[X] My Assistant

[Rasu]

The Rattata lunged forward towards Lucille, fangs glowing in a faint white that demonstrated the usage of Hyper Fang. The smoke strategy probably wouldn't work twice and there was no way to block the incoming attack this time, leaving the only option of enduring the hit. Lucille rose a paw as to protect herself which resulted in the Rattata gnawing at her ankle. A small crack was heard signaling the fact that the left bone covering the pup's ankle had cracked. Lucille yelped back in pain due to the attack. A Hyper Fang wasn't something to take lightly, much less coming from a Rattata who, being in their natural typing, had better mastery over the move than other types, something scientists usually referred to as S.T.A.B., translated to "Same Type Attack Bonus". Lucille, however, could also use that in her advantage, having a bigger selection between two types compared to the Rattata's single Normal-type.

"Lucille, Bite its tail and throw it upwards!" this confused the hound slightly. Throw it upwards? Why not just biting his face off? She followed it nonetheless and rushed by the Rattata, snapping her head in a ninety degree angle and taking hold of her foe's tail. With her bigger size and natural strength, the rat found itself mid-air with no way to escape. No friction meant no running which meant no dodging.

"Alright, lets light up that bastard! Ember!" the whole plan cleared up for the Houndour as she shot an group of blazing embers at the defenseless Rattata. Having no means of escape, the Mouse Pokemon took the attack and fell to the floor. However, at the same time, Lucille collapsed on her left front leg, still suffering from the previous Hyper Fang and bone injury.

The Dark Pokemon was now in a defenseless position herself, leaving her open to attacks would her foe still be able to get up and fight back.

[Headwind]

Alexis was alarmed when the other Pokemon, supposedly in their corner, yelped. It wasn't how Pokemon trainers should act, especially those from the Rebellion. They were supposed to be more focused and determined, not easily distracted and concerned. But he was an ally and Alexis wasn't the type to ignore his comrades.

He was, however, the type to get annoyed at his own lack of creativity. He had been using Poison Sting twice in a row now and still no lingering Poison effects on the target. It was frustrating, considering how limited Dorian's moves were.

"This is getting annoying," Alexis muttered under his breath. "If this doesn't go well, I may have bitten more than I could chew."

He once again assumed a persistent stance, "Dorian, use Harden then Tackle!"

It was a confusing command, so confusing that for a minute, the Silcoon had to look back at its trainer to try and figure out if he was serious. Alexis seemed dead serious. Dorian, not really wanting to just stand there and take a beating, especially since Uri's efforts had been geared towards helping him take that Bird Pokemon down, followed suit. It concentrated and its whole body glowed silvery white for a brief moment. Dorian could feel every part of his body tighten and strengthen.

The next thing it knew, it had flung itself towards the direction of Tweety. It was already mid-air, ready to reach impact. In Dorian's face, impact was the only solution. However, Tweety was too fast for it and it simply dodged the obvious attack. They could hear the Pidgey's trainer laugh.

"What are you trying to do? Defeat us with laughter?"

Alexis had other things in mind, "Now, Dorian! Poison Sting!"

The trainer's cheery face contorted into horror. This was what Alexis had planned to do from the beginning of his seemingly desperate commands: get close enough for the poison barbs to strike directly. By taking distance out of the equation, it could very well up their chances of poisoning the bird Pokemon. The effects would strike almost immediately in point blank range. Alexis and Dorian had their fingers (well, Alexis literally did) crossed for that scenario to happen.

[Kamaitachi]

The Magma Grunt grunted in something that sounded like a cross between horror and surprise. Speedy fell to the ground with a soft thud. Before the Rat pokemon had a chance to get back up, the red recall beam struck it, sucking it back into his pokeball to rest.

"Daffy, you're up!" In the rather customary flash of light, a blue duck pokemon appeared on the field. Even though its back was to her, Regan identified the foreign creature as a water type-pokemon. This was not due to any amount of Pokemon Knowledge, or even her own experience. No, the good Doctor had figured it out with basic logic: The Ember attack had indicated the Dark Pokemon's fire type. The blue bird had been summoned most likely to swing an advantage in the Magma's favour.

"Daffy!" he roared to the duck-pokemon, (Ducklett, as Regan would later find out from the report), "Water Gun!"

Her instincts correct, she hoped the mystery trainer who had arrived to help them could correctly combat the new threat. He had a Rhyhorn, which unless Regan missed her guess, was horribly weak to water. If he was, in fact, the owner of the Monkey from earlier, then perhaps the odds were more in his favour.

Meanwhile, on her own side of the battle, Alexis had ordered a "Harden" and "Tackle" respectively, much to the jeers of their opponent. With Uri's Helping Hand in play, Dorian's Harden had gained attack power, but the Tackle remained at its same power. She felt a bit irked that Alexis had wasted her support, and opted to use a foolish change in tactic, especially when the one they were using had worked so well. She half agreed with the enemy, but she definitely wasn't laughing. Instead, she had spent that round of combat glaring out of the corner at her eye at her partner who seemed deadset on losing the battle.

Her heart soared back up, however, upon sight that Alexis had indeed pulled something of a clever ploy. The result? A poisoned Pidgey on the verge of collapse. With Uri's speed, it would've been easy to run in and finish the creature off, ending this part of the match. In truth, Regan could not stand the sight of the creature suffering in such a way. Knocking it unconscious became her immediate priority.

"Uri, please use Pound."

Chirruping in a most pleasant manner, her Minccino scampered forward before delivering a hard smack with her tail to the Pidgey's face, sending the creature toppling to the ground. Regan's aim had been achieved. She didn't like ordering offensive moves from her pokemon, but it was, after all, de rigeur of Pokemon battles to include them. She wouldn't always have a partner, after all.

Yet, a nagging feeling in the back of her brain told her that the battle wasn't quite over. As if confirming thoughts pulled directly from Regan's brain, the Magma Thug summoned another pokemon to the field. He'd had the opportunity to even the field earlier, but had chosen to weaken his opposition first. That meant that he would now attempt to sweep up the remainder of his competition with this next pokemon:

"Marvin!"

A Pokemon that strongly resembled an alien appeared on the field. While it bore some resemblence to a humanoid anatomy, its dimension were entirely different. It also floated, which, admittedly, creeped Regan out a little bit.

"Confusion!"

A wave of psychic energy hummed through the air, knocking Uri back with surprising force. It seemed that the grunt had begun to decipher their fairly simple strategy, and was now aiming to take out the support before the main artillery. Regan mentally commended her enemy on his decisiveness, but found herself worried that Dorian alone couldn't take on the new threat. Then, upon realising that both she and Alexis had second pokemon of their own, she settled down a bit. In no way did Regan want to send in Sophie, unfortunately. The Togepi, despite her years, still looked and moved with the fragility of an infant. Battling with a Togepi was a desperation move to be sure, and one that held the possibility of actually killing their enemy with laughter.

Renewed with the goal of not having to send Sophie into a battle, Regan swung her hand out towards the pokemon that reeked of mystery.

"Uri, Pound!" If the alien was using Psychic moves, then it most likely focused on Special attacks like Confusion. From what Regan understood about Psychic Pokemon, she figured that this one was physically frail like many others. Unfortunately, as the pound attack landed squarely on the creature's large head, it seemed fairly unfazed by the hit. Regan's brow furrowed in concern as she noted, grimly, that perhaps its defenses were just fine after all.

[Rasu]

The Rattata was no longer a threat. Lucille had done her job of defeating the Magma fair and square, much to Khezu's rejoice. His first, actual battle against Team Magma ended up victorious.

Or so he thought. The Magma called a duck Pokemon out of its Pokeball. Khezu couldn't quite figure out what the thing was but assumed it was Water-typed, basing his guess on the blue feathers and, well, the fact that it was a duck. His fears were realized at its trainer ordered a Water Gun attack. The attack was powerful enough to finish off the weakened and crippled Lucille as she collapsed and was promptly called back to her Pokeball.

"Goddamn it." Khezu cursed under his breath. Lucille was out but Tank could probably crush the bird with one Stomp, the only problem being his rather low resistance to Special attacks and low speed. In normal circumstances the Rhyhorn would fall before even reaching the Ducklett. This left Khezu with Double S, who, up until that point, was serving as a mobile spy-cam. He didn't have another choice, though, and the Aipom would have gathered enough footage by now anyways.

"Double S, I'm gonna need your help here." the Aipom's hears perked up as his name was mentioned and made his way swiftly down the buildings. He took out the bow and tossed to Khezu as he didn't want his efforts to go to waste by losing the camera in battle.

Now came the tricky part; the Aipom lacked in firepower. His only damaging moves were Scratch and Astonish, counting Shadow Ball out to avoid any self-inflicted knockout from the exhaustion. The Aipom did, however, have a lot of harassing moves, most notably Sand-Attack and Tickle, even Tail Whip if the opponent was dumb enough to fall for that one.

It was worth a shot.

"Open up with a Sand-Attack and follow up with Astonish!" Astonish had the possibility to cause flinching is used accurately. Backing it up with Sand-Attack would, as Khezu hoped, create a miss-flinch situation where the opponent had both the chance to miss its attack due to the sand or flinch while receiving damage from Astonish.

[Kamaitachi]

Regan placed a forefinger and thumb to her forehead and temple respectively, closing her eyes for a moment to clear everything out. What she lacked in raw power in her pokemon, she made up for by supporting her allies wholeheartedly. She disliked combat, hence why she'd opted to try and play medic.

Noting that Marvin, the Elgyem, held dominion over Uri in terms of power, she opted to simply switch partners. For the time being, Alexis would have to deal with the alien-looking pokemon, which she hoped he could handle.

"Uri, use Swift on the duck!" Uri spun gracefully, slashing her tail at the air before her. Bright little star shaped shuriken shot forward, aimed directly at the Alien. As they neared impact, the Elgyem threw up a psychic barrier, which Regan figured to be protect. However, Uri's swift curved gently around them, slamming into the Ducklett, her true target.

As Daffy found himself struck from behind, Slinger Shot's Sand Attack and Astonish hit him from the front. He vaguely heard the command for 'Water Gun', but opted to remain flinched.

"You there, child." Regan called across to their ally "You take on the alien. Let me handle the duck! Uri! Doubleslap!"

Uri skittered past the alien, chanting her own name wildly as she did. The Elgyem, Marvin, seemed unsure as to what to do as the little chinchilla pokemon rocketed past him. Jumping up, Uri jumped onto the Ducklett's back and began pounding away with her little arms. Regan pressed her lips into a thin line, noting just how much Uri was enjoying the battle. Uri was a little monster that needed constant objectives to find fulfillment in the day. Usually, these involved her form of pleasing her trainer, so a battle seemed the right sort of thing. Even still, the cheer that the Minccino employed in battle did not seem fitting for a warrior, which meant that Uri probably thought the whole ordeal to be one big game.

"Marvin! Use Confusion!"

Regan froze for a moment as a psychic energy wrapped around Uri and threw her heavily into the alley wall. With a shriek of pain, Uri impacted hard and slid slowly to the ground. The Doctor's heart stopped for a moment when she noticed that the Minccino wasn't moving.

"Uri, return." Heartbroken from seeing her pokemon in such pain, she was hesitant to send out Sophie, her oldest and dearest friend, into the battlefield. As she touched the pokeball, however, it simply popped open, revealing the Togepi, who chirped excitedly on the field.

"Sophie..." Regan found herself at a loss for once. As if sensing her friend injured, Sophie had summoned herself to the field to partake in the fight. However, she didn't have a lot of damaging moves, except for the wildly unpredictable metronome. Dr. Chamuel wasn't the gambling sort, though, especially given the fact that she couldn't afford to lose the battle. "Fine. Use Sweet Kiss!"

Sophie waddled up to the Ducklett, hopping up and planting a kiss on his forehead. The Magmas laughed outright at the silliness of the technique.

"Daffy, Water Gun!" he managed to bark out between his guffaws. His laughter quickly subsided, though, as he watched his pokemon slam his head into the ground instead of use the commanded technique. Regan folded her arms, watching the Ducklett intently. Confusion had indeed set in, and now the Duck was a liability.

"Child, what are you waiting for?" Regan's iron gaze settled on Khezu across the field, summoning her most imperial sounding voice, she ordered: "Remove that psychic pest from the battle without further delay!"

With the battle raging on in the alleyway, Regan was sure that by now they'd made too much of a hullabaloo. Surely their anonymity had been compromised, and she had never been a good one for lying. Hearing shouts from behind her made it perfectly clear that defeat was imminent. More Magmas had arrived, and she'd wind up detained once more. The chances of a second rescue were minimal at best.

"Doom!"

Yes, that's right, Regan thought bitterly to herself. That's precisely what lies in store.

From behind her, a black body rushed past. Within only a moment, the alien-looking Elgyem lay on the ground, unconcious after a single bite from...a Houndoom? The two stunned Magma trainers looked on at the sudden reinforcements.

"Daffy, Water Gun!"

The desperate command fell on deaf ears as the Ducklett found something more interesting to do. Notably, the chosen activity involved hitting his head repeatedly against the wall while trying to drunkenly fly into it.

"Funderdang...dang..." Regan heard behind her. Snapping her head back, she found herself surprised at the sudden appearance of a disgusting hobo. He appeared to be missing several teeth, possessed sunken yellow eyes, and porous skin. Her mind flashed to jaundice and malnutrition, but noticed an odd sparkle to his 'remaining' teeth. Peering over her glasses and squinting, she deduced that the 'blacked out' teeth had been painted over. The Hobo's yellow eyes seemed unnatural...contacts perhaps. His oily, bulbous skin lacked the actual tone of skin, and seemed off in patchy places. Make-up.

Meanwhile, the Houndoom, evidently responding to 'Funderdangdang', bristled ferociously. The demon dog's mouth filled with crackling electricity before he sprang forward, clamping down on the obfuscated duck. The creature fell unconscious almost immediately, but it still broke Regan's heart a little to see the poor bird twitching from the electricity coursing through his body.

The two Magma grunts fumbled about to return their pokemon, successfully doing so, but not before the Houndoom released a cloud of poison gas into their faces. The two dropped to the ground immediately. Wordlessly, the hobo strode forward, running his greasy hand along the Houndoom's back. The Dark-Fire type beamed happily up at his apparent trainer, looking quite pleased with himself. With a real lack of concern as to their well being, the Hobo picked lifted one, then the other, as if they weighed a mere nothing, and carelessly tossed them into the dumpster with the other two. Touching a spot underneath his bedraggled had and stringy hair, he whispered something that sounded like: "Disposed."

As he walked back past Regan and Alexis, he smiled, then said: "Get back to base." softly to them, so as not to let Khezu hear. With that, he stumbled back to the corner of the alleyway, where he'd gone unnoticed the entire time. The Houndoom disappeared in a flash of red light as the Hobo settled down. Once settled, Regan heard nothing but: "Flurging Mamagas. Schtoopid rood margmfas."

With a smile, Regan scooped up Sophie, who wiggled happily in her arms. She reached out, leading Alexis and Dorian out of the alleyway, passing the probably confused Khezu.

"You really helped us out there. I'll find a way to repay you." She nodded curtly as she passed, leading her friends out of the alley and back to the bus station.

Even if not entirely under their own power, it felt good to accomplish a mission, no matter how rookie it had been.