Chapter 7: This Is Not a Drill!

As the faint din of the pirate raid continued to reverberate up the hills of Tromba Island while smoke billowed up from Bluewhorl in broad daylight, the members of Team Traveller struggled to come to terms with the calamity unfolding before their eyes. After a shocked pause, Kiran shook his head and broke the silence.

"Come on, we need to get going," the Swellow said to his teammates with an anxious chirp as he flapped up and took wing. "The Guild and the guards are going to need all the help they can get down there."

The Swellow flew for the path that returned from the fields to the town, his teammates darting off after the team leader…

Save one.

"Wh-Where are you going?!" Pleo cried from the ledge, his words stopping the rest of Team Traveler in their tracks at the other end of the Leppa field that Nida's family tended to.

"Where everyone else is going right now," Mildrew's voice answered from the side, his head trained towards his field. "They've got things to defend, just like I've got a field, a mate, and a sapling that need protecting!"

While they didn't exactly have children or fields of their own, the other Pokémon on Team Traveler also looked similarly torn about staying any longer at the little Leppa field on the hill. Family, friends, neighbors, their teammates at the guild, little places which brought moments of joy to their lives, all of those were threatened by the chaos in the town below.

"We need to get down there right now to help fight them off!" Nida exclaimed, hopping up and down, her barbs fanned out from tense anxiety.

"F-Fight them off?" Pleo stammered, his feet still firmly glued in place next to the bluff.

"Yes! We have to!" Crom cried, the young Druddigon flailing his arms to try and beckon the young Lugia forward.

"B-But won't that hurt?!" Pleo squawked. After all, if Gwenith was already intimidating to fight against when she was all smiles and cheers afterwards… why, these pirates must surely be in a class of their own.

"It doesn't matter! The town's in danger!" Nida shouted back. At the other end of the Leppa field, Kiran circled in the air a moment and turned his head back to Pleo.

"Pleo, do you remember how we said that Pokémon on Rescue Teams need to be able to not run away from scary things all the time?" the Swellow called out.

"Because- Because someone might be counting on you to help them?" Pleo asked back falteringly.

"Yeah, well right now, the entire town's counting on us to help," Kiran explained, his words causing Pleo to cast a troubled glance at the ground in front of him. Yes, these pirates seemed frightening and all, but... The entire town? All of those Pokémon in their scarves, the ones that had given him so much attention since he came down from that cave…

All of them were counting on Pokémon like this little group to help them?

As the little Lugia remained frozen in place with indecision, he was interrupted by a chirp from Kiran, who was now facing down the path.

"Pleo, we can't wait any longer! If you're not ready, just stay here with Mildrew, okay? We'll be back when it's over," he tried to reassure his newest recruit before he, Nida, and Crom turned and took off down the path for the town.

"Kiran! Not that this isn't a big honor and all, but shouldn't you not be volunteering other Pokémon for babysitting?!" the apple-grower called after the Swellow as he quickly trotted over to Pleo.

"Bring it up when there isn't a town being destroyed!" Kiran's rapidly fading voice called back. Mildrew glanced out at Bluewhorl, the bedlam engulfing it visible from the bluff.

"Fair enough," the Tropius sighed. "Come on, Protector. There'll at least be things up here you can defend, too."

The more Pleo looked at the destruction unfolding below as Mildrew led him off, the more he thought of the townsfolk in Bluewhorl. About the Pokémon that lived there... About how aside from the Marked, they all were so happy just to be around their 'Protector'… And about how many of them might be just as scared as he was of getting hurt and counting on that 'Protector' to help them...

It was then that Pleo decided that, as intimidating as this whole matter with these pirates was, he needed to be somewhere other than this patch of Leppa berries high up on the hill.

"W-Wait for me!" the Lugia cried out. Much to Mildrew's surprise, almost as soon as the words had left Pleo's mouth, the young Guardian had darted onto the path and after his teammates.

"Eh?! Wait-! Where are you going?!"

As the tree trunks and shrubs lining the path flew past Pleo, and Mildrew's voice grew further and further away, the young bird called out again, hoping that his choice had not come too late.

"Kiran! Kiran! I'm coming too! I wanna help!"

"Come quickly, then!" a Nidoran's voice called from further ahead.

Pleo darted down the wooded path, and before long he could see his teammates again. When he rejoined their rush along the path towards Bluewhorl, he found his worries about the bedlam below crowded out by thoughts about the Pokémon that were counting on this blue-scarved Rescue Team to help them. After what seemed like an eternity running past an unending mass of trees and undergrowth, the forest along the path melted into the abodes and structures on Bluewhorl Town's outskirts.

The attack on the town still raged in the distance with deep booms and thuds which were punctuated by the occasional sounds of struggles. Shouts, roars, screeches, yowls… All of them accentuated the already sobering sight of plumes of smoke coming up from the direction of the town's harbor. The paths were devoid of the normal bustle of Bluewhorl's daily life; the team's arrival into town was greeted by a lone young Meowth that had not found shelter yet and was bolting up the path with wide-eyed fear.

"Are you okay?!" Nida cried out, causing the cream and brown kitten to come to a panting stop.

"Th-There's pirates wrecking the town, o-of course I'm not okay!" the still-hyperventilating Pokémon blurted out.

"Calm down, calm down… You're fine, just find a place in the fringes to lay low for now-" Kiran attempted to reassure the creature, when a chittering voice from further down the path hissed:

"Oh nice going, veikka, you brought us even deeper into the island."

"Aah! They're here, too!" the Meowth panicked, as it fled as fast as its legs could carry it up the path and into the fringes around the town. Pleo's throat tensed as he saw his teammates brace themselves. The Pokemon that the jittery creature had heard was just around a blind corner, and worse still, it sounded as if the creature was not alone.

"Oi! You try maintaining a sense of direction with an old maid clawing and trying to take a bite out of you!" a gruff voice growled.

"Look you morons, there's a path right here that heads to the sea," a comparatively yippy voice admonished. "Let's just take it before we get surrounded!"

And the voices were… Leaving? Pleo could hear fading footfalls from around the blind corner, which indeed were heading towards the sea. But… Was that really such a good thing?

"Kiran, they're getting away!" Nida cried.

"Oh no they aren't!" Kiran squawked. He lead the group around the corner, bringing into view the forms of a Gabite, a Trapinch, and a Growlithe who were quietly retreating for the sea.

"Stop right there, criminal scum!" the Swellow barked to the three, which caused the Pokemon to stop dead in their tracks and whirl around, revealing gold scarves with some grey spiked pattern tied around their necks. The Growlithe was lugging a satchel, the Gabite had a claw occupied with a half-eaten piece of bread, and all three seemed to all have a few scrapes from a scuffle with what was probably the 'old maid' that they were talking about.

"Aw crud," the Trapinch groaned.

"Relax, veikka. They're obviously still a rookie team," the Gabite scoffed in between mouthfuls of bird-shaped bread loaf. "What are they gonna do? Cry on us?"

"Wait a minute- That's one of mom's loaves!" Crom growled once he recognized the shape of the bread the Gabite was polishing off. "That's from her bakery!"

"Yeah, and so what?" the Gabite spat out, devouring the rest of the loaf. "What are you going to do about it, brat?"

"We'll sic our island's Protector on you!" Crom roared. "Lugia! Guardian of the Seas-!"

Before Crom could point out the Protector of Bluewhorl Town, he was interrupted by an indignant chirp.

"I'm Pleo!" the white bird in the group interrupted as he beat his wings to try and look more forceful. "A-And you can't just barge in here and wreck the town! That's mean!"

Although Pleo tried his hardest to mimic Crom's roar, his words came out closer to the shrill cry of a disturbed Wingull- and failed completely to impart a 'divine' impression on the three ruffians that were currently trading unimpressed looks with each other.

"That mewa is supposed to be a Protector?" the Growlithe asked dismissively.

"Ha! Sure you are," the Trapinch chittered mockingly. "And I'm the King of Conntow!"

"Nice try birdie, but I'm pretty sure that 'Protectors' aren't little mutant feather dusters that are shorter than me," the Gabite growled.

"Let's see if you rookies can fight better than you fib!" the Trapinch huffed, snapping his jaws aggressively as he hopped up and down.

"Come on, give us a claw, mutt!" the Gabite snarled, before he drew one of his claws into a tensed stance. "Let's wipe the floor with them!"

"Coming right up!" the Growlithe cried, before he hopped back, tensed himself, and emanated a blue, seemingly electric aura his body before giving a running tag to the Gabite and Trapinch. The Gabite flinched a moment from the tag, and then lunged for the group slashing wildly.

The team quickly scattered out of the way of the land shark, Pleo making a tumbling dodge to the ground. As he hopped up back to his feet, he became acutely aware of a pain shooting from his tail as something heavy latched on to it and attempted to drag the Lugia back.

"Ow! Let go! Let go!"

"Not happening!" a muffled voice hissed. When Pleo looked behind himself, he saw the culprit to the sudden pain: the orange bug among the pirates had taken a bite into the end of his tail!

Pleo squawked out of surprise and swung the Trapinch around, attempting to shake the antlion loose. A bit further on, Kiran narrowly dodged being swatted out of the sky by the Gabite, thanks to Crom intercepting the Gabite's arm fins with a timely bite.

"Grr, please. Who do you think I am? Some dainty little Deerling?" the Gabite growled at Crom, before he used his free claw to deliver an upwards slash at Crom's underbelly. The poor Druddigon let go of his grip, crying out in pain, and was knocked away to a tumbling stop against a wooden message board.

"O-OW!"

As Crom staggered to his feet and nursed the raw, reddish scrape along his belly scales, the Gabite took a moment to wince a bit from the ruddy lizard's bite and some fresh scrapes the land shark had picked up while clawing him away.

The Gabite whined a little under his breath about how this accursed hamlet just had to have Pokemon that it hurt to strike, steeled himself again, and then after perceiving an opening, swooped down at the Druddigon to best him.

"Here, have another-!" he cried, before he was cut off by Nida's voice.

"Get away from him!"

Nida plowed into the Gabite's stomach with a tackle, throwing him off course and off-balance with a yelp. The Gabite got up uneasily and stiffly and, much to Nida's pleasant discovery, with a pawful of her barbs stuck in his stomach.

"Urgh… You little runt, what did you do to me?!" the Gabite demanded in a groaning snarl as he eased himself to his feet and tried to pick out some of the barbs. In the background, Nida could hear Pleo crying out, as well as the voices of the other two pirates harrying him.

"Stop moving around so I can deep fry the bird, you dumb bug!" the Growlithe's voice barked.

"I'm trying! He keeps jerking me around!"

"So let go of him!"

Crom had gotten back up on his feet just in time to turn with Nida to see the Trapinch release his grip on Pleo's tail, apparently attempting to nip at him again on something less peripheral than a tail.

"Grr!" the Gabite growled as he approached Nida and Crom with bared claws. "Don't think that you're just gonna be able to- Gah!"

The Gabite quickly fell back, narrowly dodging a directed burst of air from Kiran's wings strong enough to cut a groove into the dirt of the path as the Swellow swooped in between his teammates and the attacking dragon.

"Nida! Crom! I'll take the Gabite!" the Swellow directed as he tensed himself for an exchange of blows with the land shark. "If you and Pleo keep the other two busy so they can't heal the poison, we've got this battle sealed!"

Nida and Crom didn't question Kiran's words. As soon as they felt the breeze from his taking flight after the Gabite, they rushed forward to Pleo. Said Lugia was running further down the path, having just barely dodged a gout of fire from the Growlithe and an open-mawed tackle from the Trapinch by a stroke of luck.

"H-Help! Two against one isn't fair at all!"

"You're right! It isn't!" the Trapinch chittered as he reared up to lunge at the Lugia with another bite from his jaws. "But that's life, hu- Ow!"

But the lunge was not to be, as the Trapinch quickly found himself getting pounced on by a larger and heavier spiked dragon that slashed at his back, which sent the Trapinch tumbling forward.

"Oh, you'll pay for that, runt!" the orange bug hissed as he righted himself, and then lunged forward and clamped his maw onto the Druddigon's arm.

"Argh!"

The Trapinch came to regret latching onto Crom's arm almost as soon as he bit down, as he spat the blue arm out and dropped to the ground whining with his maw agape and its innards scraped by the Druddigon's rough hide.

"Owowow… My poor mowth-"

Before the Trapinch could overcome the pain in his maw, he was kicked up into the air by an unseen assailant. As he fell back to earth, he saw a Nidoran entering a second spinning kick, with her foot racing toward his head.

The sound of a loud thud from Nida's kick reverberated along the path, along with a second, duller thud of something striking a wall with the accompanying sight of a small cloud of dust. When it cleared, the form of a weakly groaning Trapinch embedded in a damaged wall became plainly visible.

"V-Veikka!" the antlion groaned before he lapsed out of consciousness, which prompted Nida, panting and wide-eyed with surprise that her second kick came out so strong, to take a moment to grumble and glower at the creature.

"'That's life,' hu-?"

Nida was cut off by a burning sensation on her flank that made her yelp and jump back. When she looked at her side, she noticed a blackened patch of fur and barbs that had been where a small but potent gout of flame struck her. She then looked up and locked eyes with the pirate Growlithe who had snuck past Nida, Pleo, and Crom and now stood in between them and Kiran.

"I'm still here, you know! And I heard your bigmouth captain blab all about your strategy!" the orange and cream dog growled, before he dug out a Pecha Berry from his bag with his muzzle and bolted on up the path towards Kiran, who was busy evading the Gabite and trading occasional potshots.

"Hey! Fatty! Heal up! These bachory are trying to wear you-!"

No, the team was not going to have their hard work undone by some tubby thug playing medic, Nida thought to herself. She sprung forward, and swiped at one of the Growlithe's hind legs with a claw, causing him to stumble in pain and whirl around.

"Ow! Oh, it's-!"

As the Growlithe prepared to retaliate, he noticed that Pleo had disgorged a glowing ball that was coming straight at him- a realization that came a few moments too late as the ball struck the Growlithe and sent him tumbling across the path into a post supporting someone's mailbox. As he tried to get back up to his feet, he felt a stiff smack to his underbelly by something that felt like it was covered in sandpaper, and another from a thing that prickled to the touch.

"Gaaack," the pirate groaned, before he too fell unconscious. Nida gave the dog another stiff kick for good measure before she and her teammates discovered the final pirate's fortunes with the sound of a loud thwack.

"O-Ow!"

When she and the others directed their attention towards the Gabite, they saw that he was stumbling, stunned after being struck in the nose with the team Gravelerock.

"You didn't think I was keeping my distance from you just because you were ugly, did you?" Kiran taunted from the air.

At this point, the Gabite was near the end of his rope from the poison and this rookie team that was surely cheating in its battle somehow. The dragon growled, and decided that things would be better off were he to call a retreat.

"Nrghh... Ugh, aika häipyä. Take your own path to the sea, you useless mutt! I'm out of here!"

As the Gabite ran off and hopped off the ground in a running glide, he suddenly found a white, frigid beam striking one of his wings and crusting it over with ice. The Gabite lost his balance, pinwheeled, and tumbled along the ground before crashing into the wall of a hut.

The Gabite then weakly attempted to rise to his feet, only for a Nidorina to ram his belly and drive the hapless dragon into the wall of the hut.

"Ar-Argh," the Gabite groaned, before the Nidorina released the Gabite to flop forward from the wall with a thud. Much to Nida's surprise, the Nidorina was none other than...

"Mom?!"

"You're the last kit unaccounted for, and so help me, no one harms my kits like that!" Marley growled with a freshly-plucked scale in her mouth, looking back at the motionless Gabite sprawled out on the ground. The whole incident couldn't help but massively unnerve an already weakened Crom, who shivered a bit at the sight of Marley's thoroughly effective defeat of the last pirate of the group.

"D-Did she just-?!" he squeaked.

"Mrph, the Gabite will at least live to get what's coming to him," Marley harumphed as she scratched at an ear and took a moment to pocket her most recent trophy.

Kiran flew down and hopped along the ground towards his teammates. The pirates they had encountered were a bit easy to defeat, but they had exacted their toll on Team Traveler. There were bites to treat, scrapes and cuts to clean, and burns to soothe.

But before Kiran could fish out so much as a berry from his bag, the team recoiled as they felt the ground beneath their feet tremble a little and heard the sound of loud, thudding footsteps belonging to a heavy and powerful creature.

"Gaah. Where is that shrine bell?" a deep voice grumbled. "Snacks aren't supposed to be this hard to fi-!"

The thumping noise rounded the blind corner, and revealed himself to be a hulking black beast with gray metal rings about his limbs, an armored head with long horns that looked just like the spiky design on the pirates' scarves, and a strong, cruel-looking maw. He was exactly the sort of Pokemon that Team Traveler didn't need to run into right now. Nida and Crom froze in their tracks, Pleo squawked out in startled shock, and even Marley seemed to be caught off-guard for a moment.

"Oh, you're kidding me!" Nida squeaked, instinctively raising the barbs in her fur while her knees went wobbly. Steel types were always a pain to deal with since they never seemed to be affected by her barbs, and this pirate was the biggest Steel type she had ever seen.

The Aggron, detecting the apprehension of the Pokemon gathered before him, gave a self-assured grunt, before shooting a piercing glare at the much smaller and unthreatening-looking annoyances before him.

"Step aside, runts!" the creature bellowed, "Unless you dare to challenge Hess, the mighty captain of the Iron Fleet!"

"Grr, it is you that should be stepping aside, Captain of the One Ship 'Fleet'!" Marley growled as she bared the barbs under her blue fur. "You barge into our town, talk about eating the bell from our ánima!"

"Um, Mami," Nida whispered wide-eyed, the big brute staring dismissively down the group seeming just ever-so-slightly improbable for even Mami to challenge. "You might not want to-"

"Well I, Marley, La Cazadragones de Tromba won't let you!" the Nidorina spat defiantly at the Aggron.

"Y-Yeah!" Crom cried, trying to swallow his fear of the pirate leader and put on a brave face. The Druddigon spread his wings to try and make himself seem larger and gestured at Pleo. "And we've got our Protector here too!"

The young dragon's words made the Aggron flinch for a moment, before he blinked and realized that the 'Protector' that the Druddigon was pointing at barely came up to his stomach and looked about as self-collected as a Deerling about to be hit by a Flash Cannon.

"Pffhahaha! That thing is your 'Protector'?" the Aggron laughed. "I've sparred with the likes of Trizano the Immortal before! Do you think I'm going to let a bunch of midgets and an overgrown Wingull push me around?!"

The creature gave a low growl and lowered his head at the group, adopting a pose that was clearly tensed for battle.

"It looks like I'm gonna have to run you all over to get it into your heads!" he cried, before the towering brigand charged at the five Pokémon on the path.

"Take cover!" Kiran squawked, as the five scattered out of the way of the oncoming Aggron. The bulky Pokemon was easy enough for them to weave and fly around, but much to their horror, the creature, rather than stopping and attempting to charge again, leapt up into the air and slammed his legs into the earth as he came back down.

Pleo quickly leapt off churning and tossing earth and clung onto an overhead tree branch for dear life, as the Aggron's impact cracked the ground, kicked up a plume of dirt, and caused some of the nearby tents and huts to shudder and partly collapse from the violent tremor.

As the dust settled and Pleo let go of the tree branch to drop back down to earth, he became aware that Nida and Crom had been thrown across the path, and weren't moving beyond an occasional weak twitch.

"A-Aaah! Nida! Crom!" the Protector cried out in panic.

Marley, who had ridden out the pirate's tremor, was livid at the sight of her daughter sprawled out on the ground.

"Grr! You! It's time to end you, pirate!" she snarled back at the Aggron. The Nidorina threw herself at the creature, delivering a powerful kick along the creases of his belly armor that caused the creature to stumble backwards and yelp out of pain. As Marley kept the Aggron occupied with another kick, Kiran dug out a round seed from his bag and lobbed at the Aggron, which exploded with a fiery, searing blast after it struck Hess' back. As the creature stumbled about to regain his footing, Kiran, seeing a momentary opening, flitted down to Pleo to try and direct the increasingly battle-paralyzed Lugia.

"Pleo! Get Nida and Crom out of here and somewhere sa-! Look out!"

Just then, the Swellow attempted to push Pleo out of the way of something from the corner of his eye. It was only after feeling a heavy blunt slam, being knocked back tumbling across the path, and starting to hear a shrill repeating noise in his head that Pleo discovered that he was surrounded by rocks and compacted dirt that the Aggron had thrown up the path.

"Ugh… Why- Why do I hear beeping?" Pleo groaned as he uneasily rose to his feet. Kiran was splayed out along the ground, groaning weakly. In coming to Pleo's aid, Kiran had taken the full brunt of the earth and rocks the pirate captain had thrown up the path. Just up ahead, Marley was pulling herself out of a ditch weakly, panting from having been thrown up the path by the torrent of earth and stone.

"Grr," the Nidorina panted, still defiant, but her strength having been badly dented from this ordeal. Hess, gasping from having had the wind taken out of him from Marley's surprisingly painful kicks, was still energetic enough to taunt her in an ugly tone.

"Ha… Ha… Is that the best that the little bunny that was gonna 'end' me can do?!" the armored lizard bellowed as he advanced on the Nidorina.

At this point, Pleo simply couldn't help but be overwhelmed.

This stranger had come into town and made everyone miserable, had made his body ache and feel like it was going to fall apart at any moment, had just hurt his teammates in front of him... and here he was about to hurt another Pokemon that Pleo knew.

And Pleo just couldn't accept that.

"St-Stop it! Just stop it!" the young Lugia cried, his voice growing shriller and increasingly feral in tone. As the Aggron and Nidorina turned towards Pleo, they saw that the blue markings that adorned his body were now glowing bright.

"H-Huh?! What is-?!" Hess stammered, beginning to grow increasingly pallid before Pleo cut him off with a screech.

"Just leave us alone!"

And then the Lugia brought his wings together, with the winds whirling in between them.


Near the harbor, the pirates' incursion had dealt quite a toll to the town. Most of the shops and structures were badly damaged, if not outright destroyed from the flying beam attacks and projectiles that filled the air. Some sea Pokémon in the pirate ranks defended a beachhead with a constant torrent of water attacks, allowing their more terrestrial numbers to probe deeper into the town.

A Skiploom with a lavender headband tottering and falling out of the air after being hit by a gout of fire here, a Rhyhorn from the guild crumpling up against a wall from a jet of water there, a Cherrim among the pirates getting thrown into the water after being hit by a roundhouse kick from a Mienfoo... So the chaos went on, until a loud thump came from the southern direction of Bluewhorl.

For a fleeting moment, all eyes trained themselves on the sight of a massive column of air abruptly blowing out from the direction of the noise, and then a stiff gale-like gust that swept over the battlefield, blowing pirate and defender alike off their feet. As the different Pokémon picked themselves up from the sudden gust, they heard the sound of… Screaming?

"A-Aaaaaaah!"

The screaming figure was revealed to be an Aggron that was hurtling through the air… Directly towards one of the masts of the pirate ship in the harbor. The tumbling Pokemon struck the mast, which, after bending back a bit, snapped like a tree limb in a storm and fell into the water, sending the Aggron falling the other direction to the ship's deck with an audible crash.

"F-Fall back! F-Fall back!" Hess' voice rang out across the harbor filled with the unmistakable sound of panic. "We're g-getting out of here!"

It took only a moment's hesitation from the various pirates to realize that whatever creature had done that to their captain, and their poor ship, was still out there. And that if they didn't get a move on, it might come for them next.

"Retreat! Retreat!" a Floatzel with an Iron Fleet scarf cried out. The fierce fight quickly became a hasty and disorderly rush by the pirates back to the ship as the defenders renewed their assault, exhaling whispered gratitude at whatever had so clearly turned the tide of battle in their favor.


Back on the path on the southern side of Bluewhorl Town, Pleo was panting, exhausted and drained, his plumage having reverted back to their normal colors.

"Haaah… Haaaah…"

All that was left on the battered and torn-up path lined by now battered and torn-up buildings was simply him, the unconscious forms of his teammates, the three less-threatening pirates they had defeated earlier, and, of course, Marley.

"Protector?" the Nidorina panted, as she stumbled onto her feet from a wall she had been blown up against.

"H-Huh? Wh-What happened?" Pleo woozily asked as he groped around for something to steady himself.

"That was incredible!" Marley cried out in reverential awe. "You-!"

Before Marley could get particularly far with her praise, Pleo tripped over one of the rocks that Hess had thrown about in battle, which sent the young Lugia stumbling headlong into an askew mailbox.

"Ow..." Pleo groaned, before he toppled over and the color and sounds of the world around him faded, leaving Marley to poke uneasily at his prone body.

"Um… Protector?"


Author's Notes:

- veikka - Finnish (colloquial, disused): "brother"
- mewa - Polish: "gull"
- bachory - Polish: "brats"
- aika häipyä - Finnish: "time to buzz off", lit. "time to disappear"