Sausage note: Y'know, after some soul searching and a few angry games of Mario Kart, I decided to heavily fix up chapter one! As in, it's super different (at least the beginning part is)! I'd recommend ya go read it, if you like extra shit! :D
Also, if you're still unaware, I snipped the previous chapter (The Kindness Of Strangers) into two, and added a section near the end of the current chappie 15 (The Tail-End Of Town, which sort of looks like some sort of dirty euphemism, now that I think about it, whoops...)
Make sure you go read it, so you know what's happening! Either way, hope you enjoy!
Last time: After some more venturing in the village, the king of fighters appeared! Also, some birdie bastards decided to go to a particular mountain...
Chapter Sixteen: The Art of Fighting
"Hm, this place will do nicely," Coalossal said with a nod, glancing around himself.
Buneary looked around, and her friends did the same. They were near the edge of the beach, close to where grassy fields met sand. No buildings were around for a good while, though she could see some houses on the fields a fair distance away. Homes for the villagers, maybe? She didn't remember seeing any on the beach...
"This is an... interesting location to set up shop," Sneasel said, scratching his cheek with a claw. "Are you not worried about garnering sales?"
The rock-type shook his head. "Not at all. In fact, I don't plan on charging for the business." He clenched both fists. "My currency shall be the fighting spirit of those I train."
"Oh, that's, um... quite admirable!" Sneasel replied, pushing aside a look of confusion to smile.
Buneary nodded in agreement, though with a sheepish grin. This rock-type sure had consistent values, if nothing else...
"Oh, y'know, we never got yer name, sir," Gourgeist said. "What should we be callin' ya?"
"You can call me Street Fighter Coalossal," the rock-type replied. "I have fought in many places around the world. Which, yes, includes many streets."
"Wow... that's a lot of fighting, I think..." Ponytale murmured.
"Indeed!" Sneasel replied in surprise. "Goodness, I suppose that means you'll know all there is to know about fighting, won't you?"
"There's always more to learn, no matter how strong or skilled you are," Coalossal replied, closing his eyes sagely. "Complacency is weakness."
Salandit audibly gulped. "Y-Y'know, I, um... don't mind being weak, if it means less pain and misery," she muttered, staying behind Sneasel and Gourgeist.
He frowned disapprovingly. "Hm? But how can an explorer hope to do missions if she's weak? And... proud of being weak?"
"Oh, that's easy! I run far away and hide, until the deadly threat leaves!"
He let out a bemused breath. "... Really?"
"P-Please don't mind her, Coalossal," Sneasel interjected awkwardly. "Um, so, about those trials... what would you have us do, my good man?"
Coalossal held his light brown tablet in front of himself. "Stand back, and I'll explain what I had in mind."
"Stand back?" Buneary asked, taking a few tentative steps back. "Um... what're you gonna do?"
"Don't be startled." Taking a crouching fighting stance, he raised his back leg. At the same time, his stone tablet shimmered brightly, and he stomped the ground hard.
The land in front of them erupted suddenly, explosively sending sand flying everywhere as the earth rumbled under everyone's feet.
Buneary shrieked in surprise and covered her face, Sneasel, Gourgeist and Ponytale yelped loudly, and Salandit practically screamed her head off.
As everything settled, Buneary peeked through her paws. The once barren, sandy beach now had a wide platform of rock sprouting from the ground, and a small distance away from it were several tall stone pillars, making up a sort of loose boundary. Sand poured off the crude rock carvings like water as they stood, fixed in place like they'd been there since forever.
Buneary blinked in disbelief at what she was seeing. Had... that been some sort of move? Was this a part of the training? She looked at the others, mostly to confirm they were seeing the same thing. Sneasel and Gourgeist looked equally as bewildered, Ponytale looked to be in an airy state of awe, and Salandit was clinging to the back of Gourgeist for dear life.
Good... so Buneary wasn't nuts, after all! "Good grief, what was that move?" she asked Coalossal.
"Was that the, uh... magic rock you've got there...?" Ponytale asked, staring at the stone tablet he was holding.
He nodded. "Right, that's it," he replied. He allowed the others to get a good look. "No moves were used... but rather, my stone plate."
"Oh, that's a mite strange, usin' it as a dinner plate," Gourgeist said with a chuckle.
Coalossal huffed in amusement and shook his head. "Not that kind of plate. This is a special relic, one that gives immense power to rock-types, or those with rock-type moves."
"Um... how immense do you mean, exactly?" Sneasel asked.
"If I so chose... I could level the entire village without the use of a single move. In fact, any rock-type, or pokémon with such a move could."
Buneary, and some of the others gasped. "Yikes, th-that's pretty dangerous!" she yelped.
Coalossal crossed his arms and nodded. "In the wrong hands, maybe. That's why I have tasked myself with keeping this thing safe... One of the many plates of Arceus, I think."
Again, everyone reacted in surprise.
"Arceus!?" Sneasel exclaimed. "Good legends, if that's right, then that's quite a rare find, indeed!"
"Ohhhh shit, why do you have that!?" Salandit squealed, still hiding behind Gourgeist. "Arceus is, like, the frigging king of the legendaries!" She visibly shivered. "Q-Q-Quick! S-Send it back! He'll send his entire league of legendaries down to kill us all, until he gets it back!"
"I doubt he has a league of legendaries, Salandit..." Sneasel sighed in exasperation.
"Well... th-then he'll come down himself to kill the men and take the women! Especially me!"
Buneary tried to hold back a laugh. Gosh, the things that came out of Salandit's mouth, sometimes...
"Isn't Arceus, like... the ruler of Heaven, though?" Ponytale mumbled, tilting her head. "Why would he make Heaven, and then hurt people...?"
"He made Hell, too! Probably!" Salandit argued.
"I don't know about that," Buneary replied, just about avoiding a giggle.
"Hm..." Coalossal murmured, shaking his head exasperatedly. "In... any case, he has not done anything about me having this plate, yet. So all should be well."
"Oh, y'know what I just thought?" Gourgeist said to Coalossal, smiling eagerly. "If that plate o' yers makes you as strong as Arceus, like ya say... I guess you're already really strong as is! No need to stress so much about it, now, aye?"
The rock-type shook his head. "It's not that simple..." He closed his eyes with a frown. "True strength... it should come from within. Relying on false power from powerful items... or from Z-moves, mega evolutions, dynamaxing... anything like that..." Opening his eyes, he flung the plate away. It smacked loudly against a rock, though remained undamaged, "it's not power. It's weakness."
Buneary stared at the spectacle. She saw the others giving astonished looks of their own.
"... Oh, never mind, then," Gourgeist muttered, guiltily rubbing the back of his head with his hair.
"Um, yes... it's safe to say your point's taken," Sneasel said with a light, forced chuckle.
"Y-Yeah..." Buneary added. "Uh... I guess we should do those trials, now, then, shouldn't we? So we can show how, um... not weak we are."
"Sounds like fun...~" Ponytale added. Notably, she hadn't seemed awkward at all during the whole exchange. "Let's do it."
Coalossal nodded with a small smile. "Hm. Right away. Just give me a second to prepare, won't you?" he asked.
Everyone agreed happily.
... Everyone except for Salandit, who was on her knees, praying fervently to the sky. "Oh, Lord Arceus, we're sorry! We d-didn't mean to hurt your plate!" she squealed. "D-Don't smite us! Please!"
Buneary finally let a giggle escape by accident. Oh, gosh darn it...
Togetic looked around at the scenery while she flew towards the middle of the mountain. Wow, it was as spiky as she'd heard! The whole mountain was like a humongous cactus made of stone! Hundreds of ginormous shards of rock were jutting out of a huge spiny column coming out of the land, which themselves were covered in thousands of way smaller spikes. Jeez, how could anybody live here!?
She looked down at the lands far below. She could faintly see Eiscue making his way towards the foot of the mountain. He looked as tiny as a ribombee from where she was looking!
Glancing upwards, she noticed Noctowl gliding towards his destination near the top few floors. Unsurprisingly, he was pulling off some awkward maneuvers so he could snap several photos as he flew.
Togetic sighed, though with a small smirk. That was so like him. Well, as long as he didn't mess up and fall out of the sky, there were no worries.
After a short while, Togetic finally reached one of the huge spikes jutting out of the side of the mountain's middle. Thankfully, it was big and flat enough to make for its own explorable floor. Definitely a good place to start looking!
Landing on the rocky ground, she looked around to get a better feel of things. From what she remembered Noctowl saying... this dungeon had a mix of outdoor and indoor areas. The giant blade-like spikes made for outdoor areas, and the middle of the mountain had a humongous cavern within.
She frowned to herself. Oh, Palkia, that meant a lot of looking around, didn't it? There were a lot of places to search, after all. Darn it, this was going to take all day!
Sighing in irritation, she wondered where to go, first. Well, she may as well start on the huge spike she was on. Even though it was flat enough to walk on, there were plenty of hiding places on this spike. Sure enough, big stone spikes were jutting out of the ground just about everywhere, making up the most dangerous maze of corridors she'd ever seen! It was unreal!
The upward facing spikes were big enough to tower over her, and connected to them were spikes facing outwards, which looked like they could impale someone at any moment. It was like she was in a hedge maze, but everything was made up of pointy stones! To make matters worse, much smaller spikes were littering the ground in places, ready to stab someone's feet.
She gulped. Yikes! Thank goodness she could fly!
On that note, she took off hovering into the air to glide above the maze of spikes. She looked down as she went, looking around for anything that even vaguely resembled clothing. She kept an eye on the badge pinned to her chest, too, hoping to see it flash to let her know if a mission objective was nearby!
"So, my friend... what's in the cards for us with these trials?" Sneasel asked from where was standing: a long, wide stone pathway slightly raised out of the sand, newly carved by Arceus' apparent plate. It wrapped around in a huge loose swirl, ending in a podium marking the middle.
Buneary tilted her head at it from the sidelines, where she was standing with the others. It was certainly a good question. Whatever this trial was completely stumped her.
Coalossal stood at the very beginning of the pathway, a small distance from Sneasel. "It should be simple," he replied to the weasel, pointing towards the large swirling path's middle. "I am going for a jog. Around this pathway I've carved, to be precise. I won't stop until I get to the middle."
"Um... I thought we were getting our skills tested?" Salandit asked, looking really confused.
"Oh, are ya showin' us 'ow it's done?" Gourgeist suggested.
"That's not it," Coalossal responded. He crossed his arms and nodded towards Sneasel. "What was your name?"
"Me?" Sneasel asked, a smirk forming. He grandly threw his arm back and let his cape billow behind him. "Valiant Sneasel is what they call me, my good man!"
"Hm, okay. Well, Valiant Sneasel... while I jog, you must do everything possible to stop me. That is our trial."
Sneasel's eyes lit up in understanding. "Aha! Now that makes sense."
"Oh, are there any rules?" Buneary asked.
"A few," Coalossal responded. "Your cape should be fine, Sneasel, but no other items are allowed. Our trial ends when I either get to the end of the course, or you knock me off the pathway. Or otherwise incapacitate me enough for it to be considered a won game."
"Sounds fair!" Sneasel replied.
"That sounds pretty easy..." Ponytale said. "All we have to do is... like... stand in the way, and stuff... right?"
"Are you nuts? I'm not standing in the way of that!" Salandit yelped, eyeing up Coalossal's huge form in horror.
"Yeah, I guess..." The pony let out a small gasp as something occurred. "Wait... Gourgeist is big enough... He can do it...~"
"Oh, I could sure give it a go!" Gourgeist responded.
Coalossal gave a light grin. "That's implying I won't make attempts to dodge. It won't be that easy, don't worry," he explained.
"Oh goody..." Salandit grumbled.
He let out a huff and nodded. "Anyway, let's get started..." He took a stance. "Here I come!"
Without another word, he set off running around the spiral. Despite his huge, bulky frame, his footsteps were much lighter than Buneary would have guessed.
Momentarily surprised, Sneasel quickly recovered and got into a fighting stance. "Same, friend!" he called out. He made some sort of circling motions with his paws. Visible, icy cold wind formed in his claws before he brought them together, sending a huge gale at the pokémon coming towards him.
Coalossal hopped into the air and flew forwards with his spinning kick. The stream of wind blew against him to no effect, blowing off into different directions when it hit him.
A light gasp escaped Sneasel as he dropped his attack and dodged to the side, allowing the large pokémon to fly past. Shortly after, Coalossal landed with a loud thud and kept running around the huge spiraling path.
Frowning determinedly, Sneasel cut across the inner parts of the path to head him off. Stopping at one of the ones closer to the center, he made circular motions with his arms, gathering a load of Icy Wind between his paws.
As Coalossal was about to head past him, the weasel unleashed all of the wind he'd conjured at once, sending it out in a large, fan-like spread.
Though caught in it, Coalossal seemed to be powering through, regardless. A notable layer of frost and ice began coating his limbs, however, slowing down his movements despite his impressive body heat.
Undeterred, the rock-type angled his body forwards. A thick glob of black goo fired out from the rocks on his back, landing on the ground in front of him in a puddle.
Following up, he thrust a hand forwards, shooting out a small fireball at the puddle. The second they made contact, the black liquid erupted into an inferno of flames, surprising everyone. Coalossal barreled through it without a care, going faster as the frost melted off his limbs.
Buneary couldn't see Sneasel's expression, because he had his back to her - complete with the cape, much to her chagrin - but the weasel seemed to be staring apprehensively. "So that's how it is, eh?" Sneasel said, getting back to his senses. He thrust his paw forward and made a 'come hither' motion with a claw. "And I thought this was just a jog! Can you not do such a simple thing without using moves, too?"
A dark shadow appeared around Coalossal's head at Sneasel's taunting. He seemed to be trying to ignore it, or shake it off, but the slight snarl on his face told Buneary that it wasn't working well.
"Huh... I guess Sneasel's not very impressed with him..." Ponytale mumbled, seeming somewhat concerned.
"Oh, it's just 'is Taunt attack, lass," Gourgeist explained. "'e says somethin' mean, and the other pokémon gets ticked off, and can't use those, uh... 'status' moves, or whatever it was 'e said. Only moves t' fight with."
She smiled. "Oh, okay. So it's just a move..."
Buneary also smiled in understanding. Ohh, okay, well, that made sense. It seemed out of Sneasel's nature to say mean things to others, otherwise. Did Taunt really suit him, though...?
Happy that his attack had taken effect, Sneasel had gone back to assaulting Coalossal with a continuous stream of Icy Wind. The rock-type made some motions that suggested he was trying to use the same moves he had before... but nothing was working, much to his visible annoyance. He could do nothing as his limbs continued to cake over with frost.
Oh dear, so Coalossal couldn't even use attacking moves, unless he was using them to fight? What an annoying sounding move... Buneary sure hoped she wouldn't have to deal with it any time soon.
Before too long, Coalossal slowed to a crawl. At the pace he was going, it would take him a hour to finish circling his spiraling race course.
Sneasel let up on his attack and dashed towards him so fast, he looked like a green blur. That same blur whizzed into Coalossal, knocking him off the path and onto his side.
The weasel backflipped off the rock-type's and landed into a crouch. Standing up again, he let out a breath and posed triumphantly.
Buneary and her friends cheered. Hooray! He passed the test!
"Good on yer, Sneasel!" Gourgeist called out.
"Sneasel's the best...~!" Ponytale chimed.
"Thank you, everyone!" Sneasel replied happily. He let out another breath, one that sounded a bit more drained. "Admittedly, though, I was closer to tiring out than I'd have liked. He's a resilient one, our Coalossal..." He paused and cleared his throat. "... U-Um... yes."
"All the same, a good show," Coalossal said with a pleased smile, picking himself up. "Your style is one I haven't seen for your species yet, so it was an interesting show. The fighting style of attempting to control the arena."
"Oh, you've seen it before?" Sneasel asked, surprised, though also seeming pleased that his style was recognized.
"A few times. You use your moves to restrict movement, and to encourage your opponent to move in ways that benefit you. And if the opponent chooses to ignore your attack, then he'll find himself frozen, instead, allowing you to pick him off."
"Yes, that's it exactly! I hand-picked the moves I have for that exact reason, so I'm pleased you noticed!"
Coalossal nodded with an affirmative grunt. "However... there's an obvious weakness to the strategy to keep in mind. One you may have come across already."
Sneasel looked at him in intrigue. "What sort of weakness are you thinking of, pray tell?"
Coalossal focused hard. His once black body began to glow red with heat, evaporating all the ice covering him in an instant. He allowed his body to cool again, and flexed his arm to test its movement. "... If a pokémon is able to overpower your ice, and anything else you may have up your scarf... you'll have no control, and you won't last long in the battle. Something you would have unfortunately realized, if I'd chosen to activate my Flame Body."
Sneasel's chipper demeanor faded into flusteredness. "O-Oh, I see! Um... noted," he said, smiling sheepishly.
Buneary blinked in surprise. Yeesh, so that could have gone horribly wrong, instead? Fighting sure could be a fickle business, it seemed...
"Don't be discouraged, though. It's a fine style, all the same," Coalossal reassured with a sagely nod. "Just try to keep a plan B in mind, of sorts." He looked towards the others. "Okay, time for another run. Who's going next?"
Buneary turned to the others. "Um... any takers, or...?" she asked, sort of anxious, in case they suggested her. Though also slightly excited, admittedly.
"I want to impress Sneasel, so I don't mind..." Ponytale said with her usual, droopy smile.
"Eheh, um... I see," Sneasel mumbled, his flusteredness returning.
"Ah... okay," Buneary said. Darn. Maybe she should have just gone for it...
"Seems fair," Coalossal replied to the horse, gesturing her over. "Let us get into positions."
After her short journey above the sea of spikes, Togetic had found the odd berry and bag of poké coins - which she'd swooped down to grab and shove into her treasure bag - but she hadn't found much else of note. Not even a nice emera for her looplet. This part of the mountain was quiet today, it seemed!
Deciding that she was done on this 'floor', she fluttered towards the mountain. It didn't take her long to find a cave entrance when she got close enough.
She eyed it up warily. Oh boy... it was going to be spiky beyond belief inside, too, wasn't it?
She fluttered inside and looked around. She let out a heavy sigh. Bingo! Ten points for her! The walls and ceiling were Spike City, as far as she was concerned!
Well, no time to get all intimidated. She fluttered to the ground and walked through the cave, which was fairly spacious, thankfully.
She continued until she found a crossroad leading to three different prickly tunnels, including the one she'd come from.
She gasped in delight. Oh, sweet! That meant that it was time for...!
She reached behind her head feathers and pulled out her lucky coin. Its emerald studs gleamed in the cave lit up by dungeon magic. "Okay, coin... do your thing! Cooooin toss!" she yelled, dramatically flicking it into the air.
It clacked against the stone floor once... twice... and again until coming to a stop. It was... tails! She was going left!
She went to pick up her coin when she heard some boyish laughter from above. Surprised, she looked upwards. Some sort of weird, light-purple bird was resting on a spike longer than the others. He was looking down at her in amusement.
"Wow, that was some weird stuff you did, just then!" the bird laughed.
"Hey, now what do you mean weird?" she demanded in annoyance. "I was just deciding where to go with my lucky coin!"
The purple bird took on a mocking tone. "'Cooooin toss!'" He tossed both wings into the air to imitate her. "Whewww!"
Her face went red hot in embarrassment. "Oh, you rude little...!" She stomped her foot. "Stop teasing me and get down here this instant, you pest!"
The bird laughed some more and leapt off his spiked perch with a flip to land next to her. He did a stylish twirl and indicated toward her. "Pleased to meet'cha, cute stuff! I'm Smooth Moves Oricorio! What's your name?"
She glared iron thorns at him. "Oh no you don't, mister! We are not doing pleasantries after that bulldoohicky! If you're wild, then fight me already!"
He smirked and twirled a fair distance away, like he was dancing with himself. "Heh, sure! I'll show you how impressive I am the old fashioned way!"
Togetic brought her paws together to charge her Hidden Power. "We'll see, buster! Hyah!" She flung a big ball of energy at him, which flashed through hundreds of different colors as it flew.
Oricorio grinned and twirled to the side, dodging it. It slammed into the spiky wall behind him, exploding into yellow energy with an electrical crackle.
She growled in irritation. Darn it! That would have shut him up, good and proper!
Oh well, no worries! She charged another ball and threw it. Not taking any chances, she threw another one, and another.
He twirled in the opposite direction, dodging one that exploded into fire behind him. He leapt into the air, allowing the next to burst into dark shadows on the ground behind him. The last one went way off course, and exploded somewhere off to his side with a metallic flash.
She began to pant, feeling the strain of using too many moves at once. Oh, jeez... he sure could dodge.
"You gotta try harder than that!" he mocked, chuckling away.
She delicately dabbed at her forehead to clean off the sweat while she glared at him. Urghh! He was worse than Scorbunny!
Reaching into her bag, she brought out a bottle of ether and drunk it down. Putting it away, she frowned determinedly. Well, she wasn't done yet!
She produced a gift box wrapped in a red bow between her paws and threw it. "How's this for harder!"
Oricorio jumped into a twirl and took to the skies, flying over the box. Her Present exploded violently, sending streamers flying everywhere, on fire from the explosion itself.
The dancing bird was blown upwards a bit from the blast, but seemed unharmed otherwise. "Yow! Good thing I flew," he said, astonished.
Oh, darn it! He was just too nimble! How could she hit him when he kept dodging!?
A thought came to mind, making her grin. "Here's one more!" she shouted, producing another box and holding it above her head.
He also grinned and seemed like he was ready to dodge again. Togetic made the motion to throw, but held onto it tight, instead.
As expected, he zipped downwards, landing on the ground with an elegant pose. Giggling evilly, she flung the box properly with all her might.
It smacked into him hard before he could react and exploded into pretty sparkles. He blinked in confusion as they spread across his body harmlessly.
She stared, mouth agape. "... Shiiiiiit!" she yelled angrily.
A moment passed before Oricorio nearly bust a gut laughing. "Oh, man... You're... You're just too much...!" he said inbetween fits of laughter.
She growled irritably. Shortly after, she flopped to the floor dejectedly. "Oh, darn it all... Luck's not with me today..." she mumbled sadly.
He calmed down and landed next to her. "Hey, now, that's no way to act, huh? Cutiepies like you should be either smiling, or getting all cute and pouty."
She frowned at him. "Well, gee, I wonder who I have to thank for that?" she grumbled.
He chuckled and shrugged aloofedly. "Dunno!"
She clicked her tongue at him. Sighing, she went back to frowning sadly. "Maybe Noctowl was right. Trying to get lucky all the time with these moves is worthless..."
He laughed and grinned at her. "Well... I can help you with the getting lucky part, if ya want! Hahaha!"
Togetic glared up at him again. "Ohhh, shut it, you! You know what I meant! Ughh, I don't know who you are, but you're the worst!"
With a final snicker, he put his wings behind his head. "Hey, not true! Heck, I'll tell ya what... gimmie your best shot! I won't even try to dodge, or nothing. We'll see how 'lucky' you are, then!"
She stood up again. "Oh, please. I'll bet you'll just dodge again."
He took a load of steps back and spread his wings out. "Try me!"
She let out a breath. "Well... fine." She brought her glowing paws above her head and waved them to and fro, like a pair of pendulums. The motion tickled her mind, giving her the mental image of a move she'd never used before.
A purple hologram formed over her paw, growing into a spiky shell nearly as big as she was. When it fully formed, she could feel a hot liquid bubbling within it.
She stared at it, amazed. Oh, this was a move those slowhorts could use! Shell Side Arm!
She eyed up Oricorio, who seemed to be staying put as promised, bracing himself for attack.
Grinning, she flew at him fast. Oh, she'd been waiting for this~!
Twirling as she flew, she clubbed him with all her might. When he was sent flying back, yelling in pain, she finished her twirl, took aim, and fired a glob of horrible purple goo from her shell.
It smacked into his wing, earning another yell and sending him further back. He rammed into the spiky wall, cutting off his cries and making him crumple to the ground with a pained grunt.
She landed as her shell faded away, and beamed to herself. Wow, what amazing luck! Heee, this was why she loved using lucky moves! This feeling of excitement was so satisfying!
"Heh... see...?" Oricorio mumbled out, tiredly looking up at her. He looked rather sickly. "I don't... really get what you're going for, but... can't be all bad, if you're hitting that hard...!" He coughed and let his face droop to the ground, seemingly having fainted.
She looked at him in surprise. She let her smile go somewhat warm. Aww, maybe he wasn't such a bad guy, after all. Heck, thinking about it... he hadn't even attacked her once, huh?
On that thought, she reached into the bag around her waist and brought out a tiny reviver seed.
"Airhead Ponytale... are you ready?" Coalossal asked the colorful horse standing a small distance away.
Buneary looked at her in anticipation as she crouched down on her fours, smiling airily.
"Ready...~" Ponytale replied.
"Good. Stop me if you can!" Coalossal exclaimed, setting off running.
Ponytale's horn lit up, and a huge beam of pink light fired out. It headed straight towards the back of Coalossal, who had just passed by the horse.
"My, she must be strong for an attack so large!" Sneasel said in surprise.
"W-Wow, she sort of... is?" Salandit agreed. She paused. "Uh... isn't it, like... supposed to hurt, though?"
Buneary found herself just as confused. The laser Ponytale had fired was hitting Coalossal directly to no visible effect.
"Oh, 'eck... guess it's a ghost move," Gourgeist said.
"I... very much doubt Coalossal's a normal-type, Gourgeist," Sneasel responded.
"Maybe it's... constant damage?" Buneary suggested.
Everyone watched as Ponytale chased Coalossal, constantly delivering her attack. Nothing changed. Not even a little.
As Coalossal rounded the outer rim of the spiral pathway, Buneary saw quite the look of confusion on his face. And not the type that left him feeling strange in the head, either. So even he didn't know what was going on?
"Uh, Ponytale, why don't you show us a different move?" Sneasel called out to her as she passed by.
"Alright, Sneasel~" she called back, cutting off her attack. Her horn glowed and her mane flashed different colors as she let loose another attack.
Buneary noticed a glimmer of light in the sky. Glancing from the corner of her eye, she saw several lenses appearing in key places around the sun. They caused the sunlight to sparkle over not only Coalossal, but Ponytale, too. In fact... looking around, Buneary saw the sunlight sparkling over herself and her friends, too. It felt very refreshing, lifting some of the weariness of Buneary's muscles from the walk around town.
"Ohh, what a nice feelin'," Gourgeist said, smiling contently.
"Isn't this... Morning Sun? Huh?" Sneasel said, looking perplexed. A look of comprehension flashed by his eyes, and he sighed. "I suppose that other move must've also been..." He raised his voice into a shout. "Ponytale! Try a move that won't heal!"
"Oh! Sure thing, Sneasel...~" Ponytale called back. She cut off her attack, causing the sunlight to go back to normal, to Buneary's slight disappointment.
The pony's horn glowed once more, causing a dome of light-green energy to form around the top of Coalossal. It continued building itself around him until reaching to where his legs were, stopping just before hitting the ground.
Even though his legs were free enough to allow him to keep going, Coalossal stopped in place. Ponytale kept going and bonked her nose into his barrier.
"Oww..." Ponytale mumbled, rubbing her bluk berry-stained nose. She gasped and beamed in glee. "Oh! Did I win the... thing?"
"Uh..." Coalossal started, scratching his head in utter bewilderment, "did you... just use Protect?"
"Yeah..."
"And... your final move is Misty Terrain."
"Yeah..."
"... So... your fighting strategy... the very thing you use to win fights... is healing. Nothing but healing."
"Yeah...~"
His lips stretched as his barrier faded. "... Right... I see..."
Buneary blinked at the scene. Oh... well, then, that made things awkward.
She looked at the others. Sneasel and Salandit were sharing a confused glance while Gourgeist was looking out at Ponytale, pleased as can be.
"Um..." Coalossal said, shrugging lightly. "well, continuing on would be pointless, so... let's stop things here. Technically, I guess this means I've been prevented from finishing the course, but I think this can be a special exception."
Ponytale's smile fell into sadness. "Oh... does that mean my fighting style is bad?" she asked.
"That's... hard to say. In a one on one fight, you can't do much without any moves to fight with. All you can do is hit your opponents normally, or use your natural elements for a weak blast of energy. Psychic-type energy, for you."
Ponytale's ears dipped. "Oh... I'm not very good, after all, I suppose..."
He crossed his arms and gave a shake of the head. "Not true. In a team, you would be an invaluable ally."
Her ears perked up again. "Huh? Invaluable?"
"Hm. You're clearly trying to be a medic pokémon of sorts, so your teammates would enjoy your healing touch very much, I'm sure. Perhaps it would even encourage them to focus their efforts on offense, rather than defense. So, all in all, it's no fighting style I'd go with, but it's got its place."
Ponytale beamed. "Yay...~!"
Buneary smiled for her. Well, as unorthodox as it was, she had to admit, her style sure sounded good when he put it that way!
Ponytale pranced over to the others, who were waiting for her with smiles of their own. "I'm a good helper, I think~" the pony chimed.
"Yeah. I wouldn't mind what you're offering," Salandit agreed.
Sneasel nodded with a grin. "Most definitely!" His grin went sheepish. "Though if you'd told us earlier that you had no attacking moves, you could have saved yourself the effort."
"I suppose so..." Ponytale mumbled. She smiled at him. "But then you wouldn't be, like... impressed, and stuff, so I don't mind..."
Sneasel sighed with a smirk. "Oh, Ponytale, you're most definitely a spe-" He cut himself off with a cough. "Oh, um... you have very... interesting logic. Yes."
Ponytale gasped. Her cheeks flushed red and her smile went giddy. "Oh, Sneasel~ You like my logic? Hee, you're so nice to me...~" She went over to him and gave him a peck on the cheek.
Sneasel went redder than her cheeks were and became very flustered indeed. Everyone else reacted in surprise, except for Gourgeist, who was smiling like a loon.
"... Uh... I'll... go next? Maybe?" Buneary offered, to break up the awkward tension.
... She wasn't entirely sure if anyone heard her. Sneasel especially.
Noctowl sighed. He'd thought that, by flying into the spacious gap at the very top of the mountain, he wouldn't have run into any problems. Right now, however...
"Yeahhh, baybeeeee~!" a toxtricity wailed in song, strumming on his chest. Sparks flew and harsh, musical noises sounded with each brush of his scales. "You're gonna faaaaaint~! Then I'll laugh and call you shiiiiiiit~! YeOwwwww!"
Noctowl frowned in utter displeasure, ears ringing. "Ughh, just shut up and fight, already!" he shouted.
Mercifully, the reptile stopped his awful song, though he now looked annoyed. "Hey, man, not cool! You messed with my groove, so now I'm gonna go to town, baby!" He fired off a small bolt of lightning, which broke off into a twirling spiral.
Noctowl took to the skies, avoiding it as it crashed into the spiky wall behind him. Alright, so his enemy had Technician: the ability that allowed weak attacks to multiply for more damage.
Noctowl grunted out a yelp and dodged to the side as the electricity came up to meet him. It flew into the air, but didn't die down. A normal Thunderbolt would have faded away by now, so it must have been Thundershock. Made sense.
Taking evasive measures to avoid the ever-present Thundershock, Noctowl tried to think up a plan. It didn't take him long to think of a good one, because his opponent seemed like an idiot.
Still flying, he narrowed his focus on using Future Sight. He could see faint shadows of the future, happening alongside what was going on in the present.
Noctowl noticed that, in the future, the reptile was lording over his crumpled form, gloating with another stupid song from the looks of things. He'd taken a few steps forward from where he was currently standing to do so, paying attention to nothing other than the owl.
Noctowl grinned. Perfect.
He flew behind the future toxtricity and fired a laser into the future at him, tinted a rose-like color because of his ability. His vision of what was to come faded away, showing the present toxtricity still firing away with his constant beam of electricity.
Bracing himself, Noctowl performed a u-turn and allowed himself to be hit in the wing. Electricity surged through his body, burning his muscles and making them seize up.
Ughhh, damn Technician...! On the plus side, his wings felt stiff, as if paralysis had taken effect. That would help his plan.
He barely managed to regain control of his wings before he crashed. To keep up with appearances, though, he allowed himself to skid across the ground and come to a stop, as if defeated.
The toxtricity stopped using electricity and began singing another stupidly awful solo from behind. "Yeahhhhh, I'm the winnerrrrr~! And you're shiiiiiit outta luck, buddyyyy~! Eeeeeyoooowwww!"
Noctowl waited, ears in agony. Though unable to hear anything else, he could sense the reptile's footsteps heading closer. It was almost time.
Right on cue, the toxtricity cried out in agony when something hit him. Taking the initiative, Noctowl reached into the treasure bag around his waist with his wing and pulled out a small golden chip, with an orange fist pattern decorating its surface. Rolling onto his back, he flung it at the toxtricity.
When it hit him, the tiny spikes adorning the chip dug into the reptile's scaly skin, sticking fast. He was too distracted by the Future Sight attack to notice, however.
Noctowl smirked. Good, time to end this. He powered a Psycho Shift in his eyes and fired it out in a large, pink spiral. The reptile shuddered violently as it passed over him.
Noctowl felt his muscles relax, the effects of paralysis having left them. He sighed in relief and leapt up to hover in the air with some beats of his wings.
"Oh, you biiiiiitch~!" the toxtricity screeched out in song. "But I'm electricaaaaaal, so this ain't no thaaaaaang~!" He looked like he was trying to dispel the paralysis by jolting some electricity through his muscles. The same thing all electric-types could do.
However... he wasn't electric-type anymore. Not while that fighting device was clinging to him. His efforts were possibly being met with more pain, as he grunted out a surprised cry.
Landing on his talons, Noctowl murmured out a chuckle. "Just as planned. Letting me use your own type against you," he gloated. He shrugged tauntingly. "And here I wondered if such a basic plan would work."
"Gah... fuck yoooou~!" the reptile sang, rushing forwards with a fist dripping with poison.
"Bite me," Noctowl retorted, hopping over him. As the reptile passed underneath, Noctowl aggressively landed on top, sending him sprawled out across the ground.
Keeping him down with his talons, the owl took his camera out of his treasure bag and took a picture. Putting it away again, he frowned. "Anyway, you may as well be some use to me. Seen any special bands lying around? I need one in particular."
"Here's your special band, baybeeeeee~!" the toxtricity shouted. He inhaled and wailed with enough force to launch Noctowl off his back.
Noctowl cringed hard as he took off to the air. Aghhh! Damn it, he should've known the bastard would have a sound-based move! He hadn't planned around this at all!
He snapped his attention towards the reptile, who was facing him a fair distance away. He looked like he was charging another Hyper Voice. "Say goodnight, chuuuuuump~! Yoooooow!" he 'sang'.
Noctowl braced himself for a direct hit. He faltered when he saw a small field of grass form at the reptile's feet, however. Huh? What the-?
A sharp, blade-like formation of grass shot out from grass patch, stabbing the toxtricity hard in the stomach. He was sent sailing backwards, right into one of the spike-laden walls. Only pained gurgles left his throat as he fell to the ground, fainted.
Noctowl blinked, staring at the remaining patch of grass sink away into the rocky ground. He jumped in surprise when he heard some light clapping off to the side.
Looking, he spotted another pokémon inside an opening to the floor of the area the owl was in. It was sitting on its rump and giving a light, jolly clap.
"Well done, my friend~" it chimed in a dissonantly cheery, male voice. He stopped clapping to stare right at him. "Your... complicated strategy was very fun to watch! You had him in the palm of your wing, right up 'till the end~"
"Uh... thanks...?" Noctowl mumbled, a bit bewildered by this sudden stranger. By the leaves covering his body, he seemed to be a grass-type. So... "Were... you the one who helped me?"
The fox-like pokémon stood up on all fours. "That's right!" He allowed his tail to glow a bright green. "With my trusty Leaf Blade, in fact! A powered one, if you were wondering~"
"Oh. Explains that..." Noctowl tilted his head. "Why, though? Are you a good Samaritan, or something?"
The fox let his tail dim. "I'd like to imagine so! Really, I couldn't just leave you to your fate, now, could I? That wouldn't be very..." His eyes creased for a brief second, but he was all smiles again, after, "... pokémon-like of me, would it?"
"I guess... not." What was with this guy? This, uh... eeveelution, from the looks of things. Though Noctowl couldn't remember which, off the top of his head.
The fox murmured out a small, pleased hum and angled himself away. "Well, be seeing you, friend! I've another friend to meet elsewhere~"
"Uh, cool. Well, don't let me stop you."
The fox gave a nod of acknowledgement and completely turned away, slowly walking down the slope leading to the floor below.
... Okay... well, whatever. This was worth recording, if nothing else. Noctowl took his camera out of his bag and snapped a quick shot. The quiet click signified the successful photo.
The fox stopped in his tracks. "... Oh... you're taking a picture of me, are you?" he asked slowly, not turning to look at him. His back arced slightly. "... I wonder why...?"
Noctowl's brows furrowed, disturbed. "I... like to document my journey. You know, record my progress with photos?" he replied, holding his camera against his chest.
A pause went by. Afterwards, the fox suddenly turned to face him, beaming brightly. "Ohhh, I see~! Clever idea!" He posed on two of his four legs. "I wish you would've told me! I'd have given you a little show to take home with you~"
Noctowl blinked. "That's... not necessary, thanks. I prefer my photos to feel natural."
The fox chuckled and stood normally again. "Whatever suits you~ Anyway, if that's all, I'm going for real! See you around~"
Noctowl shook his head in disbelief as the fox disappeared down the slope. Weirdo.
Putting his camera away, he readjusted the gray and blue no-stick cap he was wearing around his neck as an ascot, and started planning out how he was going to find that client's bandanna.
... Shit, he should have asked that fox if he'd known anything about it. Well, he certainly wasn't going to chase down the guy, now. If he had any say on the matter, that would be the last time they'd ever see each other. Jeez...
Buneary sighed to herself as she watched Gourgeist stand before Coalossal, ready to take the trial. Apparently, nobody had heard her earlier, so Gourgeist had eagerly gotten first dibs.
Oh well, it's not like it really mattered. She was happy to see him in action!
"Okay... you ready?" Coalossal asked, ready to run.
"Oh, aye, sir!" the pumpkin said eagerly, drifting from foot to foot.
"In that case... let's start!" Coalossal set off running in Gourgeist's direction, down the path.
"Uh... oh!" Ponytale mumbled to herself, jittering slightly with widened eyes.
Ah, was she excited, too? "Yeah, I wonder what he'll do," Buneary said in response.
"Um..." Salandit started, voice warbling worriedly, "h-hopefully not explode-"
Gourgeist exploded noisily.
Buneary was flung back by the force of the Explosion with a squeal. She went rolling backwards across the sand before coming to a stop on her front. She heard Salandit and Sneasel crash somewhere close by, screaming and yelling as they went.
Buneary groaned. Well... she should have expected that. Thankfully, they hadn't been hit directly by the Explosion, but still, yow...
"Oh... did I win...?" Gourgeist mumbled, sounding very pained, yet pleased at the same time.
Picking herself up, the rabbit looked over at him. He was on his back in a large crater, dark with soot. Somehow, he was still awake, but the pathway around him was utterly blown apart, and sand had been sent everywhere. Including all over Buneary, who was drenched in the stuff, now. Darn it!
While brushing herself off, she spotted Coalossal, who had easily been knocked off the spiraling path. He was currently sitting in the sand, blinking in confusion. "Uh... I... guess you did," he said, sounding as bewildered as he looked.
"Oh, 'ow nice..." Gourgeist replied, shakily getting up. Huh, he hadn't fainted from that!?
"Ugh, and here... I thought he might not do it, too..." Sneasel grumbled, pushing himself up.
Salandit whined in annoyance. "Why do people wonder why I like running away, again?" she asked no-one in particular.
"Are you okay, everyone...?" Ponytale asked from where she was standing. She seemed to have her Protect barrier around her, which she must have used to stay safe from the blast.
"My word... Ponytale, how did you know to defend yourself?" Sneasel asked, astonished.
"Oh, I felt the jitters of, uh... the ability I have, I think."
"Ah... Anticipation, right?"
She smiled. "Oh yeah... that's it."
Oh, well, that explained why she'd run away, last time Gourgeist had exploded. But... "Wait... huh?" Buneary asked her. "Why did you run away, last time, instead of doing that?"
"Oh... whoops..." Ponytale giggled airily. "I guess I wasn't thinking straight, because of the... Run Away thing I have."
"Ah... okay." Well, Buneary could certainly sympathize.
"And when I felt the jitters with the second Explosion from earlier that... uh, like... didn't explode, I was thinking of saving Sneasel, so I did that, and didn't run, and stuff..."
"Oh... thank you..." Sneasel replied with an awkward chuckle. He cleared his throat and indicated towards Coalossal and Gourgeist, the former of whom was slowly getting to his feet. "Um, speaking of helping, would you be kind enough to help them?"
"Sure thing, Sneasel~" she replied, going over to them, horn glowing.
She trained her healing laser on both of them one after the other for a fair while, earning her some thanks. Afterwards, they were back to normal as if nothing had happened.
"Well..." Coalossal said to Gourgeist, "I can't say I usually see someone use something so drastic as soon as the fighting starts. Nobody with a sound mind, anyway."
"Oh, well, it beats the baddies good an' proper, it does," the pumpkin replied happily. "Didn't want to 'urt you too much, though, so I did meself a smaller boom."
"You do bigger ones, usually? At the start of fighting?"
"He does! He really, really does!" Salandit whined. She clenched her eyes shut with a shudder. "He's why I refuse to go exploring without my phase ribbon to go ghost with!"
"Hm..." He closed his eyes contemplatively. When he opened them again, he indicated towards the pathway. "Okay. Let's go again, but this time, Explosion is banned. Okay?"
"Oh, uh... alright, then," Gourgeist replied unsurely. He scratched his neck with his hair. "Not often I use me other moves for fightin' with, but I'll give 'er a go!"
"Good to hear. Here I go, again!" The rock-type jumped onto the path, ignoring how damaged it was, and started running once again.
Yelping in surprise, Buneary hopped over to the sidelines to watch the trial. She was joined by Sneasel and Ponytale, though she didn't hear Salandit's feet against the sand. Maybe she was staying a safe distance away...
Gourgeist charged another move. Instead of exploding this time, thankfully, he projected an image of the moon behind him. He absorbed power from the land into himself with a pink vortex formed between his 'fingers' of hair. Or... was he absorbing it directly from the moon image?
Buneary's eyes lit up when she recognized it as the same thing Whimsicott had done, earlier. She didn't remember hearing its name, though...
"Never used me ma's move like this, but 'ere we go!" he exclaimed eagerly, bringing his hair 'hands' in front of himself. He fired off a big sphere of swirling pink energy with enough recoil to send him on his back.
Prepared, Coalossal twisted on the spot to fling a fireball at the projectile. Although small, its fiery explosion on impact knocked the pink orb off course, sending it sailing into the path behind Coalossal. It left a grand explosion of pink, rivaling his usual ones. It left barely any path to run down, after.
"I knew it! I'm staying over here!" Salandit shouted.
Buneary eyed up the destruction and found herself not blaming the reptile...
"Oh, 'eck, I'd better try something else!" Gourgeist said in surprise, likely at missing, rather than causing more mass destruction. "Uh... dunno what this does, normally, but...!" He started powering up another move.
Able to see him from the side, the rabbit saw the big mouth on his belly begin to glow bright green instead of orange. After a few more seconds, he fired a big, bundle of tiny, green balls out of the mouth, all combined into a large cluster.
It barely missed Coalossal, instead hitting the sand to his side... However, it exploded into hundreds of tiny, green orbs, after, spraying the rock-type from head to toe.
Coalossal continued his run, unhindered. That is until, after a pause, small vines sprouted out of the green orbs to wrap themselves around him all over the place. His arms, his legs, his neck, his, um... his crotch... They completely tangled around whatever they could reach.
As if that wasn't enough, some of the green orbs that had hit the ground ahead of Coalossal sprouted vines, too. Those same vines snapped towards him, gripping an arm and leg, each. They stretched as he ran, slowing him down as they hung on.
As soon as Buneary thought that would be enough of the nightmare, the vines glowed brightly, making Coalossal grunt in pain. Gourgeist glowed the same color, and let out a relaxed sigh in response. "Oh, didn't know this was good for feelin' 'ealthier!" he said happily.
Buneary stared at him. Did... he even know what would happen when he fired that? At all?
"Hm. Leech Seed won't stop me that easily," Coalossal said, hopping into the air and doing his super fast spin kick. The vines all flew off at once, though they succeeded in killing his momentum.
"Quickly, Gourgeist, it's your chance!" Sneasel called out excitedly. "Do what you can to stop him!"
"Oh, right away!" Gourgeist replied, opening up a purple puddle of ghostly mist under himself. He fell through it, like it was a hole in the ground.
Another ghostly portal opened up in the air a short distance in front of Coalossal, as the rock-type landed on his feet.
Gourgeist fell through the same portal with some force, crashing onto the rocky path bum first. As the remaining wispy energy poured off his body, he hopped to his feet, held his arms out, and... stood there.
Everyone watched with bated breath, wondering what he would do. Even Coalossal hesitated slightly, clearly not knowing what to expect.
When close enough, the rock-type stopped briefly before jumping high into the air. Landing behind Gourgeist, he continued his run. He was now on one of the inner paths, facing away from everyone, though Buneary could imagine that he probably looked quite weirded out.
"Oh... guess it didn't work, even with Gourgeist..." Ponytale said, pulling a face.
"Ah... right..." Sneasel mumbled, exasperated. "Gourgeist, it didn't work! Quickly, try something else!"
Gourgeist turned to look at Coalossal, sheepish. "... Oh..." He smiled. "Ah, well. Bugger it, then." He quickly flew towards Coalossal from the back, grabbed him with his hair, and threw him to the side. He fell off the path and crashed into the sand that was sandwiched between two parts of the long spiral pathway.
Everyone stared.
"Was... that a move?" Buneary asked.
"Oh, no, I just threw him off," Gourgeist explained simply. He beamed. "Oh, bloody 'ell, I guess I won twice, then! I must be right good at this trial business!"
"No joke..." Coalossal responded, picking himself up.
"Yay... that's a new record, then~" Ponytale chimed. "Congratulations...~"
"Yeah, I, er... Well done...?" Sneasel spouted flusteredly, scratching his head with his claws.
"Hm," Coalossal said with a sagely nod. "Your style might be... No, your style is the most unorthodox, yet basic I have ever come across. If you're not pulling off a kamikaze with Explosion, you're firing off the largest projectiles possible. Failing both, you chose the most straightforward route possible by simply just throwing me, which I didn't expect. And you're saying that you only ever use Explosion? At least, mostly?"
"Oh, aye, pretty much," Gourgeist replied with a simple smile. "Never really thought about what else ya said, but sounds fair enough!"
"Interesting... sincerely so. Such a style will end battles very quickly, though you will need items if you want to keep on going, after." The rock-type closed his eyes in contemplation. "Hmm... though Leech Seed could help with that, if you use it on another opponent, after. If you haven't made yourself faint, anyway."
Gourgeist's smile went excited. "Oh, okay! So with that Leech Seed o' mine, I can explode more. Fair play!"
"Hm. You can keep people in place for max efficiency, too. Perhaps even come closer with Phantom Force to make things easier."
"Oh, now if that ain't a grand idea!"
"He's not seriously giving him more tips on exploding, is he!?" Salandit asked, voice dripping with worry.
Buneary turned to look at her as she came closer. "Um... looks that way, eheh..." she said, smiling awkwardly.
"Oh dear... I may need to put aside more money for reviver seeds in the future..." Sneasel said, though with a slightly amused grin. "I am happy that he is expanding his horizons, though."
"With more explosions..." Salandit grumbled dryly.
"Sounds scary, but fun..." Ponytale said, grinning airily.
Buneary shook her head bemusedly. Oh dear...
She smiled. Oh well. Now that Gourgeist was finished, she supposed that she could go next!
Tapping her paws together, she started speaking. "Say, um... can-?"
"You know what, Salandit?" Sneasel interrupted accidentally, beaming eagerly. "Perhaps you should get in there, next! Keep the ball rolling, as it were. Perhaps you, too, will learn something!"
Ponytale nodded droopily. "Hopefully with less of the explosions, and more of the... uh... what you do," she added.
Salandit sighed heavily. "Oh... fine... whatever gets it over and done with as soon as possible," she grumbled unenthusiastically.
Buneary pouted. Darn it! This is exactly why Blazing Eevee and Blazing Charmander had called her Wallflower that one time!
Well, looked like she was going last, then... At least Salandit wouldn't have to be apprehensive about it anymore, if nothing else.
Walking around the small spikes littering the ground in the cave he was in, Eiscue beamed to himself. Wow, this plan of his was so smart, he couldn't believe it! Man, he couldn't wait to get started!
In fact... he would get started right now! He reached into his bag and brought out a blue and green striped scarf, decked out with those weird purple gems warp traps used to have. Until all the traps had changed their appearances, for some reason, anyway.
Yeah, with this warp scarf, and plenty of food, he'd find that special band lickety-split!
He wrapped it around his neck, under his ice head. When it was comfortably in place, he could feel its warping energy mojo flow through him.
"Yeah! Let's go!" he shouted to himself enthusiastically, posing as the scarf glowed. He felt his entire body turn into a white bundle of energy and fly away.
After a few seconds, his energies came together and he reformed into his usual penguin self. He looked around, hoping to see the band.
Now outside, he saw a field of spikes - probably one of the huge spikes poking out of the mountain - a humongous wall of spikes in the distance - probably the spiky mountain itself - and a small group of spinaraks talking to each other nearby. They weren't too spiky, thankfully!
The noise of him warping seemed to attract their attention, getting them to look at him. All four looked surprised at his sudden appearance.
"Yo, you guys!" Eiscue greeted. "Seen any special bands around? Gotta find one for someone!"
"Oh, hey, man," one of the spinaraks greeted back pleasantly. "Yeah, my aunt stole one from a delcatty from some town! She came back here, and-"
"Hey, hey, shut it!" a second spinarak shouted. He frowned at Eiscue, with his eyes and that freaky face thing they have on their backs. "That guy's an explorer, don't you see? We should beat him up, or something!"
"Aww, c'mon, don't do that," Eiscue replied, rubbing the back of his icy head. "I don't want any trouble, I just wanna find that band!"
"Hey, dude, he seems pretty nice! We should help him," the third spinarak interjected.
"Yeah," the first spinarak agreed. He scratched his chin contemplatively. "And it was pretty mean of my aunt to steal the band..."
The second spinarak spluttered, flabbergasted. "We're wild fucking pokémon! We're supposed to steal stuff, and annoy outsiders! And explorers!"
"Aww, you're just grumpy," the fourth spinarak chided, getting more spluttered annoyance from the second one. She smiled at Eiscue. "Yeah, Glide Spinarak's aunt had it! But some stunky came and took it back."
"Looked like another explorer, like you," the first one added, pointing at Eiscue. "That's what my aunt said, anyway. Had a badge... a treasure bag... a red bow... uh, red fur...?"
"And huuuuge titties!" the third one added gleefully, hopping up and down. "Your aunt got so jealous!"
"Hehe, yeah, she sure did," the first one responded, smirking along with the pattern on his back.
"Hmph! You two!" the girl spinarak said in annoyance, frowning. "Quit ogling girls all the time! There's more to us than just tits!"
"Now who's grumpy...?" the grumpy spinarak grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Not their fault you're not big in the chest department."
"Q-Quiet, you!" the girl angrily exclaimed, going red in the face. Though Eiscue couldn't see them, because she was chest-down, the girl put her spindly feet over where her boobs would be, anyway. "Like I said, that's not all there is!"
"Haha, uh, no need for fallouts, guys!" Eiscue said sheepishly, waving his flippers to calm the situation. Smiling widely, he pumped his flipper eagerly. "'Sides, that info was great! Thanks!" He winked happily at the girl. "And I have no idea, but I'm sure you've got great boobs! So keep it real!"
The spinarak gasped and looked away, blush increasing. How sweet, she must've been so flattered! The other spinaraks seemed pretty surprised, though.
"... Huh!?" the third one said in shock. "... Wait, does she?"
"J-Jumping Spinarak...!" the girl whined, pouting cutely. Her back did the same.
"Haha! Anyway, catch ya!" Eiscue called. He posed again, allowing himself to morph into a ball of energy and fly away.
Going back to normal, he looked around for a stunky this time. A busty, red one with explorer gear.
Seeing nobody around, he warped again. And again. And again.
After yet another warp, he looked around. He saw two starlys having a fight in the sky in the distance, but nothing else of note.
His belly suddenly grumbled loudly, and he felt an aching pain from it. Ughh, there was that drawback from the warp scarf kicking in. It drained his belly flat in no time.
Thankfully, he'd come prepared! Grinning, he reached into his bag, ready to pull out all those apples he'd stored for this exact plan of his. Afterwards, he'd go right back to warping! That special band wasn't going to find itself, after all!
His flipper brushed against something that felt like apple skin, so he pulled it out. Because the ice block coating his head made his peripheral vision blurry, he couldn't see it one hundred percent clearly... but it was round and red, so it was certainly one of the apples he'd brought! Even if it did feel a bit bumpy, but oh well.
He slipped his ice block upwards a bit to free his beak. Done with that, he went for a bite while he thought about the stunky.
Hmm... thinking about it, he remembered seeing an obviously female stunky around Venture Village. Never got the chance to talk to her, though, which was a shame, because she was real pretty! Too bad her species were really stinky, from what everyone always said- Wahhhhgh! Oh, Arceus, his mouth was on fire!
Hacking and coughing in pain, he spat out the chunk of apple he'd just eaten. Holy crap, that was a spicy apple!
He looked at the apple in his flipper. His jaw dropped in horror when he saw the spikes coating it. This wasn't an apple! It was a freaking tamato berry!
Ahhh, for crying out loud... Well, it was no problem! While he must've picked out the wrong things to buy at Lilligant's greenhouse... it was still okay! In Treasure Town, he'd asked for some apples out of Kangaskhan Storage, and he'd bought some at the Kecleon Shop, too!
Yeah, he had plenty of apples! He reached into his bag to search for them.
He searched and he searched...
Standing on the sidelines with the others again, Buneary watched Coalossal and Salandit as they stood on the newly reconstructed spiral path. It didn't surprise the rabbit one bit to see that Salandit was shaking like a leaf in the wind.
"S-So, uh... you just want to see me in action, right?" the reptile asked, gulping nervously.
"You got it," Coalossal replied, tossing an empty elixir bottle off to the side. "Whatever you usually do during a fight would be good."
"O-Okay... sure...!" Her eyes widened for a beat before a sly grin formed on her lips. "Heehee~ 'Usually do', eh~?" she mumbled to herself.
Apparently hearing her, Sneasel sighed and frowned. "Salandit, I swear to Arceus and his plate, please don't run away while shouting something along the lines of... I don't know, 'here's a secret technique for you! Goodbye!', or whatever it is you have planned!"
Salandit's grin immediately gave way to unhappy disbelief. "Oh, what!? Oh, c'mon, that is what I always do, though! I'm cowardly!"
"But lass, you're always somewhere nearby, ain't'cha?" Gourgeist asked. "And you 'elp out with yer fire, and poisons, too!"
"On the sidelines, after I've already run away!"
Huffing, Coalossal crossed his arms. "... This is going to be as much of a hard sell as I thought, isn't it?" he grumbled with an air of sarcasm.
"N-No, don't be too quick to rule her out!" Sneasel reassured flusteredly. He let out a breath. "Alright... how about a deal, Salandit? Try your best against Coalossal, and... um..." He clicked his claws together. "Right! I'll personally help you and Charjabug with cooking duties. I could use the practice, anyway, after last month's... drash berry stew disaster..." He cleared his throat, eyebrows furrowed in embarrassment.
"Oh! Well, uh... sure! Deal's a deal!" Salandit replied a bit too happily. "Doing a trial is better than being murdered!"
Buneary let out a quiet sigh. Poor Charjabug... Well, at least he would receive the help he'd wanted, in any case.
Coalossal gave the reptile an odd look. "... Cooking? ... Murdered? " He paused and shrugged dismissively. "Hm, whatever. Either way, this should be interesting. ... Maybe," he said, taking a stance. "Here I come." He set off running.
Salandit shrieked. "Oh, legends, now!? Um, uhhh, um..." she stammered, trembling again. She set off running on her fours at a far faster pace than Coalossal's, leaving the pathway entirely. She gasped and doubled back onto it when she seemed to realize that she'd slipped up, and instead ran on the path. She managed to barely keep ahead of Coalossal, despite the shaky start.
"It's not a race, you know!" Coalossal called after her. "If you're not careful, I'll get to the end and win!"
"Y-Yeah, I'm... working on that!" she called back half-irritably, half-panickingly. She murmured out some thinking noises. "Okay... Okay, Salandit, think... You're... Yeah, you're in a village... that's being attacked by evil impidimps and sableyes, like in the book... You're the only maiden they didn't grab... What do you...?" She gasped happily. "Okay, I've got it! Advanced cowardice!"
She flipped herself around to face Coalossal while still skittering backwards, making sure to stay on the spiraling pathway.
Buneary pulled a face. What books had she been reading, exactly? With that line of thinking, the rabbit was really curious how she'd decided on this plan, too.
Coalossal also seemed really confused. That is, until Salandit fanned her flaming tail as she moved, sending out a pink mist in her wake.
Buneary looked at it, wondering if she'd unleashed some pheromones on purpose. However, it seemed... different, somehow. Thicker, and filled with faint sparkles.
When it hit Coalossal, his pace slowed, and he seemed to be trying to fight off a distraction. Not in an Attract sort of way, though, oddly.
As the pink mist spread outwards, Buneary got a chance to smell it, and... Ohh, that was heavenly, whatever it was...
Her mind went numb at the scent. She couldn't think straight. All she wanted was more of the sweet smelling scent.
She mindlessly drifted towards the source. She tried to clamber over the rocky path in her way to get at it...
She felt herself get yanked backwards, snapping her out of her daze. Huh!? ... Wait... what had she been doing?
She looked around. She noticed that Coalossal was still running, though while using his spinning kick move to dispel the pink mist, and... Wah! Gourgeist had his hair fingers around her, keeping her held in place, lifted off the ground. W-What was going on!?
"Oh, thank you, Gourgeist," Sneasel said with a breath of relief.
"No worries, Sneasel!" the pumpkin chimed, putting Buneary down gently.
"Uh...?" Buneary started, very bewildered indeed.
"Um, watch out for Sweet Scent, Buneary," Sneasel replied. "While her pheromones won't get you, breathing that in will."
She put two and two together and felt her face go warm. "Oh... whoops," she mumbled. She looked at the others in confusion. "Wait, but... how did you two...?"
Sneasel indicated towards his cape. "Zen scarves work wonders for the mind, my friend!"
She smiled in understanding. "Ah, okay!"
"And I have this ability that, like... protects against... um..." Ponytale started, stalling in thought, "... y'know. Poison-ish stuff, I think." She blinked and giggled airily. "Actually... I should'a done this, actually." She took a deep breath and exhaled. Her mane glowed in response, and a light mist the same color as her hair wafted out from it. It spread to the others, hanging around everyone like a veil.
She'd done it just in time, too. Seconds later, while running past everyone, Salandit had fired out another Sweet Scent, which was looming close. It couldn't penetrate Ponytale's mystical mist, however, keeping Buneary and her friends safe, much to their thanks. Wow, she had an answer for every medical mess, didn't she?
"Wahhh, it's not working anymore!" Salandit yelled in alarm as Coalossal continued his run, faster and less impeded than before. A problem, because he was about to move to an inner layer of the spiraling path. "Uh... another move! Yeah! Here!" The flame on her tail bubbled with purple energy before she fanned it again. A nasty-looking purple cloud was released, thankfully spreading less than her Sweet Scent.
It directly hit Coalossal, who groaned and began to look unwell, after. Oh dear, Poison Gas, maybe?
Despite presumably being poisoned, the rock-type continued his run, pushing through whatever pain he was in. He was a tough nut, for sure.
"Oh, crap, that usually works!" Salandit cried, growing visibly worried. "Q-Quit it, already! I-I have something worse, y'know!"
"Unleash it, then!" Coalossal responded. "With all your might!"
"Aghhh, okay!" The pattern on her back running down her tail glowed purple again, though in a more sickly shade than before. Afterwards, streams of poison fired out from her back in thick, jelly-like globs, spraying everywhere.
Barely able to react in time, Coalossal fired a thick stream of his black, flammable liquid from his own back. It splashed against Salandit's attack, repelling most of it.
Buneary yelped when the mix of purple and black liquids flew toward her and the others from the collision. A transparent shield appeared from thin air, however, stopping it. Sighing in relief, she and the others thanked Ponytale for the Protect, as the pony allowed it to fade.
Man... maybe Buneary should suggest that Coalossal create a small wall as a barrier, or something. Though it would make watching difficult...
Although some of the purple liquid managed to splatter onto Coalossal, making him grunt loudly, he managed to avoid the worst of it, and kept on running normally as Salandit finished her spray of poison. He was drawing closer to the middle of the spiraling platform, too, which made things look grim for Salandit.
The reptile gasped loudly. "Oh, frick! He's not gonna stop! Nooo!" she yelled. She was becoming stressed enough for her tail to flare up, releasing her infamous pheromones.
They pressed against Ponytale's veil of mist harmlessly - not that it would have done much to them, anyway - though Coalossal wasn't so lucky. In sticking so close to Salandit as she retreated, he got a full blast of it.
"Huh? This... This isn't..." he started. Whatever he was going to say faded from his lips as his eyes glazed over with a pink hue. Oh dear. "Hm... Salandit, you're... like a fighting style of your own. I have to study you more...!" His pace quickened, albeit a bit wobbly, due to sickness.
"Oh fuck, I knew it! All boys live for the rape! Even him!" Salandit shrieked loudly. Hopping, she spun around on the spot to run properly, going way faster as a result. Thankfully, she'd remembered to stay on the path and not leave the area entirely... though she wasn't doing much else.
"Oh... she's almost at the end...?" Ponytale noted, seeming a bit confused. "Uh, isn't she supposed to, like... not be?"
"S-Salandit! You're nearly at the end!" Buneary called out.
"Oh, lass, watch yer sen!" Gourgeist joined in. "You're gonna hit the thing in the-!"
Salandit fulfilled their fears by running straight into the middle of the pathway. Because it was raised into a small podium, she ran up it fast enough to launch herself a short distance in the air. She flew into the waiting arms of Coalossal who, despite everything, had managed to stay on the spiraling path.
"Oh, Salandit..." he murmured, "your fighting form is prettier up close."
Salandit flipped her crud in his arms. Screaming and squirming like mad, her back flared up with aggressively bubbling poison. It exploded all out at once, striking Coalossal full force with the horrible, sticky fluid. It coated him from head to toe, burning away at him so much that steam poured off him. He yelled out in pain, flailing around to get it off him.
Salandit was accidentally flung away in the struggle. Coalossal stopped screaming and toppled over, crashing onto his back. He stayed there as the gunk covering him evaporated away entirely.
Landing on the sand, Salandit looked about ready to run. She stopped herself when she noticed that Coalossal was down, however. "Huh? ... Wait, did he faint?" she asked.
Everyone stared at her, astonished.
Especially surprised was Sneasel, who slowly shook his head in disbelief. "Salandit... did you just knock out a seasoned fighter?" he asked.
"Um... I guess?" She looked at Coalossal and herself. "... Did I break the rules, or did I win?"
"Well, he... can't complete the course, now, so..." Buneary started, shrugging, "... maybe you did win~!"
"Oh... cool," Salandit replied, scratching her head.
"Oh, fair play! Good on ya, lass!" Gourgeist praised happily.
"Uh, thanks..." Her pupils dilated in horror. "Wait... is he gonna get mad at me!?"
"I very much doubt it," Sneasel replied. He grinned. "In fact, I get the feeling he'll be rather delighted! Let's wake him up and find out!"
"I'll help, Sneasel...!" Ponytale chimed, horn glowing. "I hope he has a reviver seed, or, uh... something. I can't unfaint things very well..."
"O-Okay..." Salandit responded, still somewhat nervous.
Eiscue chewed on his chople berry. He couldn't stop himself from pulling many unhappy faces as he did, grossed out beyond belief.
Eww... he hated these berries so much. They were bitter, and had a bit of a spicy punch to them. The skin was tough and rubbery, too.
He looked at the rest of the berries he'd bought, all in a pile on the floor. It contained tamato berries - which hurt to eat - haban berries - which tasted awful and bitter, unlike the jam you could make with them, which was delicious - and more chople berries.
Damn it all... even if he did like these berries, they would never be as filling as apples were. For some science-y reason involving apple acid, or something, pokémon could be filled right up on a single apple. Especially bigger, higher grade apples. So his warping plan wasn't going to work well.
Swallowing a bite, he smiled to himself. Oh well, no worries, as Togetic would say! He could just make the journey on foot. After all, how hard could it be to find a red skunk in a place with hundreds of different areas, all connected by a large cavern? Easy peasy!
Satisfied enough to keep going, he shoved his berries and warp scarf back into his bag and went on his way. He seemed to be on one of those really big spikes poking out of the side of the mountain... so he would just explore until he found the special band!
It wasn't going to be easy getting around, though. Hedge-like walls of jagged spikes were absolutely everywhere, making a fairly effective maze. Thankfully, there was lots of space between the many 'walls', so there wasn't too much danger of him poking himself on them. Not unless he got into a battle, anyway!
He randomly picked a direction and traveled down its hallway of spikes until he came to a bend. He stopped with a shout when he accidentally stepped on some small spikes poking out of the floor.
He tenderly rubbed his foot on a smooth bit of floor in pain. Ow... he was starting to see why he hadn't encountered many pokémon in these parts, yet.
Oh well! After looking for some safe ground to land on, he jumped over the spikes.
He landed with a click, as a picture appeared under him. One of a swarm of evil looking zubats and golbats. Uh oh.
A shadowy mist poured out of some vents in the trap, which thickened around him in several spots. Some really darkened, angry-looking pokémon rose up from the mist, eyes glowing red.
He yelped in shock. Ohhh shit!
He bounded down the corridor, flippers flailing. He heard them pursuing behind him, snarling out words in their own species' languages.
Quickly glancing back, he saw them: a gliscor, a croconaw, a girafarig and a zweilous . All coated in some evil, shadowy aura, faces twisted in rabid snarls as they barged against each other, trying to get at him.
Eiscue squealed in fear. Yeah, to hell with that! He carried on running, fast as he could.
"That was... interesting," Coalossal muttered, tossing a used reviver seed's remains off to the side.
"Um... interesting b-bad or good?" Salandit asked, nervous as ever.
Buneary couldn't help but wonder that herself. Despite what she expected, though, a smile formed on Coalossal's lips.
"Good, actually," he replied to Salandit. "You gave me a better challenge than expected. That cowardice you're so proud of is hard for opponents to deal with. If someone were chasing you, they would have problems catching up."
"Huh? You think?" Salandit asked with a surprised stare.
"Yeah. You'd be a legendsend in situations where everyone else has fainted, and you need to make a tactical retreat to come back and help, later." He let out a huff. "... If you come back, of course."
"H-Hey, I would! When... things calm down, and stuff."
"Maybe..." Sneasel quietly mumbled to himself.
"Hm... well, it would help avoid having the entire team be taken out, in any case." He raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Actually... do you have any moves made exclusively for helping?"
"Huh? Uh... Helping Hand? I guess?" She frowned. "It's awful, though! I thought it would help me with escaping fights, or something... but nobody told me you can't help yourself with it!"
"Ah, perfect. Yes, you can't help yourself... but, in running to the sidelines, you can help your allies with that, instead, avoiding any fighting. If you're not poisoning, or distracting your enemies, anyway." His eyes lit up as he talked. Clearly, he was getting into his explaining. "Yes... and you can distract with Sweet Scent, or attack opponents from the sidelines, while they're distracted by your allies, and, um..." His face went red, "... your natural species quirk is a good distraction, as well. Which I won't discuss too much..."
"Well... that all sounds good, but..." She shook her head, frown turning worried. "The pheromones are awful, and I hate them! I wish I could turn them off forever!"
He huffed through his nose. "A pity, because it would be amazing for distraction tactics... and for getting things to chase you, so you can do to them what you did to me..." He crossed his arms with his own big frown, face still as red as the rocks on his back, "but, remembering the regretful words that came out of my mouth, I'll avoid arguing."
"It sure was funny..." Ponytale murmured, grinning to herself.
"... No."
Remembering the event, Buneary's lips pulled together into a cringe. Legends, if Attract wasn't the most embarrassing move, she didn't know what was...
Coalossal let out another huff and shook his head, clearly trying to put it out of his mind. "Well, not much else to say, except Poison Gas and Venoshock work well, together. Ah, and your moves seem like they will have bad effects on teammates, so watch you don't harm allies."
"Yeah, I'll... keep that in mind, thanks," Salandit replied, smiling faintly.
"Now ain't that nice?" Gourgeist said, pleased. "Sounds like yer trial went and impressed 'im!"
"Yes, well done!" Sneasel praised. "Not a bad end to the trials, I'd say!"
Coalossal nodded. He blinked and looked in Buneary's direction. "Wait... what about you?" he asked her.
She pouted hard. "Y-Yeah! Don't forget me...!" she complained.
Sneasel barely held his composure together, though he was sweating up a storm. "O-Oh, of course! I... merely thought you did yours, earlier, yes. My mistake..." he muttered, sheepishly looking off to the side.
Buneary made a whining noise. Darn it! Wasn't she the one they'd been touring around town to begin with?
Tsk, oh well... at least she was getting her turn, now! If she was lucky enough, anyway.
Eiscue continued running for dear life as those evil, unholy pokémon chased after him, blinded by some sort of unexplainable rage. Lord Arceus, they just wouldn't let up!
The evil croconaw barely missed with a lunge, going past him while coated in an aura of death. Squealing, Eiscue ran around it while it was on sprawled on the floor after missing, faster than ever.
At a crossroad, he turned a corner, skidding in his panic. He barely avoided bolts of dark lightning going down the other hall, crackling violently. Shivers went down his spine at hearing a thunderous explosion ring out at the impact site. Ohhh, he was in trouble!
He started down the hall he'd gone into, until he noticed a convenient gap in the wall of spikes to his side. A great place to hide!
Grabbing the side of a spike with his flippers, he swung himself to slide on the floor, into the small hole inbetween the spikes. He heard the enemy pokémon rush into the area, looking for him. Their footsteps slowed to a stop as they seemed to realize he wasn't around anymore.
He heard their unpokémon-like groans linger for a while before going quieter. A sign that they'd wandered off.
Eiscue gulped. Oh, great... so now he had shadow pokémon to deal with while exploring.
He slowly crawled out of his hidey-hole and looked around. They were gone... for now.
He let out a breath, which fogged up and drifted out the top of his ice cube. Man, those things freaked him out so much. He hadn't encountered many of them in his time exploring, but he'd encountered them enough to know they were bad news…
Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a book called: 'What Kind of Pokémon Are You? - A guide on the types of types.'
He flipped open the book and glanced at the contents page. The first chapter was an introduction, written by the author, Mr. Director. Huh, wasn't he the lead guy behind HAPPI, too? Well, whatever worked!
The chapters after that went through all the different types in detail. Normal-type... fire-type... All that sort of stuff.
One of the later chapters went into detail on the, uh... typeless-type? What the heck?
He quickly flipped to it in curiosity, having not gotten that far yet. Once he found it, he quickly read through...
The Typeless-type
Easy to describe. This type is, effectively, the lack of a type. ... Is that confusing to think of? Okay, perhaps it is harder to understand than one would expect.
On that note, the easiest way to wrap one's head around the concept is this: the pokémon has lost his or her type. It's gone.
No pokémon, to anyone's knowledge, is naturally typeless. One must become typeless due to a null trap, the application of a void device, or through the use of a move, such as Burn Up.
It is not to be confused with the normal-type. Normal-types still contain an elemental energy of sorts inside of them. One that causes them to be immune to ghost-types, and weak to fighting-types. Typeless pokémon have no such thing. They are weak to nothing, and are strong against nothing, also.
To address the copperajah in the room, losing your type sounds frightening, doesn't it? Don't worry, however. There exist many methods to regain one's type. Methods as basic as resting until the lost elemental energies regain their luster, or simply using a soothing seed.
In any case, think of it this way... no types means no weaknesses to worry about! If a fire-type loses his or her type in a monster house filled with water-types, then that very pokémon may end up as the last one laughing.
One last note... though typeless pokémon don't exist normally, there are several typeless moves available via TMs. And I don't simply mean striking your opponent in the face with your fist, or a claw, or whatever else (which would also be typeless, come to think of it). Instead, they are real moves which, will take up move space.
Much like pokémon without a type, these moves have no strengths or weaknesses to consider. All pokémon will take the same sort of damage from them. Pain equivalent to a harsh slap, or a dull thud.
On the next page is a list of the available typeless moves, few of them as there are...
Deciding not to go through the move list yet, Eiscue nodded to himself. Huh... interesting! So that's what had happened with that one quilava who'd burned himself a while back! Haha!
Going back to the contents page, he noticed that the shadow-type was in the very next chapter to the one he'd been reading. Flipping over to it, he quickly read through.
The Shadow-type
A truly frightening type. Simply put, it is one to avoid, or otherwise plan a strategy for as much as possible.
It is not to be confused with the dark-type. The dark-type is based on the elements of negativity, and dark thoughts. The shadow-type is based on an element not of this world. One of pure, unadulterated evil energies.
Now, one cannot talk about the shadow-type without first talking about shadow pokémon. After all, no sane pokémon is a shadow-type. No, correction: no living pokémon is a shadow-type.
Shadow pokémon are emotionless creatures, created from some twisted form of mysteriosity. For whatever reason, they are feral beasts that exist purely to fight any living thing they come across, though not each other. They can take the form of any pokémon, and are identifiable by their darker colors, shadowy auras and glowing red eyes.
Thankfully, purely being creations of mysteriosity, shadow pokémon only exist in dungeons, and can never leave them without disintegrating. They also lack all the advantages of being alive. Such as intelligence, gender, camaraderie or even a sense of self-preservation. They simply seek out pokémon to fight, with no further goals in mind.
However, they are not to be taken lightly, in spite of that. They are as highly aggressive as they sound, and will always prioritize attacking over surviving, due to their lack of caring whether they are defeated or not. It is possible they may not even be able to feel pain. As a result, many strategies that would work on a regular pokémon simply will not with shadow pokémon.
Now, with all that out of the way... what is the shadow-type? Simply put, it's the strongest type. Its moves are effective against everything, and the pokémon are strong against everything.
To be more precise, a pokémon that receives a hit from a shadow-type move will always need a good oran berry, afterwards. The pain can be best described as a cold, numbing feeling that feels like your very lifeforce is being sucked away. Not exactly pleasant.
Shadow pokémon, on the contrary, will take a lot of attacks before they faint. However, because shadow pokémon take on the forms of regular pokémon (such as pikachus, or piplups, or what have you), their usual types will carry over, too.
As an example, if one were to encounter a shadow poliwrath, using grass-type moves, or psychic-type moves would be a good idea. They will not do as much damage as they would to a regular, living, breathing poliwrath, but it will certainly help matters.
Refer to the next page for a list of shadow-type moves. Also, please note that no regular pokémon can learn these, no matter how much training is done. Save yourself some time and effort, and try to learn something that isn't so terrifying that it scares children into staying awake at night.
Eiscue's eyes bulged. Oh crap! They sounded like they really meant business!
If he had this straight, he had no chance on his own. His moves wouldn't even be super effective! Even if they should be!
Well... the shadow gliscor was a ground and flying-type normally, which would make it pretty weak to ice, so... maybe that would work!
... If he wanted to fight them, which he didn't! He was getting the heck outta dodge, as the saying went!
Throwing his book into his bag, he wondered where to go to get into the mountain off in the distance. Deciding that the best way was the opposite way to those shadow monsters, he ran in the direction he'd come from, earlier.
He heard a click under his feet. Oh, now what!? He quickly glanced down to see a panel with a picture of an orb and a wand, in the paws of... a braixen? What did that d-?
His treasure bag glowed, and bright lights shone from it. When the light beams touched him, a huge headrush hit him like a sack of rocks. Whoa, dude... everything looked super blurry, and he couldn't stand straight...
He wobbled around, trying to get his bearings. It was really hard, though... every time he moved, he felt like he was going to topple over. Woo...
He wandered down the corridor of spikes, stumbling back and forth. Eventually, he flopped on his front. Oww... okay, he needed to deal with this. Thankfully, he had just the thing!
He reached into his bag, and brought out a seed. Even though he was really dizzy, he could clearly see that it had a yellow bit on it. Definitely his heal seed!
He lifted his ice cube a bit to free his beak, and shoved it in. An explosive power filled his mouth, forcing him to spit it out. It came out as a noisy blast of energy, destroying some of the stone spikes in front of him and knocking him on his butt.
He groaned. Oh, for crud's sake! That hadn't been a heal seed at all!
He shakily picked himself up, trying not to topple over again. Oh well... it hadn't hurt him, so whatever! He probably shouldn't eat anymore seeds, though, just in case he made the same mistake twice.
"Gliscorrrr!" a snarling voice said from above.
Eiscue's head snapped up at the voice. Even through his vision was messed up, he saw the shadow gliscor gliding in his direction, clearly set on him.
He heard the angry growls of the other shadow pokémon a small distance away, too, clearly growing closer.
His jaw dropped in fear. Uh oh...
"Eheh, uh... ready when you are, I guess!" Buneary called out to Coalossal, who was poising himself to start running.
"Great," the rock-type replied. "In that case, let's go! For the final trial!"
"You can do it, lass!" Gourgeist cheered from next to the others on the sidelines.
"Yeah, um... d-do your best!" Salandit added, looking a bit unsure for some reason.
Smiling sheepishly, Buneary gave them a small wave. Oh dear... she never did the best under a spotlight. Still, she'd do exactly as Salandit said, and try the very best she could!
Coalossal started off running towards her, aiming to get past.
Gulping, Buneary started off by throwing a small Swift star at him. He reacted by effortlessly smacking it away when it angled itself towards him, sending it sailing into the sand next to the rocky path.
She threw a few more, one after another. They zipped towards him, meeting the same fate of being smacked away. After a few more test throws, she began throwing them at odd angles, knowing they would redirect themselves to hit him.
He managed to smack some of them away when they homed in on him, but some of them managed to slip past and hit him in various places. They didn't seem to hurt him much, meaning this wasn't worth doing for too long... but it was reassuring to know that he wasn't impossible to hit.
When he got close enough to run past her, she sent energy to her ears and punched his side. He felt warm to the touch, though not burning hot, thankfully.
Her punch made him grunt lightly, but he didn't go dizzy, like she'd hoped. To be fair, she usually had more success if she punched a pokémon in the head with it, but his size made that difficult to do with him.
Hm... could she pull off that 'powered' version of the move? Where she'd turned it into a projectile?
Darn it, but she didn't really know how to do it. Last time she'd managed, she'd been panicking because of Run Away. Right now, she was on too strict a time limit to figure it out. If he got to the middle, she'd lose!
She took big, leaping hops across the different parts of the long, winding path, until she reached a section he would be passing soon. As he got close, she hopped a few times in increasingly taller bounds and took a swing at his head with her glowing ear.
Apparently expecting it, he ducked under her punch. Agh, darn it!
Landing, she turned around and sent power to her feet. After taking some experimental hops, she used Bounce to propel herself high into the air.
At the pinnacle of her jump, she did a flip and sent herself sailing towards the rock-type, glowing foot first. If she couldn't make him dizzy, maybe some paralysis would help!
He stepped to the side while turning, dodging her as she sailed past. She hit the ground hard enough to leave small dents in the stone, but was unharmed, thanks to Bounce. Oh, sugar... he was good at guessing what she had up her scarf. Or was she just that obvious...?
With a twist, he got past her and continued on his run, spilling only a few loose burning rocks. She pouted in irritation. Well, now what? She couldn't just keep throwing Swift stars! By the time they would do anything of note, he'd have finished his run around the spiral pathway!
Wait... she had one idea! Hopping across the different parts of the pathway again, she got herself into position to get ahead of him. He was on one of the inner paths now, so she had to work fast.
Powering another Swift, she threw two stars at once, this time aiming for his knees. They flew quickly, but didn't home as much as she'd expected. Uh oh... did throwing more stars together mean less homing?
Either way, while one of her stars went off course - and was batted away as a result - the other star smacked his kneecap, making him grunt and wobble slightly.
She smiled. Yes! A result! She prepared more Swift energy in her paws, ready to try and hit his joints again. If that wouldn't make him fall, she didn't know what would!
She threw a lot more stars, one after the other for better homing. They got close before being harshly punched away by Coalossal's fist, which was enveloped by what could only be described as a swirling vortex of dark cosmic energy. The energy surrounding that same punch completely blocked all the other stars, which went wildly flying in random directions.
"H-Holy crap, what was that!?" Salandit cried from the sidelines.
"Oh, impressive... I believe that's Mega Punch!" Sneasel answered.
Mega Punch...? Oh, crud, that sounded hard to deal with. Especially if he was using it to defend himself, now! Either he had a solution to every problem, or she was easier to read than she thought!
Starting to get discouraged, she racked her brains for a solution. Constant small attacks weren't working well enough... sneak attacks were ineffective, especially now he was expecting them... attacking his weak points had been working, but much like her surprise attacks, they'd quickly lost their flair...
... Oh, forget it. Time to use good ol' brute force! She conjured up a crud ton of energy into herself, powering her Swift as much as she could. She'd never tried this tactic with this move before... but if it was anything like her old projectile move, she was confident it would work!
Filling fit to burst with energy, she opened her mouth, causing a ball of white light to appear in front. Taking a deep breath, she yelled, "All or nothing! Hyaaa!" and unleashed a humongous stream of stars from the ball of energy. She fired so many in such a wide berth, that she couldn't even see her opponent for stars.
She kept going until she felt completely drained of stamina. Stopping her attack, she flopped onto her bum, panting heavily and wiping a lot of sweat out of her fur. She looked at her opponent, wondering if her gambit had worked.
The pathway had been practically shredded apart, with hundreds of small chunks torn out of the pathway, and just as many small craters in the sand.
Running with his arms covering his head, Coalossal was unharmed, though with small bruises covering his dark, rocky skin.
Buneary stared in disbelief. Oh, legends... that wasn't good.
"Oh, bloody 'ell...!" Gourgeist said in surprise.
"You said it..." Sneasel agreed, sounding just as surprised. "He must be a tough nut, indeed, to still be kicking after that!"
"You think!?" Salandit shrieked. "Lord Palkia, what a monster!"
Buneary couldn't help but agree with them. She was officially out of ideas.
"Think you can stand up after that?" Coalossal shouted, now running normally. "It's not over until there's a winner!"
"Yeah, it's okay... you can still do it...~!" Ponytale sang in her usual, airy voice.
"She's right! Don't throw in the towel yet!" Sneasel added.
Buneary's spirits lifted at their encouragement. Inspirited as she was, however, that didn't change the fact that anything else she did would make her pass out from exhaustion. That's even if she could use any moves, in her current state.
... Though... the more in pain, upset, or tired she was... the more effective her final move was...
She nodded to herself and shakily got to her feet. Okay... she had one more brute force tactic to try. It was a bit of a Hail Mary, but she had to try!
With a little difficulty, she hopped towards the end of the course, which was smack dab in the middle of the spiraling platform. Without the fighting gem, or any injuries, she wouldn't have as much power as last time, but hopefully it would still be enough!
She got to work charging her move as Coalossal continued his jog. His approach felt faster and faster as the remaining spiral for him to run across grew smaller and smaller. He was getting so close, now, that Buneary could feel his heat radiating off him.
Before he got any closer than that, she felt her worry and fatigue bundle together into energy that filled her veins, giving her power... and it felt as if time was slowing to a crawl for everything but her. She was ready!
Just as Coalossal prepared to turn the final corner of the spiraling path, Buneary pounced at him. Doing a flip, she delivered a heavy kick to his chest. When it stunned him, she threw a punch at him with an ear, then again with her other ear.
Although his skin was harder than stone, he grunted loudly in pain and went to block his entire front with his arms. She kicked off him, landed, and went to punch him in the leg.
Crying out, he began to stumble. Aha, this was her chance! She went in for another punch to his other leg.
Her ear connected softly, and time seem to start resuming at a normal pace again. Oh, no, not now!
She tried to go in for a quick kick, but all her limbs felt like lead as extreme fatigue kicked in. She managed to nudge him with her foot before she weakly fell to her side, crashing into the sand. She continued to lie there, too exhausted to move.
Ugh... darn... she'd never pushed herself this much before... She hadn't fainted, but she was completely out of energy. She couldn't even look at Coalossal, to see if she'd won or not.
She suddenly heard a loud crash behind herself. Coalossal, no doubt. Quickly after, she heard the sound of the others' footsteps running in their direction.
Had she done it, then? Had she stopped him before he could make it to the end?
She hoped so.
Bradley carefully laid the unconscious machop in his arms on the ground, nestled in a safe place away from any spikes.
Looking over the muscular reptile's sleeping form, he let out a long, drawn out huff through his nostrils. He still remembered what Ben had said about the man. That he'd only been looking for a gift for his girlfriend so he could get sexual favors out of her. Was that really true, though? He seemed too earnest to be as shallow as that.
He looked towards the bright, blue sky. Still... who knew, when it came to pokémon. After all the tales he'd heard of the ancient past... on what had happened so long ago, out of the blue...
He let out a shaky huff and shook his head. No, whatever, it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered now was that he'd moved the machop somewhere away from the top, where he and Ben would be staying for a while.
Bradley reached into the treasure bag stolen from that stunky to grab the remote Ben had given him. When he pressed it, he would get teleported back to wherever Ben had laid down that progress device, earlier, saving him another dungeon trek.
Before he grabbed it, his fingers brushed against an oran berry. He paused, frowning harder in contemplation.
He took a breath and pulled it out. He walked over to the machop and dropped it close to his splayed hand.
Letting out another breath, he was about to reach into the bag again when he heard something a short distance away. The sounds of commotion, listening carefully.
Looking around for the source, he noticed it was coming from under the massive spike he was on. He moved to peer over the edge, curious.
Though fairly far in the distance, he saw what looked like an eiscue on the next giant spike down. The penguin was drunkenly running down a hall of the hedge-like spikes, in the opposite direction of some other pokémon that were aggressively chasing it.
Bradley's frown deepened in alarm when he noticed they were shadow pokémon. All of them but the eiscue.
He felt his heart speed up in nervous anticipation at the sight. The eiscue needed help, but it seemed all alone.
... Bradley wasn't going to help, though. He couldn't help. He had to help Ben punish pokémon, and helping another pokémon was the exact opposite. Besides, it wasn't his problem.
... Ben would be really disappointed in him if he helped.
... He shouldn't.
Gritting his teeth, he let out a breath and walked away from the edge.
When he was a small distance away, he turned and ran back towards it, diving off while sending energy to his tail.
Damn it.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Finished: 15/04 (April)/2022
Word count: 17,205
VGS2's sausage notes: I can't believe I used a summon trap at the same time as ravengal in her upcoming chapter of her PMD fic, Birds of a Feather. XD Ah well, speaking of birds of a father, we both flock together, I guess... (Is that how you use that expression?)
Anyway, want a prediction? An evolution one, specifically?
420 Weed Cat = Mexican wrestler
Bubble Bobble Crocodile = Spanish Cook
Ducklett and Josuke's bastard lovechild = Matador
You saw it first, here, mate. XP
Today's shameless promotion: Kyukon Universalis
Author: bc414
Universe: Pokémon-centric medieval times
Main species: Ninetales, charizard, torracat, leafeon, meowstic and, at some point, an arcanine
Summary: The nobles view Princess Helena as a mere pawn, but Helena will stop at nothing to make a name for herself. Follow Helena and her friends as they try to transform the kingdom from a place of daily struggles into a rich metropolis. Helena aspires to rise above all no matter the cost, but how will plans change when she crosses paths with a dashing Arcanine from the countryside?
Romance: Not much yet, though knowing the author, that will change!
Wackiness: Rather serious about its politics, but certainly knows how to lighten up!
Lewdness: Not really, though mistresses are discussed!
Action: Plenty! Including some small-scale wars using pokémon moves!
Grittiness: Not really, though people can and do die!
Length: Looks to be of medium length, if not longer!
This is the second 'princess tries to avoid getting hitched' fic I've recommended in the last few chappies, now, isn't it? Maybe I should find another one, to keep the train going. XD
Ah well, Kakyoin University deserves the recommendation! It has some very fun personalities, good battles, and a fair amount of 'oh shit, son!' moments that'll be sure to keep you on the edge of your seat. And the name 'Chadwyck Bryckhart' admittedly makes me laugh, so it deserves a read for that alone. XD Go give it a try!
Too many fun mistakes of the day:
#1: 'They were near the edge of the beach, close to where land met sand.'
(I'm a poet, and I don't even know it!)
#2: 'close to where gassy fields met sand.'
(And with Coalossal nearby... uh oh. O,o)
#3: "My currency shall be the fighting spirit of those I tran."
(*Looks at list of jokes that will get me cancelled* ... Hmm, yeah, I'll leave that one for you, my reader. XD)
#4: "Isn't Arceus, like... God, though?"
(I fecking forgot that none of the pokémon know who God is, in this world. None of the normal ones, anyway. Whoops... XP)
#5: 'like a large balcony rapping around the spiny mountain.'
(Kick, punch, it's all in the, uh... balcony? I dunno, I fucking hate rap. XD Incidentally, this mountain went through so many redesigns that it made my head hurt. I might have to go back and check the other chapters with this mountain in it!)
#6: 'She looked down as she went, looking around for anything that even vaguely resembled a spike.'
(I have good news for you, Togetic!)
#7: 'She eyed it up wearily.'
(Is Togetic tired?)
#8: 'This feeling of excitement was so exciting!'
(She should watch her blood pressure! This much excitement isn't healthy!)
#9: 'He grandly threw his arm back and let his cape billow behind him. "Vlaint Sneale"'
(What magic spell is that!? Or did bc414 or PokeMaster64 name him?)
#10: 'As Coalossal was about to head past him, the weasel unleashed all of the wind at once'
(I didn't know there was anything wrong until ravengal started laughing... XD Imagine Sneasel turning away from Coalossal, bending over, and... *Sees Yoshizilla-Rhedosaurus loitering nearby, a hand in pants* Uhh, never mind.)
#11: '"Same, friend!" he called out, swirling his hands together at his sides.'
(Sounds extremely dorky, whatever he's up to. XD I should think these action sequences out more before I write them, I swear.)
#12: 'Sneasel let up on his attack and dashed towards him so fast, he looked like a blue.'
(Has he turned into one of those dark blue sneasels? There's so many different colors of sneasels, that it's hard to keep track, sometimes. XP)
#13: 'He paused. "... Y-Um... yes."'
(Reminds me of how Nintendo mandates have forced Mario into saying nothing but awkward one word sentences. Like this one from Luigi's Mansion 3. 'Mario: *Rubs belly at sight of good food* "EE-YUM-UH! :D"')
#14: 'It felt very refreshing, lifting some of the wariness of Buneary's muscles from the walk around town.'
(After today, I'm not surprised Buneary's muscles have started getting a bit wary of things.)
#15: 'You're clearly trying to be a medic pokémon of sorts, so your team marts.'
(The best place to buy a team is at a team mart.)
#16: "You're clearly trying to be a medic pokémon of sorts, so your team mares."
(... Especially if you're a fan of having a team of MLP characters, I guess. XD)
#17: 'Poonytale gasped.'
(Oh, God... when she offers Sneasel something 'extra nice' for his kind words, her name changes appropriately. XD)
#18: 'Snesel'
(My favourite emulator for playing Super Nintendo Games with. Uh, that I never use, because they're illegal and bad and stuff. (I especially don't use emulators to play the Mystery Dungeon games on DS, the ones on 3DS, and even the obscure, Japanese-only one on Wiiware with an easily applied fan-translation patch. That would be very naughty indeed.))
#19: 'In the future, Noctowl noticed that the reptile was lording over his crumpled form,'
(What a useless foretelling of the future. All he's learned as that he'll notice that the toxtricity is making fun of him.)
#20: 'On the plus side, his wings felt stiff, as if paralysis hat taken effect.'
(Seems like a bad hat to be wearing, unless you're a toxic/flame orb sorta guy.)
#21: 'Buy the leaves covereing his body'
(On the pokémon black market, the sellers have some interesting herbs for sale, it seems...)
#22: "Um..." Salandit started, voice warbling worriefly.
(Sounds like a Yo-Kai that makes people go anxious. Appropriate, considering!)
#23: '[During Gourgeist's trial] Buneary hopped over to the sidelines to watch the trial. She was joined by Sneasel and Gourgeist'
(Uh, I don't think he understands what to do, exactly...)
#24: "Seen any special band around?
(Eiscue's in a musical mood, and only the best band will do!)
#25: "... Huh!? ... Wait, dopes she?"
(Rude!)
#26: 'Coalossal replied, tossing an empty glass off to the side.'
(WHAT IS A POKEYMAN!?)
#27: 'She noticed that Gorgeist had his hair fingers around her,'
(Gorge Geist, huh? Is that how he got so big? Does he go around eating pokémon? Well, looks like Buneary's gonna end up in a pumpkin pie, then. Hur hur hur... XP)
#28: 'In sticking so close to Salandit as she 'reteated','
(*Audible groan* I'm not doing these on purpose, I swear. XD)
#29: 'he shoved his berries back into his bag and got gong'
(What a heavy musical instrument to carry around. Unless it's a cute tiny one you'd put on your desk.)
#30: 'Eiscue squealed in ear.'
(Owww! Eiscue, you motherfucker! D:)
#31: "Zen scarves work mysteries for the mind,"
(Whoops, my tiredness is showing! Though being in Mystery Dungeon, maybe this mystery-giving scarf is a good thing...?)
#32: 'For whatever reason, they are feral bastes'
(When you try to baste the turkey, but your baster goes rabid. Or maybe the turkey's still alive...?)
#33: 'He heard the angry grows of the other shadow pokémon'
(When shadow pokémon dynamax, that would be a great time to run away crying. D:)
#34: 'Hm... could she pull off that 'powered' version of the moe?'
(When all seven chaos emeralds end up in Moe's Tavern, this is the end result.)
#35: 'the other star his kneecap, making him grunt'
(When your kneecap becomes a star... well, how weird versus worrying it is depends on how literal we're being, here.)
#36: 'Starting to get discouraged, she raked her brains'
(Ouch... Remember that one Mortal Kombat game where you could kill yourself if you lost? I wonder if it's a similar deal, here.)
#37: 'However sinspirited as she was, however.'
(Even Buneary knows that she's impure in the eyes of God, for reasons I'm sure we can all agree with.)
#38: 'Just as Coalossal prepared to turn the final corner of the spiraling path, Buneary pounded at him.'
(I sure hope you're talking about the move, missy!)
#39: 'unleashing a humongous stream of stars from her mouth.'
(I guess one could make her projectile vomit out a swarm of stars if they wanted to, but naww, I'll leave that to Kirby. Maybe if she visits a forgotten land, I'll change my mind, though. XP)
#40: 'he noticed they were shadow pokémon. All of them but the shadow pokémon.'
(Oh, just like in Pokémon Coliseum and Pokémon XD (actual name, lol), they can be cleansed to be good again! How nice.)
#41: 'It has some very fun personalities, god battles,'
(bc414's fic actually has deities flying around and throwing Zeus-ish lightning bolts at each other, don't'cha know! Sadly, they're immortal, so don't expect the battles to end any time soon...)
#42: 'Everyone watched as Ponytale chased Gourgeist, constantly delivering her attack.'
(She's getting really damn sick of his explosions! (Bonus points for this one slipping past and getting onto the site. Ugh... XD Thanks for the heads up, PokéMaster64! Of course it had to be your character...))
- Bonus mistakes from ravengal's PMD fic, Birds of a Feather -
#43: 'Swears and tears ran down his face'
(Partner Piplup's turning into Death Threat Octillery, apparently.)
#44: "We're so screw..."
(Jesus, Piplup, you're a bit young for that, still. XD Maybe he thinks he's in one of those Mystery Dungeon fics where everyone has sex at the drop of a hat.)
#45: 'hugging her with his lippers.'
(Sounds hot, somehow.) (ravengal: "Damnit, Piplup, stop being horny! Calm your raging boner!")
#46: 'She took it in her tiny wig'
(Imagine a torchic in a little wig. XD Would she look like the Alolan dugtrios?)
#47: 'Thank you, please come again~!' the kecleon bothers both sang in joy.
(Rude, but warranted.)
-Another Red and Blue Mystery Dungeon mistake-
#48: Regirock: "INTRUDER ALERT! EXTREMINATE!"
(*Fires a laser that turns people into radical 90's kids*)
-Now we're researching Explorers of Sky, lol-
#49: Piplup: "We need to ho before those Sableye catch up."
(Kek, well, seems like a bad time, but alright. XD Maybe this is related to the book Salandit's apparently read, involving sableyes...? O,o)
Well that's all done! Cheers for reading, mate! :D
Also, don't you worry, none. I'm gonna make sure that none of them nasty Russians can read this fic! Especially not the innocent ones who simply want to live their lives, but have been ostracised by everyone in the world for a war their government has started. Bastards. That'll learn 'em, and not make them stay pissed off at us after things have calmed down! XP
Well, now with that virtue signali- Uh, I mean good, wholesome act of mine out the way, I'm off. Tata for now! c:
