. Dodrio quickly moved out of the way, but Totodile was not as observant and Akuma had to grab his tail to pull him out of the way before an arcing wave of electricity ripped by them. The electric blast burnt the incoming leaves and continued on target until it struck Ivysaur. Akuma watched carefully, intending to know to what degree damage was done. Ivysaur did not appear to have taken any damage in fact, but electricity arced across its body sporadically which crippled its movements. Akuma concluded the attack must have been a thunder wave, so Ivysaur was now paralyzed and the leaf barrage had temporarily stopped as well. Dodrio took advantage of the moment to fire another tri attack into the enemy ranks. The blast struck Charmeleon, finally knocking it out as well.
While Akuma was still thinking of his next attack, Gastly rushed through the enemy group at high speed with a corporeal scream. Akuma noticed she quickly weakened after passing the group, meaning another curse attack may have been used. He knew his guess was correct since Gastly was almost completely exhausted from the side effects upon reaching him. As Totodile fired a water gun and Sableye attacked with night shade he pulled out a stronger potion than usual to heal Gastly's fatigue. The effects were not complete sadly, though he wasn't expecting it to be enough in the first place. He also couldn't spot who the unlucky target had been yet either, but he trusted Gastly to have chosen a good victim. Elsewhere he saw Misdreavus mercilessly assaulting a Machoke that might have been heading toward Akashi's group with a furious psybeam barrage. After it fainted and a replacement Nidoqueen appeared, Misdreavus quickly healed itself while draining the opponent's health with pain split. Out of sight Akuma could hear Kurishimi's Pokémon fighting also unseen opponents, but he heard a Growlithe and what might have been a Shellder in the chaotic sounds. Chad was still impossible to check on and too far away to accurately catch any sounds of battle.
Before Akuma could give new battle commands, Totodile was struck with a powerful thunderbolt attack which knocked it out. The aggressor was a Raichu that he could only assume had replaced the Charmeleon from earlier. Returning Totodile to the poké ball, Akuma ordered Gastly to use a full strength shadow ball attack on the Raichu. The attack was successful, but Kangaskhan blocked the attack and took no damage from the ghost type attack. Akuma saw that Kangaskhan's movements were labored and deduced that it had been the target of Gastly's curse attack. Sableye fired its night shade at Venomoth, but Kangaskhan blocked that one as well. Cleffa tried to help the group with another metronome, but the resulting move this time was a rain dance which caused the clouds to darken the sunset orange sky and begin pouring rain. Quickly becoming drenched in water, Akuma was less than unhappy but left Cleffa out to keep fighting anyway.
Fortunately the rain saved him and his Pokémon when a hydro pump attack came out of nowhere and crashed into Kangaskhan by surprise. Akuma risked a glance to the side and saw Vaporeon breathing heavily. He realized Vaporeon must have just learned the attack and saved his group with it. Unfortunately Raichu was also able to take advantage of the heavy rain and cast a devastating thunder attack onto Vaporeon which critically wounded it. Without Kangaskhan to absorb the ghost attacks, Akuma quickly called for Gastly's shadow ball and Sableye's night shade while Dodrio rushed in to use fury attack on the Raichu. Venomoth attempted to push Dodrio away with a psybeam, but was countered with a triple drill peck that it couldn't withstand and fainted quickly. Raichu was also unable to endure attacks from three Pokémon at once and soon began to collapse, but unleashed a wicked thunderbolt before fainting which crippled Dodrio enough to be defeated by Kangaskhan's substitute fighter, which was a Graveler, as well as another Farfetch'd from somewhere else. Cleffa used metronome again and quickly took out the Graveler with an incredibly lucky bubblebeam attack, but Akuma had lost two of his battlers at this point and Cleffa was only good for supporting the front line fighters. Fortunately Misdreavus had just dropped the Nidoqueen so he called her over to help him out. As Misdreavus flew through the enemy group she let out a quick shock wave attack that struck all the opponents and gave her an eerie appearance for a moment too. The heavy downpour didn't hurt the visual appeal either.
Now fighting with only Gastly, Sableye, Misdreavus, and to a lesser degree, Cleffa, Akuma was beginning to regret his former claims that he could defeat more of the enemy than Kurishimi could. His idea was further supported when a Rhydon took the place of Kangaskhan and a Kingler appeared to replace Venomoth. Misdreavus quickly attempted to weaken the Kingler with a shock wave, but the electric attack was redirected to Rhydon's horn by use of the lightning rod ability it possessed which also canceled out the damage. Unless Akashi defeated her enemies quickly and came over to help, it didn't seem likely that Akuma would come out of this battle with his Pokémon in favorable health conditions. He even heard the roar of Chad's Gyarados from somewhere far off and hoped support would come from that direction soon.
Night shade attacks from his three ghost Pokémon struck different targets while Cleffa's metronome made it use fake tears. Strangely, Rhydon didn't seem to mind the rainfall which made Akuma worry even more. He'd heard that some Rhydon were able to overcome their fear of water for much stronger efficiency in battles, but this might have been the first one he'd seen. Even worse, his Pokémon had become exhausted from the constant battling and were close to their limit. Even Misdreavus who was using pain split in a desperate attempt to stay healthy was getting noticeably weaker. The enemy endured the triple attacks long enough for the Kingler to disorient Sableye with a mud shot attack. Right after that the Farfetch'd used an air cutter to finish it off bringing Akuma's remaining stock fighters down to half. Akuma hadn't even finished recalling Sableye before the Rhydon used a stone edge attack which the ghosts evaded… but Cleffa did not. Akuma's baby Pokémon was ruined by the powerful rock attack with a crash that Akuma was too in shock to hear.
He rushed over to cradle the tiny Pokémon in his arms and found out that its health was critically low. He quickly fed Cleffa an oran berry before he placed it back in the poké ball to keep its health stable until he could reach a Pokémon Center. Meanwhile his Misdreavus was firing rapid shadow balls at enemies that were also targeted by Gastly with a dark pulse attack. Occasionally a confuse ray or hypnosis was used, but the effort was wasted when the applicable trainers switched out the troubled Pokémon with a fresh new fighter. As his ghosts took damage from attacks they were unable to avoid, Akuma soon realized how this battle would end. Misdreavus was the next to fall when a massive Steelix struck her with a dragonbreath attack. The only one protecting Akuma at this point was Gastly, and after one more attack she would be knocked out as well. He looked over at Akashi's group, but she was battling at minimum strength at this point. Her only fighters were an equally exhausted Vaporeon and a surprisingly resilient Pinsir.
Akuma was fully aware of what might happen to them if they were at the mercy of a bandit gang led by a Team Rocket member. They were not as thorough or predictable as the criminal element, but could be even more dangerous in their unpredictability as well. He needed to do the unthinkable for them to have the greatest chance at survival.
"Stop, that's enough!" he called out. Gastly and the enemy Pokémon halted their attacked and looked back to the single trainer. "We're finished," Akuma announced. He fed Gastly a sitrus berry from his pouch and returned it to his poké ball. Some of the enemy bandits smiled in victory when they saw a look of resignation on Akuma's face, but his next words didn't fit the apparent situation. "You should surrender and leave while you still can." Every one of the bandits and their Pokémon laughed at the apparent bluff, but Akuma simply waited for them to stop before speaking again. "If even one of you insists on continuing the fight I can't guarantee the safety of anyone in the area from here on out." As he said these lines he reached into his vest and pulled out the forbidden cherish ball. A few bandits and Pokémon looked worried for a moment, but the high group morale shifted them away from the safest option so that only one bandit and his Pokémon withdrew into the forest when the others weren't looking. Akuma still waited until the enemy began to move in to subdue him before bracing himself for what was about to happen. "In that case, you leave me no choice." With the Rhydon less than six feet away he steeled himself for the nightmare that was to come and once again released the greatest terro he'd ever seen into the world.
Kurishimi was being guarded by her Pinsir while she used her last hyper potion to heal Vaporeon's wounds. Pinsir struck down a Kingler with its guillotine attack right before being paralyzed by a stun spore from a nearby Weepinbell. Vaporeon blasted the grass Pokémon with its copied flamethrower attack while Kurishimi recalled her Pinsir, having no way to heal it of the crippling status effect. Alakazam had been defeated long ago by a trio of Murkrow and Magnemite was under the effects of sleep at the moment too. She needed Akuma or Chad to assist her soon, but she could hear that Chad was still in battle and when she had last seen Akuma his Pokémon were dropping faster than she thought possible. Vaporeon had established herself as Kurishimi's most versatile Pokémon after learning a handful of abilities from the move tutors at Lavender Town and was quickly recognized as the biggest threat by every enemy. Being revived to full health again caused her aggressors to back off a little bit out of caution.
"Can you keep fighting, Vaporeon?" Kurishimi asked.
"I'd rather not, but it seems I have to anyway, don't I?"
"I'm really sorry about this. If I had some full heal medicine available you'd get help, but-"
"I know, hon, don't apologize. I'm fighting to protect you, not because you asked me to."
"That still doesn't make it any more…"
Kurishimi stopped talking when she realized Akuma's battle sounds had completely stopped. She looked over and saw him addressing the opposition calmly. None of his Pokémon remained. She couldn't tell if he was trying to negotiate or surrender from this distance. He seemed to be holding something in his hand so it was most likely he was bartering an escape route, but when a Rhydon began to close in on him a flash of beautiful rainbow light came from his hand. The colors arched and twisted in a beautiful display, but before the lights finished she realized what he had done and her face paled.
From out of the rainbow flash came a wicked creature as if the beauty prior to its appearance was an apology for the horror that was about to be unleashed upon them. When it had fully emerged there was a lingering sparkle in the air that briefly trailed from the body of the beast. When the colors and shine faded she knew there was no longer any visual appeal to be had.
The monster crashed into Rhydon as it screamed a feral roar and tore into it with two powerful attacks before slashing it with its powerful claws which sent the rock Pokémon falling limply to the ground. With no hesitation or mercy it rushed forward into the enemy Pokémon and proceeded to treat them in much the same way. There was nothing awesome about this kind of power. It was all just sick, wicked carnage.
"Akuma… what have you done?" was all Kurishimi could whisper in disbelief.