Chapter Fifty Three – Hurricane Adelina pt IV
"Hailey... Fancy seeing you here, darling..." Adelina said with false courtesy as her eye began to twitch rapidly. With Adelina's focus being solely on the blonde aunt, Alexa and Keith stood up and practically fled over to Robbie with Keenan closely following his sister. Layla, Ryder and Jollie ran over to their Trainer as she hurriedly inspected the extent of Robbie's injuries; Alexa was particularly worried when she realised Robbie was barely able to keep his eyes open by now. Despite the delightful reunion Keenan had with Iara, they, too, were deeply worried for the Sawsbuck; he got injured in a vain attempt to rescue him – Keenan began to feel overwhelmed with guilt. Keith, on the other hand, started to panic after having seen the deep lacerations so closely; the blood that had escaped them had dried during the battle, which stained his soft coffee brown fur with ugly dark red-brown patches all over his body. All of the adults noticed Adelina's lack of mental stability and were either disturbed or perplexed.
"Are you all right?" Hailey asked with slight genuine concern.
"Just...peachy...I just didn't expect to see you here of all places..." Carter looked back at Adelina and raised an eyebrow; he believed her to be anything but peachy with her looking so close to a complete psychotic breakdown.
"You should have thought of that BEFORE you attacked my son!" Hayden shouted viciously. Lily ever so slightly held onto his arm and shook her head at him, preventing him from rushing straight towards the bronze-haired brute with a fist destined for her face – or something similar. Her touch was just enough to calm him down.
"How did you even-" Adelina suddenly scowled as her blood began to overheat. "ALEXA! It was you, wasn't it?!" Alexa shivered slightly as she felt the hatred in Adelina's voice, but chose not to dignify her with a response; now that her father had arrived with backup, Adelina was no longer her problem.
"She's not your concern, Adelina!" Hailey yelled, starting to lose her patience and any concern she had left for Adelina. "I'M the one you should be concerned about; you didn't just attack my youngest daughter, but my twins as well?! And to attack my youngest nephew on top of that!? You have serious issues!" Adelina scoffed and laughed hysterically, disturbing the other adults even more. Even Naomi was disturbed, and this was her first time seeing Adelina for herself!
"I have issues?! ME?! Honey, your WHOLE FAMILY has issues!" Adelina counter-argued as Pteros steadily moved over towards Alexa; he nuzzled her gently, which seemed to settle her nerves a little, before she kindly decided to return the Aerodactyl to his Poké Ball.
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Harvey asked interrogatively.
"Aipom, Aipom!" Laddy shook his tiny fist at Adelina from Harvey's shoulder.
"I AM making sense, you stupid monkey; what I said is what I mean – your WHOLE FAMILY has issues!" Alexa ever so gently felt around Robbie's body in search of other tender areas or broken bonds; Robbie practically flinched with each stroke and moaned breathlessly when she found his broken leg. "Troy is a Pokémon Breeder who's TERRIFIED of Jellicent, Daniel is an emotionless wreck after the paint incident and Alexa can't keep her nose to herself!" Harvey and Hailey were disturbed by how Adelina knew about Troy and Daniel's pasts, but they, Naomi and Colin were confused about what Adelina said about Alexa. Alexa herself, however, panicked slightly, as did Lily; Hayden, however, gave Adelina the same violent stare Alexa gave her when she first arrived in Entree Forest.
"Alexa can't keep her nose to herself? What's THAT supposed to mean?" Colin wondered.
"Exactly that, dearest," Adelina sniggered.
"But what are you talking about?" Naomi asked in confusion. Adelina chuckled again.
"Alexa, honey! Who was it that kidnapped you again?!" she asked loudly in a heavily mocking tone. Chills ran down Alexa's spine as her horrific past was hinted in front of her aunts and uncles and began to fear their reactions. Ryder, Jollie and Layla looked at her anxiously.
"Seriously? You're going to make things up as you go along just to cover your own ass?!" Hailey asked in disbelief. She suddenly looked at Hayden in confusion when she heard his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists, but was surprised to see his fearsome glare.
"How would she even make something like that up on the spot?" Harvey questioned as he turned around to face Alexa; her back was turned against him, making it impossible for him to establish her mood. "Is it true, Chick?" he asked carefully. Alexa stayed perfectly still, not dignifying him with a response; whether that was due to fear, remorse or just simply not giving Adelina any satisfaction, Harvey couldn't tell – he felt worried.
"We can worry about it later," Hayden insisted in a low growl. "We need to deal with Adelina first." Alexa sighed with relief; Hayden had just saved her from the awkwardness of potentially repeating her tale of recklessness to her aunts and uncles at a rather inappropriate moment in time. With the issue put aside, Alexa began to raid her backpack for some medical supplies she could use on Robbie straight away; however, as his injuries needed the attention of a doctor, all Alexa could do was disinfect his lacerations with her medicinal spray bottles, which caused the Sawsbuck to moan in agony.
"I'm sorry, Alex, I—"
"Not the time, Ryder," Alexa grumbled as she tried to concentrate on cleaning Robbie's wounds; she was frustrated with herself for not being able to do much more for him. Ryder's ears drooped as he watched Alexa tossing the empty spray bottle into her bag worriedly. "This is bad...I can't do anything for him..."
"Y-You can't?" Keith asked anxiously.
"His wounds are too deep and Potions can't heal broken bones..." Adelina laughed in hysteria.
"Alexa couldn't do much of ANYTHING against my babies! Heck, they even managed to defeat two of her Pokémon without breaking a sweat!" Keith heard Adelina's words clearly and glared viciously at her; her Pokémon didn't break a sweat to defeat Alexa's Mawile and Luxray because THEY DIDN'T defeat Millie and Kayla! "So, what makes any of you think that you have the SLIGHTEST chance against me?!" Harvey turned to Naomi, looking both stern and soft at the same time.
"Naomi, get the kids to a Pokémon Centre," he asked quietly. Naomi nodded as she ran towards Alexa, Keith and Keenan.
"C'mon, honey, we need to go."
"Mistralton," Alexa said insistently. "...Troy's there with Xavier and it's a good distance between us and her."
"We have a better chance of defeating you because we have more experience at battling than the kids do and we actually WANT to battle you!" Hailey shouted nastily in response. "We want your tyranny to end before you get someone KILLED!"
"I'll do what it takes to get what I want!" Adelina screamed arrogantly. However, she saw Naomi releasing Steven from his Poké Ball and relaxing his stance. "Oh, no you fucking don't...! STOP THAT GALLADE! THOSE KIDS ARE NOT TO ESCAPE ME!" On cue, Carter, Huey, Silvia, Hyacinth and Dolores all rushed over towards Steven in hopes of halting his execution of Teleport. Without the need for the command, Annabelle, David, Rena and Tristan charged towards the five enemy Pokémon and intercepted them; Tristan swung his leek across him, which released a blade of concentrated air that struck Hyacinth and Silvia, Rena slammed her tail down on Huey's head, which resulted in the Delcatty accidentally getting a clump of dirt and grass into his mouth, Annabelle flew towards Dolores and scratched her with her tiny talons glimmering in a lime green shine and David stopped mid-flight and fired a large pillar of green fire from his jaws that struck Carter squarely in his scarred face. Adelina was highly offended that four Pokémon were able to rebel against her five remaining Pokémon, but was furious to see Steven ultimately disappearing with Naomi, Keith, Keenan, Alexa and the Pokémon around them. Harvey looked behind him and, noticing the distinct lack of his ex-wife, smiled smugly at Adelina.
"Looks like those kids just escaped you."
"You...you...!" Carter watched Adelina as she tried and barely managed to calm her nerves. Barely. "...fine...it's fine...! I've got this...it's all under control...!" Adelina took a Poké Ball from her purse. "Francesca, return; you're just dead weight to me."
"Gothitelle...!" Francesca said sadly as she was recalled back into the confinement of her Poké Ball.
"Why did you have to say that to your Gothitelle?" Lily asked in disgrace.
"A Pokémon who can't attack isn't worth my time."
"Can't? Or unable to due to injury?" Hayden asked sternly.
"Carter...make sure Hayden's Pokémon suffer excruciatingly; he is far too much like that bitch Alexa."
"I've had it up to HERE with you, Adelina!" Lily snapped viciously.
"We ALL have!" Hailey yelled in agreement. "It ends now!"
"Indeed it does...for you!" Adelina retorted with a maniacal grin on her face.
Steven suddenly appeared in the main lobby of the Mistralton City Pokémon Centre in a brief flash of white light, along with Naomi, Keith, Alexa, Keenan, Robbie, Reese, Ava, Iara, Ryder, Layla and Jollie. Naomi immediately looked over at the reception desk in front of her.
"Can we get some help over here, please?!" she called. In an instant, the nurse on duty behind the desk hurried over to her and repeated Naomi's plea down the nearby corridor; as soon as she reached Robbie, several more nurses and a doctor entered the lobby.
"Get a trolley!" the doctor instructed to one of the nurses next to her. The nurse nodded and ran into the emergency room nearby. The doctor crouched down to Robbie's level and inspected his injuries. "What happened?"
"I-I-I dunno what it was, but...h-his leg's broken and-"
"Doctor!" The nurse returned with a large wheeled stretched the doctor instructed her to retrieve. The doctor looked at the stretcher and nodded.
"Okay, let's get him on there carefully." The nurses all gathered around Robbie as Naomi gently pulled Keith, Alexa and Keenan away from him. Ryder, Jollie, Layla and Steven all moved away from the Sawsbuck on their own accord. "Everyone got a bit? All right, on three; one, two, three!"
"SAW!" Robbie cried out in agony as, with the combined strength of all eight adults around him, he was lifted off of the hard tiled floor and placed onto the softer surface of the hospital trolley.
"Sorry, buddy. All right, let's get him to the ER, stat!" the doctor insisted as she led her team of nurses to the same emergency room the trolley originated. Keith, Ava and Reese watched them anxiously.
"Hang in there...!"
"Pichu..."
"He's in good hands, Keith," Naomi said reassuringly. Her kindness, though, couldn't assuage his fears. Alexa looked up at her aunt, almost fearfully.
"Aunt Naomi, please, you have to help the others against Adelina!" Naomi looked at her niece in bafflement.
"Me?! But I don't know how I could be of any help!"
"J-Just ANY help you can give will help them – even if it's just something small! Please...?" Naomi smiled sweetly at her rattled niece.
"All right, I'll try; it's about time I contributed more for this family anyway." Seeing her with more confidence in herself put a smile on her Gallade's face. "Shall we, Steven?"
"Gallade," Steven nodded.
"Just make sure everyone's safe and bring Troy up to speed, okay?"
"I will," Alexa nodded just before Steven disappeared in the blink of an eye with Naomi. Alexa then sighed with shaky relief, but the sudden tranquillity of their new environment felt strange to her, Keith and Keenan; the Pokémon began to feel concerned about them.
"...well, now what do we do?" Ryder asked, carefully breaking the tension.
"We need to get all of you looked at, for starters," Alexa said quickly. Ryder nodded as he, Jollie and Layla followed Alexa to the reception desk, where, after returning all of her Pokémon back into their respective Poké Balls, she handed her entire party over to the nurse Naomi called to earlier. With her Pokémon in safe hands, she smiled for a fleeting moment as she turned away from the desk, only to see Keith and Keenan handing over their Pokémon to different nurses and scattering to different parts of the Pokémon Centre; Keith made his way into the emergency room Robbie was taken to, while Keenan headed down the corridor on the other side of the building – both of them looked incredibly shaken up from the ordeal they had just endured. Alexa looked between the two of them, looking incredibly lost as to what to do now.
Carter roared in frustration with each swing of his two main tentacles, both glowing in bright magenta light, as he tried and constantly failed to land a Night Slash attack on Annabelle, who dodged each and every strike. Huey was engaged in a fight against Tristan, but the Farfetch'd seemed to be little match for the more limber Delcatty as Huey landed more slashing attacks on Tristan than the other way around. Silvia barely managed to dodge David's ramming attack as he darted down from the heavens; the Salamence, luckily, managed to land on his feet and quickly struck the Beautifly with a slam from his iron-coated tail. Dolores released a chilling beam of ice at Rena, who, at the exact same time, released a string of concentrated electricity from the tiny lump of a horn on her head; both beams struck one another and began to clash, neither one moving an inch towards their targets. Hyacinth absorbed sunlight particles into the very centre of the large flower on her head as she glimmered in a sparkling white light that healed what injuries she had; after healing herself completely, she unleashed her barrage of sludge balls at Laddy – the Aipom dodged each and every Sludge Bomb, leapt towards her and swung his hand-tail, clenched into a fist and glowing in a white light, against the side of the Vileplume's head. However, the punch was hardly enough to even leave a bruise on the poisonous Flower Pokémon, who merely smirked and sniggered at the Aipom's "futile" Mega Punch attack. Adelina watched her remaining Pokémon enduring the onslaught against them with pride; as far as she was concerned, they were winning the war.
"Laddy, get back here!" Harvey called. With no arguments, Laddy ran away from the Vileplume and ran up Harvey's body to resume his position on his shoulder. Harvey petted his tired Aipom. "You did great, buddy."
"Aipom...!" Laddy panted in response.
"I think I know how Alexa felt now," Hailey said quietly as she watched her Altaria firing a large beam of concentrated sunlight from her beak after the particles were absorbed into her antennae.
"Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself for us," Colin said wishfully as he watched his Salamence evading a wave of paralysing spores Silvia released from her wings.
"Tristan, return!" Hayden said as he held the Poké Ball towards his Farfetch'd; Tristan was returned to its sanctuary moments before a faint Shadow Claw could finish the Farfetch'd off.
"Aw, why did you have to do that?! You would have seen how Huey can hit a Normal type Pokémon with a Ghost type attack," Adelina complained playfully.
"I know how a Delcatty can achieve that and I don't give two fucks!" Hayden said angrily. "Not after what you've done to our sons and daughters!"
"Urgh, I'm getting so sick of your familial loyalty," Adelina groaned in disgust as Annabelle and David were returned to their Poké Balls.
"And I'm getting sick of your uppity attitude!" Hailey said meanly. Dolores and Rena's Ice Beam and Thunderbolt clash ended in a small explosion that caused both attacks to cancel each other out; the tired Dragonite was swiftly returned to the safety of her Poké Ball.
"We ALL are," Harvey added in agreement as he took a different Poké Ball in each hand; one was mostly green and the other was black and yellow with a red V on top of it, but both were in a Ball Capsule with a different Seal on top of them. "Frankie, Jacob, your turn!" he called as he opened both Poké Balls in his palms; from the capsule releasing the burst of red, blue, yellow and white confetti came a Gengar wearing mirrored sunglasses and a cocky grin, while a Dustox without red circles on his wings emerged from the capsule that released him with a ring of small yellow stars circling him. Hayden took another Poké Ball from his belt-bag and held it in front of him.
"Michaela, we need you!" he called as he opened the red and white Poké Ball without throwing it; the red-spined Sandslash leapt out of the giant blue star that escaped the Poké Ball.
"Sand-slash!"
"Now for a REAL Delcatty to take the stage," Colin grinned as he tossed his blue and black Moon Ball into the air; it opened in mid-air, releasing Charlotte from a cloud of ruby red hearts. Huey watched the lady Delcatty landing softly just in front of him, the bell on her collar jingling slightly as she landed, almost in awe.
"Reow~!" Charlotte purred.
"Oh, please...she can't hold a Litwick to my darling Delcatty!" Adelina said boastfully. Huey blinked at Charlotte as he began to admire the playful smirk on her face; he felt inclined to disagree with Adelina.
"Except Normal types can't touch Ghost types," Hailey said cheekily as she took hold of a blue and yellow Poké Ball in her hand. "C'mon out, Dexter!" she exclaimed as she opened the Quick Ball in her palm. The Jolteon sprang out of the Poké Ball from a blue lightning bolt and snarled violently at the Malamar. Lily took a Dusk Ball from her belt bag and held it in front of her.
"Roberta, I choose you!" she stated firmly as the Nidoqueen appeared from the small burst of purple flower petals. Harvey looked at the Nidoqueen in astonishment before giving Lily a huge grin.
"Pokémon number six! And here I thought you were fine with just five!" he said teasingly.
"Y-Yes, well..."
"We can worry about THAT later as well!" Hayden snapped suddenly. "We need to focus! Michaela, Fury Swipes attack!"
"Sandslash!" Michaela dashed towards the distracted Huey with both claws at the ready.
"Roberta, use—uh...what attacks do you know again?" Lily asked in bafflement. Adelina suddenly burst into hysterical laughter, offending Hayden in particular.
"Oh my days, you don't even know what attacks your Nidoqueen has?! You're worse than Alexa, and she was completely unprepared when we first battled!" Angered in her own right, Roberta roared violently, leapt towards Hyacinth and spun around like a drill with her hands clasped together above her head. Hyacinth attempted to deflect Roberta's Drill Run attack with a spiral of pink petals that danced around her before darting towards Roberta; however, the Nidoqueen effortlessly broke through the petals and landed her attack on Hyacinth, leaving a slightly bleeding laceration on the Vileplume's belly.
"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Lily asked, attempting to sound smug. Adelina quickly lost her patience for the umpteenth time in one sitting.
"Okay, you're DEFINITELY worse than Alexa at this point...Silvia, do something!"
"Beautifly!" Silvia flew straight into Jacob with streams of white light enveloping her as she headed straight towards Lily. Hayden moved in front of Lily protectively, but Steven jumped over the couple and slammed a frozen fist down onto the Beautifly's back, which not only halted her Aerial Ace attack, but encased Silvia in a giant block of ice!
"Uh! Silvia!" Adelina gasped in horror. Harvey, Hayden, Hailey, Colin and Lily looked behind them and saw Naomi making her way to the group.
"Are we in time?"
"Yes, thank you so much!" Lily said gratefully. Hayden smiled as he sighed with relief; truth be told, he didn't want to suffer another injury at the hands of a Pokémon without such a body part, but he'd rather that than his wife getting hurt on his watch. However, he nodded at Naomi as he shared Lily's gratitude all the same.
"I thought you were taking the kids to a Pokémon Centre?" Harvey wondered.
"I did, but you didn't say I had to stay there," Naomi teased.
"She's got you there," Hailey chuckled. Harvey sighed as he smiled warmly.
"Thanks for coming back."
"Yeah, we're gonna need all the help we can get," Colin agreed.
"Actually, Alexa asked me to come back," Naomi said humbly. Just hearing Alexa's name was enough for Adelina to develop a look of primal rage that sent chills down even Carter's spine. "And I want to help in any way I can."
"We appreciate it, Naomi," Hayden said kindly.
"I sure as hell don't," Adelina said nastily. The adults returned their attention and caution towards Adelina; they saw that she was at breaking point – if the anger she felt had any form of visible representation, it would be a deep black aura burning violently all over her entire body. "Even when she's absent, that fucking whore's annoying me to no fucking end...! When I'm done with all of you, taking care of your broods will be a VERY simple task – starting with that bitch Alexa and that meddling brother of hers!"
"I don't think so!" Hayden roared viciously. "You've tormented my son and daughter ENOUGH! I'm not going to let you hurt them – or ANY of our children – any more than you already have! NONE of us are!" Adelina retained her evil glare, but grew a smile that resembled an odd mixture of demonic and maniacal.
"I'd love to see you try! Especially against a Pokémon like my sweet little Carter!" she exclaimed proudly. "All right, my little dumplings, give them EVERYTHING YOU HAVE!" The Malamar looked back at his master with slight concern as he and his comrades showed differing signs...of exhaustion.
To be continued...