Another Cyclops had snuck up on them and struck Max in the abdomen, leaving behind a nasty mark. Adrenaline rushed into their veins and they both readied their electric attacks.
Max went first and summoned a cloud of lightning, the sound of thunder crashing into their ears as dust filled the air. Ben prepared a second storm of electricity, just in case the Cyclops survived the first attack. Inexperienced with fighting, Max took a deep breath as the dust settled.
The Cyclops charged out from the cloud, heading straight for Ben. He leaped out of the way but rolled when he hit the ground, landing on his rod and leaving him with a painful singe. Quick to his feet, the Pikachu prepared his next attack but was stopped by his older brother.
"Our thunder doesn't do anything!" Ben stopped for a moment, before looking at what had just burned him. "The stick! Use the stick!"
Shortly after Ben, Max charged and started beating the Cyclops' legs. They pulled a stick of their own out, but when they went to block Ben's attack, Max came in. For a moment, their strategy was working, but then the Cyclops took the offensive, swinging the weapon like a golf club. It knocked Ben several meters away, leaving Max to defend himself all on his own.
There were only a few seconds of back and forth before Max was overwhelmed and the weapon got knocked out of his paw. He retreated just in time for Ben to go back into the fight on his own.
"HAAARGH!" Ben screamed. He sprinted into a jump toward the Cyclops' head, sending so much electricity into the Stun Stick that it began to glow white hot.
He slammed the rod down with as much force as he could muster, breaking it in half in the process. The Cyclops fell to the ground, dead.
They did not make it out of the fight unscathed, but they were both alive and well. The disheveled brothers took a breather together. Ben rubbed the area on his back where the rod hit him.
"I think it would be best if we tried to avoid them," Max suggested.
Ben replaced his shattered Stun Stick with the unbroken one the Cyclops had, and with no time to waste, they began to move toward the next village. That's where they assumed everyone else was at that point if they were not dead.
As they approached the village, Max and Ben couldn't help but feel a sense of dread in the pit of their stomachs. The devastation that they were entering was almost too much to bear. Smoke rose from the rubble of what was once houses and buildings, and debris littered the ground. It was as if a war had been waged here.
As they entered the village proper, they heard a noise to their right. Hoping for a glimmer of hope in the form of survivors, they looked towards the source of the sound, only to see more of those beings they had encountered earlier.
Standing upright on two legs, they resembled no Pokemon the brothers had ever seen. With no tails or ears, a smooth and shiny substance covered the area where fur or skin should be. Their legs were long and straight, unlike anything they had ever encountered. Their faces were flat with small glowing eyes, and their bodies were black and white, with one exception.
The creature closest to them wore a mix of orange and gray, but without a helmet, it revealed that its real skin resembled the color of the chest of a Lucario. The two brothers ducked behind the tallest wall in the vicinity, observing the peculiar beings.
CRACK!
As Max peeked over the wall, his foot slipped, he tumbled out from behind the wall and fell onto a large twig, causing the creature to snap its attention toward them.
"He saw me," Max whispered as he scrambled back behind the wall.
"Well that's just perfect," Ben quipped, "Let's actually plan an attack this time."
They agreed that electricity was their best option, and it didn't occur to either of them that their electric attacks might not work, like how they didn't work in their earlier fights.
Although they knew that aiming for the head would be more effective in theory due to its lack of armor there, they were also thinking about the high chance of missing, given their lack of experience. Hence, directing their attack toward the creature's body seemed like the safer choice.
With their plan in place, they synchronized their electric jolts, which crackled and merged before surging towards the creature. But to their surprise, the creature remained unresponsive, completely unfazed by their assault.
"Right," Ben smacked his forehead as he recalled the issue with their electricity. "Plan B, Max, go in."
Before Max could protest, he found himself trailing behind his younger brother, preparing for melee combat.
Ben charged forward and surged enough electricity through the rod to make the top glow a brilliant white. However, the creature caught it effortlessly mid-swing, halting Ben's momentum. Without hesitation, it swiftly yanked the stick away from him, throwing it over the wall and resuming what he was doing before.
Max froze in his tracks, realizing that they had little chance of winning the fight. Meanwhile, Ben clutched his chest in disbelief, relieved to be alive.
"I think we should leave, to avoid giving this guy another reason to attack us," Ben suggested, but his brother remained silent, fixated on their adversary. Ben began to open his mouth but stopped when he noticed what the orange creature was wielding.
The creature brandished a severed Leafeon's tail, and he was using it to unleash leaf blades toward an unseen target. The brothers finally turned their attention to what it was that the creature was fighting. The smoke and rubble over the slope gave way to reveal a swarm of Cyclops quickly charging toward them.
"Ah, now I get it," Max said. Both were unsure of what their next move should be. The creature furiously whipped the tail up and down as fast as they could, taking the Cyclops down one by one with neon green flying leaf blades.
"Does that mean he's on our side now?" Ben asked as the last of their assailants fell.
"I suppose so. But what's his name?" Max wondered aloud.
"Don't you remember? It's written right there on his shoulder," Ben teased, but Max was too captivated by the name to care.
"Gordon Freeman."
