[X] My Assistant

[Kamaitachi]

The air felt surprisingly crisp, and Francesco Rojas could watch his own breath rise into the air. His life had been an emotional rollercoaster, and he had nothing better to describe it with than a cheesy metaphor. He rarely had to deal with things that felt specifically like "feelings". Normally, he would down them away with some beer, or with something distracting. But out here in the crisp fall air around Mt. Carello, he had nothing to distract him.

Why had he walked down from his home in Arasam to get some fresh air? Why was a slow, pensive stroll the best idea for times like these? The thoughts were just confusing and mostly annoying.

He clasped his dark brown bomber jacket to himself to warm up a little. The tufts of what Cesc hoped was fake fur kept his neck warm. His scarf, made by his aunt, was green and gold, matching his gloves and woolly cap. His jeans, however, had probably been a poor choice; it was a bit cold for jeans without long johns.

"I have an idea." He said aloud to no one. "It's times like these that we can just buckle down and do some work."

He flipped out one of his pokeballs, summoning his Sneasel to the field.

"Let's work on an appeal for you." He smiled "The weather is in your favour, right?"

The Sneasel gave what appeared to be a salute, a trait he'd perhaps picked up from Cesc's more militant Zangoose.

"Let's get out there! Hmmm...Can you get a cloud of Icy Wind, then carve it into a shape with Fury Swipes...then Freeze it all with Ice Punch?"

The Wind blasted upwards, and as it fell towards the ground, Oberon the Sneasel set to work slashing away before punching the conflageration with a fist glowing with icy blue energy.

The result was a mess; an explosion of icy shards falling every which way. On top of that, the brief shape formed by the Icy Wind combo had no discernible shape whatsoever.

"Good start, buddy, but practice makes perfect." He pointed out a rock-face on the side of the mountain. "Let's use metal claw and work on carving shapes. Let's start with a triangle."

With a nod, the dark weasel Pokemon shot towards the rock. Cesc watched intently, his mind wonderfully devoid of all thoughts about girls.

[7eeveelutions]

"Ebony won't have any problems disarming one more poacher, but disarming both of the subordinates would be rather hard for him...... and there's nothing he can do about the boss's shotgun since it's slung across the guy's back. I'm more worried about Ruby though. She's...... tired. And I'd bet we're going to have major paralysis problems with all those Electrike and Butterfree, plus that Umbreon probably has Confuse Ray and maybe even Moonlight, so there may be problems there too."

Remembering back to basic training, Scott looked towards the wild Absol and Glaceon. Glaceon seemed to glare at him, giving him the "You're not good enough for me" look, but the Absol seemed like she would be more than happu to help. There was just one problem.

"Umm...... what kinds of moves does an Absol learn?" Scott quickly pulled out his cell phone to look it up, but even with the somewhat-more-advanced Ranger technologies that were supposed to allow a Ranger to contact allies even in the most remote locations, he still had no signal. "Well, crap. So much for being able to use a phone everywhere. Apart from the usual myths about Absols bringing destruction, really the only thing I know about them is that they have Perish Song, because that was mentioned in one of the training courses as a very dangerous move." Looking at Absol's huge claws and the horn on one side of its head, he said, "I presume they have some kind of slashing attacks, but other than that......"

Silently, he made a mental note to try and find a method to be able to figure out what kinds of moves any Pokemon he might come across during his travels would use. Maybe some kind of booklet would work...... or maybe he needed a Pokedex or something similar. He knew that a few of the higher-ranked Rangers (usually those who patrolled an entire region instead of just part of the region) had an item called the Rangerdex, but they were very hard to get a hold of and much more limited in their usage than a Pokedex, along with being restricted to the Pokemon naturally living in the region, thus leaving out any rare Pokemon from other regions that Trainers might bring with them.

In any case, he didn't have such an object now, so his knowledge was rather limited. In a perfect world he would have been able to sit down and figure out what Absol could do before they attacked the poachers, but they didn't have time for that and Cesc looked like he was ready to stomp on some poachers. "Oh well. I'll improvise. Ruby already does her own thing, so hopefully this won't be too bad...... let's go."

To prevent the poachers from seeing any of the lights created by him releasing his Pokemon from their Pokeballs, Scott let Ebony and Ruby out at the top of the cliff before he began to skirt around the side of the cave towards where the cages were. Absol followed him, while Glaceon stayed at the top of the cliff. For a minute Scott was confused as to why it wasn't coming to help, before he remembered that it had some nasty ranged attacks. "Staying at the top of the cliff to stay out of range of any counterattacks? That's smart for a wild Pokemon...... "

He took up position behind a thick tree and looked around. Between him and the clearing where the poachers stood arguing about something, there were two rows of large bushes (with no thorns) and no more trees, while around him there were several other small trees and bushes. He pointed to a small bush right across from him and whispered, "Ebony, hide in there. When a poacher comes through, I want you to use Covet to steal his gun. After that, I'm going to tackle the guy, and I want you to bite one of his hands and hold on tight until I tell you to let go." If only Scarlet could still fight, I could have her take the poacher's other hand.

"Absol, find a large bush and stay hidden for now. If any Pokemon come with the poacher, I want you to take them down however you see fit, but try and keep it as quiet as possible and stay out of sight of the rest of the poachers."

"Now then, Ruby......" He paused for a moment, before continuing, "I want you to go out there and get their attention. Act cute or bark at them or something, but don't actually attack them." Ruby looked away for a moment, so Scott cupped her small head in between his hands and forced her to look at him. "Look at me. Don't attack. You'll only get yourself hurt. Okay? You want to save those other little Vulpix in that cage, right? Get them to come right between me and Ebony."

He gave Ruby a little push towards the clearing, followed by a quick "And be careful!" as she darted off through the bushes.

She paused at the last bush, before walking out into the clearing. Nobody noticed her do this, so she began barking at the Ninetales' cage. "Vul! Vul! Vul! Vul......pix!?!?!"

This, of course, caused all the poachers, their Pokemon, and the wild Pokemon stuck in the cages to swing around and look at her, causing her to stutter mid-bark. Slowly, she backed up a few steps, before whipping around and running into the bushes.

And this was where things started to go wrong, because the first thing to start to chase after Ruby was not one of the poachers...... but instead the Mightyena, followed by a poacher who was yelling, "No, Mightyena, wait!"

Scott's heart caught in his throat. Any of the other Pokemon would have been taken care of by his team easily, but Mightyena......

His mind quickly flashed backwards almost seven months to when he got his two Eevees. They had been orphaned by a pack of Mightyena, who killed their parents before they were driven off by Scott and Ruby. They understandably were terrified of the dark dogs, and Ruby didn't much care for them either.

In particular, though, his mind flashed back to one particular moment in that battle...... when a Mightyena had torn his right arm open from his shoulder to his elbow with a clawing attack. The scar would be with him permanently, although it wasn't especially noticeable since it was on the underside/back of his arm and it was often partially covered by his shirt.

As Ruby ran past him, Scott tensed and noticed that Ebony began to cower as the Mightyena approached. He quickly thought up a plan. "Absol, let Mightyena pass us and then attack it with Ruby. Whatever you do, don't let it come back near Ebony."

A moment later, Mightyena ran by them. However, it must have seen Scott as it ran by, because it put on the brakes and slid to a stop, beginning to turn around before getting blindsided by the female Absol. As they wrestled on the ground, the poacher ran up beyond the tree, and Scott and Ebony.

However, as his gaze was still transfixed on the Mightyena, Ebony failed to part the poacher and his handgun. Scott decided to take the chance and didn't waste any time tackling the guy to the ground, even as he reached for his gun to help his Mightyena.

As their fight started, he could only hope that Cesc was having better luck.