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Posted by: 7eeveelutions Sep 25 2014, 11:00 PM

Deep within the rainforests of Fidona, Pokemon of many different varieties could be heard communicating with each other. The trees and underbrush were filled with the songs of birds, the grunts and growls of foxes, wolves, and cats, and many sounds, some more unique than others.

Such as the sound of a Ninetales being slammed into the ground and yelping.

In fact, in this particular part of the forest, the sounds of a battle had been ongoing for nearly fifteen minutes.

The (male) Ninetales was on a path through the northernmost portion of the island, nearly 50 miles north of the small town of Fidona that gave the island its name. The path itself, while clearly visible, was also quite clearly not very well-traveled; it was originally made of cobblestone, but was in the latter stages of disintegration and now contained just as much dirt and weeds as it did stone. On one side of the path were the large trees that made the rainforest so famous, while on the other side of the path was a small clearing maybe a hundred feet wide shaped somewhat like a circle.

On one side of that clearing was the Ninetales' Trainer, a bulky Hiker who looked like he was about to pull his hair out in frustration. Across from him sat a tall, thin Ranger, who was perched on a boulder about as big as he was and looked far calmed than the Hiker. In front of the Ranger stood a little female Espeon wearing a reddish-brown Ranger vest.

Notably, the Ranger had a short sword with a red-brown sheath dangling from one side of his waist, and a small black plastic holster on the other side, although the contents of the holster were not visible. The Hiker, of course, had a giant backpack with what appeared to be some kind of fold-up tent attached to it.

"This is going much better than I ever would have hoped......" the Ranger muttered.

Just going off of size alone, the Espeon should never have won that battle. She was not yet fully grown, and her height currently sat at about two and a half feet. The Ninetales, on the other hand, was not only fully grown but actually substantially bigger and bulkier than most of its species, and it stood right around four and a quarter feet tall. In addition to this, there was clearly a huge age difference, and thus a huge difference in battle experience. It was quite clear what would normally happen when something that big got a hold of something that small.

But that hadn't happened. In fact, the Ninetales had yet to even land a hit on the Espeon. Whenever it tried attacking from range, the Espeon would either dodge or use Protect. If it tried to close in and strike, the Espeon would not simply dodge, but do something far more dangerous.

Every time the Espeon was caught at close range in an unfavorable situation, it teleported into a more favorable location.

And that was why the Ninetales was currently lying flat on his belly with his legs spread out in random directions.

He had attempted to use Flamethrower as a distraction to get the Espeon to dodge, then use Quick Attack to catch it while it dodged. Only moments before it had already forced the Espeon into using Protect to block another attack, so she had to wait a little while before she could use it again. The hiker had ordered the combo attack thinking this would be their best chance, as the Espeon was clearly getting tired by this point.

But then she had teleported to a position about ten feet directly above the Ninetales, and had used Telekinesis on herself to give her body downwards velocity. Essentially, she turned the dodge into a flying drop-kick that struck poor Ninetales right on his back.

And to make things worse, the Ranger and his Espeon were communicating through telepathy, so the Hiker and his Ninetales didn't ever have the sligtest clue about what was coming next.

As his Pokemon struggled to stand back up after that attack, the Hiker decided to take the easy way out and cast aside his pride so that Ninetales could rest.

"All right, that's enough! We forfeit. You win, Ranger. That little Eeveelution of yours is surprisingly adept."

"Ahh? You give up? Well, fine. Scarlet hasn't lost a battle yet since she learned how to teleport. It isn't something most people or Pokemon are used to fighting against. Nobody seems to have the slightest clue how to counter it...... except for me, of course. My name is Scott by the way. I'm an Area Ranger from the Loch Ranch area, but I'm all the way out here because of some personnel shortages."

The Hiker recalled his Ninetales. "My name is Luke. I'm actually the head of the Fidona Tour Services. I usually try to make a point of challenging all the rangers I see, but..... I'm not used to losing. This was just a 1 on 1 battle though, maybe if it had been two on two or 6 on 6......"

"4 on 4 is the best I can manage, but you still would have lost, because then you would have been distracted by Scarlet while a more threatening member of my team attacked." The small Espeon suddenly teleported again, this time onto Scott's shoulders with her backs legs on his left shoulder and her front legs on his right shoulder, and her body curved around the back of Scott's head somewhat similar to a neck pillow.

"...... I am going to have to go home and reflect upon this battle. If we meet again and have a rematch, you can be sure the outcome will be different." Hiker Luke started off down the path southwards back towards Fidona.

Scott and Scarlet watched them leav, before Scott fed his Espeon a pair of berries- Oran and Leppa- to restore her health and strength. Afterwards, she finally got down from his shoulders, and he returned her back to the Great Ball she resided in so she could rest. "Guess I might as well get back to patrolling......"

He looked up at the sky for a few moments and tapped his sword sheath twice with one of his fingers before jumping down off of the rock.

Posted by: Darkrow Sep 27 2014, 09:56 PM

Even sleeping was becoming annoying. How was Lucie supposed to forget about her problems momentarily if she always had the exact same dreams that represented one of the things bothering her? All it did was make her feel even angrier when she woke up that it wasn’t real. If she felt particularly lonely before going to sleep, her dream had her stuck in an endless ballroom with everyone fighting to dance with her. If she felt particularly angry at her poverty, she was stuck in the most lavish castle imaginable. If she felt particularly hungry, then she would be sitting in a room with an enormous table covered in all the food she could ever dream of.

The latter was currently happening.

This time around, the table was filled with desserts of all shapes, sizes and origins, from Kanto’s ice cream to cakes baked all the way from Kalos. Multi-level cakes, vats of ice cream, enormous cookies of varying flavors, giant sundaes with too many different toppings, every kind of chocolate, mountains of each kind of candy, stacked pies, donuts as big as her old self’s waistline and clouds of cotton candy littered the seemingly endless table. When the dream started, she was always thin, and overcome by gluttony and greed, started eating the treats in front of her. As this was a dream, impossible things happened, such as her getting fatter by the minute, her clothes and the chair she was sitting on getting bigger for her, her always being able to reach for more even when she became too large to reach past her belly and breasts.

As she took a bite of sickeningly sweet and pink cotton candy, a very loud chirp ripped her away from her gluttonous dream, startling her enough for her to let out a shrill shriek. The pudgy homeless girl had bitten her beloved little Spritzee, Pistache, in her sleep, the fluffy little bird’s feathers and shape being the culprits as to why Lucie had mistaken her for cotton candy. It didn’t help that she usually used the little bird as a pillow, much to its delight. As a result, Lucie always fell asleep to wonderful smells and seeing her favorite color.

“Oh God! I’m sorry, Pistache! I thought you were… cotton candy…” Lucie exclaimed loudly, growing quieter and trailing off as her jiggly stomach grumbled upon the mention of cotton candy. Despite being homeless for half a year, Lucie used to be so massive that even that wasn’t enough for her to lose all her excess weight. Going from eating three people’s worth of food every two hours to eating for half a person each day left her always starving.

Pistache chirped a few times and fixed her neon pink plumage before cuddling into her master adorably, letting out a little tweet. Soon after that, Lucie’s three other pokémon (she never put them in her pokéballs) joined Pistache, leading the entitled brat to actually let a rare smile appear on her lips. She loved those four so much, they were her only friends and the only ones who could tolerate her. They knew how hard it was for her to live this life and they did their best to help her be happy. That’s why they all helped her wash herself and get her food.

Unfortunately for the five of them, there was no water nearby and it was late enough in the day for people to be awake, making it hard for Lucie’s pompom-tailed Purrloin, Praline, to steal anything. Lucie would have to stay dirty and hungry for now, it seemed. Putting on her oversized, tattered dress, which she used as a blanket, Lucie got up and looked at her surroundings; it was so dark when she had gotten off that ship that she couldn’t see a single thing then.

“…This place is so ugly and humid, ugh… hopefully this is where soap grows so this won’t have been a pointless trip…” the plump teenager muttered to herself, letting Pistache rest on her shoulder while she carried her pink-nosed Litleo, Peanut. The little feline made a happy sound and rolled onto his back, earning himself a few belly scratches.

Lucie’s gray Minccino, Pecan, stood proudly at her side, but his short attention span and enhanced hearing didn’t let him stay still for very long. Hearing footsteps and talking from within the thick rainforest in front of him, his curiosity got the best of him and he scurried away towards it without warning. As always, Lucie noticed, cried out his name and ran after him, Praline hopping on her head.

“Pe… Pecan! Come… Come back here! We could get… lost…” she shouted out after a minute or two, already exhausted, calves on fire from the brief running. It dawned on her as she said it that she (and Pecan) had done so many twists and turns that Lucie had no idea where she was now or from where she had come from. And to make things worse, she had lost sight of her elusive, hyperactive Minccino.

Now that the only sound she was making was exhausted panting, Lucie was aware of the bizarre sounds of the humid rainforest and, quite frankly, they scared her. Buzzing, cracking, shuffling, creaking, croaking… All sounds she had never really heard before. Without realising it, she squeezed her Litleo against her chest like a child would hold a cherished toy when scared.

“…Pecan…?” she said a bit quietly, voice tinged with uncertainty and fear as she looked around helplessly. The last thing Lucie wanted in these trying times was to lose one of her pillars of sanity and one of her closest friends. She repeated the Minccino’s name a few times with varying levels of whining and volume as she walked slowly through the rainforest, coated in sweat.

“Uuuuugh, this temperature is unbearable!” she yelled angrily, patience wearing thin. She didn't care that it would probably alert anything nearby, nor did she really think about that. “I want my air conditioner back! I'm thirsty and starving and this place is useless and fucking gross!! Why did I even bother coming here?!"

Posted by: FirePower Sep 28 2014, 09:22 PM

Kaya dashed through the jungle, grinning ear to ear. Just a week ago her leg had finally been declared healed, and the splint taken off. There would be no more hobbling around on crutches, slowing everyone down and having a hard time getting around. Manera, her Blitzle, raced alongside her, braying joyously. She seemed to be enjoying Kaya's freedom as much as Kaya was.

It was the first time in a while that Kaya had been off by herself. She'd come out here with her friend Luke Undar. They'd been on the island for Kaya's first gym battle, but since the gym was temporarily closed they were traveling around the island. It was a good way to while away the time, and there was plenty of time for Kaya and her team to train. Kaya wasn't really one to skip some potential training time; that's why she was in the jungle while Luke was barfing it up with the flu. At least there was a pokemon center nearby so Luke didn't have to upchuck his way all the way back to the city.

Kaya stopped and rested her hands on her knees. Manera was panting too. Not a bad run for only a week out of her cast.

"Take a rest, 'Nera," Kaya said. She closed her eyes and let the sounds of the jungle fill her mind. The air was hot and sticky, but she didn't care. Being out here with her Pokemon was enough to make her happy.

Posted by: Hydra Sep 29 2014, 04:58 PM

Sebastian and his crew of pokemon had been rather peacefully traveling into the depths of the rainforest of Fidona and for the first time the rapscallion pair of Bolt the Elekid and Flame the Magby had seemingly run out of energy. It had been when Sebastian was making tracks towards Petropolis and was confronted by an old man on the outskirts of the city, the old man proposed a deal that involved Blitzle in exchange for a Magby and Elekid who had learnt an assortment of high quality moves, initially Sebastian had thought it was a very fair deal that the old man had offered and true to his personality the fiery haired boy from Unova rashly in turn accepted the offer. It did not take too long for the young adult from the Unova region to realize the extra baggage that was attached to the pair of Elekid and Magby and why the old man had been so keen to complete a two for one trade, however by the time Sebastian realized this the old man was long gone. After an unsuccessful venture in Petropolis, Sebastian turned his focused firmly towards acquiring his first gym badge in the Furoh region and had set his sights on the island of Fidona where he would challenge they Gym Leader of the island, Maxy-Z to a battle.

Since arriving in Fidona earlier in the day and venturing deep into the rainforest it was becoming readily apparent that the humidity of the day was starting to get to Sebastian and his crew, that was possibly the reason why Bolt and Flame did not seem like there energetic yet irritating selves. The crew found a large tree with vines dangling all over the place that provided sufficient shade from the gleaming hot sun; it was time to take a break. Jaws the Totodile had been using a toned down version of his water gun move to cool he and his teammates off, Blade however was not impressed with the helpful act from his teammate as his wings were getting wet and therefore making his body heavier. Sebastian had been keeping a close eye on each of his pokemon as they enjoyed the shelter that the trees provided from the sun, Blade was rubbing his white scythe like arms along each other in attempt to sharpen them ready for a future battle, Jaws was peacefully chewing on the end of his tail whilst keeping eye contact with his trainer and receiving a judgmental look from him and finally for the first time Bolt and Magby had fallen to sleep, all in all it was a very peaceful moment in time. That moment of peacefulness was short-lived as a Vigoroth descended from the tree that Sebastian had his back leaned against and used its two sharp black claws to rip a hole in the white half-hoodie that he had been wearing. Sebastian quickly reacted by jumping to his feet and standing his ground as the violent looking wild monkey pokemon looked set to go on a rampage.

"You hyperactive piece of shit baboon, you want to pick a fight then bring it on you little bitch!"

The Vigoroth had moved away after sneak attacking Sebastian so to protect itself from any backlash from the human. Sebastian moved his feet into the stance he had been taught whilst learning mixed martial arts in the Unova region, he then proceeded to raise his fists into position and was ready to fight. Now that the hyperactive Vigoroth had lured his target into a fight it rabidly charged towards its human counterpart with the intent in its eyes to hurt him as the distance between the monkey pokemon and Sebastian was shrinking quickly. Blade the Scyther was quick to react to the turn of events as he advantageously used his Quick Attack move to disappear from the spot in the shade under the tree and re-appeared in front of the on-charging Vigoroth and tackled it in a direct collision where both pokemon were sent tumbling away from each other in opposite directions. Sebastian's chance to exhibit his skills in mixed martial arts had been interrupted by his own pokemon, it was not the result that he had wanted however it would suffice for the time being, he knew in his mind that he would get his revenge.

"I could have handled that myself Blade! Since you want to play the role of the hero then make yourself useful and use your Double Team move!"

The wild and violent Vigoroth was the first pokemon back to its feet after the collision as it began charging towards Blade who had stayed grounded a while longer to pay close attention to detail of his trainers commands. The white sloth-like bipedal pokemon however had both its arms spinning in a circular motion as it ran along the soft grass preparing its razor sharp claws to rip into its bug type opposition's body. Blade was back to his feet and staring into the rage enveloped eyes of Vigoroth as he waited for the right moment to execute his move. Vigoroth was about the strike Blade with its Scratch attack; however the timing of execution of Double Team by Blade re-iterated that 'patience is a virtue'. Vigoroth swiped at Blade but came up empty with its attack as it attacked a fake duplicate of the bug type pokemon, leaving only four Scyther's surrounding the wild monkey pokemon.

"Haha you stupid ass monkey couldn't even get your attack right. Now Blade use Vacuum Wave!"

Almost instantly after hearing his trainers command Blade and his duplicates leapt into the air in-sync so that Vigoroth could not tell which one the real Scyther was and which are the fake duplicates. Blade and his copies scythe like arms were now covered in a white glow as the mantis pokemon begun to spin around with its head and arms extended and facing the wild monkey pokemon. In a valiant effort, the enraged Vigoroth leapt into the air and struck at one of the four possible options of the mantis pokemon, however the monkey pokemon lucked out as it only eliminated a duplicate. Now both pokemon were in descent towards the ground as Blade's duplicates disappeared and revealed the real mantis pokemon to be behind Vigoroth as it fired a horizontal tornado from its body towards the monkey pokemon. The tornado connected with the back of Vigoroth as the monkey pokemon begun to free-fall towards the ground, the attack had done a significant amount of damage. In the meantime Jaws had stopped chewing on the end of his tail and was preparing an attack of his own whilst his trainer wasn't paying any attention to him.

"Don't let that stupid monkey rest Blade, hit it with you Wing Attack as it falls towards the ground."

Blade allowed his body to rotate so that his head was facing towards the free-falling monkey pokemon; it was nearing the ground thanks in part to its weight and the rapid speed it was traveling at. The mantis pokemons wings begun to glow white and grew in size as he dove towards Vigoroth. The expression on Sebastian's face said everything; he was intent with getting revenge. As Blade lunged his frame towards Vigoroth to put his attack in action, the monkey pokemon latched his claws into the sides of the mantis pokemon as he used the momentum at which his opposition was traveling with to rotate his body so that it was above Blade; Vigoroth then proceeded to exert as much force as it possibly could as the two pokemon slammed into the ground. Both pokemon looked to have taken a significant amount of damage from Vigoroth's sudden Body Slam move; however it looked as though Blade was stuck in the one spot and clearly unable to move.

"Get up Blade, stop lazing around!"

Vigoroth leapt towards Blade with its sharp claws leading the way, the monkey pokemon was relentless and despite it boiling over with rage it was seemingly able to think of its next movements ahead of time. Blade was as most would say a 'sitting duck' as he lay defenseless and paralyzed on the ground, about to be mauled by Vigoroth's oncoming attack. Had it not been for Jaws the Totodile jumping at Vigoroth's tail and latching onto it with his teeth then Blade's day may have been over. Jaws sunk his razor sharp teeth into Vigoroth's tail as the monkey pokemon screeched in pain and flailed his arms in hope of knocking the big jaw pokemon off of his tail. Vigoroth concentrated his movement and struck Totodile fair on the head as the brave young Totodile's grip on the monkey pokemon weakened until he detached his teeth from his opponent's tail. Now Vigoroth was intent on hurting Jaws for distracting him as he lunged towards the Totodile with his claws yet again leading the way for his attack.

"Bolt and Flame, get your asses to work and stop this monster!"

There was no response from the usually never quite pair, as Sebastian quickly scanned the surrounding area his Magby and Elekid were no-where in sight. It was a very inopportune time for them to disappear; the extra stress that the situation had created led to the young adult from the Unova Region to launch a pokeball towards Vigoroth. The pokeball hit the wild pokemons body just in time as he had begun to swipe at Jaws the Totodile who was lying on the ground afraid to get back to his feet. The red light emitted from the pokeball sucked Vigoroth inside as the red and white spherical device dropped to the ground and shook violently; Vigoroth was obviously trying very hard to escape. After a significant amount of shaking the pokeball stopped shaking and the light in the center of the ball had gone from a red color to white.

"What in the hell did I just do…"

It wasn't until after Sebastian had captured the wild Vigoroth that he had truly realized what he had done. The stress of the moment had led to him saving his pokemon by capturing his new enemy, who was now his ally. Sebastian walked over to where Blade, Jaws and the pokeball with Vigoroth inside lay, the fiery haired trainer did not applaud his pair of pokemon for their effort in battle and instead he simply returned them to their pokeballs. Sebastian picked up the pokeball with Vigoroth inside and shook his head in disbelief to the events that had taken place, then he suddenly remember that he had commanded his Magby and Elekid to assist in the battle. It seemed as though the pair had disappeared, most likely pulling a prank on their trainer. With a distinctly pissed off look on his face with the pair, Sebastian set off to find where Bolt and Flame had gotten off to.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Sep 29 2014, 10:54 PM

"Eh?"

Scott had just started walking down the path when he thought he heard someone yelling angrily at something. He turned and looked for a moment in the direction he thought it had come from, before continuing on down the path.

The Hiker he had just battled had said he was the leader of a tour company, so he probably had a tour group nearby. That was probably a member of the group. What they were so angry at, he didn't really care. If they needed his help, he was only a short radio call away.

He took a few steps more and then heard something in the bushes, so he turned and looked again. But it was just a Minccino. He didn't notice that it had slightly different colored fur than a normal Minccino however, so he dismissed it as a wild Pokemon and continued on down the path a few more steps before his cell phone began to ring.

Most people- in fact, just about everyone- wouldn't have cell service in the middle of a rainforest, but Scott's phone had a special SIM card plugged into it which connected it to the Ranger satellite network. As a result, as long as he wasn't underground, he always had cell service. The upgrade was an expensive one, but most Rangers still bought it because their job often sent them to places far off the cell grid.

"Tch. Amber......" Scott muttered, then answered the call. "What do you want?"

"Have you seen the news within the past five hours?"

"I'm in the middle of a rainforest, Amber. What do you think?"

"So you haven't heard what's happened, then?"

His partner's voice sent chills down his spine. "...... Is something wrong?"

"You could say that. About 9 AM this morning, Echo 2 crashed just west of Lenolia while it was on a medevac call. There were six people on board, two Ranger pilots, a third Ranger, a civilian crew chief, an EMT, and a civilian patient in medical distress. None of them survived the crash, although it does appear that some of their Pokemon who were inside balls at the time did."

"Oh. That sucks," Scott muttered. Echo 2 was the callsign for the Furoh Ranger's second Black Hawk helicopter. They only had three Black Hawks total, Echoes 1, 2, and 3, so this essentially meant that for emergencies the Rangers had just lost a third of their quick-response abilities.

He then asked, "Does anyone know what happened? Mechanical problem, maybe?"

Amber's voice suddenly got really serious. "No. It was shot down."

Scott's mind blanked for a moment. "You can't be serious. Furoh doesn't even have a military. Who could have shot it down? And with what?"

"A terrorist group called the Brotherhood of Fear claimed responsibility. They're apparently a major problem in Fiore and Almia, and a minor problem in Sinnoh now that Team Galactic has collapsed, but until now they've not operated in any of the other regions. Why, I don't know, but they apparently want to enslave every Pokemon and thus don't like anyone who treats them with any respect, which is essentially everyone. As for with what, it seems that they used an old missile system called the Redeye, which would never have hit a military helicopter fitted with countermeasures, but of course to make them cheaper all of our Black Hawks lack any sort of missile defense system...... as a result, Echo 1 and Echo 3 have been grounded until further notice, along with the vast majority of police helicopters across the continent."

Amber paused for a moment, then continued. "Of course, coast guard helicopters, medical helicopters, and other civilian helicopters are still flying, so they're at risk. Luckily, most airliners fly high enough and fast enough that the Redeye system simply can't reach them, and it likely doesn't pack the punch needed to take down an airliner anyway."

Scott thought for a moment, then said, "Well, Fidona's airport is tiny, so that's probably why nobody has contacted me about this until now."

"Probably. They're currently having every available Ranger patrol around all the major airports to make sure no more attacks are made."

"I see. Did anyone catch the guy who shot down our helicopter?"

"No, he's still on the loose."

"Okay, keep me updated then. I'm going to head back to Fidona in case I'm needed."

Scott cut the call and turned around to begin walking back in the direction he had come from, noticing that the Minccino was still in the bushes nearby. Having not seen many of its species before, he again failed to notice that it was missing all of the white patches on its fur. He did notice, though, that it seemed rather confused about something. Maybe it had some friends nearby and had been separated from them?

He started to reach for Scarlet's Great Ball again, but decided that she needed to rest after her battle, so he grabbed a Luxury Ball off of his belt instead and released his newest, and yet eldest, team member.

A quick white flash revealed a fully-grown male Leafeon wearing a reddish-brown Ranger vest, who sat down on some of the damaged cobblestones that made up the path. Moss craved warmth more than anything; he was very gentle and loved to sit on the laps of anyone near him. At night, he tended to snuggle up next to anything warm he could find when he wanted to sleep, and during the day warm stones were his favored locations to sit.

And unlike Scott, who was carrying a sword on his left hip and a holster with a special non-lethal weapon on his right hip, he didn't look even slightly threatening, so he could be used to talk to scared Pokemon.

"Hey there buddy...... could you go and see what's bothering that Mincinno over there? I don't want to scare it, and Scarlet is exhausted, so I'd rather you do it."

After a gentle nudge from the Ranger, Moss got up and walked over towards the Mincinno, seemingly ignoring the fact that he was nearly triple the size of the smaller Chinchilla Pokemon.

Posted by: Darkrow Sep 30 2014, 08:46 AM

Lucie’s sudden yelling had been enough to hurt her two feline pokémon’s ears, and they responded by making loud meows and pawing at her face (though not aggressively). The random burst of anger, however, caused her to squeeze Peanut even harder, resulting in a high-pitched, pained half-growl half-meow. Snapping out of it and letting him go, Lucie stepped back in surprise. As cute as Peanut was, he still was a rather violent lion who could spit fire of all things; he was dangerous. Even though he loved Lucie dearly and never would hurt her, the chubby brat still was scared that he’d get angry at her eventually and burn her alive or something. Praline found herself curling up into a ball on her head, using her sense of balance to stay, well, balanced. As confident and affectionate as the Purrloin was, Lucie had been violent with her for the first few months of their relationship, causing Praline to get very scared of her when she was angry. However, she rarely ever ran away for the same reason. What if Lucie caught her and then hurt her again?

In just less than an hour, Lucie had managed to hurt and/or scare Praline, Peanut and Pistache, gotten lost in a rainforest, lost Pecan and exhausted herself by sprinting briefly. Fortunately, Peanut didn’t seem angry at her since he started rubbing against her thick calves, seemingly to try and calm her down. Similarly, Praline rubbed gently against her cheek (having hopped down to the shoulder that Pistache wasn’t on after calming down) and Pistache was releasing the sweetest of smells. Lucie, as always, found herself wondering how her pokémon still found it in them to forgive her and take care of her after all the things she had done and said to them.

Crying out her species’ name, Praline hopped off her master’s shoulder and landed on her hind legs, pompom tail swaying gently. Putting a paw on her hip, she meowed and motioned to follow before walking on all fours again. She knew Lucie lacked the necessary initiative to go and look for Pecan immediately in her current state of mind, but the pudgy girl would certainly follow her.

“…Right, Pecan, sorry…” Lucie mumbled awkwardly. Her four pokémon were definitely the only living beings on the planet she’d willingly apologise to without thinking. As soon as she spoke, Praline purred happily and lead the way, Peanut following closely. The pink-nosed Litleo took his self-appointed job as bodyguard very seriously. In fact, he somewhat blamed himself for Pecan running away; the little Chinchilla pokémon was extremely curious and scatterbrained and most likely meant no harm, but if Peanut hadn’t been in Lucie’s arms he could have stopped him. He stayed close to the carefree Purrloin, as always.

“…You’re not mad at me, are you?” Lucie asked her fluffy little Spritzee, who chirped and rubbed itself against her face, making her smile and put a hand on it. All four of her pokémon knew that she preferred Pistache due to her plumage’s colors; as much as she coddled (to the best of her abilities) the four of them, Pistache always seemed to get special treatment and always stayed on her shoulder. Her cheery disposition quite possibly helped with her status as favorite as well. Either way, they all didn’t mind, so all was good (though Praline sometimes forced Lucie to spoil her).

While his friends were looking for him, Pecan had found some new people that captured his interest. Badly hiding behind a bush, he watched a young man (who was a bit younger than Lucie) talk to a strange device. Though very curious about the Ranger’s phone, Pecan stayed behind the bush, observing as he said things he didn’t really understand. The little Minccino did understand that this young man was quite important and that he had weapons, especially recognising a sword. As a result, he was quite afraid to approach him, even though he really wanted to go say ‘hi’. Pecan also wasn’t really sure where Lucie was now, but fortunately for the gray chinchilla, his focus wasn’t on that so he wasn’t too worried for now.

His confused expression turned to one of joy and excitement when a Leafeon, much bigger than he was, approached him. Immediately, he hopped on him happily and rubbed against his head affectionately. Quite obviously, Pecan wasn’t aggressive or hostile at all. It didn’t take long for Pecan to just start conversing with the Leafeon, showing absolutely zero fear. Unfortunately, he was still excited, and as a result didn’t mention Lucie.

Posted by: FirePower Oct 3 2014, 12:53 PM

Kaya cocked her head. Was it just her imagination, or had she heard a fight? She listened a little longer to confirm her suspicions. She could hear a crashing sound in the distance, followed by somebody shouting.

"Let's go check it out," Kaya said. "We'll probably miss it, but it's worth a shot." Manera gave a happy cry and dahed off in the direction of the sound, Kaya not far behind.

The jungel was lush and full of life. Bug Pokemon crawled up the trees, while bird Pokemon flitted in and out among the branches. Kaya didn't pay attention to them; she'd seen plenty of those pokemon during her jungle trek, and she had a battle to find. The only pokmon that caught Kaya's attention were a Magby and Elekid crossing her path. She hadn't seen any others of their kind in the jungle so far. She dismissed them as feral, though, and kept running.

Kaya stumbled upon, as she had expected, the aftermath of a battle. The ground was covered in debris, - from the fight, she assumed - but all the pokemon were gone. The only living thing she could see was a flame-haired young mand. Kaya decided that she'd come at a bad time. It didn't take any stretch of immagination to decide that this guy could bust some heads, and on top of that he looked completely ticked. Kaya backed up slowly and motioned for Manera to do the same, hoping they hadn't been noticed.

Posted by: Hydra Oct 3 2014, 07:37 PM

Flame and Bolt certainly knew how to leave their trainer in the worst mood imaginable with their constant bickering and now their penchant for escaping when they were actually needed. The facial expression that Sebastian had showed he was in no mood to mess around. Unsure to where Elekid and Magby could have fled to, Sebastian set out walking through the forest depths to find the pair. It was just as Sebastian was walking along along a dirt path that he noticed a Blitzle appear from a nearby clearing, the fiery haired boy's mind was filled with thoughts as he wondered if the old man with whom he had traded with had followed him all the way to Fidona to steal back Flame and Bolt, most likely it was just Sebastian being paranoid however he was sure that was the case.

"You rotten thief, give me back my Elekid and Magby!"

The Blitzle suddenly retreated backwards in fear and in a rather reactive move, Sebastian released Blade the Scyther from his pokeball. The mantis pokemon's paralysis had worn off, thanks in part to the healing effects that resting inside a pokeball could give you. Blade still looked worn out from the battle against Vigoroth, however he was clearly at his trainers command no matter what state he was in. Sebastian increased his pace of pursuit towards the Blitzle, Blade was unsure what was going on so his trainer cleared the situation up for him.

"Follow Me Blade, we are going to teach someone familiar a lesson!"

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Oct 4 2014, 01:30 PM

Moss tilted his head to the side a little bit, a habit among all three of Scott's Eeveelutions when they were either confused or especially interested in something.

Just because he wasn't telepathic like the two other Eeveelutions and wasn't gifted with the natural high intelligence of a Vulpix didn't mean the Leafeon wasn't smart; he knew all about a lot of things. In particular, the Minccino seemed curious about Scott's phone. Moss only knew the minimum amount of information about the phone (since he and the others had never asked about it), which probably just created more questions about how it worked than he had before he'd become a member of Scott's team......

A device that can communicate with someone else regardless of their position does sound somewhat magical. I wonder how they build them? Is it permanently connected to a telepath? Or is there some tiny psychic stuck inside the device to make it work......? That would be a horrible way to live, so maybe not......

As for why Scott had a sword......

The day he captured me, Scott had trouble dealing with some insane guy who had a great big sword. He thought it looked cool, so he bought one. I think it's stupid, but whatever.

And if asked about what was in the holster on the opposite side of Scott's hip from the sword......

I'm not totally sure...... some kind of weapon that is supposed to look like a gun but isn't actually one. I think the whole purpose of it is to scare bad people.

If asked about Scott or any of his Pokemon, other than Moss himself......

I'm not sure what exactly they'd want me to say, but Scott has lots of food. There's a noisy, mean Vulpix and an annoying Espeon...... and the Umbreon is okay, when he isn't trying to steal food from me. And there's this girl who hangs around Scott sometimes...... she has these weird mood swings sometimes. Usually she's nice but sometimes she's a total monster. Luckily she didn't come to the forest with us.

If Pecan asked about him, he got a little suspicious and refused to say anything about himself, apart from I like food.

And lastly, when asked about the reddish-brown vest he was wearing......

Apparently it's some kind of faction thing...... it's supposed to tell everyone that I belong to the Rangers. I don't mind it, it keeps me warm at night. I don't like being cold, but this forest is really warm so it hasn't bothered me for the past several days.

Finally, Moss refused to answer anything more until he asked a few questions of his own.

First of all, he'd caught her name- Pecan- but he was especially curious as to why she was named after food.

Secondly, he wanted to know if she was from this area, and if she wasn't, where she was from and how she got here. If she was, he wanted to know if there were any berry trees nearby.

And last but not least, he wanted to know why her fur was pure gray and had no white patches. Scott may not have seen a Minccino before and couldn't tell the difference, but Moss could, since he'd been living on the edges of the Loch Ranch for most of his life and had met a large variety of different Pokemon as a result.
___________________________________

In the meantime, Scott took the time to use his phone again to call the Ranger Regional Command in Fidona to see what they wanted him to do.

However, since so many other Rangers were already involved in the incident that morning with their helicopter, Regional Command figured he should stay out in the more remote portions of the forest. Their line of thinking was that the less friendly members of society had likely heard about the attack, and knowing that the Rangers would be preoccupied for a while, they might spend that time doing illegal things like poaching or trying to capture a local Legendary.

You know, there are probably a couple different legendary Pokemon in this forest...... but it's so hard to get around while off the paths, nobody will ever find them. I would bet anything there's a Shaymin or two somewhere in here.

He sighed. He was getting awfully tired of being stuck in this forest (he'd been out here four days already). Maybe it was time to start heading towards the edge of the island, and some of the beaches......

Posted by: Darkrow Oct 7 2014, 10:06 PM

Pecan’s oversized ears perked up and his eyes widened in interest as the much bigger Moss answered his incessant questions. Magic? Weapons? Food? Rangers? It was all so fascinating to the young chinchilla! Maybe this Scott person would be able to help Lucie? Then again, Lucie wasn’t very social, so Pecan would have to work his magic to force them to talk to each other. Either way, the talk about Moss’ partners was what mostly piqued the little gray Minccino’s interest.

What? They’re mean and annoying? Why? They’re your friends, aren’t they? Mommy’s other pokémon are my friends! I guess Praline is a bit weird, but Pistache and Peanut are wonderful!

Before he could finish or ask another question, Moss asked his own questions. First, the origin of his name and more broadly Lucie’s other pokémon’s names.

Mommy is big and loves food a lot, so she named us after food! It’s hard to get food so Praline tends to get it for us!

Pecan’s tail wagged erratically as he hopped from Moss’ back to stand in front of him, his stumpy body barely keeping up with his energy; even his cries sounded frantic and excited. Moss’ second question was his origin, which he thought was a weird question, but Pecan answered gleefully, hopping a few times as he did.

I don’t know the name of where Mommy comes from, but it’s a big city with a huge store! Mommy says her house used to be there, so that must be it! It’s in a place with lots of water, too! And I’m here because Mommy’s here, I heard sounds and I came to see what they were!

Moss’ last question somewhat caught Pecan off guard. Why was he all gray? He didn’t really have an answer to that, but he hopped around a few times anyway before giving an answer with as much energy as his previous answers.

I don’t really know, I’ve always been like that! And, and, and, and Mommy says Praline and Peanut are special like me! It makes Pistache feel a bit left out, but we cheer her up!

Pecan’s massive ears twitched vigorously as he tilted his head, stopping his constant hopping and moving, a question coming to his mind. Simple question as always, but he wondered why Scott wasn’t approaching them.

___________________________________

In addition to being humid, gross and scary, this forest was also a maze, just great. All she had seen so far was huge Bug pokémon as well as one hell of a stinky Vileplume that almost made her vomit. Luckily, Pistache’s sweet aroma managed to overpower the Vileplume’s scent quickly after Lucie jogged away from the huge plant. All this running and jogging and sweating and panting was making the poor chubby girl thirsty in addition to her raging hunger. Again swearing and whining at her misfortune like she did after losing Pecan, Lucie stamped her feet on the ground, making quiet thuds and thumps. As always when her temper flared, Praline stayed away and Pistache cheered her back up. Peanut started growling at a large bundle of roots as Lucie regained her composure, which caught the attention of both her and her other two pokémon.

“…What’s the matter, Peanut?” she asked rather innocently, failing to notice the pair of angular eyes glaring at her little group through the roots. The hot-blooded Litleo took a defensive stance, temperature a short radius around him heating up quite a bit. The creature under the roots was very fast, though, and violently Tackled Peanut’s side, looking merely like a green and yellow blur as it did so. A loud crack was heard as it did so, and Peanut fell to the ground with a loud yelp. The blur stopped moving, staring at the injured Litleo with dilated pupils and teeth bared.

An Electrike. A strong one. Lucie had seen quite a few of those canines back home: her father seemed to get a lot of them. For once, Lucie was silent, in shock that her poor Litleo had just been attacked so quickly without her even noticing the threat. Despite the sickening sound of the Tackle, her darling Litleo hobbled back up, clearly injured and angered. Fighting other males always seemed to enrage her small lion cub for reasons she ignored.

Prideful and fancying himself as a mighty guard, Peanut refused to stay down and got another Tackle for his trouble. The Electrike was just too fast. Before Peanut could get back up, though, sparkling wind hit the Electrike full force in its blind spot, not hurting it too much, but enough to push it back a bit. Barking in surprise, it Leered at the source of the wind: Pistache. Squawking in fright, the Spritzee hid behind Lucie’s beloved Purrloin. Now ticked off, the Electrike used Thunder Wave, causing Peanut to whine and start convulsing slightly whenever he tried to move. Much to its surprise, however, Praline seemed unaffected.

“A-Attack it, Praline!” Lucie spurted in a rare display of awareness during a battle. The pompom-tailed cat dashed at the Electrike and Scratched at its eyes to blind it, fighting dirty as always while letting out a violent hiss, her fur spiking up. As Praline attacked the Electrike’s eyes, Lucie went to Peanut and lifted him up as he whined and convulsed. She held him close to her chest and stroked his back gently, trying to comfort him: she knew the Litleo well enough to know that his pride had just been wounded. Pistache was luckier than him: her paralysis had already worn off and she was back on her master’s shoulder, now scared of the Electrike.

Praline’s attack was soon countered by a blind bite, the Electrike’s strong jaws ending around her fluffy tail. Another Fairy Wind attack from the cowardly Pistache, once again on the battlefield, was enough to force it to let go, but the damage had been done. The Spritzee truly did excel at being a supportive force and knew when to chime in, luckily for her clueless trainer. Pushed back a bit again, the Electrike Howled violently and eyed Lucie herself, causing her to step back fearfully, whimpering and holding Peanut tightly.

By that time, he had stopped convulsing and squirming to get out of Lucie’s grasp, managing to do so by making a rather scary growl to startle her. Taking another violent Tackle, this time for his beloved master, Peanut crumpled to the ground, out cold. Using the Sweet Scent that attracted the Electrike to them, Pistache managed to distract the Electrike long enough for Praline to resume her dastardly tactics as Lucie, at a loss, picked Peanut back up and tried to wake him up, staying as far away from the Electrike as she could. It was in vain, though; Peanut was knocked out. She held him close once again, almost crying. She couldn’t lose another pokémon, her mind wouldn’t be able to take it. For now, though, sadness and rage invaded it once more.

“Kill that damn thing!!” she screamed, the sound of the scream itself causing the Electrike to flinch and take a handful of Scratches to the neck and a faceful of Fairy Wind courtesy of Praline and a scared Pistache. The green canine finally fell to the ground, too hurt to continue. Praline, ever the dirty fighter, swiped mud into its face and hissed loudly before going back to Lucie, concerned about Peanut. Similarly, Pistache cooed and went back to her master’s shoulder, making more quiet, concerned sounds when she saw the Litleo’s state.

Lucie’s heart was beating faster than when she was forced to take the stairs in her home, yet she also felt some excitement despite her terrible mood. Were battles always like this? If so, she didn’t really know what to think of them… but before she could think more about this little dilemma or what to do with Peanut, something emerged from the bushes.

A Scizor. And this one had scars on its face along with an emblem carved into the black part of its waist, seemingly by a human. The sight of the metallic humanoid bug was enough for Lucie to start panicking: “Oh God, stay away from me, you… you THING!” she shrieked, stammering and stepping back rapidly as it approached her. Fortunately, it stopped at the Electrike and glared at her and her pokémon, sending shivers down her spine.

Carefully, it picked up the injured canine in one pincer as not to hurt it, glared at Lucie once more for an extended period of time and dashed from where it came, making a loud, metallic hum that could be heard from quite a ways away. However, the sound didn’t last very long… was there someone nearby?

Posted by: FirePower Oct 9 2014, 10:16 PM

Kaya cringed as the young man started shouting. He had noticed them. Manera gave a scared cry and dashed bahind her trainer. Kaya was about to turn around and run when she realized: he'd just called her a theif.

Kaya's vision turned red. Who did this guy think he was, scaring her Blitzle and accusing her of stealing pokemon? Her fear melted away in a moment of indignation and she stormed out to face the trainer.

"Who are you calling a theif?" Kaya said. "I just got here!" Manera, encouraged by her trainer's lack of fear, ran back out between the two humans and got into a battle-ready stance. The trainer's Scyther looked too tough to beat, but if Kaya could yell back at the trainer, then Manera could at least give the Pokemon a good shock.

Posted by: Hydra Oct 9 2014, 11:08 PM

Whoever it was that owned the Blitzle was not impressed with being accused a thief, they stopped their retreat and make tracks towards Sebastian, it was at that moment that the young adult realised that he had acted rashly and accused a little girl of stealing what he thought was his Blitzle. Sebastian was not going to let himself look weak in front of anyone, especially not the girl and her Blitzle who were now confronting him. Blade observed the battle-ready Blitzle and knew that this Blitzle was not the one his trainer used to own or it wouldn't even think about attacking it's former team-mate and friend.

"Back down little girl and curve your attitude or I'll have to knock some sense into you."

Sebastian had surprisingly calmed his owner anger as he surveyed the Blitzle now standing in front of him ready to fight. His suspicion had been wrong and now he had put himself in a situation that he would rather just dismiss, it was his macho attitude that was stopping him from apologising to the young girl for his accusation. It may have been the most coincidental of times for a loud metallic humming sound to be heard close by, this instantly aroused Sebastian as he was easily distracted by it and wanted to find out what was going on. Sebastian ignored the young girl and her Blitzle as he signalled for Blade the Scyther to follow him as they began heading in the direction in which the fiery haired young adult thought the strange sound had originated from. Sebastian couldn't help himself but leaving a snarly remark for the young girl who had confronted him,

"Play time's over little girl, go back to school while the big guys handle the real action."

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Oct 10 2014, 01:38 PM

Well, he's just...... err...... I don't really know actually. It does seem he's busy doing other things.

That was the best Moss could answer her question, seeing at Scott had been messing with his phone for a while.

Then his ears twitched. The big Leafeon had heard something that wasn't normal. Scott looked up from his phone, too; he'd heard it as well. A high-pitched scream that sounded like it belonged to a girl who had a bug crawling on her or something like that.

From his vantage point on the path, Scott could also see some birds flying away from an area not too far away. It seemed that it wasn't just a girl and a bug...... was there a battle going on? And going by the shriek, it seemed that it was less likely to be a regular battle and more likely somebody who wasn't prepared for the harshness of the rainforest getting beaten up by the local wild Pokemon.

In that case, he needed to investigate.

He started by recalling Moss into the Eeveelution's Luxury Ball, since he had little battle training at this point and was only used for healing and non-battle-related stuff.

He replaced the Leafeon with Scott's lead Pokemon, a female Vulpix named Ruby. Despite her much smaller size than any of Scott's Eeveelutions, she was the strongest by a significant margin.

"There's a battle going on somewhere over there. Let's go."

Only looking back briefly to see if the Minccino was following, he took off through the woods with Ruby a few steps behind him. However, after a couple hundred feet he came across a wall of thorny rose bushes. He was going to have to go around them, but there was enough space for Ruby to go on ahead.

"Go." The little Vulpix disappeared into a small hole between two of the bushes, while Scott went off to the left, looking to see where this giant mass of bushes ended.
________________________________________________

It was only a few hundred feet of running farther until Ruby came across the site of the incident. There was a somewhat large girl sitting up next to a tree in a tiny clearing a dozen or so feet wide, which was surrounded by more trees and bushes, some of which were covered in thorns. The girl was holding a fainted Litleo and there was a Purrloin and some kind of fairy thing Ruby did not know the name of next to her, both of whom seemed injured.

More noticeably, however, there as nothing else int he clearing or in the trees nearby. Whatever had attacked them seemed to be gone now. The girl seemed concerned that whatever it was might still be nearby, but the Vulpix was unable to detect anything. She wasn't much of a sensory type though, as that was Ebony's job, but she still decided that there was no longer an imminent threat and sat down to wait for Scott, her little Ranger jacket in full view of everyone.

That turned out to be a mistake, as a moment later that nightmare from the mountain battle came crashing out of the bushes, and before she could react, straight into her, flinging her back out of the little clearing and into a thorn bush.

Scott arrived just in time to see it attack. For a moment, he just stood there in horror, with a flashback to the battle with poachers on Mt. Arasam a couple months prior.

After a few moments of mutual glaring which confirmed that this was indeed the exact same mutant Absol, Scott realized that another battle was unavoidable.

That's when a Scizor flew out of the bushes and landed next to the Absol.

And an also-familiar Umbreon leapt out and took up a position on the other side of the wolf-thing-with-wings.

And a familiar Chatot landed on the head of the Umbreon.

Other than the Scizor, he recognized all of them as belonging to that one certain lead poacher. But that guy was supposed to be in prison, so why were his Pokemon here?

"...... Oh hell no!" He knew he could not fight this team. The only thing he could possibly do was run and find help to save that girl if they attacked her too. He took a step back......

...... And had the barrel of a rifle slammed against the side of his head, knocking him unconscious.

The guy who had attacked him was a buff guy of average height, and the rifle held tranquilizer darts. In one hand he held that rifle, and in the other he held Ruby by the scruff of her neck. The poor Vulpix already had a dart in her side, and was fast asleep.

The poaching boss had made his move.

Posted by: Darkrow Oct 10 2014, 10:38 PM

“Pecan!”

Lucie’s eyes almost instantly filled with tears when her darling Minccino jumped into her arms; she thought she would never see Pecan again, after all. She squeezed him somewhat tightly, not wanting to hurt him. Praline and Pistache cuddled against Pecan with as much joy as their master. Things were finally starting look up, now the only thing left was to help Peanut.

Vision blurry due to her tears, Lucie merely saw a red and orange blotch arrive, and her joy dissipated into fear. That monstrous bug was still around, was that another of its allies? Rubbing her eyes swiftly to clear her vision, the plump girl found herself glaring fearfully at the Vulpix in front of her while holding her four pokémon away despite Pecan’s protests.

“Stay away from me! I didn’t do anything!” she yelled at the Vulpix angrily, not really noticing the little fox’s apparent lack of interest in her or its jacket. Even if she had noticed that jacket, she didn’t know what a Ranger was, so it didn’t mean anything to her. Pecan, however, knew that the Vulpix was friendly: if she was Moss’ friend then she was his as far as he was concerned.

Then came that white monster.

It knocked out the Vulpix right as a young man popped out from the same place Pecan and the Vulpix had come out of. The bizarre white pokémon and the young man glared at each other for a few moments. While they were busy looking at each other, the horrible metallic hum that red monstrosity made earlier was heard throughout the rainforest again. Lucie’s heart almost literally skipped a beat when the scarred Scizor made its second appearance in just a few minutes, landing at the white monster’s side. Then came an Umbreon on the other side, and a weird bird landed on its head a few moments afterwards.

Covering her mouth with one hand as she did, Lucie shrieked in horror as a muscular man knocked the young man (who was wearing a jacket similar to the Vulpix’s, she noticed) with one quick strike of a rifle. Then, he shot a dart at the Vulpix’s limp body and lifted it up by the scruff of the neck.

This was terrifying.

This was a nightmare.

Lucie was shaking with her mouth agape in complete shock and fright. And that Scizor was merely glaring at her while the other pokémon did their job. Fixated on the red insectoid, Lucie merely stayed still, hugging her pokémon. Maybe it’d just go away like last time?

It was then that a small woman, sickly and gaunt, stepped in, holding a pokéball in her bony hand. Wearing her messy and spiky pitch black hair in cute pigtails that contrasted completely with her demeanor and the rest of her appearance, she looked wicked and awkward, standing pigeon-toed. She had a lot of make-up on around her eyes, enough to give her the raccoon eyes look. Quite simply, she looked like a mess. Following her were a Heliolisk and a Gurdurr. Was she the Scizor’s owner? If so, Lucie was in a lot of trouble.

“That’s what took it out? This Electrike is shite. Another for the garbage bin, I guess,” she said matter-of-factly, her English accent very clear. After speaking, the abnormally thin girl nonchalantly and gently tossed the pokéball to the muscular man. So they were allies.

Scrambling to her feet despite being terrified, Lucie ended up being stared at by all the pokémon there as well as the thin woman. Whimpering a bit and squeezing her beloved Litleo a bit, she took a few steps back, almost tripping on the roots of the tree she was sitting against.

A gray Minccino, a pink-nosed Litleo, a Purrloin with a strange tail… these pokémon were definitely at least a little unique. The Spritzee was also fairly rare. The scraggly woman took a few steps forward and held her hand towards Lucie, palm towards the sky and gesturing towards herself.

“Hand ‘em over or we’ll take ‘em by force,” she said in a dull tone of voice. She sounded dead serious, and Lucie noticed that she too had a rifle, except it was strapped to her back instead of being in her hands.

“…St-Stay away from me…” Lucie stuttered, taking a few more steps back. Her mind was racing. She had only three options: attack, run or surrender. Her ego not deflating despite the less than pleasant predicament, the latter option did not even cross her mind for more than a millisecond. Furthermore, even someone as clueless as Lucie knew that attacking these two poachers was downright suicidal… but then again, more running didn’t sound very good to the pudgy girl either.

“Hand ‘em over and we will, don’t and we won’t, simple as that,” the sickly woman explained her relaxed stature becoming a bit more tense. Something as subtle as that escaped Lucie’s mind, but she was getting impatient. After a few panicky deep breaths, Lucie turned on her heels and ran as fast as her round body allowed her to, holding onto her pokémon for dear life, especially the fainted Peanut. Her oversized dress was making it hard to run too fast without tripping, which didn’t really help. In her panicked state, she hadn’t noticed the other pokémon that had followed the young man and the Vulpix.

The cadaverous young woman sighed deeply and looked at the muscular man in disgust, hand on her bony hip. “'S'it worth giving chase? Doubt her fat ass'll get anywhere fast,” she asked, clearly as disgusted as her look suggested. "Either way, your word's law."

Posted by: FirePower Oct 11 2014, 05:54 PM

Kaya glared at the young man's back as he walked away. He had just accused her of stealing, and now, instead of appologizing, he was just leaving. On top of that, he'd called her a little girl. That guy had some nerve. Even if her pokemon weren't as stong as his Scyther, she wasn't going to be dismissed as a helpless little girl while "The big guys handle the real action."

"Where do you think you're going?" Kaya said. "You're not even going to applogize?" She stomped after the trainer.

"Bli," Manera said, nudging her trainer's hand. Her ears were pricked and she sniffed the air. Something wasn't right. She could feel it in the air. She tried to get Kaya to turn back.

Kaya turned around in time to see a man step out from behind a bush. He threw two pokeballs on the ground in front of him, releasing a Nidoran Male and a Paras. Kaya turned to run, but another man had jumped out in front. There was a massive fallen log one one side of her and thick hedge on the other, cutting off any way of escape.

The first man grinned, revealing his yellow teeth (the ones that weren't missing). "Well, well, well," the first man said, "What have we here?" The man's voice was raspy. His hair, grey and stringy, cascaded down in tangled dreadlocks. His clothes were frayed and ratty. Worse of all, Kaya could smell him all the way from where she was. His Pokemon didn't look any better groomed. "Give me yer pokemon, girl, or suffer the consequences."

"I don't think so," Kaya said. "Pede-erpat, go! Manera, you too." She she held out a pokeball, releasing the Venipede that was held inside. Manera ran up beside Pede-erpat and got into a battle ready position. Kaya wasn't going to go down without a fight.

Posted by: Hydra Oct 11 2014, 10:33 PM

Sebastian blocked out the young girl's voice as he continued on to find out what had caused the strange sound that he had heard previously. For a few moments Sebastian could hear the footsteps of the girl following him, however they stopped so suddenly, what could have calmed the girl down so quickly. As Sebastian turned his back he noticed that the girl who owned the Blitzle was surrounded by two men whose clothing choice gave off the impression that they were homeless beggars, one was blocking the girl from escaping and the other had a Nidoran and Paras ready for battle.

"Serves that little bitch right I say."

Sebastian had a smirk on his face as he turned back around and ignored the situation that the young girl was involved in, at the moment the short attention span that the boy from Unova had was leading him to find out what had gone on nearby. As Sebastian turned forwards to where Blade the Scyther was leading the way he noticed the mantis pokemon was in the stranglehold of a Pinsir. Blade had been so quiet purely because the Pinsir was restricting his breathing due to the tight grip that its pincers had around the fragile bug type body of Scyther's. There were no trainers nearby so Sebastian assumed that the Pinsir was wild.

"One move and I'll finish you where you stand boy!"

The deep croaky voice came from above ground if Sebastian's hearing was correct and indeed it was. Perched in a nearby tree branch not too far from the ground was a man with a cigarette in his left hand and a knife in his right hand. Blade was wincing in pain and Sebastian could not take watching a member of his team being beaten up as he reached into his pocket and retrieved Jaws the Totodile's pokeball and released the big jaws pokemon from his resting place. The fiery haired boy from Unova had not heeded the man's warning as the man in the tree leapt from his perching spot safely landing on the ground. The man's features were clear now, a ragged beard that made him look as if he hadn't shaved for a substantial amount of time and he was wearing dark clothing, a pair of ripped jeans and a motorcycle style leather jacket to be exact. The fearless nature of Sebastian led him in many situations to make rash decisions, however the boy was positive that he was making the right decision this time.

"You obviously have no idea who you are messing with. You want a piece of Me, then come get Me!"

Threatening a man with a knife in hand was not exactly the smartest idea, however with his background in mixed martial arts and with Jaws nearby the young adult was confident. The ragged looking middle aged man did not bite Sebastian's bait as he simply pointed his knife towards Blade the Scyther and spoke to his Pinsir,

"Don't crush that crappy bug too bad or you'll make the boss pissed"

So the man was not alone, that was now certain. The man with the knife was quite possibly part of the same crew that was attacking the young girl nearby. Sebastian stopped his thoughts as he pointed towards Pinsir as Jaws began running towards his team-mate who was in a great deal of pain.

"Jaws, finish that Pinsir off nice and quickly with your Ice Fang attack!"

Jaws' Ice Fang attack would be super effective against Pinsir if it were to hit, and then the battle would be a two on one if Blade were still okay. Sebastian looked pissed off once again, he believed that it was his Magby and Elekid's fault for getting them into this situation by running off without him, next time that he sees the pair they'll have what's coming for them.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Oct 12 2014, 12:46 AM

The boss poacher looked at his ally for a moment, before speaking in a voice that suggested he wasn't your normal villanous poacher but rather more of a high-class educated individual. Just the fact that he used proper English was probably enough to make most detectives scratch their heads and wonder where he was from and why he had resorted to a life of crime.

"If she gets away she could find someone to help her, and give away our existence. And even if she and her Pokemon are useless trash, we can still always ransom them."

Picking up Scott by the back of his shirt, the boss continued, "You have one hour to bring her back to camp. If you aren't back in an hour, I'll send Absol to...... finish the job."

The female poacher shuddered. The boss hadn't needed to mention what else his Mega Absol would be finishing off if she didn't return in time.

However, not everything was going their way. As the female poacher began to turn to chase after Lucie and the boss began to start his journey back to their base of operations with his new prisoner and the Vulpix, two of the four Pokeballs on Scott's belt split open, releasing the pair of Eeveelutions contained within. One of them was the female Espeon from earlier, Scarlet; the other was Scarlet's brother, an Umbreon named Ebony.

As they were both telepaths, they both knew what to do without having to verbally communicate and tip off the poachers or that mutant Absol.

With a burst of speed, Ebony tackled the female poacher from behind as she walked away less than two seconds after appearing, knocking her to the ground as she shouted obscenities before continuing onwards in the direction Lucie had run off in. Ebony's specialty was in tracking and he was quite fast for an Umbreon, so it was only a matter of time until he found her.

Scarlet, meanwhile, simply glowed blue and then vanished into thin air.

"A teleporter!?!? Damn it!" The boss was furious, and he turned to the female poacher who was getting back on her feet.

"30 minutes. If you haven't caught her by then get back to camp quickly, or at least try and catch that Umbreon. That Espeon is going to go and find help, so we need to prepare to move out with our current haul."

As his word was law, the female poacher quickly moved off in pursuit of Lucie and Ebony, still swearing at her sudden loss of luck. Meanwhile, the boss dragged Scott and carried Ruby away while speaking into a radio, presumably to even more poachers.

The boss's Pokemon all followed him, with one exception...... his Umbreon moved after the female poacher. He had fought a male Eevee back on Mt. Arasam and had unfinished business with poor Ebony.
__________________________________________________

In reality, the poachers had vastly overestimated Scarlet's teleporting ability. While someone who only rarely had contact with teleporters could easily imagine her teleporting all the way back to one of Fidona's Ranger Stations, she was actually very limited in the distance she could travel (currently about 13 feet) and the farther the jump, the more energy it took from her. She could only make a few max-distance teleports in between periods of rest.

As a result, she had only teleported far enough to get behind a large tree, out of view of the poachers.

She had little hope at this point that her brother would escape. Knowing him, he'd probably chase down that pudgy girl and then try to protect her and get taken down. But at least he'd be taken back to Scott if that happened. She also had no faith in that girl finding help anytime soon even with Ebony protecting her.

Which meant she was Scott's only hope.

After a few moments to catch her breath, she vanished once again in search of a reliable ally who might be able to save the day.
__________________________________________________

Ebony dashed as fast as he could, using Quick Attack here and there to give him extra boosts of speed. When her life was in danger, the girl he was chasing seemed surprisingly fast. Then again, she also had a head start on him......

Behind him, he could hear at least one of the poachers crashing through the forest like a battering ram, cussing whenever she cur herself on thorns. He was slowly outrunning her, but the noise she created also meant that he could't tell if there were any Pokemon with her.

He was also gaining ground on Lucie at a surprising rate, and within a couple of minutes he caught up to her.

In front of them was a river nearly a hundred feet wide. The waters of the river were only moving slowly, but somehow, Ebony didn't think this big female human could swim real well......

He looked from the girl back towards the direction they had come from. They had only a couple minutes before the female poacher arrived.

Ebony wasn't the friendliest of Umbreon, but in this instance he had no choice but to try and talk to the girl.

He walked up closer to her, ignoring anything she screamed at him (in case she mistook him for the Umbreon belonging to the poacher boss, even though Ebony had a vest just like Scott's other Pokemon), and stopped when he was within about four feet of her. That was around the distance his telepathy worked at.

Unlike Scarlet, he wasn't real good with human words and could really only communicate with pictures.

So he sent a mental image of a "no swimming" sign, except with the "no" replaced with "yes" and with a question mark at the end. So essentially, he gave her a mental image of a yellow sign with a stick figure swimming and a caption that read, "Yes swimming?"

He clearly wasn't going to be winning any communication contests, but as long as she could figure out what he was trying to ask......

Posted by: Darkrow Oct 12 2014, 01:41 AM

Why, oh why did today have to be so exhausting? Running after Pecan, getting scared to death half a dozen times, running away from some crazy skeletal girl and now, a river. For such a thin woman, that poacher was running really fast and sounded much bigger than she actually was… maybe the Scizor was the one doing the work. Either way, Lucie was now in front of a fairly wide river, completely out of breath. She was still holding on to her dear Litleo, the other pokémon being on her head or shoulders.

“Running… should… should be banned…” she muttered to herself, gasping for air, before noticing the Umbreon approaching her. As always, she got scared and stepped back a bit; she didn’t know what the vest was for, and that big man did have an Umbreon earlier, so it was hard to blame her for getting scared for once.

“Get… I said get a… a-away from me! I… I didn’t… I-I…” Lucie started, but she interrupted herself as her voice got shaky. She almost started crying, but before she could strange images popped up in her head. Was this Umbreon doing this? Did it… want her to drown? Lucie’s mood once again teetered between rage and sadness.

“A-Are you… Are you crazy?! Of course I… I can’t swim you… you… stupid dog! I-I’m… I’m not made for any of this! Ev… Even if I… Even if I could, I’d never p-put Peanut in water! If you… If you think I would, then you’re ins- AAAAHH!”

That damned Scizor burst out of bushes behind the Umbreon, causing Lucie to let out a fearful shriek once more. Pecan and Praline covered their sensitive ears while Pistache rubbed against her cheek in a vain attempt to calm her master down. Letting its terrifying cry loose for the world to hear, the Scizor got into an aggressive fighting stance as its master emerged with her Gurdurr and Heliolisk, not looking too pleased.

“You’re comin’ with me, lass. You and your pokémon and the Ranger pooch. Easy way or hard way, your choice,” she said plainly, yet her tone clearly indicated a lack of patience. It was strange, but Lucie, who was much bigger than this woman in every way imaginable, was being bullied by her; felt intimidated, even. There wasn’t much intimidating about this woman: she looked like a malnourished gothic raccoon, but the wicked aura she gave off rubbed Lucie the wrong way.

No answer.

“I ain’t got much time, lass. Either you come with me or I get rid of your pokémon one by one until you do, pooch included,” the poacher said, her heavy accent grating Lucie’s ears. The portly girl started breathing harshly, panicking for nth time today, perhaps even hyperventilating. She couldn’t swim, and why would she? She barely went outside for 19 years; swimming and physical activity that didn’t involve food or TV were beyond her field of interest. She took a small step back, nearly falling into the river. Courageously yet foolishly, Pecan, Praline and Pistache stood their ground with Ebony.

Then, the poacher snapped her fingers and pointed at Pecan and Praline. “Rock Throw,” she ordered her Gurdurr, who complied and started throwing boulders at the much weaker pokémon. Afterwards, she snapped her other hand’s fingers and pointed at Pistache. “Thunder Shock,” she ordered her Heliolisk, who imitated his allies and complied immediately. “Fury Cutter,” the poacher finally ordered, pointing at Ebony. Her scarred Scizor made another metallic cry as its pincers started glowing a deep red. “And don’t you dare kill any of them, they could be worth a few grands, especially the fat lass.”

Lucie could only stammer helplessly as she watched her beloved pokémon get pelted with boulders and electrocuted. Her eyes welled up with tears once more. It didn't take long for Praline, Pistache and Pecan to get knocked out by the vastly more powerful pokémon's attacks. Just like the poacher had said, her pokémon were falling one by one and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

Now all that was left was that Umbreon wearing that dumb-looking vest... And the Scizor was about to unleash a flurry of Fury Cutters at it.

Posted by: FirePower Oct 13 2014, 09:26 PM

"Manera, use Thunder Wave on Nidoran! Pede-erpat, Poison Sting on Paras!" Kaya wasn't going to let the poacher have the first move, not in a situation like this. She was scared, but she was also excited. From the start she was yelling her orders, bouncing on the balls of her feet out of a need to move. Battles were so exciting!

Pede-erpat and Manera rushed to execute their attacks. Pede-erpat ran up to Paras and jabbed it with a poison stinger. It was clear Paras wasn't a huge fan of poison; it cringed and scuttled. Manera hadn't been as successful as Pede-erpat. Her Tunderwave attack harmlessly hit a tree as Nidoran ducked put of the way.

"Paras, you coward!" the poacher rasped. "Get back in there and use stun spore. Nidoran, use peck." Paras obeyed and scattered its spores in the air. Manera and Pede-erpat backed out of the way. Kaya smiled at her appearant luck. It hadn't registered that there was nothing between herself and Nidoran.

Kaya shreiked and jumped to the side and the nidoran chared straight at her. Its horn scraped the side of her leg, as it ran past, but at least it hadn't done any worse damage. Manerra, noticing what was going on , Quick Attacked the Nidoran, knocking it away from Kaya before it could charge again.

"Thanks, 'nera." Kaya said. "Be careful, you two. I don't know what those guys'll try." Kaya had been so focused on the trainer with the two pokemon that she'd forgotten that she'd been jumped by two men. She heard a triumphant cacke behind her and turned around, remembering the second poacher.
If Kaya's reflexes had been any slower, the second poacher's Poocheyenna would have likely ripped her throat out.

Posted by: Hydra Oct 13 2014, 11:00 PM

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Oct 14 2014, 03:56 PM

It was a hopeless battle.

Ebony knew this much.

He knew that Scott and Ruby had been taken out and that Scarlet had gone in a different direction; the only unknown was Moss, but it was unlikely he'd even tried to flee.

And the fat girl's team was about as strong as paper. As far as he was concerned, they might as well have not existed at all.

They were deep in a rainforest, so stalling for time in hopes that someone else might show up really didn't seem worth it.

That only left the Umbreon with two options...... he could make a run for it, or he could try and heroically defend this girl and get torn to pieces in hopes that maybe she can help him escape later on.

He was a good runner, but Scizor could fly and both it and Heliolisk were still substantially faster than him, so he wasn't sure he could get away, especially with the river in the way. On the other hand, he very highly doubted that the girl would be able to help him escape unless she happened to be a really fat, slow genius.

But he was a member of a Ranger team, and Ebony decided he might as well put the ideals of the Rangers to good use.

He started with Substitute, creating a clone out of his energy directly in between him and the giant steel bug-thing that was trying to attack him.

The clone Umbreon intercepted the incoming Fury Cutter, stopping the move completely but being destroyed in the process.

Ebony didn't wait around to see the results of his clone's defense, however. As soon as the Substitute was created he started to counterattack.

He knew that Scizor and Gurdurr were well beyond his skill level, so he ignored them entirely. Heliolisk was a more valid target, but it was currently throwing little lightning bolts at what was left of the girl's Pokemon, so he ignored it too.

He had learned fighting the previous poachers what the most effective strategy for dealing with a higher-leveled team was...... taking out its leader, or at least distracting her so she couldn't give orders effectively. Of course, last time he'd had Ruby and a whole extra team supporting him to take advantage of the chaos, but he was much stronger now and if it worked then it had to work now too, right? That was about as far ahead as Ebony could think without Scott and his sister Scarlet helping him.

In any case, stopping Scizor's attack and getting past it was the easy part. The bug had lost sight of him when his Substitute had appeared, and by the time it realized what he had done and started to chase him down Ebony had already sprinted all the way to the thin, demonic-looking female poacher.

Using Quick Attack to put some extra force behind his attack, he leapt into the air and slammed into the poacher right on her collarbone. Considering he weighed more than 50 pounds and she was so thin she almost looked fragile, the collision sent her flying backwards off her feet and onto the ground. The human knocked her head on the root of an oak tree and blacked out for a couple seconds, waking up again to find Ebony sitting on her, one paw (with claws extended) on her throat.

This, of course, was enough to make Scizor stop. The bug did call the attention of its allies over to Ebony, however, so that they were no longer concentrating on Lucie or any of her downed Pokemon. The poacher was smart enough not to say anything that might get him to attack- which, going off of her previous words, was just about anything.

Ebony hesitated on what to do next, however. He couldn't let her get up and he was unwilling to actually communicate with her to get her to recall her Pokemon. The only other option he could think of was to slash her throat open, though, which in the middle of the rainforest was a death sentence.

He never got a chance to figure out his next move, though. Before he could, the poacher boss's Umbreon came flying out of the bushes, striking Ebony squarely in the ribs and launching him a considerable distance into a tree. Ebony was just barely able to get back on his feet when the opposing Umbreon launched a pair of Shadow Balls followed by a sprint forwards to land a hit with Assurance. Unable to dodge the Shadow Balls, Ebony managed to get another Substitute up in time to intercept Assurance.

This time, his substitute survived the attack, and held the boss's Umbreon's attention long enough for Ebony to try flanking with Quick Attack.

But he had already forgotten about Scizor, Heliolisk, and Gurdurr, and the brief fight with the other Umbreon had led him close to Gurdurr.

A simple swing of that giant metal bar that Gurdurr carried was enough to end Ebony's resistance, tossing the him all the way over the boss's Umbreon and into a second tree. While still conscious, Ebony was unable to get back on his feet this time, and his Substitute was quickly dispatched by a lightning bolt from Heliolisk. The battle was over.

While the female poacher was clearly extremely angry at Ebony (and at Scizor, since he/she had let Ebony get past them to attack her), she kept her anger in check for now. The fact that she had needed the boss's Umbreon's help to win the battle clearly didn't sit well with her either, but yelling at that Umbreon was like yelling at the boss and that was essentially suicide......

Instead, she pulled a small firearm out of her pocket. It was a single-shot pistol that fired tranquilizer darts, and she quickly shot Ebony with it right in his neck. Scott's Umbreon was asleep within 30 seconds.

Only Lucie was left now.
________________________________________________

Moss was having a much better time than Ebony was, although he was still in a pretty dire situation.

Unwilling to risk injury to himself and lacking any real battle skills along with the training to use them on his own, Moss had simply stayed put in his Luxury Ball for as long as he possibly could.

And while he had eventually been forced out of his safe spot, the poachers hadn't actually harmed him. Their reasoning was simple; if Moss was normally this passive, he was much more likely to attract a rich buyer on the black market than an aggressive Pokemon like Ruby was. And rich buyers, of course, meant tons of money. Tons of money meant a happy boss. And a happy boss meant all the poacher minions were safe and continued to have a job.

Thus, Moss had simply been stuck in a cage with Ruby. The cage itself was made out of thick steel bars, and was about eight feet long and four feet wide, and four feet tall.

This was the first mistake the poachers made. Moss was't a battler, but he was a healer. Using Heal Bell, he was able to clear the tranquilizer from Ruby's blood, waking her up. Her presence meant, at a minimum, that it would be difficult for the poachers to get him back out of the cage without getting bitten and/or burned.

There was little the two foxes could do, however, besides observe the layout of the base.

It was far more complicated than the base at Mt. Arasam was, and had likely been here for weeks if not months. It was located in a depression in the ground, and the trees around it hid it from aerial observation. It was also surrounded by a log wall, which was hidden from easy view from the outside by the lower terrain the entire base was built on. The only hole in the wall was on the east side, and was used as the entry point. The entry point did not have an actual gate however, so there was no way to stop someone outside from coming into the area.

The interior of the base had three buildings- the boss's house, a second barracks-like house, and a small metal storage shed. Spread out between these buildings were a variety of cages big and small, holding a variety of uncommon and rare Pokemon.

In case the base was found and raided by the Rangers, there was also a set of sandbags in the center of the camp set up like a bunker. The storage shed likely held a variety of weapons and ammunition.

And just like the Arasam base, there was a small silver helicopter parked in an open spot. A hook on the bottom of the helicopter indicated it was used to transport the cages to a different location, possibly a ship located in the seas near the island.

Moss and Ruby's cage was part of a line of four similarly-sized cages. Two of the other cages were currently empty, while the fourth cage held three Growlithe. Across from them were two more cages, these ones twice as large as the one Scott's Pokemon were stuck in; one held a massive Torterra while the other cage held a slightly pudgy Armaldo.

The only other cage in view was of a size in between that of Moss/Ruby's cage and the Torterra/Armaldo cages; this one had the door open, and Scott was chained up inside it. He was currently still out cold, and the Absol- currently in its regular form- was sitting guard at the entrance, ready to call the poacher boss when he woke up.

Laid out on the ground in front of the cage were several weapons, including Scott's sword and his non-lethal gun, a Tazer, and a whip, along with an actual 12-gauge shotgun and the tranquilizer rifle, which had two sets of darts sitting next to it- one filled with a slow-acting poison while the other had the standard anesthetic in it. They were likely to be the boss's tools for revenge.

Sitting in a sunny rear corner of the cage while Ruby sat by the door, Moss had nothing to do but wait.

Posted by: Darkrow Oct 14 2014, 09:18 PM

“That’s for embarrassing me, arsehole,” the poacher said, venom in her voice, after shooting Ebony. She could barely contain her anger, shooting a glare at her Gurdurr, who promptly picked up the fallen pokémon, carrying them on his namesake. Thanking her boss’ Umbreon half-heartedly, mainly out of wounded pride and respect, she walked over to her scarred Scizor, whose demeanor seemed to have changed entirely. Gone was the silent bruiser attitude; now the Scizor looked ashamed and sheepish. With the poacher’s Heliolisk staring at Lucie so she wouldn’t run off, she got out a small knife and promptly jammed it into her Scizor’s chest, making it cry in agony. She slowly and painfully carved a new scar in the insectoid’s chest, enraged and completely uncaring. Since Scizor’s body was hard as steel, this definitely was a long, painful process that did tire out the poacher somewhat. Lucie was stunned to see this… she had been violent with her pokémon, mainly out of petty anger, but never had she tortured them like this.

“Now,” the bony woman said, aiming her cold glare at Lucie now. The pudgy girl froze in fear, sweat dripping down her forehead. Her dress was now three shades darker than it was that morning due to all the sweating… the same reason she was so thirsty (and starving). Panic once again set in her ignorant mind as the skeleton of a poacher drew her pistol once more, this time aiming at her. Lucie had no idea that this was a tranquiliser gun and thought this was a real lethal gun… it sure as hell looked like one. Overcome by fear, Lucie spun on her heels and only had time to take three steps before getting shot in the back of the neck. Yelping, she fell to the ground after losing her balance, still having the presence of mind to fall on her side as not to completely crush Peanut, as she was still holding him.

The poacher sneered at this pathetic display and forced her Scizor to get back up, the tortured pokémon having fallen down from the pain of its new scar. “You carry the fat lass,” she said, voice as cold as her stare, knowing very well that Lucie’s 230 pound frame could easily be carried by her Gurdurr alongside all the knocked out pokémon with a single arm, but she wanted to teach her Scizor a lesson, punish it for failing to protect her. The humanoid bug complied, Lucie’s large body rubbing against the fresh scar and causing a large amount of pain. While the Scizor had extremely powerful prehensile strength in its pincers, as all Scizors did, its master’s previous orders of not harming any of the targets forced it to use its pincers to lift up Lucie’s heavy frame, the pokémon’s lifting strength being much lesser than its prehensile strength. To make things worse, the Scizor knew it would get intensely scolded for its mistake. Its master may have had a meek appearance, but she was as terrifying as a demon when angered.

“Now let’s go, the boss is waiting.” And with that, the malnourished poacher led her team of pokémon (and her boss’ Umbreon) back to HQ, still angry and embarrassed at her humiliating display. In fact, her usually snowy white cheeks were a bit rosy due to her current state of mind. Knowing her boss, Lucie and her pokémon would probably be separated and stuck in cages for selling and/or ransom. “And you… I’ll make sure you pay for what you did,” she said to her Scizor, not even needing to look at it to make herself clear.

Scott’s pokémon would certainly get a grim surprise when the poacher would come back with a fallen Ebony and Lucie’s fallen team…

Posted by: FirePower Oct 18 2014, 08:42 AM

Kaya instinctvely brought her hands up as the Poochyenna leapt at her. It was lucky that she did; she managed to catch the pokemon in mid-air. The Pokemon's tooth left a scratch down the back of her hand, but at least it hadn't killed her.

She flung Poochyenna away as it turned to bite her wrist. She wasn't going to get injured and show that she couldn't take care of herself. Besides, there were better ways to deal with agressive Pokemon. She reached for the dusk ball on her belt and released a Drillbur.

"Miner, use mud slap!" Kaya ordered the Drillbur. Miner scooped up some mud and flung it into the poochyenna's face. It growled, backing up a few steps before lungeing at Kaya again. Miner jumped at the Poochyenna, scrathcing it with a set of sharp claws before it could reach Kaya. "Now, Manera, use Shock Wave on Nidoran. Pede-erpat, use Twineedle on Paras." Manera launched a quick jolt of electricity at the Nidoran, wo didn't have time to dodge. Pede-erpatt jabbed its stingers into the cringing Paras, first once, ten again.

The man who owned the Nidoran and Paras was getting impatient. This was turning out to be more trouble than he'd anticipated. This girl looked as though she may be able to handle his Pokemon, and he wasn't willing to take that chance.

"You're not winning this." he said. He pulled a tranquilizer gun out of his belt and aimed it at Kaya. Kaya froze. What else was she supposed to do, with a gun pointed at her? The poacher grinned and pulled the trigger. Manera, the closest of Kaya's Pokemon, tackled Kaya's side, and they both fell to the ground with a whump. Kaya was about to scold her Blitzle when she realized that neither of them were hurt. Te tranqulizer dart had flown past them as they fell, and had hit the Poochyenna's trainer.

"What the(*yawn*) blaza-za-res were you think-thinking?" The hit poacher asked. He stumbled forward a few steps before falling on his face, fast asleep. The poacher scowled at his rotten luck, but he was loading a second dart into his gun. A bandelier beneath is jacket showed that he had several more darts with him.

"You and your Blitzle can dodge 'em all," The poacher said. Kaya knew he was right. She normally wouldn't dream of attacking a human with her Pokemon, but this was a life-or-death situation.

"Manera, use thunder wave on the poacher. Don't hurt him, just paralyze him." The blizle launched a jolt a of static at the man, too busy loading his pistol to dodge. The electricity paralyzed him so that he could hardly move. Kaya calmy walked over to the poacher and tipped him over with one hand. Then she turned to the two poachers' pokemon. "Scram!" she ordered. Paras didn't need to be told twice; it scuttled away as fast as it could go. Nidoran backed up a few paces before walking away. Poochyenna stood it ground, gowling viscously. It had to recieve a warning poke from Pede-erpat's stingers before slinking off.

Kaya got three Oran berries out of her backpack and tossed one each from her pokemon. That should be enough to help them recover. When they had finished eating, she returned Pede-erpat and Miner to their pokeballs.

"Let's go see if Mr. Tough guy's still around," Kaya said to her Blitzle, heading in the direction she'd been following him earlier.

Posted by: Hydra Oct 19 2014, 06:29 PM

Jaws and Blade working in unison was a sight to see, the pair simply stuck by their trainers orders and ignored everything else that was happening around them. Blade the Scyther was looking much better after having some time to heal from Pinsir's Vice Grip attack, the mantis pokemon drove one of it's shoulders forward into the stag beetle pokemon's body and made it teeter from side to side. Pinsir looked as though it was about to fall over, however as it was stabilising it's stance, Jaws' Water Gun attack came streaming into the bug pokemon's body and knocked it to the ground.

"That's it you ignorant piece of crap, your going to get what you deserve!"

The angry poacher rapidly pressed at the trigger of his handgun as three bullets went flying towards Pinsir. The defenceless stag beetle pokemon winced in pain as the bullets pierced three different points on Pinsir's body. The poacher then raised his gun and pointed it towards Sebastian, the normally cocky young adult was now frozen like a statue unable to move. The poacher pressed his finger onto the trigger, however no bullets left the handgun. Sebastian was still frozen on the spot as he realised that the poacher had used his last round of bullets on his own pokemon. Whilst the angry poacher was not paying attention to his surroundings, Jaws the Totodile had sneaked up on him and latched his sharp teeth into the poacher's left leg.

"AHHHHH! GET OFF ME YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

Sebastian had snapped out of the seemingly frozen state that he had been in as the young adult started running towards the poacher who had dropped his handgun in an effort to get Jaws detached from his leg. The fiery haired boy from Unova uppercut the poacher as he fell to the ground, knocked unconscious by the blow. Standing over the unconscious body of the poacher, Sebastian realised how easily his life could have been over if the man had better prepared himself with more bullets for his handgun.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Oct 19 2014, 09:24 PM

The poacher outpost was pretty quiet, so Moss was actually almost enjoying himself. He had a sunny spot to sleep in and nobody was bothering him, since Ruby had much more important things on her mind and anyone else who wanted to wake him up would have to get by her first.

Under normal circumstances, he would have slept for the rest of the day and all night long in that sunny position.

However, being stuck in a cage wasn't exactly a normal circumstance, so he was only in a very light sleep when Ruby began growling furiously.

The female poacher had returned with her catch of the day, along with the boss's Umbreon.

Ruby didn't care in the slightest about the fat girl that an injured Scizor was holding, or any of her Pokemon. However, she did care about what the poacher's Gurdurr was holding....... Ebony. Moss simply opened one eye to watch lazily as they approached.

Despite Ruby's furiousity, the door to their cage was opened. Before the Vulpix could make her move, however, Ebony was thrown in at her, knocking her back on top of Moss and causing the older Leafeon to jump up suddenly, which in turn threw her upwards into the top of the cage as well. By the time she had regained her senses the door had been closed and padlocked again.

Lucie and her team were all stuck in the cage right next to theirs. That fat girl took up most of the 8'x4'x4' cage on her own though, and since the cage was only four feet tall there was no way she could stand up.

Since he had already been rudely awakened by having a Vulpix thrown into him, Moss decided he might as well take the effort to wake everyone up. Since he was in the same cage and was known to be an ally, Ebony was woken up with Heal Bell first.

Moss was less sure about Lucie, though. He didn't know if she was an ally or simply someone else who had been caught. To make things worse, her whole team hadn't been tranquilized but rather knocked out, so there was nothing he could do for them at his current level.

But when he looked back at his two "allies" and saw the Vulpix biting the cage bars in a fury while the Umbreon kept awing at the door hoping it would open, he decided that maybe she could find a way to keep those two from driving him insane.

And so he stuck one paw through a gap in the bars into Lucie's cage (there is no space in between the cages), laid the paw on her arm, and used Heal Bell to wake her up. The move took several seconds of constant use to take full effect, and caused his paw to glow a dim green color. When it was done, a soft bell-like sound could be heard.

Then he moved back to his corner and tried to drown out the noise from his two cagemates, while hoping that Lucie would do something to make them all feel better...... or that Scarlet would appear with help.

However, as Lucie woke up, so did Scott. And that only led to more pain for all of his Pokemon as they watched the boss take revenge.
_______________________________________________________

He was barely conscious, and could barely feel the pain anymore.

Ten minutes had passed since he woke up.

Ten whole minutes. Eight of them spent getting attacked by a guy with a grudge.

First came the Tazer. The boss shot Scott in the chest with the two Tazer prongs, then laughed very loudly as he activated the electric current three times in quick succession and watched Scott writhe on the metal floor of the cage.

Then he (forcefully) pulled the prongs out and switched from the Tazer to using the female poacher's Heliolisk by having it run its most powerful electric attacks through the metal cage and into Scott.

This was followed by a brief break to make sure that Scott was still awake, and then the next weapon was Scott's on sword.

Since simply stabbing or slashing him would lead to him dieing of blood loss and ruining the boss's fun, a much more creative- and equally painful, if not even worse- way of causing damage to him was used. A few of the poacher minions had Fire-types, and they started a small fire in a pile of leaves. The blade of the sword was then put into the fire to heat up, and once it was glowing hot, it was pulled out of the fire and (after forcing Scott to roll over) pressed against his back. This, of course, caused him to scream in pain.

Afterwards, the female poacher used the same (but now slightly cooler) sword to burn her Scizor as well. But nobody really payed any attention to that as the boss grabbed Scott's gun.

Instantly realizing that it wasn't actually a real gun since it weighed quite a bit more than it should have, he unloaded the weapon. As it turned out, the clip was full of paintball-like projectiles...... but they weren't actually paintballs.

"These...... are firecracker bombs, are they not?"

Scott wasn't able to answer that question due to the pain he was in, but he did manage a glare at his foe as the boss reloaded the weapon.

Firecracker bombs were a Ranger-only weapon that was used as a nonlethal way to scare off aggressive Pokemon, and to a lesser extent aggressive people as well. They were essentially paintballs, except the paint was removed and replaced with a some unstable compounds that were separated by a very thin piece of plastic inside the ball. When the ball struck something and ruptured, the compounds would mix and react with each other and the oxygen in the air, and explode like a firecracker.

The result was a loud bang and a slight flash of light. By shooting these at the ground around an aggressive Pokemon, it would generally be scared away- and if that didn't work, the projectiles could be shot at the Pokemon itself. The impact would leave welts like regular paintballs, and the explosive compounds also sometimes left minor burns that could easily be treated with things like Rawst berries.

The gun itself was made to look like the common Glock 17 handgun, but it used compressed gas to fire the firecracker bombs and could not fire regular bullets. In addition, as the bombs were slightly bigger than regular paintballs, it could not effectively fire those either. It was essentially a gun designed specifically to fire those exploding paintballs.

The boss gave another long, evil laugh, and then let all of his minions take a turn shooting Scott with the firecracker bombs before he flipped Scott onto his back and unloaded five of the bombs into his chest.

The mistreated Ranger fainted.

"Hmph." Still carrying the nonlethal gun, the boss walked off towards a different set of cages, with some of his minions following him and the rest dispersing. First, however, the unconscious Scott was moved from the cage he was sitting in to a spot next to Ruby/Ebony/Moss's cage. A large metal chain secured him to the cage so he couldn't run away.
____________________________________

Somewhere in the forest not too far away, a small Espeon's ears perked up.

She could hear a fight. Gunshots, even.

She quickly made her way in the direction of the shots, her reddish-brown Ranger vest in full display as she hoped to find some new allies...... or at least take down an unsuspecting poacher or two and steal a gun to use with her telekinetic powers.

Posted by: Darkrow Oct 20 2014, 11:25 PM

It took quite a while after Lucie was dumped into a small cage for her to wake up, and she did so with incoherent mumbles and whines. Smacking her lips sleepily and rubbing her eyes, Lucie sat up, or at least tried to, as she hit her head on the top of the tiny cage, creating a loud clang. She yelped and held the side of her head that hit the cage, the hit having snapped her out of her drowsy trance; she finally noticed where she was: in a cage that was definitely too small for her large frame.

“Am I dead? Am… Am I in Hell? Is this what Hell is like…? It’s so hot and gross… I don’t want to rot here…”

Lucie sat up much slower and stopped when her head touched the ceiling. She could sit up somewhat, but found herself hunched forward a little. She could see people wandering around, including that skeletal woman. So this wasn’t Hell, it was just these crazies’ hiding hole. Same difference to Lucie, but still.

Then that muscular man from before came into Lucie’s view. He opened Scott’s cage, making her notice it, and just started torturing the poor young man mercilessly. As horrifying as it was physically for Scott, the event had its effect on Lucie’s innocent mind. This did not just happen in TV shows and movies and video games… it was real. Of course, Lucie being Lucie, she was much more worried about the big man doing it to her afterwards since, after a quick scan, she had not noticed anyone else close-by rather than Scott’s well-being. Surprisingly (even to her), Lucie did feel bad for him. She watched him get tortured for eight grueling minutes, hands covering her mouth and mind focused on not screaming or making a single sound.

As soon as the big man left the premises, Lucie’s mind starting racing, panic setting in once again. “This is all a dream… This is all a dream… I… This isn’t real… This doesn’t happen…” she repeated to herself mentally multiple times, starting to pinch her arms and hands. “Wake up wake up wake up… Come on, wake up, Lucie… Just wake up and you’ll be back home… You’ll be the queen again… You won’t be starving… Or running… You can’t be in this cage, Lucie, you’re way too big and amazing and beautiful and powerful to fit in it… No one can hurt you like this, Lucie… You can just scream at the wimpy servants that they should have woken you up when they saw you crying in your sleep… Lily will be back… I… I… Daddy won’t be a criminal… I bet it’s just that stupid TV show I watched before going to bed… I… Please… Just wake up wake up wake uuuup…”

As she ranted and pinched herself, tears started to stream down Lucie’s cheeks, the big girl sobbing quietly. “I want my life baaaack…” she croaked pathetically, voice cracking like her psyche was. Shaking more than she ever had, Lucie clung to her knocked out pokémon, seeking the comfort they had given her so many times before despite her abuse, but it simply wouldn’t come. “I want it all ba-ack…” she said to herself quietly, face buried in her pokémon’s fur.

Posted by: FirePower Oct 22 2014, 03:45 PM

The scene Kaya stumbled upon was not a very nice one. A Pinisr was laying facedown on the ground with three bullet holes in its back. Nearby was the trainer she'd been following, with another man lying unconscious on the ground. There were also a Totodile and Scyther there, but Kaya wasn't particularly interested in them at the moment.

"What happened here? " Kaya asked. She stared at Pinisr in disbelief. "Is that Pokemon. . . dead?" Kaya wasn't naive, but the idea of somebody shooting a pokemon was something beyond her comprehendion. How could someone be so cruel?

Kaya jumped as an Espeon walked out of the bushes. Was another poacher nearby? Had her attackers' Pokemon simply left to find backup? After a second she noticed the orange Ranger vest Espeon was wearing. So this Pokemon was friendly. And if a ranger's pokemon was here, the ranger was bound to be nearby.

Then Kaya remembered the poacher she'd ordered Manera to paralyze. She was sure that using a pokemon to attack a human was all kinds of illegal. What if the ranger had found out? Kaya had been acting out of self-defense, but that wouldn't be evident just by seeing the paralyzed poacher.

"Those poachers attacked me first. I promise," Kaya said, unsure whether she was speaking to Espeon or its trainer (whom she still didn't see). "I wouldn't have told Manera to paralyze theat one unless it was an emergency." She gestured to where she had come from as an afterthought, in an effort to show that Scyther's trainer and the unconscious man were innocent.

Posted by: Hydra Oct 22 2014, 06:01 PM

Sebastian was reflecting upon the now sorted out situation when he was interrupted by the girl from before, the scene that she was greeted by made Sebastian look like he had shot the poachers Pinsir and then knocked the poacher out cold, however that was not how the events took place. The realisation that if the young girl were to report the incident to the rangers would leave Sebastian a criminal in not one region, but two, and he certainly could not afford to let that happen.

"You have to believe me here little girl, this situation was purely this guy's fault."

Sebastian pointed to the unconscious man laying on the ground as he noticed the Pinsir was in a grave state nearby, it was going to need some serious medical attention and fast if it wanted to survive, that was the least of Sebastian's worries though as he was more worried about making sure he kept a clean profile in the Furoh region. Sebastian had been staring the young girl down with an innocent look on his face, trying to use his facial expression as an indicator that he was innocent, however an Espeon wearing what looked like an orange rangers vest appeared from out of the bushes, and at that moment Sebastian knew that he was busted.

"Believe me little girl, I'm innocent! This guy here shot his own Pinsir with his final three bullets and then tried to kill me, so I had to defend myself!"

The story sounded so unlikely to be true as Sebastian realised that it would be hard for someone so young to believe that the poacher had caused serious physical harm to his own pokemon. Sebastian wanted to fled the scene in case a ranger appeared, however he was under the belief that if he were to convince the young girl to vouch for his innocence then he would be okay. Sebastian believed that if he were to be arrested then the authorities around different regions would find out and thus revealing the whereabouts of the criminal from the Unova region, it was mostly just the stress was getting to his head that he was believing such events taking place.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Oct 22 2014, 07:23 PM

Ruby was understandably furious, considering what had just happened to her Trainer and everything else that had happened prior to the attack.

But there really wasn't much she could do about it. No matter how much she concentrated the fire in her flame sack (in an attempt to make it hotter) before spitting it out, the cage bars would not melt. Biting them didn't do much good either, even with flames mixed in. She was stuck in the cage like everyone else, but just couldn't bring herself to accept that fact.

She prowled around the edges of the cage, looking for any signs of weakness in any parts of the cage bars or door.

Moss had put his nap on pause and reached a paw out of the cage again to try and use Heal Bell to heal Scott's burns. The healing move seemed to be helping with the small burns caused by the modified explosive paintballs, but it wasn't doing much good for the larger burn on his unconscious master's back.

Ebony, meanwhile, had calmed down somewhat. At least, he wasn't endlessly pawing the door anymore, but rather had switched to staring at Lucie. He made no attempt to communicate with her again considering how she had yelled at him last time, but he did seem to think she had a better chance of finding a way out than he or Ruby did......

______________________________________________

Scarlet looked back and forth from the girl to the guy to the poacher lying on the ground out cold to a wounded giant-bug-thing.

She really didn't care about the Pinsir's or the poacher's health, or, for that matter, how they had ended up that way. That would be Scott's job later.

All she cared about was that this pair (although they didn't seem to know each other) had been attacked by the poaching group too, but they had managed to fight off the assault. Granted, they likely hadn't had to fight the Absol-with-wings-thingy that Scott's group had been demolished by, but she'd worry about that when it actually showed up.

She just had to find a way to get their help.

Using the powers of telepathy, Scarlet projected her thoughts into the heads of the two humans, ignoring their Pokemon for the time being.

Since she was only slightly better than her brother at expressing her thoughts through the English language, she also tended to use modified mental pictures of things. She did, however, have the benefit of a much better memory than Ebony did, so she could also replay her own memories for others to see.

And that was just what she did, allowing the two Trainers to see what had happened from the moment she escaped from her Great ball right after the attack to the initial teleport away from danger, then from her viewpoint while hidden in the trees watching the poachers take Scott and Ruby away.

She ended the memory replay with two of the small number of words she was able to say telepathically.

Help us.

Posted by: Darkrow Oct 24 2014, 11:21 PM

Lucie instantly backed up and held her pokémon close to her chest when she saw the Vulpix breathe extremely hot flames at her own cage, seemingly trying to melt the bars (and failing). Wasn’t this damned place hot enough already? At least that had snapped Lucie out of her hysteric trance; her mind was now focused on escaping and not dying. Her breathing was still panicked and heavy, but she wasn’t losing her mind about wanting her old life back. Then, a small shiver went down her spine, which made her look around and notice the same Umbreon that had tried to help her earlier.

“...Thank you for… for, um… for earlier…” she sheepishly said after a very long pause, clearly not used to thanking people and even less used to apologising, seeing as how she simply didn’t apologise for screaming at him earlier.

Another long pause.

“…Did… You’re not hurt, are you…?” she asked just as sheepishly, letting her pokémon rest on her lap and rubbing her arms. “Can… Can your friends help my pokémon? They’re… They’re really hurt, especially Peanut…” she mumbled awkwardly, looking down at her injured Litleo sadly and very gently stroking his side. “A… God, I don’t know what they’re called… A green dog hurt him really badly…” she explained, still looking at Peanut.

Posted by: FirePower Nov 2 2014, 02:14 PM

((OOC: Snap, I thought I already posted this. Sorry!)

"I believe you", Kaya told Scyther's trainer. He didn't look like he was lying, and Kaya's instinct told her to trust him. "And, for the record," Kaya added as an afterthought, "my name is Kaya. Please stop calling me little girl."

As soon as Kaya finished speaking a she was somewhere else. Or at least she thought she was. The scenery was different, and there were different people and pokemon around. What caught her attention was a scary mutant Abol thing (was it just her, or did it have wings?) and and unconscious ranger on the ground. It wasn't until her the scene faded and she was back with Espeon and the flame-haired trainer that she relaized she'd seen a vision. As the vision faded two words reverberated in her mind: "Help us."

"Did you show us that?" Kaya asked. She didn't even bothe to wait for an answer."Of course I'll help! But, wait. What about Pinisr? Isn't it going to - going to die of we just leave it here?"

Posted by: Hydra Nov 2 2014, 05:48 PM

Sebastian found it rather surprising that the young girl better known as Kaya could so easily believe what he had told her, she seemed so young and innocent, a contrast to himself that was for sure. Nearby the heavy breathing of the Pinsir could be heard, the stag beetle pokemon looked to be in serious pain thanks to the bullet wounds it's trainer had left in it, Sebastian was okay with leaving the bug to die, however it seemed as though Kaya was not as cold hearted as he was, the only thing that Sebastian could care about at this time was finding his Magby and Elekid.

Sebastian was about the walk away from the scene when he found himself suddenly surrounded by pokemon and humans alike, there was an unconscious guy nearby wearing a rangers vest and even a mutated Absol, how the scenery had changed so quickly was beyond the young adult's train of thought. Before Sebastian could react he found himself back next to Kaya and the Espeon wearing a rangers vest similar to the one that the unconscious guy had been wearing, finally the words 'Help Us' could be heard. It must have been a vision, that was Sebastian's conclusion for the sudden changing of events, maybe the Espeon had psychic powers and was able to show these visions to humans, the voice that Sebastian had heard most certainly sounded like a human's voice. All of these thoughts rushing through Sebastian's mind were making him feel as though he was going insane, Sebastian looked down towards the Espeon with a stern angry look on his face, it was time to interrogate the psychic type pokemon.

"What in the world's going on here? Do you happen to know where my Magby and Elekid have gotten off to?"

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Nov 3 2014, 02:48 PM

Ruby merely cast Lucie a sideways glare and continued with her angry pacing. Moss perked up slightly at the mention of a "green dog" which in some ways could be used to describe him, although he was actually much more tan than green. For the most part, though, he also ignored her, since healing Scott's burns was in his mind more important than listening to a plump girl who thus far hadn't done much more than complain. He had little desire to heal any of Lucie's Pokemon at the moment, either.

Ebony listened, however. Apart from some people using "green dog" to describe a quick look at a Leafeon, the one green dog- well, he considered her a wolf more than a dog- that he knew particularly well happened to be Amber's Electrike, Nikila.

He was injured, but not to the extent of any of Lucie's Pokemon and the injuries weren't particularly bothering him anymore. So he simply responded to Lucie with a mental picture of Nikila, on the hunch that maybe what had initially attacked her was an Electrike. Ebony didn't remember fighting any Electrike last time, but then again he didn't have the best memory...... that was what his sister was for. Of course, he didn't remember fighting that woman poacher who could barely speak understandable English either, so maybe that evil guy had done some recruiting since then.

He really hoped Scarlet was doing okay. She didn't seem to have been caught yet, so maybe they still had a chance at escaping.
____________________________________________________________

Scarlet tilted her head a bit to the side, a habit of hers when she was thinking. She hadn't seen any Magby or Elekid for days, if not weeks, so she simply answered the guy's questions with a "No."

The girl's questions were harder though. Scarlet was not yet much good with psychic barriers, and using one to slow or stop the flow of blood out of an injury was far beyond her level. With enough effort and concentration (and time) she could likely teleport the Pinsir, but with the distance limits it wouldn't do much good anyway.

To put it bluntly, there was simply nothing she could do, except for possibly put the giant bug's pain to an end. She didn't like bugs anyway, and that thing was huge......

However, it was against the creed of a Ranger to kill a Pokemon, even one that was injured.
The poacher, of course, was an entirely different story.

In the end, Scarlet did not answer Kaya at all. She didn't know what to say or how to say it. Honestly, she was surprised these two were taking her seriously at all. She had though it would be harder than this. Then again, the guy didn't seem very cooperative...... and she didn't have time to answer any more questions. Her friends were in danger.

She may not have had any barrier abilities other than Protect, but she was plenty good with telekinesis. Using these powers, she lifted up the downed poacher's handgun, unzipped the big pocket on the back of her vest, and stored the gun inside for further use. Of course, she didn't realize that the gun had no ammunition left, but even then it made a good blunt weapon and she was known to hit things with blunt objects when she was angry.

The Ranger Espeon then turned and began to walk back in the direction she had come from. If the two people wished to help (or simply wanted to beat up more poachers) they would follow her. Sadly, she did not know how to say "come" or "follow" or anything similar, so she remained telepathically silent.

Posted by: Darkrow Nov 11 2014, 08:28 AM

The fact that neither the Vulpix or the Leafeon really paid attention to her really grated on Lucie’s nerves, but before her mood had time to completely turn on a dime once more, the Umbreon projected an image of an Elektrike into her mind, mildly startling her. How the hell it could do that or show that swimming sign, she had no idea, but it was mighty useful for communication.

“I-I… Yes, that’s what attacked us!” she exclaimed, starting to calm down a bit now. “It… um…” she stammered, gently picking up her Litleo, hoping that she wasn’t hurting him. “It… kept running into him… right here,” she said, passing her hand lightly on his side. “And… ohhh, I’m worried, there were loud cracks and I doubt… I doubt that was its skull…” she said a bit grimly.

“I… look, I know I… I know wasn’t… the nicest… but, I’m sure we can help with getting out of here…” she said after a little pause, looking around to see if anyone was around, which wasn’t the case. “I… Praline is a good thief, and she’s small… Pecan’s tiny too and I’m sure he’d be able to focus here…” she said, clearly still worried about her pokémon, especially her Litleo, as she was letting him rest on her lap in a way that didn’t seem to put any strain on his ribs.

Posted by: FirePower Nov 15 2014, 01:41 PM

“I think I saw a Magby and Elekid earlier, in the jungle,” Kaya said. “I didn’t see where they went, though.” Kaya was looking at Pinisr, not the trainer, and you could tell by her voice she wasn’t really focused on the conversation. She was worried about the dying Pinisr.

Kaya was torn. Of course she was going to help Espeon and its trainer, but she couldn’t just leave Pinisr to die. Kaya couldn’t bear to see any suffering Pokemon without trying to help. On the other hand, what could she do? She didn’t know anything about healing would this grievous, and even if she did, she didn’t have any supplies other than a few berries and herbs.

“Pede-erpat,” she called, releasing the Venipede from its pokembaal. She quickly explained the situation. “What do you think we should do?” Kaya knew she could trust Pede-erpat to help her make decisions like these. He was rational enough to know when it was time to give up on something.

Pede-erpat looked At Pinisr, then motioned toward Espeon, who was beginning to walk away. Kaya nodded and returned the Pede-erpat to his Pokeball. She didn’t want to agree to Pede-erpat’s decision, but she knew he was right. She couldn’t help leaving an Oran Berry where Pinisr could reach before rushing after Espeon.

Posted by: Hydra Nov 15 2014, 06:57 PM

Despite Espeon being a psychic type pokemon, Sebastian was having a hard time believing that the Espeon was able to telepathically communicate a truthful message to himself and Kaya, the mensal shaped pokemon was wearing what looked to be like a rangers jacket and for all the young adult from Unova knew, Espeon could be leading them into a trap. Espeon responded to Sebastian's question to the whereabouts of his Magby and Elekid by shaking its head left to right to signal an answer of no, the look on the young adult male's face showed that he was unimpressed by the sun pokemon and the way it was handling itself, Espeon had simply appeared looking to get some help however was unwilling to divulge even the slightest bit of information that Sebastian wanted to know about his rapscallion pair of pokemon.

"No use for that little girl, that piece of crap's only going to die anyway."

It was the look on Kaya's face and the actions that she exhibited she cared about pokemon on a deeper level then Sebastian as she left an Oran berry for the Pinsir that was walking down death road, Kaya then proceeded to chase after the Espeon as it continued to look back to the pair of humans as if signalling for them to follow. Both Espeon and Kaya had been of no assistance in Sebastian's quest to find the run-away pair of Elekid and Magby, the young adult male's facial expression showed that he was unimpressed with how his day had panned out so far. Sebastian was not planning to assist the Espeon in it's quest for help, however the young adult begun to slowly follow the psychic type pokemon, if Magby and Elekid were still somewhere within the large forest then there was a chance that wherever the sun pokemon was leading him could result in finding Magby and Elekid, and if that meant taking this risk of falling into a carefully devised trap that Espeon was leading them into, then so be it.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Nov 16 2014, 12:13 AM

Ebony tilted his head to the side. The girl said something about cracking? But the Litleo she was holding clearly didn't have any cracks on his skin like he was going to break apart...... he simply didn't understand. And what was that she said about his skull? ...... What was a skull? Ebony, sadly, wasn't the smartest Umbreon in the world.

About all he got from their conversation was that she'd been attacked by an Electrike. He didn't remember seeing an Electrike anywhere though.

After a few moments of thinking about it, he heard the girl say something about stealing. Ebony had used his Covet abilities to their fullest last time he'd fought these people, so that was a good idea. But how to do it?

He never got time to figure that part out before it happened.
______________________________________________________________

Across from the row of cages that held Ebony, Ruby, Moss, Lucie and her team, and the trio of wild Growlithe were a pair of much larger cages for much larger Pokemon. The left cage had a Torterra while the right one had a larger-than-normal, old-looking Armaldo.

Of of the boss poacher's human minions was trying to feed the Armaldo. After all, they couldn't sell something if it was dead.

The Armaldo, however, refused to eat anything.

But the poacher kept trying.

And this made the Armaldo mad.

The larger cages that the two big Pokemon were held in were made out of reinforced steel, compared to the small cages holding Scott's team and Lucie which were more of a lightweight aluminum-steel alloy. This was to try and hold the Pokemon within at all costs.

But, with a pair of Fury Cutters in an X-pattern, the Armaldo cut right through the door of the cage like it was nothing. Of course, the poacher who was standing just outside the doors was also cut open, and then blasted off hit feet with a Water Gun.

The poacher screamed.

This led to yelling from the other poachers and their Pokemon, who made a wide circle around the ginat bug as it stepped out of the cage through the new hole it had created.

Someone shot a tranquilizer dart.

The dart ricocheted off the Armaldo's battle armor and fell to the ground harmlessly.

The wild Armaldo was smart enough to know it couldn't win on its own, so its first plan of attack was to arm more Fury Swipes at the cage next to it. While this failed to cause a very big opening, it did cause enough damage that the wild Torterra simply had to charge at the now-weakened door and all 300 pounds of the grass-and-ground type went flying out of the cage and into some more of the poachers.

And then came total chaos.
________________________________

While it seemed like the boss poacher and his team, along with the female poacher from earlier and her team were missing, the group trying to stop Armaldo and Torterra numbered around a dozen people and four dozen Pokemon. This was clearly too much for the pair, even with as much strength as they had, and they were taken down by the poachers.

However, when the Armaldo was knocked out, it happened to fall on top of the cages containing Ebony/Ruby/Moss and Lucie and her team. While the cages did hold up to the weight, the front end (including the cage doors) were now heavily damaged.

As the poachers tied up Armaldo and Torterra and used their Pokemon to slowly drag them off to the other side of the camp, they all somehow failed to notice the damage. After a few minutes of waiting, only two poachers were left, both of whom had a Murkrow and a Makuhita. The pair had their backs to everyone, staring at the two destroyed cages.

This clearly was the time to attempt to escape, so Ruby moved up to the door of her cage and gave it a slight push. Armaldo's fall had damaged the side of the door with the lock on it, and although the lock was still somewhat functional, when both she and Ebony pushed on the door it was quite apparent that it wouldn't take much effort to break the lock.

Lucie's cage, on the other hand, had taken most of its damage to the side of the cage with the door's hinges. Two of the hinges were now outright broken with the third and last hinge slightly damaged, while the lock was undamaged. This left the door leaning outwards, and probably left Lucie with her own thoughts about escaping.

And while Ebony was a somewhat dumb Umbreon, Ruby was a highly intelligent Vulpix. With just a few "Vul" growls for communication, she gave Ebony her plan.

This plan used Lucie as bait, something Ebony didn't agree with, but he had no better ideas so he went with it......

The first step was to create a Substitute clone of himself inside Lucie's cage. Since only the thin cage bars separated the two cages, this was an easy task. Lucie's cage was pretty full, but there was still enough room for an Umbreon.

The second task was for him and Ruby to attack the door to their cage at the same time as the Substitute tackled the door of Lucie's cage, with both sides aiming at the weakest points of the doors.

With his telepathy, Ebony did the countdown to the attack.

3...... 2...... 1......

The two Ebonys and Ruby rushed forwards and tackled the two cages doors. While Ebony and Ruby managed to separate the lock from the cage and force their way out, Ebony's weak Substitute wasn't so lucky. The clone merely bounced back off of the door, only causing minor damage, so he tried again and got the same result.

For the third try, however, the now-free real Ebony grabbed the bent side of the cage's door from the outside and pulled right as his Substitute tackled the door once more, and the last hinge broke.

With the doors broken, everyone (apart from those three wild Growlithe nearby in a different cage) was now free.

Well, assuming they could stop those two poachers before they could sound the alarm......
______________________________________________________________________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unaware of the escape attempt that was now beginning to unfold in the poacher camp, Scarlet continued to lead the way through the forest, eventually arriving back at the small clearing where her team had been attacked.

The fact that Ebony and the girl he'd been chasing after had not shown up probably meant that they had been captured, which concerned Scarlet.

This was especially concerning given that Scarlet had absolutely no tracking abilities. Those had been Ebony's focus, not hers. This meant that even with the scents of multiple poachers and their Pokemon stuck to everything nearby, she had no chance of following the scents back to their origin.

There was also a distinct lack of either blood trails or any tracks they could follow.

She could, however, hear something in the bushes nearby. Concerned about getting attacked again, she hit the bushes with a barrage of Swift stars and heard something cry in pain.

That was when an injured Electrike stumbled out of the bush and fell on the ground in front of the group.

It appeared to have various injuries, some caused by tackles and others caused by what appeared to be a wind-based attack, along with a couple bruises caused by her Swift. Most noticeable, however, was a great big, dark purple bruise right along the left side of the electric wolf as if an angry human had kicked it as hard as they could. Not only that, but its fur was very ragged and the Pokemon was clearly malnourished. It appeared to have been abandoned, and going by the bruise, relatively recently too.

And the only people around to abandon such a Pokemon were either the various Hikers who occasionally visited this deep area of the Fidona rainforests...... and the poachers. And seeing as the poachers had already left that Pinsir to die, it seemed obvious where this Electrike had come from, at least to Scarlet.

But before she could figure out how to tell her new companions that, the Electrike managed to get back on its feet and stumbled over to Kaya.

Posted by: Darkrow Nov 16 2014, 02:00 AM

“…What? Are you deaf or something?” Lucie asked, a little ticked off that the Umbreon didn’t seem to understand her. She wasn’t speaking too quietly and she was enunciating and pronouncing perfectly, what was the matter? However, before she could reiterate her point, a scream shattered the general silence, followed by chaos. A gigantic pokémon (by her standards), never seen before by Lucie, had broken out and was lashing out against its captors. The thing was terrifying, and so was the enormous turtle it set free. Torterra, it was called, that much Lucie knew; it was a popular export for her father.

Keeping her pokémon out in the open was burdensome and dangerous, Lucie thought, especially in these circumstances. Something was bound to happen. Reaching down into her dress through the collar, Lucie grabbed her hidden pokéballs and recalled her beloved pokémon, putting the little orbs back where they were, making sure the makeshift pocket she made inside her oversized dress was still solid. It took her quite a bit of time, panic making her stumble and shake. Today had just been a whirlwind of mood swings, and she couldn’t wait to just lie down and sleep… hopefully eat and drink, too.

Thoughts about food clouded her mind just long enough for her to get lost in it, only to get brutally flung back into reality when the terrifying armored giant bug of a pokémon fell on top of both her and her neighbor’s cages, causing her to let out a shrill shriek and to curl up with her arms covering her head. When she dared open her eyes again, admittedly surprised she was still alive, she saw the Umbreon in her cage. It started tackling the door of her cage, making her take notice that it was damaged.

Lucie’s confused state only became amplified when she saw the Umbreon… also outside her cage? The two broke her cage’s door, allowing the chunky girl to get out. She stretched and rubbed her ample posterior, moaning softly. “Could’ve at least put a cushion in there,” she disgruntledly remarked, before looking at Ebony. She sheepishly thanked him and looked around, noticing the two poachers standing there, looking… not too bright. Shocked and dumbfounded, actually.

“Uh… might wanna do something against these two, I can’t do much and neither can my pokémon,” she told Ebony and Ruby, still looking at the poachers. They were probably armed and way stronger than she was. “In fact, I’ll just… I’ll leave you two to it, you’re doing great!” she uncharacteristically said, before turning on her heels and running away, not getting more than a couple feet away before a familiar voice could be heard in the direction she intended to run.

“What in the bloody hell happened here, you bumbling clots!?” the female poacher from before asked loudly, the scarred Scizor as well as the Heliolisk and Gurdurr in tow. The three pokémon seemed a bit fearful this time, especially the Scizor. Seemingly, this woman was scary enough to instill fear into such powerful pokémon. She still had that big rifle strapped to her back too...

“O-Okay, maybe not, I’ll… I’ll stay with you two, you seem to know what you’re doing, y-yeah,” Lucie muttered nervously, stepping back to Ebony and Ruby, not that it was that far away. It was hard to condemn her for her cowardice, the poor girl was out of shape, scared, ignorant and her pokémon were all knocked out. All she wanted to do was run away, hide and end this damned nightmare that never seemed to end.

Posted by: FirePower Nov 17 2014, 09:17 PM

Kaya's heart melted as soon as she Electrike coming towards her. Kaya had a soft spot for Pokemon, especially hurt or helpless ones. How could she not love the the injured little wolf?

Kaya got an Oran Berry out of her backpack. She got down on one kneee and held out the berry. Electrike tore at the berry, almost biting Kaya's fingers in its haste. A few of its smaller bruises faded, and its tail began wagging a little bit. It limped to a nearby patch of grass and nosed a pokeball out of the undergrowth that had hidden it from view.

Kaya picked the Pokeball up. "Is this yours?" she asked. Electrike nodded. Had it maybe belonged to a poacher's victim? It obviously didn't belong to that ranger - it wasn't in uniform - but maybe the poachers had other victims she didn't know about. She'd been atacked by a poacher too. There may have been other victims that weren't able to defend themselves. Something in the back of Kaya's head told her it could have been a poacher's pokemon or abandoned pokemon, but Kaya ignored it. Electrike was too friendly, in Kaya's mind, to belong to an evil poacher, and she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to abandon such a sweet little Pokemon.

"Either way," Kaya said, returning Electrike to its Pokeball, "It wouldn't do to just leave you out here like this. Maybe we can find out who you belong to. They'd be happy to have their Pokemon back, I'm sure." She turned to the flame-haired trainer. "How do you think this little guy ended up in the jungle by himself?"

Posted by: Hydra Nov 18 2014, 03:42 AM

It was not very often that Sebastian found himself walking along cautious of his surroundings, the flame-haired trainer was on the edge about possibly being lead into an ambush and so he had decided to keep a detective like view on the slightest of movements in the area surrounding, if he were going to fall into a trap he wanted to give himself a greater chance of reacting to the situation. The young girl known commonly as Kaya was clearly a much more caring trainer then Sebastian, this was obvious as the young adult from Unova watched the girl offer an Oran Berry to an injured Electrike. While Kaya selflessly helped out the injured lightning pokemon, Sebastian continued to survey the area, it was not an everyday occurrence to find a pokemon left for dead in the middle of a forest, even the self confessed bad-boy wasn't willing to stoop to that level. The flame haired trainer turned back to face Kaya and noticed the young girl returning the Electrike into it's pokeball, she then proceeded to question Sebastian about the whole situation.

"Something tells me our encounter with those poachers earlier may not have been a random occurrence"

To Sebastian the events that he had been faced with so far in the day had seemed like random events, however the flame-haired young adult suspected that someone was pulling the strings in a plan that was steadily being implemented. Sebastian released Jaws the Totodile from his pokeball as the big jaw pokemon almost instantly begun to chew on its tail, a bad habit that seemed to put the pokemon in a state of ease.

"Jaws, scout the area and look for anything suspicious looking."

Jaws cocked his head to one side with a quizzical look directed towards his trainer, after being trapped inside his pokeball for a while the big jaw pokemon was unsure of exactly what was going on. The big jaw pokemon momentarily stopped chewing on the end of his tail and begun to walk around the area keeping his eyes wide open and focused primarily on anything that looked slightly out of place, at the same time Sebastian went searching nearby by himself. Suddenly Jaws came running towards his trainer with what looked to be a ripped piece of clothing in it's mouth, the big jaw pokemon had found the ripped item of clothing near what looked to be a tree branch that had only recently been detached from the tree itself. Sebastian took the item out of Jaws' mouth as he observed it closer, it was part of a black shirt by the look of it. Jaws directed his trainer to the spot where he had found the detached tree branch. Sebastian moved swiftly to retrieve Blade's pokeball as he released the mantis pokemon from it's resting place as he gave Blade the ripped piece of clothing, the mantis pokemon looked quizzically at his trainer.

"Take to the air Blade and see if you can find anyone or anything that matches this piece of clothing."

With the ripped item of clothing in his mouth the mantis pokemon took to the air, doing his best to escape the enclosure of trees that shaded them above-head. Blade disappeared out of sight as the mantis pokemon expended a significant amount of energy to keep itself airborne. The clues that Kaya and Sebastian had encountered were beginning to add up piece by piece, the encounter with the poachers earlier, the encounter with an abandoned injured Electrike and a ripped piece of clothing, was it that there were more poachers then the one's that Kaya and he had defeated earlier and they had been more successful in executing their part of the plan then their comrades. Sebastian's suspicion was soon answered as Blade appeared back in sight as the mantis pokemon directed towards a path in the forest, and by the look on the bug type pokemon's face he looked very worried and begun to lead the way.

"Looks like we have company."

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Nov 18 2014, 01:52 PM

With Lucie powerless (and probably unwilling) to help out and Moss staying in the safety of the cage for now since he couldn't do much either, that left only Ebony and Ruby to defeat three poachers and their Pokemon teams before the rest of their enemies realized they were attempting to leave.

And with Ebony's injuries from earlier only slightly healed, and his generally low attack power, that really just left Ruby. Regradless, Ebony and his Substitute took up a position on one side of Lucie facing the two dumbfounded poachers who were just now beginning to figure out what had happened while Ruby stepped between their human ally and the female poacher.

While not as good as Scarlet's, Ruby's memory was great. And there was one particular event in the past that she thought might be able to help them here.

It was way back when she and Scott had just found Ebony and Scarlet as Eevees, and had to fight off a Mightyena pack to save them.

Once the Mightyena pack had begun to doubt that it could win, even though they tremendously outnumbered herself and Scott, their ability to fight had fallen apart.

After the fight, Scott had said something about "psychological...... something." She couldn't quite remember what the last part of the term was. Warfare, maybe?

She could see in the eyes of the female poacher's Pokemon that they did not wish to be here. And she knew that there was something else they could see......

She was pissed. She was out for blood now. And they knew that.

In a way, it was probably best that Scott was still out cold. If she caught an enemy, there was nobody who could stop her from simply ripping their throat out. She was quite possibly the most terrifying Vulpix on the face of the planet right now.

And to make things better for her, Scizor was not only injured but weak to her fire attacks. As a result, when she took a step forwards, Scizor took a step back.

Ruby took another step forwards.

This time both Scizor and Heliolisk took a step back.

The female poacher noticed this and started to cry profanities, but only managed to get out a "What the hell do......" before Ruby made her move.

Using all the fire she had compressed earlier in hopes of melting the bars, she used a new move that she had never used before.

Flamethrower.
___________________________________________________

From Ebony's point of view facing away from Ruby, all he saw were the two poachers and their dual Murkrow and Makuhita suddenly recoil in fear staring at something behind him. For a moment he wondered if Lucie had suddenly turned into some kind of monster and attacked the female poacher...... but then he turned around and saw the wall of fire.

Ruby had, in her anger, unleashed a massive Flamethrower. It covered about a 70 degree arc in front of her and went forwards nearly thirty feet. Needless to say, he could not see the female poacher or the Heliolisk or Gurdurr, although the fire wasn't hot enough to cause them to burn up so they were probably still alive.

He could still see the Scizor, though. At the first sign of the incoming fire attack it had turned and ran as fast as it could in the opposite direction. It was still running and disappeared from view behind the barracks-like building on the far side of the camp.

Before the flames had gone out, Ruby turned around and shot a glare at the other two poachers.

They flinched and took a few steps back.

And then the angry Vulpix used Flamethrower again.

Seeing her open her mouth, the two humans screamed and covered their faces. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...... Huh?"

Then they noticed tat the stream of fire from Ruby this time only went about a foot from her jaws. In her desire to burn the demon poacher to a crisp, she had ended up using every last bit of fire in her internal flame sack. She now had no ability to use any of her fire attacks, and looked completely dumbfounded as to why her attack had failed.

The two poachers looked at each other, and then burst out laughing so hard they were crying. Their Murkrow started that annoying habit of laughing too, although the two Makuhita were smart enough to realize that Ebony was still a threat and turn to look at him instead.

And so everyone was surprised when ran up to one of the poachers with Quick Attack and aimed her jaws right at the guy's neck. The two poachers screamed in unison again and managed to sidestep Ruby before running in absolute terror with their hands in the air. Their Pokemon ran right after them, and Ruby gave chase.

At the same time, a third poacher arrived on the scene with, of all things, a Mightyena that would have scared Scarlet half to death if she had been there. Seeing Ruby chasing the other pair of poachers, he and his wolf-dog chased after her.

Knowing that Ruby needed his help, Ebony and his Substitute chased after that guy and his Mightyena, leaving Lucie and her unconscious team all alone with Moss and the still-out-cold Scott.

Moss didn't really care what Ebony and Ruby did as long as they kept the attention away from himself. He was however concerned with the aftermath of Ruby's flamethrower...... while the Scizor had fled and the Heliolisk and Gurdurr were lying on the ground burned and unable to battle, the female poacher seemed to hve vanished......

The big Lefeon slowly stepped out of the cage and walked to where Scott was lying. The Ranger's bag was sitting nearby, along with his now-bent and still glowing-hot sword and the firecracker-paintball gun, which was out of ammo. Inside that bag was likely to be some food and medical supplies...... and a Fire Stone for Ruby. And most importantly of all, Scott's cell phone.

Moss tried tugging on the zipper of the bag's main pocket, but couldn't get it open by himself. If only there was someone else who could open it......

He looked at Lucie.
__________________________________________________

As Scarlet desperately sniffed at the ground and at the seemingly-friendly Electrike for some kind of clue as to where they needed to go next, the male Trainer she had found called out a Totodile that found a scrap of clothing. She sniffed at it as it was given to a Scyther, and realized that it was actually a part of Ruby's Ranger vest. It must have been torn off when the mutant-Absol-with-wings had attacked her.

It didn't do her much good, but apparently the Scyther had tracking abilities and it took the lead along a small path. The path led over a small stream, and then to a small hill. Just beyond the small hill was a large depression in the ground, that almost looked like a hundred-million-year-old meteor crater.

And within that crater was what appeared to be a square-shaped fort. The area was surrounded by a several-foot-high log wall, although the wall wasn't high enough to block the group from seeing over it from their vantage point at the edge of the crater. Within the wall were three buildings. On the far side of the fort was what appeared to be a barracks or sleeping quarters of some sort, and next to it was a small metal building that looked like a storage shed. On the side of the base closest to them was a house, which likely housed the boss. And between those three buildings were many metal cages of different sizes.

There was only one obvious entrance to the fort, which was (from their point of view) on the far right side of the fort. It was likely the poachers had made some kind of hidden exit to escape from as well, but they would waste time finding it. And besides, there didn't appear to be anyone on watch outside the entry point......

Instead, it appeared that the inhabitants of the fort were all preoccupied with something happening inside the base. From the group's vantage point, they could see two poachers running from something, which on closer inspection was a Vulpix. And the Vulpix was being chased by another poacher, who was being chased by two Umbreon, who were being chased by three more poachers, one of whom was holding a long-barreled rifle. There were also various Pokemon running about after the poachers (or away from the Vulpix and Umbreon).

Scarlet knew very well that the Vulpix could be nobody but Ruby, and one of the Umbreon had to be her brother, although she wasn't sure about the second Umbreon (unaware that it was just a Substitute).

They had started without her!

Turning to her allies, she sent them another telepathic message. Knowing they could see the Vulpix and Umbreon too, she mentally sent them an image.

It was a family picture Scott had taken a few week ago of himself, Ruby, Ebony, Scarlet, and Moss. To caption it, she said telepathically, "They're in there. Help us."

Then, unwilling to teleport again for fear of running out of energy that she needed to battle with, the small Espeon ran towards the fort's entrance.

Posted by: Darkrow Nov 25 2014, 03:00 PM

Fuck this.

Just. Fuck this. Her pokémon had run away and she had just gotten her arm (and part of the side of her face) burnt pretty badly. There was loyalty, and then there was stupidity. Staying meant the female poacher would either get killed or arrested, and there was no way she’d let either of those happen.

Thus she ran away, imitating her abused pokémon.

Back to square one.

-------------------------

A surprised yelp followed by Lucie almost tripping was what Ruby’s sudden Flamethrower had made the chubby girl do, turning her back on the two poachers to look at the scraggly skeleton of a woman running away in lopsided fashion, clearly injured. Screams from the poachers caused Lucie to imitate her earlier reaction, though their laughter merely discouraged her. The Vulpix wouldn’t do anything else, right?

Wrong.

The little fox leaped at the poachers and scared them away, attacking like a wild hound. As she chased them, a third poacher with a huge wolf-like pokémon appeared, but was just as quickly chased away by Ebony and his clone, which left Lucie all alone as silence filled the air.

Lucie was finally calming down and hope filled her. No one was around! She could just run away (as much as she didn’t want to run even more today) and be done with today, with all this poacher stuff. For all she cared, it would only be a nightmare, forever forgotten.

…But as she prepared to walk away, a few things caught her attention. First, she didn’t know her way out of this hellhole of a rainforest. What if she got attacked by wild pokémon while trying to find her way home? Second, she didn’t know how long she’d last without food: for most of the day she was energised by adrenaline and panic, but now she was tired, thirsty and hungry, and she felt it hard. Finally, there was a gentle jingling sound coming from behind her, with gentle thuds peppered in between the jingles.

Turning around, she saw Scott’s knocked out body as well as a rather large Leafeon pawing desperatly at a bag, though it quickly stopped and looked at her with pleading, expecting eyes. After hesitating for half a minute, Lucie sighed and approached him, correctly assuming that he was friends with the Umbreon and the Vulpix.

“Here, I’ll open it for you, but I’m not expecting nothing in return, got it?” she said in a rare, compassionnate tone that (quite hypocritically) tried to sound mean and tough, as if she thought she needed a reason to help others. The zipper was jammed on a piece of cloth, as it so often happened with coats. The portly young lady tugged hard on the zipper and swore under her breath when it wouldn’t budge. When she wisened up and decided to go with dexterity instead of brute force, she managed to unzip the bag slightly, letting her unjam the zipper with a chubby finger and then unzip the whole thing.

“There.”

Posted by: FirePower Nov 30 2014, 10:36 PM

Kaya stared open-mouthed at the poacher's base. She was in way over her head. She didn't know what she had been expecting - a few goons like the two that had jumped her, maybe . There were at least a dozen poachers in the camp, many of them carrying rifles. The poacher's pokemon, or at least the ones she could see, didn't ease her nervousnes. Kaya knew she couldn't expect to beat the poachers, at least, not the one with the Mightyenna, but she had promised to help.

As Espeon ran toward the Poacher's base, Kaya stayed where she was. How could she help without getting herself killed? Planning ahead wasn't normally Kaya's strong point, but she was scared. She wanted to minimize the chances of getting shot by one of the poachers, getting mauled by one of the poacher's Pokemon, or suffering some other nasty death.

The best way Kaya could see to help was to find Espeon's Ranger and help him to sneak out in all the confusion. She had no idea what she would do if the ranger were still unconscious, like in the vision she'd seen, or locked up in a cage or something. She just hoped that wouldn't be the case.

Before Kaya could rush into the fray, she remembered one last precaution she needed to take care of. "Manera," she said to her Blitzle, "If anyone approachers with a gun, paralyze them." Manera nodded gravely. Kaya didn't want to give such a mean, illegal order, but if were shot she wouldn't be able to give any more orders at all.

Kaya decided she was as ready now as she would ever be. She ran into the poacher's camp, Manera at her side. She slipped through the unguarded entrance and began looking for Espeon's Ranger. She couldn't see him, so maybe he was in a different part of the base. Either way, she decided it would be better to have another set of eyes searching.

"Beacon," Kaya said, holding out a Pokeball. A three-legged Absol appeared with a burt of red light. "Beacon, do you think you can do something on your own for me? You'll need to be careful. There's a bunch of poachers around here, and a lot of them are armed." The Absol nodded. "Good. I'm looking for a Pokemon Ranger. He has, um, brown hair, I think? Either way, you'll be able to tell by the uniform, right? If you find him, let me know. And come back if I whistle too." Beacon turned an ran into the cages.

Kaya wove her way through cages of Pokemon, keeping her eyes peeled for any sign of Espeon's Ranger. She would have shouted for him, but the last thing she wanted to do was call attention to herself.

Kaya stopped at the edge of a clearing. There was a helicopter in the clearing, but Kaya wasn't particularly interested in that. She could see a flock of Pidgeot not far away, in a net that was fastened to the ground. They were going to be put into cages later, most likely. Kaya decided to go ahead and release the Pidgeot. She couldn't stand the idea of them being sold on the black market. Besides, maybe Kaya or her Pokemon could convince some of the Pidgeot to help find Espeon's Ranger.

Kaya ran toward the net when a burly man stepped out from the mess of cages. "Stop right there," the poacher said in a deep voice. If he was carrying a gun, Kaya couldn't see it. The poacher did, however, have a Growlithe at his heels. Manera jumped between Kaya and the poacher and assumed a battle-ready stance. Growlithe did the same.

"Manera, use Quick Attack," Kaya ordered. Manera charged at the growlithe, head down to ram the Puppy Pokemon. Growlithe jumped to the side and Manera sped harmlessly past.

"Growlithe, use Roar, then subdue this girl before she can use another Pokemon," the burly poacher said. Growlithe gave a mighty roar. Manera reared back in fear, and then returned to its pokeball. Growlithe turned toward Kaya and prepared to attack.

Before Growlithe could attack however, both Growlithe and its trainer were distracted by a bang. A metal cage door flew into the clearing.

"Oh, crap!" the poacher said, and he and his pokemon ran back into the group of cages. They brushed past Kaya, completely ignoring her. A split second later, Kaya found out why they were so panicked.

************************************************************************

Not far away from Kaya, an old charizard had been watching the chaos unfold. He was the length from snout to tail and covered with scars both old and new. One wing was broken and hanging limply from his back.

Memory of the Charizard's capture was still fresh in his mind. He had been hunting, flying in search of prey. Then the poachers had come in their flying machine and caught him in a net. His wing had broken when he had fallen, and they had stuck him in this cramped cage. Nothing had ever made the Charizard more furious.

The Charizard was no idiot. He had known he could not face all of the poachers and win. So he had bided his time, waiting for the time when the odds were in his favor. That time had come. The poachers were scattered, to busy trying to quell other uprisings to worry about their other captives. If the Charizard broke out now, they would never catch him, and he could extract his revenge.

The Charizard swung his razor-sharp claws at the bars of his cage. Somehow the bars stayed intact, but they bulged outward. The Charizard braced its back against the back of the cage and kicked outward with both beet. This time the door of the cafe flew off its hinges, landing a good ten feet away in the clearing. As the Charizard stepped free of his cage, he could already see his first target: the pochers' flying machine. Blew a blast of fire at the flying machine, directing all of its fury into a single devestating Flamethrower attack.

************************************************************************

The explosion was so violent, everything else Kaya had been through that day was nothing in comparison. The helicopter burst apart in a volcano of flames and white-hot metal that scattered all over the clearing. The rush of air caused by the explosion hit Kaya like a wall, and the ground was shaking like during a meteor storm. Kaya stumbled back a few steps before she fell, clutching at her ears.

At fist, the noise had been so deafening that Kaya thought her skull would split in two. Then, slowly, the world became quiet again. Kaya 's ears were still ringing, but she couldn't hear anything else. She was beginning to get scared. People sometimes went deaf from exposure to loud noises. Kaya gave a huge sigh of relief when, after a few minutes, the ringing in her ears stopped and she could hear the flock of Pidgeot again.

Kaya picked herself off the ground. She was glad she hadn't had time to send out any of her pokemon. Who knew what the explosion might have done to their hearing? She held out two Pokeballs, calling out her Drilbur, Miner, and Manera.

"Miner," Kaya said, "see if you can help me get this net loose. Manera, keep watch for any more poachers." Growlithe and its trainer were nowhere to be seen, but Kaya wanted to be prepared in case she had to face them or another poacher.

Kaya walked to the net of Pidgeot and began walking around it, looking for whatever was fastening the net to the ground. She didn't have to look far; she quickly found a metal peg atatched to the net and pushed into the ground. Miner seemed to have found one of his own; he was busily digging not far away. Kaya tried to dig up the peg, but the packed earth was difficult to shovel with her bare hands. She tried pulling the peg, but it was stuck too firmly in the ground. Kaya kept digging, hoping she and Miner could release the Pidgeot soon and go back to searching for the Ranger.

Posted by: Hydra Dec 4 2014, 08:04 PM

Was this Espeon leading them into a trap? Sebastian was feeling hesitant to believe anything that the psychic type pokemon was trying to project to him mentally. Always an action first person, Sebastian had Blade scout the area from above to determine if there was actually anything nearby, it was primarily a measure to hopefully avoid a potential trap. Sebastian found himself outside the walls of what looked to be a fort that had been set up as a base, observing from hills outside the fiery haired young adult kept a close eye on any movement from within complex. Sebastian's facial expression looked rather surprised as while glimpsing into the base he noticed many people with guns dressed identical to the guy who had attacked him earlier in the day, the suspicion that this whole predicament was leading him into a trap disappeared as Seb noticed a young Marill wincing in pain as one of the men with the guns shot a bullet at the water type pokemon who was currently trapped inside a cage.

After catching a rather fruitful glimpse of what was going on within the enemies borders, Seb turned to see where Kaya and that Espeon had gone off to. Even the most cocky people in the world knew that invading an enemy base with many dangerous people armed with guns was not a good idea if you were going in alone, however that was the predicament that Sebastian found himself in at the moment. For a moment Sebastian stopped and reflected about the events that had taken place so far, most of them seemed to connect to paint a picture of a possible conclusion, except for that Vigoroth encounter of course, that stupid ass monkey was a psychopath and was willing to attack anything in it's path, especially it's new trainer. Sebastian wondered if his Magby and Elekid somewhere within the base and had previously been captured by the poachers and locked away in cages, the fiery haired boy knew there was really only one way to find out, implementing a plan to success would be Seb's greatest problem though, he wasn't much of a thinker and more of a do-er. Pointing towards the sky he motioned for Blade to once again take flight, keeping his voice low enough so that no-one inside the enemies territory could hear him the boy uttered instructions to the mantis pokemon.

"Blade, serve as a distraction and draw the attention away from Jaws and Myself as we get to work, don't let yourself get caught or shot and wait for my signal though before you make a move."

Blade nodded his head as the mantis pokemon took flight and perched at the top of a large oak tree, anybody who could notice the bug type pokemon must have had a keen eye. Now looking at Jaws, keeping eye to eye contact so to draw the water crocodile pokemon's attention and let it know that he was in a business like state. Jaws was feeling nervous as his trainer stared him down, he wanted to grab his tail and chew on the end of it to comfort his nerves, however he was almost sure that doing that would piss off Sebastian, instead the big jaw pokemon remained silent and still as he awaited his trainers directions.

"Jaws, You and I are going to infiltrate the base and free up some of those caged up pokemon and set them loose on those poachers."

The primary goal of the mission was to locate Seb's Magby and Elekid, however it was most certainly not going to be as simple as waltzing into the base and asking for a tour of the place until he found them caged up nearby. A loud and horrendous sound of an explosion could be heard as flames and smoke emerged nearby, it was almost like someone had purposefully set up a distraction for Sebastian and his team. Glancing over the hill and into the enemy's base, Sebastian noticed quite a number of poachers who were dressed in black clothing running towards the place where the explosion had taken place. Rising to his feet Sebastian motioned for Blade to take flight and reveal himself to what poachers had remained behind. Sebastian and Jaws frantically begun to move towards a rather decent sized hole in a make-shift fence. Leading the way through Jaws squeezed through the gap much easier then his trainer. Sebastian had a look of shock on his face as he noticed no poachers within the vicinity, the explosion had drawn so much interest that they all must have left there post, except for one guy.

"Hey twerp, what the fuck do you think your doing in here!"

Without hesitation the man raised his gun and aimed it towards Jaws, a few seconds later he shot a single bullet rapidly towards the big jaw pokemon. Moving swiftly Sebastian grabbed onto Jaws' tail and tossed him a few metres to the left and out of the bullets path before dodging the incoming bullet by jumping to the ground, face against the ground. It was a very narrow miss that could have potentially ended up worse, however the poacher now looked even more pissed then before as he begun to close the distance between himself and Sebastian, inevitably the closer he got, the more accurate and powerful his shot would be. Sebastian was literally frozen in the spot he lay, he was sure his life was about to end here and now as he clenched his teeth, never before had he been so afraid of somebody else. The poacher aimed his gun towards Sebastian's head as a smirk could evidently be seen on his face,

"This'll teach you, you little shit!"

Sebastian braced for what he believed was his impending death. It never happened though. Everything went silent for a moment before the man with the gun collapsed next to Sebastian, eyes closed. Sebastian's heart was racing as he raised his head and noticed Blade standing over the top of the poachers unconscious body. Slowly rising to his feet Sebastian nodded his head towards Blade in thanks for saving him from death, nearby Jaws had been distracted by a Cranidos trapped in a cage who was whining like a baby, the big jaws pokemon felt a sense of sorrow for the head butt pokemon. Sebastian picked up the unconscious poachers gun, it was loaded with bullets, however despite the cocky self-inflated personality that Seb possessed and despite his criminal actions, he had never actually shot a real gun. With the hand not holding the gun Sebastian motioned for Blade to take flight once again, he would prove to be a scout on the lookout for any possible dangers to his team.

Nearby Jaws the Totodile was chewing away at the cage with Cranidos trapped inside, the metal bars slowly but steadily breaking due to the strength that Totodile had in his jaws. Finally a gap big enough for the Cranidos to escape from was made as the head butt pokemon rubbed it's skull up against Jaws' face, it was it's way of thanking him for saving him. Cranidos wasted no time in using it's incredibly strong skull to help other pokemon escape from their cages, Jaws helping with the effort as well. The pair worked well together as they helped all different sorts of pokemon, big or small escape from their enclosures. For the first time in a long time Sebastian actually had a small but real smile on his face as he admired the work his team plus Cranidos were doing to help, the fiery haired boy was confident that it wouldn't be too long until he found his Magby and Elekid. Keeping a hawk like eye on his surrounding, Sebastian had realised that sector that he and his team had taken over had no poacher guards nearby, however the boy was sure it wouldn't be long before there position was breached. Quietly Sebastian's confidence was growing as more and more pokemon emerged from their cages, not only was the fiery haired young adult now armed with a gun but he also had his own enraged Vigoroth still encased in it's pokeball until he though the time was right to unleash the beast from inside.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Dec 5 2014, 01:01 AM

With a quick teleport, Scarlet moved from the ground on top of a tall reinforced-steel cage that was currently empty. From here, she tried to use her psychic powers to survey the area to determine where she needed to go next.

But there was so much chaos and so many lifeforms of both the human and Pokemon variety that her powers were overwhelmed. As a result, she lost track of not only the two humans that had been helping her, but also of Ebony and Ruby.

As she came to a quick "I don't know what to do next" conclusion, she was nearly blown off the top of the cage by a large explosion. All sound stopped reaching her ears for about a minute before she regained her hearing and stood back up to investigate the cause of the blast.

It appeared a Charizard was loose, and the fire dragon was causing destruction to everything it saw that looked like it belonged to the poachers. The female human was nearby, but she looked uninjured and was attempting to free some birds.

Scarlet could not see the male human from her vantage point, but she could see his Scyther flying around, so he must have entered the base too.

The poachers seemed to be split into three groups. One group was on the far side of the base, probably near Ebony and Ruby. The second group was converging on the wild Charizard, and by extension, on Kaya. A third group was gathering outside a house in a corner of the base not far from her position. It appeared they were trying to regroup, and possibly were waiting for someone. Maybe the lead poacher was outside the base?

She desperately wanted to find her Trainer, but Kaya might need some help soon and she couldn't just abandon the human and her Pokemon team now that she had led them here...... but they would never win on their own, even with an enraged Charizard on their side.

So the little Espeon set to work trying to free some reinforcements by opening the cages near her. Her method was simple- she was not strong enough to break the cage bars or the padlocks, but using her telekinetic powers to remove the screws that fastened the door hinges to the cage was much easier. Scott had taught her to do just, in fact, in case she was ever alone with some caged Pokemon.

Plus, it was much quieter than blowing up a helicopter, and also far less noticeable than Ruby's Flamethrower.

There were four occupied cages near her.
The first held ten Zigzagoon. They didn't seem like they would be of much help, instead simply scattering in every direction, but having them running around trying to escape would at least distract the poachers.
The second one held a Riolu. Helpful.
The third one held a Tropius, who didn't really seem to want to leave the safety of the cage, so it was of no help.
The fourth cage held four Deerling, who simply ran off like the Zigzagoon did.

In other words, from four cages the only ally she managed to find was a single male Riolu. With a single telepathic command, she sent him off towards Kaya and moved to four more cages.

The first cage in this set was empty.
The second cage held both a male and female Leafeon and three Eevees, all of whom refused to leave the cage's safety.
The third cage was also empty.
And the fourth cage held an aggressive Carnivine, who tried to eat her the moment she let it out.

She quickly fooled the Carnivine by teleporting behind it, and the hungry vine-thing set its sights on a poacher who had just arrived on scene instead.

So that set of cages had no allies for her. On to a third set.

The first one held three Growlithe, who seemed to be eager to join the battle.
The second cage was empty.
And the third and fourth cages were badly damaged and missing their doors. The third cage had a few unconscious Pokemon inside it, while the fourth cage was empty. And next to that cage......
_________________________________________________________________

After Lucie opened Scott's bag for him, and then said something about something which he didn't understand- was she talking about food?- Moss went digging through the bag, and quickly found one of the two items he was looking for.

It was a leather pouch that was tied shut by a string, and appeared to be glowing orange. The pouch was quite warm to the touch, and Moss had little doubt that if Lucie knew what it was, she'd go running off with it to sell it for money.

Inside was Ruby's Fire Stone, and it was about a third larger than most Fire Stones and thus was worth about a third more. It was a flawless stone, and Moss knew enough about it to know that most jewelry-making humans would do anything to get it so they could cut it up and use it in place of things like diamonds or emeralds.

That mad Vulpix probably wanted this stone, and it would get him on her good side later on, which had plenty of benefits.

The second item that the Leafeon was looking for was right below the stone's pouch- Scott's cell phone. As with all Rangers, the phone had been modified with a special SIM card and other hardware that allowed it to connect to not only the cellular grid but also to a military satellite network that was used by Furoh's law enforcement, Rangers, and Coast Guard since the region didn't have an actual military right now. As a result, the phone could always connect if long as the user had a view of the sky.

But Moss was a Leafeon. He couldn't use a cell phone even if he wanted to. And the pudgy human girl next to him didn't seem like the type who wanted to call the police to help out, and in any case she seemed more interested in the Fire Stone's pouch that was sitting at his feet.

That was when the girl reacted to something. Fearing an attack, Moss turned around...... and found Scarlet rubbing up against the girl's legs with three Growlithe behind her.

Help had finally arrived!

And to make things better, Scott was finally starting to wake up.
________________________________________________________________

It had been a bad day. First he'd had his head smashed by a shotgun barrel, then he was burned, shot with exploding paintballs, and finally knocked out a second time.

He couldn't move anything but his head and left arm. Everything below his shoulders was in so much pain that he was paralyzed, and his right arm was also immobile below the elbow, since that happened to be where one of the firecracker paintballs had hit and caused a burn.

But as he opened his eyes, Moss was there. And so was Scarlet, and that girl from earlier he'd been trying to help when this whole thing started. And three Growlithe too.

Scott was lying on his stomach, with the giant burn from the super-heated sword across his back. Of course, most of the paintballs had hit his stomach and chest, so it was still really painful to be lying down like that......

As he regained his senses, he noticed all the fire caused by Ruby's flamethrower, and the smoke from a differet area where the helicopter had used to be. Was the base under attack?

That was when he realized that Moss was holding his cell phone in between the Leafeon's jaws. His grass-type seemed to want him to call for help with it...... which meant the poachers weren't under attack from the Rangers or the police, but from someone else.

Using his good arm, he took the sightly-slobbery phone and opened up the texting app. It was a special app used by law enforcement, and thus automatically added itself to various contact lists based on location.

Using it, he sent out a single short text to every Ranger, policeman/woman, and civilian with a police scanner on the entire Fidona island......

Code 34.

It was law enforcement code for "Officer down, in need of immediate assistance." The text message was also accompanied by his GPS coordinates.

By the time they arrived, he'd probably already be dead, but maybe his Pokemon and this girl could be saved.

That was when he remembered that almost every single law enforcement helicopter on the continent had be grounded due to the event earlier in the day. In other words, help was likely not coming until tomorrow at the absolute earliest, unless there was a group of civilians with a police scanner nearby.

He looked at Lucie and started to say something, before he noticed a Pokemon standing behind her. It was an Absol, and for a moment Scott thought he was doomed and that the poacher boss was here to finish him off...... before he realized the Absol had only three legs.

It also appeared well-fed, so it must belong to someone. But it wasn't hostile, so it didn't belong to the poachers......

So he asked Lucie, "That Absol...... is it yours?"

He paused for a moment, and then managed to cough out, "And where...... is my Vulpix...... and Umbreon?

Posted by: FirePower Jan 3 2015, 11:14 PM

Beacon ran among the cages, ignoring the Pokemon inside. She had seen a few humans matching Kaya's rather vague description, but judging by their deadly firearms and the harassed state of many of their Pokemon, they were most likely poachers. Besides, none of them were wearing anything remotely like Pokemon Ranger uniforms.



Eventually (after a ear splitting noise and a tremor that knocked her off her feet), Beacon came a pair humans and a group of Pokemon. Beacon ducked behind a cage before she could be seen. If the humans were poachers, the Beacon didn't want them to see her. However, they didn't look like poachers to Beacon. One human, the girl, looked to be scared and out of place in the chaos. The guy was a wreck, chained to one of the cages, unconscious, and covered in burns. Would poachers treat one of their own so cruelly? More importantly, a Leafeon in the group was wearing a Ranger uniform.



Beacon made up her mind as an Espeon, also in a Ranger uniform, ran to the group and began rubbing affectionately against the girl. If the uniformed Pokemon were treating the humans so kindly, then the humans wouldn't be poahcers. Besides, the Eeveelutions might be able to lead Beacon to their trainer. Beacon walked tentatively toward the group as the man began to wake up.



"Excuse me," Beacon said to the Espeon, who was the nearer of the two. "Where's your trainer?"



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The first group of poachers had already found Charizard. One sent a Herdier to attack Charizard, but he swatted it away. Charizard blew a stream of fire at the poachers and their Pokemon, causing them to scramble backwards to avoid being burned. It was a shame there were no water or fire types among them. It would have been a welcome challenge.



"The tranquilizers!" one poacher said, and he and his Glameow fled. Most of the other poachers and their pokemon fled as well. Charizard snorted indignantly. 'Cowards.'



Charizard lumbered into the clearing where the flying machine had been, seeking more poachers to face. A group of humans nearby caught his attention. Charizard roared his challenge and began stalking towards the humans. Maybe these would have some backbone.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Kaya whirled around as she heard the sound of tramping feet behind her. A group of five poachers were coming in her direction, to check on the helicopter most likely. They skidded to a halt, staring blankly at Kaya. The poacher in front recovered first and drew his pistol.



Before Manera could respond, a blue streak rammed into the poacher's legs, knocking the poacher's feet out from under him. The blur stopped; it was a Riolu. Riolu exchanged a few short words with Manera and the two Pokemon got in battle stances side by side.



Before any more fighting could take place, a thundering roar filled the air. Kaya turned around to see a massive Charizard in the helicopter's clearing, walking towards her.



This was bad. This was really, really bad. Charizard looked angry. Kaya didn't want to be caught in the crossfire between Charizard and the poachers or, worse, treated as an enemy by both. But the Pidgeot still weren't free. Kaya didn't want to admit it, but, if she wanted to escape, abandoning the Pidgeot seemed to be the only option.



Kaya was beginning to reach for Miner's pokeball when Miner gave a happy cry. He had dug up enough pegs for the Pidgeot to escape. Pidgeot began streaming from the net, filling the air with the sight and sound of pounding wings. A pair of talons gripped Kaya's shoulders, lifting her into the air. A second Pidgeot picked up Miner and Riolu, while a third grabbed Manera. Charizard and the poachers mostly ignored Kaya and the Pokemon, focused more on fighting each other. They were safe.



Kaya looked down as the camp passed below. This would be an excellent opportunity to look for Beacon, or Espeon, or the missing Pokemon Ranger, or Scyther's trainer, or anyone friendly for that matter.



Kaya smiled, relieved. On the ground, next to some busted cages, two humans, and a number of other pokemon, were Beacon and Espeon. They were okay, and Kaya wouldn't have to be on her own.



"Can you please let us down over there?" Kaya asked her Pidgeot. "Next to that Absol? Don't worry; she's on our side." Kaya's Pidgeot called to the others and dove toward Beacon. Pidgeot dumped Kaya unceremoniously onto the ground, with Riolu, Miner, and Manera landing in a pile beside her. Then the whole flock landed a little ways away, watching the group.



After making sure that Beacon was okay, Kaya turned her attention to the two humans, the guy in particular.



"You're a wreck," Kaya told the man, forgetting all sense of tact. "What happened?"

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Jan 22 2015, 11:22 PM

"I ran into...... some really...... really bad luck. Met a poacher...... who I previously defeated. Didn't end real well."

Scott was having difficulty speaking, but still he managed to finish his sentence.

He then stated the obvious. "I...... can't move."

To be honest, he couldn't even see who he was talking to. She- at least he thought it was a she based on the sound of the voice- was off to his side or behind him somewhere. He wasn't sure when she'd shown up, either.

It seemed that Ebony and Ruby really weren't nearby, however. Scott really wanted to know where they were at and if they were okay.

"Can you...... find the rest of my team? I have an Umbreon and a Vulpix...... in addition to these two...... names are Ebony and...... Ruby."

He couldn't live with himself if he left them behind in a place like this, so he didn't eve try to think of a way to escape the poachers yet.

Not too far away in one of the outpost's corners, a battle could be heard. It was likely they were over there somewhere.

~~~~~

Ruby's fire abilities were slowly beginning to return. At least, she could use Ember again, although only with a significant pause in between attacks.

And Ebony was getting beaten up. He'd already lost once earlier, and since he lacked any truly damaging attacks, he was having a very hard time trying to help out his ally.

The poachers they had been chasing had regained their composure and turned on them, and then they had been quickly surrounded. The pair had tried to break out, but had ended up running in to the corner of the poacher base's walls. So with the walls on two sides and eight poachers and their Pokemon on the other two sides, they were horribly outnumbered.

The only lucky thing was that these poachers had weak Pokemon and no weapons to attack with.

On the other hand, while the poacher boss and his Absol and Chatot were nowhere to be found, his Umbreon had joined the fight. The poachers were rallying behind it, and the dark Eeveelution was easily taking all the damage Ruby and Ebony could throw at it.

They needed help, and soon.

Posted by: Darkrow Jan 23 2015, 04:22 PM

Lucie didn’t react too badly to Scarlet coming back, as she was actually being rather affectionate. The three Growlithes with her did concern her, but they did seem like docile-if-not-nervous puppies, and they seemed to have been following Scarlet to her, so it was okay. Lucie even let a small smile stretch her lips, though it didn’t stay long as the young man she saw getting tortured started waking up. She felt a small tinge of relief, something she didn’t expect. She had never really felt empathy, what with being very sheltered and never really going outside.

An Absol? What was he on about? “What? I don’t have an Abso- Ah!” Lucie turned around and cowered a bit, getting a small dizzy spell that lasted for a few seconds as she did, but the three-legged Absol seemed gentle enough and, most importantly, not hostile. “I-I… no, it’s not mine, my pokémon all got injured earlier,” she stated, regaining her cool, though she did sound saddened when she mentioned her only friends. “As for your pokémon, they ran off to fight those people, don’t really know where they went,” she continued, sounding a bit clueless.

It was then that a flock of overgrown Pidgeys appeared and dumped a girl and her pokémon near them. Nearly immediately, the girl, who luckily didn’t seem hostile, noted that Scott was a wreck and talked to him, completely ignoring her. Feeling rather insulted, Lucie couldn’t help but snap at her. “And I’m scared out of my mind, starving, borderline dehydrated and exhausted, thanks for the concern,” she said unhappily, even pouting a bit.

Scott insisted on seeing his two pokémon. In a way, Lucie could understand why, but her new emotion was getting a bit overpowering in a way that made her act unreasonably by her standards. She should already be running away and leaving those idiots to fend for themselves, so why was she still standing there and actually thinking? To be fair, she didn’t care much for the rude girl, but after seeing this young man try to help her, then get captured and tortured, she felt something else that was new: responsibility.

“…Well, why don’t you go look for them, young lady? I mean, I’d love to, but… my pokémon are out of commission and there’s no way I’m running in there,” she proposed, looking at Kaya. “So between me or you staying, it’d be better if I stayed… speaking of which, you don’t happen to have anything to help my pokémon, right?” she said, addressing Kaya before switching her focus to Scott, getting another tiny bout of dizziness that she didn’t mention. To make it clear that she had no intention of following Kaya (even if she did, she knew she wouldn’t be much help), she fully turned towards Scott, almost tripping on her oversized dress. “…Think… it’d be better if you were sitting?” she asked awkwardly, clearly completely out of her element. All she knew about this came from movies and TV shows and video games, how was she supposed to know what to do?

Posted by: FirePower Jan 30 2015, 04:23 PM

Kaya looked at the other girl in the group. Kaya was immediately annoyed by her whiney tone. However, the girl was right: Kaya had been ignoring her.



"Sorry," Kaya said, rubbing the back of her neck out of awkwardness. "He looks a lot more . . . well . . . half-dead." Kaya considered asking the girl if she were okay, just for the sake of formality, but there wasn't any point. Kaya already knew perfectly well how the girl was, and there was nothing she could really do about it.



Then the man (Kaya was pretty sure he was the missing Ranger.) asked about two of his Pokemon that were missing. Before Kaya could reply, the other girl asked if Kaya could go after the man's Pokemon, since her own were all fainted. And while she was at it, did Kaya have any healing items?



"Well," Kaya said after the girl had finished talking to the ranger. "I've got some berries, if that help. Oh, and speaking of out-of-commission Pokemon," Kaya pulled a Pokeball from her belt, "Did either of you lose an Electrike?"



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The Pidgeot watched closely as the humans had their conversation, even if they couldn't understand what was being said. The girl that had released them from the net had seemed nice, but they weren't about to let their guard down. If these humans were affiliated with the ones that had captured them, then the Pidgeot wanted to be ready to fight. If, however, the humans were going to oppose the poachers, the Pidgeot wanted to help however they could.



There was noise indicating that a fight was nearby. A pair of the Pidgeot took off to investigate, while the others stayed to watch the humans.



The fight the two Pidgeot found was obviously one sided. Numerous humans and their Pokemon were attacking a Vulpix and a Umbreon, each wearing an orange vest. What the Vulpix and Umbreon were before they had gotten in the fight, the Pidgeot didn't know. However, they were fighting the poachers, and that was enough for the Pidgeot. They would help.



The two Pidgeot dove toward the poachers and their Pokemon, talons poised to strike and battle cries screaming from their beaks.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Jan 31 2015, 03:45 PM

OOC- Shorter post than I'd like because I have to go to work...... but this'll do.
__________________________________________

Scott watched a small flock of wild Pidgeot take off and leave, then looked back towards Kaya. "I don't...... remember seeing one anywhere. It's...... definitely...... not mine though."

Moss pulled a large pouch out of Scott's bag. The pouch held berries, mostly Oran and Leppa, but they wouldn't do much good for a Pokemon that was already knocked out and Scott had no Revives or Reviver Seeds. Plus, the poor Leafeon wasn't experienced enough to know Synthesis to heal Lucie's Pokemon himself, so there wasn't much he could do. He dropped the pouch next to Scott's arm.

If the berries make me feel better, they should make him feel better too...... right? Moss wondered.

Scott looked at the berry pouch but didn't take it. Instead, he spoke to Lucie. "Probably better...... not to move me yet."

He opened his mouth to say something more, but then Scarlet suddenly looked off to one side, disturbed. He looked too, and saw it.

The poacher boss had arrived and was standing a distance away with his Chatot perched on one shoulder. And that mutant winged Absol was much closer to them and slowly walking closer.

Behind the boss were four other poachers with varying types of Pokemon.

"Uh-oh...... not again...... you two must...... be very careful around that...... thing. But if you can...... defeat it...... maybe the other poachers will...... flee."
__________________________________________

When it started raining angry Pidgeots, the boss's Umbreon darted forwards. None of the wild birds had aimed for him, instead mostly going after the humans instead which left most of the other Pokemon confused about what to do. The boss Umbreon knew what it had to do, though- win by any means necessary.

Of course, he targeted Ebony first, since they were the same species. The two Umbreons both used Quick Attack on each other, slamming into one another with considerable force. However, the poacher Umbreon was older and weighed more, so he was able to knock Ebony to the ground.

Before he could really hurt Ebony, though, Ruby jumped on his back and bit down on the side of his neck. With everyone else distracted by the Pidgeot, she was able to focus everything she had on the Umbreon.

The Umbreon howled in pain and fury.

Posted by: FirePower Mar 4 2015, 05:23 PM

Charizard stalked amongst the cages, searching for more poachers to fight. He had not seen any humans since he had made short work of the ones near the net that had, until recently, been filled with Pidgeot.

Well, the Pidgeot had carried away one young human as they escaped, but Charizard would let the Pidgeot take care of that human. The Pidgeot deserved a bit of revenge well. Besides, the human girl had been only a hatchling, inconsequential in Charizard's eyes.

Charizard lifted his head, listening. Not far away, a human was shouting. So that was where the poachers were. Charizard announced his coming with a fierce roar, then began to lumber toward the noise of the shouting human.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kaya stared open-mouthed at the approaching. . . whatever it was. Kaya had never seen an Absol with wings. Either the Absol-thing was some sort of mega evolution, or it was from a horror movie, or both. Even if the Absol-thing had not had the wings, Kaya could tell that it was way out of her team's league.

Kaya turned her stare onto the Ranger when he suggested that Kaya fight the Absol-thing. Was he out of his mind? Her Pokémon wouldn't last two minutes in a fight with that thing, let alone beat it.

Manera gently headbutted Kaya to get her attention. "Bli," Manera said. She looked first at Kaya, and then at the Absol.

Kaya may not have been able to understand Manera, but Manera's point had come across clearly enough. They were utterly doomed anyways, so they might as well go down fighting.

Kaya took a shaky breath and began to give orders. She had to shout to keep her voice from shaking. "Manera, use Thunder Wave. Miner, use Mud Slap. Beacon, use Pe- Quick Attack." Kaya decided against Perish Song at the last second, remembering that it would end up knocking out a lot of friendly Pokemon as well as the mutant Absol. Kaya pulled two Pokeballs from her belt and held them out. Pede-erpat the Venipede and Attila the Psyduck appeared in a flash of red light. "Pede-erpat, use pin missile. Attila, water gun!"

As Kaya's pokemon ran to obey their orders, Kaya heard a roar. Kaya's heart skipped a beat. She had forgotten about the minivan-sized Charizard from earlier, and now that she remembered, Kaya was sure the battle is about to get a whole lot worse. Kaya was sure Charizard would attack the poachers, but what if, when and if Charizard reached the fight, it mistook Kaya, the Ranger, and the other girl in the pink dress for poachers? Even if Charizard only attacked the poachers, Kaya and the others would all be caught in the crossfire, which would be just as bad.

Then another thought hit Kaya. What if it wasn't the escaped Charizard wasn't the one who had roared. What if it was a different Pokemon, one that was on the poachers' side?

"Any idea how to get out of here?" Kaya asked, her voice rising to a squeak at the end of the question.

˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜

Surprise had been on the two Pidgeots' side, and the poachers were thrown into chaos. Some of the poachers fled. The others were shouting orders to their Pokémon, but to no avail. Even when an order was heard above the noise, the Pokémon wouldn't have the chance to act before the Pidgeot flew out of range or attacked it. In the meantime, the two orange-clad Pokémon were subduing the Poachers' chief Pokémon.

One of the Pidgeot called to the other. Weren't there other orange-clad Pokémon with the humans that weren't poachers? Surely the orange-clad Pokemon must all be part of the same flock, right?

The Pidgeot didn't bother to ask. They simply swooped down and grabbed the orange-clad Pokemon in their talons and lifted them into the air. The pidgeot carried their load to the group of humans, dumping them on the ground before rejoining their flock.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Mar 5 2015, 12:38 AM

Using Moss as support, Scott was able to sit up. He was starting to get used to the pain now, so he was slightly better able to move, but more importantly he could speak better than before as well.

He tried to remember back to the fight on Mt. Arasam against the Absol. The only reason he was able to beat the Absol was because he'd used a wild Rhydon to knock it into an open cage and had then locked the cage, preventing it from getting out. In the meantime, he'd manage to scare the Umbreon off while his ally Cesc had defeated the Chatot and all the other poachers. Plus, he'd had help from a wild Absol and a wild Glaceon.

But all he'd had back then were a pair of little Eevees and a weak Vulpix. Ruby was more than twice as strong now than she had been back then, and Ebony and Scarlet were probably at triple their previous skill level. And he had Moss too. And although Cesc was gone, this other girl seemed relatively strong, and they had an angry Charizard on their side.

Where is Amber when I actually need her help?

The Charizard seemed to be mostly focusing on the human poachers and not their Pokemon, but this prevented any of them- the boss included- from giving orders. In any case, everyone but the mutant Absol was now distracted by Charizard, including the boss's Chatot.

As he thought about what to do, a pair of Pidgoet came by and dropped off Ebony and Ruby. His Vulpix seemed fine, but Ebony wasn't doing so well. He had several bruises on the front half of his body and one of his legs had been torn open and was bleeding pretty bad. When the two Pidgeots had attempted to pick up the Vulpix and Umbreon the boss's Umbreon had grabbed Ebony's leg with his teeth and attempted to be carried with him. Ebony had managed to shake him off and the other Umbreon had fallen down somewhere, but he'd lost a good portion of skin and fur at the same time.

Ebony fell sideways to the ground, and Scott managed to find his dark fox's Great Ball in his bag and recall him. He recalled Moss as well, since the Leafeon was useless in this kind of battle.

"We can use the Pidgeot to get out of here...... but that Absol...... will attack while we try to leave. Have to...... defeat it first...... or it will fly after us."

Kaya seemed to have a nearly-full team of five Pokemon, whom didn't appear to be injured. With Ruby and Scarlet supporting, it was seven on one, before including the Riolu and the multiple Pidgeot and any other wild Pokemon that decided to assist, such as possibly the Charizard.

Scott had other plans for Scarlet, though, so she wouldn't be fighting. Out of the corner of his eye, Scott also noticed that the chubby girl from earlier was gone. She'd likely run off just before the enemy Absol had shown up.

"Ruby...... assist her. Scarlet...... please get his chain...... off of me. And then...... find my weapons." He pushed weakly at the chain that attatched one of his arms to the cage that his Pokemon had previously been in. The poacher boss had taken his firecracker gun, and he could see it stuck in the guy's belt. He could get it replaced, but they weren't cheap. His sword, meanwhile, was lying underneath a tree not too far away.

As Scarlet turned to look at the still-slowly-approaching Absol and Ruby lined up behind Kaya's Pokemon- all of whom had started using their own attacks- Scott noticed something in the small pocket on top of his Espeon's vest. "What...... is that?"

It took him a moment, but he was able to get the pocket's zipper open, revealing the handgun Scarlet had picked up earlier. However, it had no ammunition left, so it was useless. Using it to trick people wasn't his style, so he set it aside. As soon as he had zipped the pocket back up, his Espeon teleported over to his sword, picked it up with her teeth, and teleported back with it before teleporting a third time to a location he couldn't see.
_________________________________________

Ruby didn't attack, but that still left four incoming ranged attacks and a Quick Attack-using Absol for the opposing Mega Absol to deal with, along with a flock of Pidgeot circling overhead. However, the Absol didn't appear concerned at all.

Using his wings for extra lift, he jumped high into the air, dodging all four ranged attacks and leaving that girl's three-legged Absol behind.

As he was his master's favorite (for good reason), he had access to all sorts of TMs that his master had acquired through both legal and illegal means. Most importantly, this meant he had learned all three of the strong elemental attacks- Ice Beam, Flamethrower, and Thunderbolt.

However, he had been with his master long enough that he lacked the natural battle instincts of a wild Pokemon and he did not have Ruby's special training that allowed her to fight without Scott's orders. So while he struggled to pick which attack he should use, the flock of Pidgeot closed in on him and used their wings to hit him back to the ground.

Wishing for some assistance, he shot a quick look back at his master, but the leader of all the evil humans was bust being chased around by an angry Charizard. So he chose to use his preferred strategy of simply biting his opponents- one which that human Ranger guy knew all too well- and dashed towards the line of Pokemon that were opposing him. The three-legged Absol was closest to him since she had attempted to use Quick Attack, so she was his first target.

Posted by: FirePower Mar 14 2015, 08:28 AM

"Beacon, get out of there!" Kaya yelled, almost screaming in her panic. If the Absol-thing grabbed Beacon. . . Kaya didn't want to think about it.

Beacon turned to run, but her missing leg left her off-balance. She tripped and fell, and, before she could get up, the Absol-thing's jaws had clamped around the back of her neck.

For a second, Kaya's mind froze. Beacon wasn't just getting knocked out from a battle this time. What if Beacon died? And it was all Kaya's fault.

It took a few seconds for Kaya to get her brain back in gear, though it seemed like much longer to her. She fumbled with Beacon's Pokeball, her fingers shaking too badly to free it easily. Once the Pokeball was finally free, Kaya held the Pokeball out toward Beacon, and Beacon disappeared with a flash of red light. Thankfully, Beacon could return to the safety of her Pokeball even when in another Pokémon's death grip.

Now that Kaya wasn't watching one of her beloved Pokémon get greviously wounded, she could focus. "Manera, use Thunder Wave!" She ordered. "We need that thing paralyzed. The rest of you, spread out. Use the same attacks again. Do not let that thing get you."

Kaya watched as her Pokémon obeyed their orders, spreading out so they would be harder to attack. That, at least, seemed to be working; the Absol-thing hadn't been able to grab any of them yet. However, her Pokemon didn't seem to be able to hurt the Absol-thing much.

Kaya had to admit it: she had never hoped to last this long. But she knew she couldn't expect her luck to last forever. Just one mistake and her Pokémon would be done for, yet they couldn't hurt the Absol-thing. The only way Kaya could see to defeat the Absol-thing was if Charizard decided to start attacking it or other help came, and Kaya didn't think either one of those was likely to happen. The only other way out Kaya could see was to escape before the battle was over.

"Attila!" Kaya called, since he was the closest to Kaya at the moment. "I need you to talk to those Pidgeot for me. See if if they'd be willing to give us a ride out of here."

"Psy," Attila said, and waddled off toward the flock of Pidgeot.

"And be polite about it!" Kaya called. She didn't want their chance of escape ruined by Attila's usually malicious behavior.

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Mar 14 2015, 11:24 PM

Having lost his chance at getting the closest target, the winged Absol turned to pick out his second victim instead. He hesitated long enough for a opposing Blitzle to be able to paralyze him, which in turn slowed him down enough that he was no longer able to catch any of Kaya's Pokemon.

Frustrated, he turned his attention to Ruby, since he was already somewhat familiar with her. The little Vulpix had thus far stayed back, trying to build up more fire in her internal flame sac so that she would be able to do decent damage.

He knew Ruby was fast, though, too fast for him to catch while paralyzed. So he let out a roar and switched strategies. It was time for his ranged attacks.

Absol wasn't the smartest, but he still knew that Flamethrower and Ice Beam would be ineffective against a Vulpix, so he tried to use Thunderbolt instead. It was a difficult move for him to use, however, and his first attempt failed due to the paralysis.

While Kaya's Pokemon continued to pepper the dark wolf with weak ranged attacks and Ruby readied herself to dodge, the Pidgeot flock swooped in. Surrounded by several birds that were each larger than he was, he started to panic and this time managed to let loose a Thunderbolt that affected a small area around him, stunning the birds.

Seeing an opportunity, Ruby darted in with Quick Attack and smashed into one of the Absol's legs, knocking it over and giving the birds some time to recover and renew their attack.

As the Pidgeot flock prevented the Absol from getting back on its feet, Scott had an idea.

"Hey, could you have...... that Psyduck tell the birds...... to pick us up and get us out of here?"

Posted by: FirePower Mar 22 2015, 03:01 PM

Attila grumbled as he tried to get the attention of one of the Pidgeot. Be polite, Kaya had said. Being polite was no fun. Not that Attila particularly wanted to stay. If that freak of an Absol got back up, he would lose it. Attila would get them a ride, but he wasn't going to say please and definitely not going to say thank you.

"Hey!" Attila called, yelling up at a Pidgeot. It noticed him ('about time,', Attila thought) and flew down to the ground.

"What do you want?" the Pidgeot said.

Attila went straight to business. "We want to leave. You can fly. How about you give us a ride out of here?"

"You are not poachers?"

Attila acted offended. "Of course not!" 'But that would be fun,' he added mentally.

The Pidgeot considered for a moment. "Very well," it said. "Who are we carrying?"

Before Attila could say anything, Manera cut in. "Me, him, the human girl in the orange shirt, the chained-up human, the Venipede, the Drilbur, the Riolu, and any Pokémon wearing orange. Thank you!"

Attila shot a glare at Manera. He could have managed that on his own! He may not have known that they were supposed to save anyone but themselves, but he still could have managed! He would get her back for that later.

The Pidgeot grabbed Attila in one set of talons and Pede-erpat in the other. Then it called to the others and the Pidgeot left the Absol and began to carry everone off.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kaya flinched as she felt something close around each shoulder and begin lifting her off the ground. Then she looked up and saw the Pidgeot carrying her. They would be okay.

Except Beacon wasn't okay. Now that the poachers were being left behind, Kaya's thoughts wandered back to the Absol. Beacon had been really hurt, Kaya knew. The Pokémon Center would try to help, but what if it was already too late? What if Beacon died?

It was all Kaya's fault. She'd acted rashly and hadn't thought things through. If only she'd looked ahead and realized that she had sent Beacon into danger alone. But Kaya hadn't looked ahead, and now it was Beacon - not Kaya - suffering the consequences.

"Please be okay," Kaya said, tears streaming down her face. "Please, please be okay."

Kaya kept pleading until the pokemon center came into view below them and the Pidgeot began to circle towards the ground. As soon as Kaya's feet hit the ground she was running as fast as she could to the Pokémon center.

˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜

Luke Undar was watching the jungle, his Pawniard, Strall, beside him. His traveling partner, Kaya Roverra, still had returned from the jungle, and Luke was beginning to be worried.

"I won't be gone long," Kaya had said. "I'm just taking the team out to do a little training." This was beginning to fit Luke's definition of a long time. Flu or no flu, Luke was going to go find her himself if she didn't turn up soon.

Luke's eyes widened as a flock of Pidgeot landed in the clearing in front of the Pokémon Center. The Pidgeot themselves weren't unusual; they were just Pokémon. However, several were carrying humans or Pokémon, and one had Kaya.

As soon as her Pidgeot dropped her, Kaya was barreling into the Pokémon Center. She was quite the sight to behold: sweaty, grimy, and wild-eyed. What people were in her way backed up quickly. Luke didn't blame them; Kaya looked like a madman.

Luek got up and began walking towards Kaya. Something was obviously wrong. Most of the other people were flocking outside to see the other human.

Kaya took out a Pokeball from her belt and practically slammed it on the front desk. Now that he was closer, Luke could tell that she was crying.

When Kaya started talking between sobs, Luke could barely understand her. "There-there were these poachers and one of them had this Absol-thing and Beacon tripped and there's this Ranger outside who's hurt and, and, and please, you have to help."

Nurse Joy's response time was incredible. She handed the Pokeball to the Chancey and told it to get the Pokémon inside ready for whatever treatment it needed, then grabbed a gurney and rushed outside. She was out the door before Luke could figure out what Kaya had said.

Luke put a hand on Kaya's shoulder, making her jump. "You okay?" he asked. Kaya shook her head. "Maybe you should sit down."

Kaya slumped into a chair and buried her head in her hands. Luke didn't see her respond throughout the commotion about the injured Pokémon Ranger, or when Manera, Miner, Pede-erpat, and Attila filed into the Pokémon Center. It wasn't until Nurse Joy came out from performing emergency surgery on Beacon the Kaya.

It wasn't until a couple of hours later that Luke saw Kaya move more than just shifting in her seat. Kaya looked up as Nurse Joy walked from the back of the Pokémon center toward her.

Nurse Joy was speaking softly, but Luke was close enough to hear. "I just finished emergency surgery on your Absol," Nurse Joy said, "and she should eventually make a full recovery. You were very lucky not to lose your Pokémon. If you'll come with me, please, I need you to tell me what happened."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I hope you understand the seriousness of what you've done."

Kaya was in a large, expensive-looking office, sitting in a large, expensive-looking chair. In front of her, pacing the room, was a man in a business suit. Kaya studied her sneakers as he lectured her.

It had been a week since the run-in with the poachers. The events were still fresh in Kaya's mind, partially because Beacon was still recovering from her wound and partially because several people, mostly investigators and officials, had had her recount her encounter with the poachers.

"So," the man in the suit said, "let me make sure I'm getting everything. You ordered your Blitzle to attack a human, and would have had it attack even more. On top of that, you put yourself and your Pokémon in an exceedingly dangerous situation facing armed criminals."

"That pretty much sums it up," Kaya said in a small voice.

"Do you realize that, if you hadn't attacked the poacher out of self-defense and only self-defense, you would have not only lost your trainer's license and your Pokémon, but you would have found yourself with jail time as well?" Kaya nodded, still looking at her shoes.

"However," the man continued, "considering the circumstances, it has been decided that you may keep your Trainers' license and your Pokémon."

Kaya looked up, hardly believing what she was hearing. They were really going to let her keep her Pokémon? The way everyone had been talking, Kaya was sure she was going to lose her team.

"However," the man said, "that does not change the fact that what you did was very dangerous and very irresponsible. Consider yourself on probation. If you show that you are incapable of keeping yourself and your Pokémon safe, you will lose your Pokémon."

Posted by: 7eeveelutions Mar 22 2015, 08:43 PM

As the Pidgeot flock began to take action, Scott realized that Scarlet had, in her excitement, forgotten to break the chain securing him to the cage his Pokemon had used to be in. Not only that, but she was still gone trying to get his fake gun back. She and her brother both had tunnel vision, so he had no idea when she would be returning. The chain was likely too strong for anyone to break or melt, so the only ways to get it off would be to either find the key or to use Scarlet's telekinetic powers to pick the lock.

Scarlet wasn't really trained to do that, but it would certainly be easier than fighting everyone looking for a key.

As the girl who was helping recalled her Pokemon and was picked up by a Pidgeot, Ruby fell back to protect her trainer. Scott was focused on the lead poacher though, because that was where his firecracker gun was- and where Scarlet would next show up.

But the lead poacher was still getting chased around by an enraged Charizard, and Scott saw the gun slip out of his belt.......

...... And promptly get stepped on (and likely crushed) by the fire dragon. It may have been made of metal, but since it used compressed air to fire the paintballs instead of gunpowder it wasn't made to the same quality as an actual handgun. There was little chance that it still worked anymore.

"Tch. That's...... several hundred dollars down the drain."

It took a minute, but Scarlet teleported back to him soon afterwards. She had given up on retrieving the weapon.

"The chain...... pick the lock on the chain."

The chain was made of some kind of aluminum alloy with a clasp at both ends, one of which was around Scott's right wrist. As his Espeon began to focus on the clasp's lock, Scott noticed that most of the Pidgoet had left by now and the mutant Absol was back on its feet.

It was that thing and Ruby now. His Vulpix decided to start by lightning the grass between them on fire with multiple Emer attacks so that the Absol couldn't easily approach. As the wolf-thing-with-wings stood confused, the smoke caused by the fires created a wall so that Scott and Ruby could no longer see their opponent.

After several moments passed with the Absol not reappearing, Scarlet finally got the clasp open. Scott quickly grabbed his bag and recalled his Espeon, and Ruby began to turn back to him.

And then they were both grabbed by the wild Pidgeots.

"Hey, wait...... don't...... AHHHHHHHH!"

A sudden burst of pain from Scott's burns on his back knocked him out cold.
_____________________________________________________________________

A week passed, and finally the restriction on flying after the terrorist incident was lifted so the Rangers could use their helicopters again.

And then another week passed.
_____________________________________________________________________

Scott sat up in the hospital bed.

He was still in the Fidona general hospital, two weeks after the incident in the jungle.

He remembered nothing of the flight back to the city, or of landing, or of the three days after that. Apparently he'd been either unconscious or barely awake the entire time.

The medical records were staggering- he'd needed stitches in a few spots and a lot of pain medicine, but the burn on his back had required skin grafting to heal even with the medical abilities of Pokemon like Chansey and Blissey. It would likely leave a life-long scar, just like the one on his shoulder from long before now. Not only that, but he had to be treated for a concussion that he got when he was first attacked.

Plus, Ruby had needed stitches for a wound on the back of her neck and shoulder, and Ebony had needed surgery to repair a torn muscle in his leg.

Ruby had already been released back into Amber's care and was ready to go, but he and Ebony weren't allowed to leave the hospital yet. Luckily, Scarlet and Moss got through relatively unscathed.

Amber had already vented all her anger in the previous week, and was now simply trying to help out with some of the paperwork. The Rangers would pay for most of the medical bills, but he had to file a lengthy report on what had happened. That report was proving to be a major pain.

But in the end, there was good news.

Two days after the incident, a team of four Rangers and two Fidona policemen had stormed the poacher base, only to find it abandoned. All of the Pokemon that had been captured had been left in the cages, as if the poachers were in a hurry to leave, so everyone had been freed.

Not only that, but Ruby had dug into his bag while he'd been out cold and had used her Fire Stone. She was no longer a little Vulpix but a much larger Ninetales.

All that was left to do for Scott was to stare out the window of his hospital room and wish his recovery would happen faster so he could go back to patrolling.

And to wish that all the paperwork would go away.