The Path of Destiny Part 58

The Path of Destiny

Chapter 58 - Underground Hell

Damian and the four pokémon stared in horror as Nathaniel Mausk stepped closer. He had a talonflame by his side, and the fearsome sight of the pokémon made both Scytheclaw and Nightshade’s eyes grow wide with horror. Suddenly neither bug type pokémon looked eager to fight, a sight that only served to drive home what a dire situation they were in. That talonflame was a trained killer. A pokémon that was part bug and steel, and another that was bug and fighting, did not stand a chance. The normally brave Nightshade and the normally rash Scytheclaw were both taking large steps backward.

Blazefang whimpered and began to back away as well. “Nightshade! Scytheclaw! He…he has my poké ball,” he whispered. “Don’t let him come near me!”

Mausk stepped closer, his gigantic scarred bird by his side. He showed none of the fear that the other trainers had of the fire, and they knew it was not due to ignorance. Mausk knew the underground well, and he had a fast and capable flying type; he knew he could make an escape at any time, and he was not going to fall to panic like the rest of the trainers.

“Well, boy,” Mausk’s deceptively calm voice came to him from across the room. “What happened to the generator? Where is my scyther? My training pokémon? Hm?” He took a few steps closer. Although little distance was closed and he still stood fairly far away, Damian and the pokémon quailed.

“Look,” Damian stated, doing a horrible job of concealing his fear. “There’s a fire. We need to get out-”

“I know that very well,” Mausk’s dangerous voice responded. “We’ve got time.”

“N-no, you don’t understand,” Damian stuttered, now backing up along with the pokémon.

“I understand perfectly,” Mausk replied, still moving closer. “You see…” Suddenly, his features became less calm and relaxed, an expression of disbelief that soon turned to anger replacing his previously composed look. He looked Damian in the eyes, and Snowcrystal could tell that, now that Mausk was close enough to see clearly in the dim lighting of the room….

…He could recognize him.

Mausk’s eyes narrowed. All false politeness was gone from his voice as he stared Damian down, snarling, “You.”

Damian backed up, and Snowcrystal knew that he was thinking about the time he’d faced this man before. When they were still out in the wilderness, he had rescued Snowcrystal from his clutches, stopping Mausk from capturing her. She knew it had infuriated the man greatly, especially since a white growlithe would fetch a lot of money, and she suddenly feared for their lives. She was glad that at least Mausk didn’t seem to recognize her with the orange fur dye, or simply wasn’t paying attention.

But he knew Damian. And not only did he know that Damian had stolen Snowcrystal, he could also see that he’d just set at least two of his pokémon loose, and that the houndoom who’d destroyed the arena was standing right beside him. With the trouble Damian had caused, and from what they knew of Mausk, Snowcrystal knew that he probably wouldn’t need much of an excuse to kill him. She doubted he would even feel any remorse, or see Damian as anything other than an annoying pest to get rid of.

Mausk raised his hand and pointed straight to Damian. “Firestorm, attack.”

With a screech, the talonflame launched itself at the group with startling speed. Damian and the four pokémon had no choice but to flee around one of the cage structures. However, without the force fields, they only had one solid wall – the others now just empty space – and it would offer little protection.

“Scytheclaw, Nightshade, do something!” Blazefang shouted as they raced across the gap between rows to the next line of cages. The houndoom, in spite of his wounds, had found strength through pure adrenaline, and Snowcrystal was relieved, realizing that that most of the wounds probably weren’t too deep or damaging, as nasty as they looked.

“Are you crazy?” Scytheclaw shot back. He was interrupted as a blast of wind from a flying attack launched in their direction, causing him to have to scoop both Snowcrystal and Blazefang out of the way. “I’m a scizor! I don’t want to get melted today!”

They ducked behind another cage wall, and it was then that Damian noticed that the talonflame, despite being airborne, had to maneuver around the cages as well. Each cage, without the force field, was comprised of a single wall and a roof. It was within that “box” area that the force field was formed. The other two corners had thick metal bars reaching to the ground, also providing an obstacle. The roof of each cage was high enough, and the ceiling low enough, that the talonflame had no room to fly above the cages without being considerably slowed down or risking crashing into them. He had to resort to dodging around them. Taking a quick note of the number of cages in the room, Damian had an idea.

As they ran to the next wall they would use as a shield, Damian grabbed a poké ball, giving it a worried glance before releasing Fernwing, his tropius. “Fernwing!” he hissed between clenched teeth, already having to run again as a screech sounded behind him. “Distract it! Just…don’t…get…hit!”

The tropius didn’t even need Damian to finish his sentence; she had shot off toward the talonflame, startling the bird pokémon and swerving around a wall toward another group of cages at the last second. Distracted, the talonflame sped after her, screeching a war cry. Damian bit his lip, hoping with all his might that he hadn’t just sent his tropius to her death. He knew that none of his pokémon stood a chance against one of Master’s trained killers. Fernwing’s only chance was to out-maneuver the talonflame. If she couldn’t, he and the rest of his pokémon, along with his wild pokémon friends, would all be killed.

“Nightshade, carry him!” he shouted, motioning to Blazefang.

The heracross nodded in response and grabbed the houndoom, scooping up Snowcrystal in his free arm as he did so. Then he, Scytheclaw and Damian spotted the stairwell leading to the two lower stories, and bolted toward it.

Damian frantically wished he could have Arien teleport them, even if the psychic type could only manage a short distance. However, he knew that even if there weren’t devices or psychic pokémon powers in use blocking such abilities, there was no way Arien would be able to teleport him, Blazefang, Snowcrystal, and Nightshade all at once. It would simply take too much energy, more energy than the alakazam had. And it wasn’t like Damian had the time to try to stop and catch Snowcrystal and Nightshade to send them to the PC system; even just getting out spare poké balls would waste valuable seconds. Gritting his teeth, he kept running.

                                                                                          -ooo-

Fernwing glanced behind her at the talonflame. He was always right on her tail, but always a moment too late. Even though each of the cages only had one wall, the walls were arranged in a different place in each row. Fernwing could see the pattern, and a look of determination etched across her features as she planned exactly what to do. She also took note of the poles on the corners of the cages that didn’t have a wall attached; those could be used to her advantage too.

She could hear the talonflame’s frustrated cries behind her, its screeches filled with the desire to rend and tear, to sear and slash. Yet, like her, he had to work around the cages instead of pursuing with a normal flight pattern, and Fernwing had spent her entire wild life learning to fly through thick jungle. The talonflame obviously had no such experience.

Fernwing knew that her species was large and bulky-looking, which was why she always found amusement in surprising others with her grace and agility. Maybe she was a bit slow or clumsy on land, but in the air, she was in her element, and the confined spaces provided by the bars and walls of the cages almost felt like home when she pictured them as tree trunks and thick vines.

Fernwing twisted and turned, darting from row to row and turning at the last second in front of a wall or series of poles. More than once, she heard a frustrated cry as the talonflame smacked his wing into one or grazed his side on a wall.

She knew that once Damian and the others reached the stairs, they would be safer for a short while, or at least have a head start. From what she could see of the stairs from brief glances, there was no way there was room for a talonflame to fly after them. Yet if she tucked her wings in at the right moment, she was sure she could maneuver her body enough to slip through the stairwell and onto the second story, where she’d meet up with the others. It would be a tight squeeze, but she’d preformed such feats back in her old jungle home.

She couldn’t catch sight of the others, but she knew they would probably be entering the stairwell soon. She continued to swerve around the cages, using the one wall each of them had as a shield whenever an attack was fired. She calculated it, always making sure that the talonflame would end up running into a wall when he tried to get to her using the quickest route. When he avoided that and attempted to catch up with her in a roundabout way, Fernwing only put more distance between them. The more she flew, the more she felt confidence surging through her. Maybe she couldn’t match this flying type in combat, but she could do this.

Briefly glancing over her shoulder, she called back, “Never tried an obstacle course, have you?” She heard the talonflame give a wordless screech of fury. “Used to having a clear shot at the pokémon you’re trying to kill? Well try this!”

Tucking her wings to her sides, the tropius dove down low to the floor. She spun around a group of cages and banked just before she struck a cage wall, turning her body upwards so that her belly faced the ceiling and she shot over the astonished talonflame’s head. She heard a satisfied clang as he struck the wall, not having seen it until too late as Fernwing’s body had been blocking it from view.

In a flurry of angry feathers, the bird pokémon kicked off the wall and zoomed after her, but Fernwing had already darted further into the maze of her own making. With the way she used the walls to her advantage, there was no way the talonflame was going to get a clear shot at her from a distance. He was forced to stay behind her, which was exactly where she wanted him.

A sudden shout from somewhere to her left distracted her, and with a look of horror, she realized that the talonflame was no longer alone; a dragonite and a houndoom – one much more frightening looking than Blazefang – were racing toward the stairs where she presumed the group had gone.

Abandoning the talonflame mission, she sped up, passing over the heads of Mausk’s other two pokémon and flattening her wings tightly to her body as she neared the open door leading to the stairs.

She felt the blast of some sort of attack pound the wall over her head as she shot through the opening, twisting her body so that she could shoot past the stairs and into the door leading to the second story. However, she miscalculated, and her side bumped painfully against the wall, scraping one of her wings. She winced, but her momentum allowed her to move through the narrow passage and burst out of the doorway into the second story of the pokémon cage rooms.

“Damian!” she cried, picking up speed as she spotted the fleeing trainer and pokémon. They were heading toward the next stairwell, which was located along the same wall as the one they’d come down from, but on the other side of the room. “There’s more coming!”

She realized a second after she’d shouted that Damian wouldn’t have a clue what she was saying without Arien, but he seemed to understand her warning well enough.

“Damian, I need help!” Fernwing cried again, knowing the two pokémon upstairs would find their way down at any moment.

Hearing her desperation, Damian grabbed another poké ball, releasing his absol. “Dusk, help Fernwing distract them!”

Dusk shot a glance at Fernwing, who nodded to him. “Don’t worry,” the tropius assured him. “I know what to do. Follow my lead.”

“All right,” the absol replied with a grim nod. Turning to his trainer and the pokémon, he shouted, “Get going! Now!”

After a moment of hesitation from Damian, the group turned and raced toward the doorway, leaving the absol and tropius to put whatever Fernwing’s plan was into motion. They shot down the staircase leading back to the first story. They emerged into yet another room filled with empty cages, and Damian quickly spotted one of the doors that would take them back to the big room that contained the betting booth. “There,” he rasped, pointing across the room at the door, and he and the pokémon raced toward it, Nightshade still carrying the houndoom and growlithe.

They didn’t get halfway there before the door that would have served as their exit was torn away by thick, muscled arms. Damian, Scytheclaw, and Nightshade came to a panicked halt as a machamp, clearly belonging to Mausk, forced his way through the opening. His bulky body was riddled with massive scars, and he wore no collar, no weak spot for them to hit should they be left with no other choice.

There was no sign of Mausk or any of his other pokémon, but each of them knew that Mausk was familiar with the building and they were not. The machamp had probably been sent out almost as soon as the talonflame had, but instead of following them, the pokémon had located the doors leading to the metal platforms in the betting booth room. Those platforms connected the three stories from that one room, but the stairwells only connected the cage rooms to the floor immediately above or below, with no quick way to access the next set of stairs. It would have been easy for the fighting type to cut them off.

The muscular pokémon was dragging something behind him. As he stepped into the room, he lifted it up.

It was Darkfang. The group could only stare in horror at the sight. Darkfang’s one remaining arm had been torn from his body, the blade embedded so deeply in his chest that it stuck out the other side. Even in death, the scyther’s eyes looked wide and terrified.

“Look what tried to stop me,” the machamp said with a manic grin. “This a friend of yours?” He shook the body as he advanced, causing Damian and the pokémon to scramble backwards in shock. “Well, is it?”

Having nowhere else to run, as the machamp was between them and the doors leading to the betting booth room, they had no choice but to flee back toward the stairs they had come down from. Nightshade and Scytheclaw fell back, letting the trainer run ahead of them, and the heracross set Blazefang and Snowcrystal down, urging them to follow Damian. This way, he and Scytheclaw would bring up the rear, placing themselves between the weaker members of the group and the grinning monster behind them.

Snowcrystal glanced over her shoulder at the bug types as they kept pace behind her, Blazefang, and Damian. She could see the machamp steadily walking toward them after throwing Darkfang’s carcass onto the ground, but for some reason she couldn’t guess, he wasn’t chasing them down. Hearing a shout, she flicked her gaze back toward the way ahead, where Damian had nearly reached the stairs.

“Everyone!” he cried. “We need to meet up with Fernwing and Dusk. From there we can-”

He broke off suddenly, just as he’d reached the stairwell and set his foot on the first step. Snowcrystal and Blazefang came to a halt several yards behind the human as they clearly saw what had caused his hesitation.

Mausk himself was standing in the stairway.

For a split second, Snowcrystal saw Mausk lock eyes with Damian, who she knew probably looked horrified. And then, before Damian could move, before she or the other pokémon could intervene, Mausk reached into his coat, pulled out an object she recognized as a gun, and shot Damian point-blank in the chest.

She vaguely registered Scytheclaw shouting something from somewhere behind; her eyes were on Damian. She hadn’t even seen the bullet go through his body, but the enlarging red spot on the back of his vest told her all she needed to know.

Damian faltered a bit before he stumbled backward from the stairwell, hitting the floor with a loud thud. She saw his eyes roll into the back of his head and his limbs jerk once before he went limp.

As the pokémon stood, momentarily frozen in shock, Mausk returned the gun to his pocket before turning around and climbing back up the stairwell he’d appeared from. “Finish them,” he stated simply, obviously addressing his machamp, but speaking as casually as if he were commenting about the weather.

As Mausk vanished, Scytheclaw gave a strangled cry as he raced to the limp form of his trainer. “Damian! Damian, wake up! Wake up!”

Hearing a battle cry, Nightshade tore his gaze from the scene as the machamp thundered toward them, all four of his arms outstretched and ready to pummel and tear anything in his path. Whirling around, the heracross charged toward the new foe, pointing his horn downward as he did so.

As the two fighting types collided, Scytheclaw reached Damian’s side. Snowcrystal ran toward him as well, knowing that if she tried to interfere with the machamp and Nightshade’s battle, she could either be crushed, or she could hit the heracross with a fire move. She looked at Blazefang, who was crouching low to the floor, frozen in terror. Considering the circumstances, she couldn’t blame him, especially as he was worse off than either she or Scytheclaw.

“He can’t be dead…” she heard Scytheclaw whisper desperately. “I have to use the attack, the healing attack…”

She watched the scizor tearing part of Damian’s vest to get a good look at the wound. Running up to Damian’s face, she froze at the sight of him. He looked so pale and still that for a moment she wasn’t sure if he was dead, if Scytheclaw was going to waste energy trying to use his power when it was too late. But then she realized she could see him breathing, faint and shallowly, but breathing all the same. “He’s unconscious,” she told the scizor.

Scytheclaw stared at his trainer in pure terror. “The bullet…” he murmured. “Have to get it out before I close the wound…” He glanced toward his large pincers and a look of horror crossed his face as he realized how useless they would be for such a thing.

Snowcrystal didn’t understand why Scytheclaw would think being a scyther would be any better in this situation, but she could tell he wasn’t thinking rationally. “Scytheclaw! The bullet’s not inside him! There’s blood seeping out his back!” She saw Scytheclaw glance down to the puddle forming beneath Damian. “Heal him! Now!”

Scytheclaw gave her a panicked look before he nodded, leaning over his trainer as he narrowed his eyes in concentration. To her surprise, there was no visible indication that Scytheclaw was using his power, no glow, no sound, no change coming over the scizor at all. From what Scytheclaw had told them about his attack, she knew that healing wounds was extremely painful for him. She hoped he would be able to concentrate enough to get the job done, and that no real damage would come to him.

“You and Blazefang,” Scytheclaw said through gritted teeth. “Watch them!” He angled his head toward Nightshade and the machamp before turning his attention to Damian again, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

Snowcrystal had no idea what Scytheclaw expected them to do if the battle came too close, but she did as she was told and turned around, placing her small body protectively in front of Damian and the scizor. Immediately she could see that Nightshade was in trouble. The heracross was one of the strongest pokémon in their group, but it was clear from the start that Mausk’s machamp was more than a match for him.

With lighting-fast movements, the machamp pummeled his four fists into the heracross’s body. At first, it seemed to have little effect on the fighting type bug pokémon, but after several blows, she could see that Nightshade looked dizzy, his gaze unfocused as he tried to stagger out of range, one of his eyes half-closed from pain.

This machamp was no ordinary pokémon. This was not a pokémon who competed in normal trainer battles, who knew how to restrain himself before he severely hurt or killed his opponent. This was a pokémon who had been one of the few to survive Mausk’s training methods. This was a pokémon with power strong enough to kill even another fighting type with his attacks. Nightshade was doing his best to fight back, but every attempt left him on the wrong end of a brutal beat-down. Though most of the damage to the heracross wasn’t readily visible beneath his armored shell, Nightshade’s movements gave away the fact that he was hurt – and in real danger. She wanted to run and help him, but she knew that if she did, she would be killed.

A painful shout from Scytheclaw distracted her, and she turned to the scizor, still crouched above the prone form of his trainer and his only friend. The scizor’s eyes were wild with pain and terror. His gaze was focused on Damian, who still lay unmoving, the pool of blood beneath him steadily growing. Snowcrystal realized with a terrible dread that either Scytheclaw’s power wasn’t working, or it simply took far too much time and energy to heal a serious wound…time that Damian didn’t have.

“Keep trying!” she shouted to Scytheclaw, coming up beside the scizor and pressing herself against his side for comfort. She knew that Scytheclaw normally would not appreciate such a gesture, but he did not protest this time, and focused harder, his breathing becoming more and more rapid. “You can do it!” she told him. “Just focus!”

To her surprise, the scizor didn’t snap at her, but just nodded to her once, his breathing beginning to calm a little. She moved closer to him, feeling his body shake with the pain she knew he was feeling as his Forbidden Attack – or whatever it was – was set in motion. She stared at Damian’s chest, her eyes widening in fear when she realized that Scytheclaw’s efforts still didn’t seem to be helping, or even slowing down the blood flow, despite the fact that the scizor was obviously gripped by pain from using the healing move.

From somewhere a few yards away, she heard Blazefang shout in terror. As she looked toward the injured houndoom, she suddenly felt Scytheclaw’s body torn away from her side. She jumped back in terror as she stared at the large form of the machamp, standing over her with Scytheclaw’s neck in one of his fists. Scrambling backward, she looked around for Nightshade, and saw the beaten heracross several yards away, staggering weakly on all fours as blood trickled from his mouth.

“This who you were trying to protect?” the machamp shouted into the room with a booming voice, swinging the scizor in Nightshade’s direction before tightening his grip on the steel type’s neck. Scytheclaw’s life would have ended right then and there if the scizor hadn’t brought his pincer up to the fighting type’s jaw at the right moment. Taken off guard, the pokémon stumbled backward from Damian’s body, and the scizor broke free of his grasp.

But only for a moment. With a mighty swing of two of his other arms, the machamp grabbed Scytheclaw’s arms, jerking the scizor back toward him before lifting him up and slamming him into the ground.

Scytheclaw’s armor was even stronger than Nightshade’s, but the blow still left him reeling. The machamp lifted his foot and slammed it down on the scizor’s head twice, stunning him. Then he reached down and gripped Scytheclaw by the neck again, heaving him upright.

“No…no, please…” Scytheclaw wheezed, his pincers weakly gripping the machamp’s arm. The fighting type didn’t even seem to notice as the sharp edges cut into his flesh. Scytheclaw seemed too weak to do anything more; even such a short time of using his healing power had sapped a huge portion of his strength, despite the fact that Damian was still lying bleeding on the ground and looking no better than before. “Please don’t…”

The machamp ignored him, grinning as he hissed, “Let’s see how strong steel pokémon really are.” He gripped the scizor’s head and forced it to the side. Scytheclaw shrieked in pain.

Snowcrystal let loose a flame wheel attack, knowing that some of it was likely to hit Scytheclaw, but having no other option. To her shock, the machamp barely even registered the burns, and responded by slamming his foot into her side, which sent her tumbling head over heels.

She crashed painfully against the floor, her head spinning. She noticed Blazefang approach her, the frightened look still plastered over his face as he nudged her to her feet.

“Are…you okay?” he asked.

“I…I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling her body sear with pain. “But Blazefang! Stay back!”

Blazefang looked confused for a moment, before what Snowcrystal meant finally set in. “If I use Shadowflare…”

“We’ll all die!” Snowcrystal cried. “Please…stay back…”

The houndoom nodded and backed off, and Snowcrystal, fighting the dizziness, staggered toward the struggling scizor and his attacker. Scytheclaw was gripping the arm that held his neck, clamping as tightly as he could with his razor-sharp pincers. However, his strength just wasn’t there, and it didn’t do enough damage to force his attacker to release him. With a jolt, she realized that Scytheclaw was likely mere seconds away from death, and if that was true, not only would he be killed, but Damian would bleed out as well. And she couldn’t watch either of them die. Taking a deep breath to try to clear her muddled senses, she hurled herself toward the fray.

Yet someone else got there before she did.

With the force of a steamroller, Nightshade hurled himself at the machamp, ramming his horn into the pokémon’s side and knocking him off balance. The large four-armed pokémon staggered backwards, but didn’t lose his grip on Scytheclaw. He glared at Nightshade, but instead of charging toward him, he tightened his grip on Scytheclaw’s neck again. He grinned at Nightshade as he tried to force the scizor’s head to the side enough to break the armor around his neck, while his two free arms readied to fight the heracross once he tried to attack.

Nightshade staggered forward, his eyes narrowed. In normal situations, he would prefer that fights were fair. However, there was absolutely nothing fair about this fight, or what the machamp was trying to do to kill the currently weak and helpless scizor. He charged in a straight line, anticipating the machamp’s movements, and as the two arms came toward him for a punch, Nightshade ducked beneath them at the last moment before lifting his head up and ramming his pronged horn right between the machamp’s legs.

With a howl of agony, Mausk’s pokémon dropped Scytheclaw like he was a hot coal. The scizor crashed to the ground, groaning as he reached toward his neck. Nightshade stood protectively in front of him as the machamp floundered into the wall containing the stairwell, smashed a fist into it so hard that the concrete cracked, and then charged toward the heracross again.

Nightshade stepped away from Scytheclaw and the others, not wanting them to get caught in the crossfire, as the machamp collided with him. Nightshade had no chance for a similar shot; the machamp wouldn’t fall for that trick twice. Lowering his horn toward his foe, Nightshade attempted to push him back, fighting through the pain of the blows the machamp was landing on his back. He managed to push through the attacks enough to get a grip on the fighting type’s waist and lift him off his feet.

Machamp were powerful pokémon, and Mausk’s certainly had stronger typed attacks, but no machamp could match a heracross in pure physical strength. Gritting his teeth as pain seared through his wounded body, Nightshade hurled the machamp at the wall, hearing a loud crash as the pokémon collided with it.

Gasping painfully, Scytheclaw dragged himself back to Damian’s side. His trainer looked pale, lifeless…the sight made Scytheclaw’s breath catch in his throat.

“Scytheclaw, hurry!” Snowcrystal urged, and he turned to see the growlithe looking at him with concern. “You have to keep trying…”

The enraged cry of the machamp stole both of their attention as the fighting ring pokémon stood up again. He was currently facing Nightshade, but Scytheclaw knew that he could go for one of them at any moment. This pokémon seemed to enjoy killing pokémon in front of their companions, like he had tried to do with him and Nightshade. “Snowcrystal…” he gasped, surprised at how horribly weak his voice sounded. “Arien…get Arien’s poké ball.”

Snowcrystal nodded as Scytheclaw began the process of using his healing move again. She nudged aside part of Damian’s bloody vest until she could see the poké balls on his belt. Luckily, he was lying in such a way that it wasn’t hard for her to pick out the one she recognized as Arien’s. Gripping it in her teeth, she managed to unhook it off the belt after some struggling and set it on the ground, pressing the button in the center.

The alakazam formed, looking immediately alert and ready to fight, but when he saw the scene before him, all color drained from his face. “D-Damian…what…” he stammered, his arms lowering as his eyes moved along his trainer’s bloody body, seeming oblivious to everything else around him.

“Sh-shut up…a-and st-stay back!” Scytheclaw growled at him, his eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted in pain.

“Put up a shield!” Snowcrystal instructed. “A protect barrier!”

When Arien just stared, unresponsive, Blazefang shouted, “Hurry! Unless you want that machamp to kill us and him!”

Arien seemed to snap out of it, now fully noticing the battle between Nightshade and Mausk’s pokémon. He also seemed to note that both Blazefang and Snowcrystal were injured, and while Snowcrystal still looked like she could fight, he knew that such a small pokémon going up against one trained for the fighting ring would be suicide. “Where are Damian’s other pokémon?”

“We’ve only g-got Inferno and Todd,” Scytheclaw hissed.

“Send them out,” Arien ordered, and Snowcrystal nodded obediently, working to take out their poké balls. “S-Scytheclaw, do you think you can handle a teleport?”

“We can’t teleport here, remember?” Snowcrystal cried, shocked that the normally logical and intelligent alakazam would have forgotten the failed attempt he’d made at teleporting when they’d first realized they were trapped underground.

“Stop talking and help me!” Scytheclaw shouted at both of them. “I just need you to buy me time!”

Arien nodded, narrowing his eyes in focus as he formed a translucent shield in front of Damian and the scizor. It would not protect them on all sides, but it would be better than nothing.

Snowcrystal was still new to the world of pokémon battling and attacks that weren’t something growlithe could use, but she had learned enough from being read stories at the library and from the practice battles she’d seen Damian have with the wild pokémon to know that the move Arien was using – protect – didn’t last long. It took up a lot of energy, and Arien would have to put all his focus into forming a psychic barrier big enough to have a chance at shielding them from the worst attacks.

She turned to Scytheclaw, hoping that by some miracle he could speed up the healing process, but despite the scizor’s clear efforts, the wound didn’t seem to be healing. She knew it wasn’t for lack of trying or that the power wasn’t working; Scytheclaw was clearly in pain, enough that she could see a tear starting to trickle down the side of his face. It was a sight that, just hours before, Snowcrystal would have never thought she’d see from a pokémon like Scytheclaw, but now, considering the situation, she couldn’t even find it strange.

She was about to focus on sending out Damian’s other pokémon when she realized that Scytheclaw had suddenly become less alert, his eyes unfocused. His body started to lean forward, and Snowcrystal could tell that he was close to fainting.

“No! Stay awake!” she cried, rushing to the scizor’s side. She knew that if Scytheclaw passed out, it was over. There was no way Damian would last long enough to get help from some other source. She placed her paws on Scytheclaw’s arm, trying to shake him into alertness. “Stay…awake!” she cried.

Scytheclaw remained listless for a few moments before he snapped to attention, shaking his head as if to clear it of dizziness.  He looked at Snowcrystal in confusion for a moment before everything seemed to come back to him. “I told you…” he growled. “Get…the poké balls.” In response, the growlithe nodded and stepped away.

Within moments, Snowcrystal managed to get Todd and Inferno’s poké balls, releasing the flareon and elekid. Almost as soon as she did, she heard a growl from the direction of the door the machamp had first entered the room from. A houndoom, one that looked far more muscular and powerful than Blazefang, growled as he stalked into the room. The new intruder ignored the fighting that was going on between Nightshade and the machamp as the four-armed fighting type slammed the weakening heracross into the ground again and again. The houndoom noticed Damian and the pokémon around him and let out a growl.

“We need to distract him! Now!” Snowcrystal told Inferno and Todd, not giving them time to fully react to the state they now found their trainer in. “Scytheclaw’s healing him,” she said to try to reassure them. “Come on!”

The two pokémon nodded, and then they, as well as Snowcrystal, darted away from Damian in three different directions while Arien strained to keep the protect barrier working. Snowcrystal hoped that Mausk’s houndoom would go after her, but instead it chased Todd, who was forced to run up the stairwell in order to get away.

“No! Todd!” Inferno shouted, stopping in his tracks before shooting toward the stairs as well.

Snowcrystal followed, and reached the base of the stairs before the flareon did. Hoping the houndoom hadn’t caught up with the elekid or that Todd’s paralyzing attacks had worked, she raced up the steps. She only cleared three or four before the houndoom suddenly reappeared, lunging at her with jaws open wide.

Snowcrystal felt sharp teeth sink into the back of her neck. The fangs tore through her skin, causing blood to run onto her shoulders. For an instant, she was sure her neck would be snapped like it was a twig by this powerful pokémon.

But, for a reason she didn’t fully understand – perhaps in a startled reaction to the foul taste of the dye on her fur – the houndoom’s grip loosened, just for a moment.

That was the only moment she needed. Lashing out with her front paws, she managed to slice the houndoom’s muzzle and nose with her front claws, twisting her body in the same moment so that the houndoom only had a hold on the loose skin of her scruff.

With a snarl, the dark type hurled her back down the stairs, and she collided painfully with the cold ground and lay in a battered heap. She heard Inferno shout something as well as the sound of two sets of paws thundering up the stairs before both the houndoom and flareon vanished. She could hear Scytheclaw shouting with pain as he focused intently on Damian’s wound, but the sounds of an even bigger fight than the houndoom’s quickly turned her attention to Nightshade and the machamp.

Nightshade was losing the fight. He had quickly lost the upper hand, succumbing to the machamp’s powerful attacks again. He was dizzy, there was blood in his eyes, and he found it a struggle just to stand after being pummeled so many times by the machamp’s fists. Horrible pain gripped his body, the worst pains being internal, and he did not know how much longer he would stay conscious. He suspected the only reason he hadn’t passed out already was sheer willpower. He watched the machamp swing another fist toward him, but his vision was so blurry, it looked as if there were three machamp, and his brain couldn’t process fast enough to figure out which image to attack.

As he weakly tried to fight the pokémon again, he felt another blow before the machamp’s fist closed around his horn. He had barely registered that before he was torn off his feet, held dangling in the air in front of the machamp’s face. He winced as he felt his back being slammed against the concrete wall, preventing him from opening his wings.

The enemy pokémon was staring at him with a fury he had never seen in another pokémon’s eyes before. The grip on his horn tightened, and Nightshade could only weakly reach up to try to slice the machamp’s arms with his claws. Since his feet were off the ground and his wings currently unusable, his strength would be of no use to him in this position even if he wasn’t injured and weak.

The machamp grinned at him, though the muscular pokémon’s eyes were still narrowed with pain. He had realized that Nightshade had nowhere else to go, and so little fight left. “Well,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, obviously pleased that he had stopped Nightshade’s attack in its tracks. “I’ve never fought a heracross before. Never seen one die, either.”

Nightshade’s eyes widened. “N-no…” he gasped, coughing and spraying flecks of blood in his enemy’s face. “Listen-”

In response, the machamp lifted him from the wall momentarily before slamming him back into it. Nightshade gritted his teeth; he could have sworn he felt the back of his shell crack. His terrified eyes stared into the eyes of Mausk’s pokémon, fearing that within moments, his life would be over. “Please…listen…”

“Shut up!” the pokémon snarled. It was clear from the look in his eyes that he did not intend to show any mercy. The machamp’s mouth twisted into a sadistic grin. “You know what I’m going to do to you?” he growled. “I’m going to rip your limbs off one by one…just like children do to real bugs.”

Back near Damian, Snowcrystal and the others watched as Scytheclaw, finally seeming to make progress, struggled to heal the trainer’s wound, but they were distracted by an ear-splitting shriek from Nightshade. Snowcrystal shot bolt-upright, having not expected such a sound to have come from her heracross friend.

What she saw horrified her. Nightshade was pinned to the wall, the machamp holding him up by the horn, as one of his hands was pulling on the bug type’s arm, clearly trying to rip it out of its socket. From the sounds Nightshade was making, Snowcrystal knew that the machamp was likely very close to accomplishing that goal. She hoped it was her imagination, but she thought she could pick up a tearing sound as her ears perked up in alarm, adrenaline putting her senses on high alert.

To her surprise, she saw a flash of black and red race by her, and saw Blazefang charging toward the machamp. The houndoom’s jaws filled with red-hot flame, but the machamp only responded by holding Nightshade in front of him, right in Blazefang’s line of fire. Instead of giving up, Blazefang extinguished the flames and ran closer, but as soon as he got within range, the machamp grabbed one of the houndoom’s horns and flung him across the floor, where he crashed into the ground and did not get back up. He had managed to fight against using Shadowflare, but he was now unconscious.

The machamp slammed Nightshade against the wall again, resuming the attempt to tear the heracross’s arm from his body. Nightshade’s shrieks grew to a wail of agony.

Hearing him, Snowcrystal tried to force her bleeding body to run, when another screech pierced the room. And this time, it wasn’t Nightshade’s cry of pain.

From another door further down in the room, one that opened up into the large betting booth room, a green blur appeared, darting swiftly between the rows of cages. Snowcrystal gave a gasp of shock as she recognized the thin, scarred frame of Thunder charging toward the machamp and shouting at the top of her lungs.

“You hurt Nightshade!” the scyther screamed. “You hurt my friend! I’ll kill you…I’ll kill you!”

The machamp only had seconds to turn toward the source of the shouting before Thunder struck him, leaping clear onto his back and driving one of her blades into his shoulder, slicing with the other. With a howl of agony, he dropped Nightshade, staggering backward as he tried to tear the scyther from his back.

His efforts only barely managed to keep Thunder from slicing his neck as the scarred scyther clung on, shouting furiously as she hacked at the fighting type, sending droplets of blood spraying onto the floor. Nightshade couldn’t see them; his eyes were staring at the ceiling as he lay on his back, his breathing coming in ragged gasps as he clutched his injured arm.

Snowcrystal could hear the machamp still screaming in anguish as he blundered further away from the group and toward the groups of cages. She could still hear Thunder’s shouts; the scyther was screaming over and over again, but Snowcrystal didn’t pay attention to the words. This time, the scyther was the one who had the advantage; unlike the rest of them, Thunder was no stranger to the arena or to the strength of Mausk’s other pokémon. Snowcrystal saw the machamp, blinded with agony, race through one of the doors into the main room with Thunder on his tail.

“It’s…it’s working…” Snowcrystal heard Arien whisper. She angled her head toward the alakazam, seeing that his psychic barrier had already vanished. He was facing Scytheclaw, who was holding his pincers out weakly toward Damian’s body.

This time, the scizor didn’t just look pained, he looked in agony. She had always known Scytheclaw as a very tough pokémon, so to see him in such a state was startling, to say the least. His whole body was trembling, his eyes wide and his breathing quick and sharp. Though she could see no physical wounds on the steel type’s body, the look in his eyes was a look she’d expect from a pokémon who was burning in acid. He shook his head, in some vain attempt to distract himself from the pain, or to keep himself conscious.

Yet despite the side effects of the healing move, he had remained focused, and Snowcrystal could see that the blood flow from Damian’s wound had stopped. Scytheclaw had also torn the trainer’s shirt enough that she could now see the wound, and to her surprise, it had almost closed. Damian still remained unconscious, though she could see him breathing, much steadier than he had been before.

Scytheclaw had done it.

To be continued...