//------------------------------// // 253. Will help a lot. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Ponyville, late evening, Garble- “It was good to hear that you’re still safe Smolder!” If anyone points out that I was emotional, I’d punch them. “Maybe next time we can talk with Gallus?” Ocellus offered and I looked between my sister and her, my sister was holding her hoof. “We’re just about to use up all of our…” The device winked out. I was a little grumpy about it, but I sighed and decided to let someone have the slot tomorrow. -Ransei, early morning, near the Southern Bridge between Fontaine and Aurora, Pom- “Hey there perfectly fluffy lady, we’re here to assist in this rescue operation!” Geoff wasn’t going to stop or change anytime soon. “Can we date?” “No.” I said sternly. “That’s the pervert guy isn’t it?” Dazzle asked. “Yes.” I stated succinctly. “You have wonderful purple eyes, you can end my career and life anytime you want!” Geoff stated gleefully. “Is he…” Dazzle started to say. “Serious? The answer is probably yes.” I groused out. “I’m surprised no one has taken him up on it yet.” I didn’t hate Geoff… not really. It was just that he was annoyingly persistent. I could still consider him a friend, but he was almost as annoying as Paprika when she’s being insistent on giving you a hug. “Okay, enough of the Wooloo hitting on everyone! People listen up, ever since we broke through the bridges perimeter to get into Aurora a day or so back, the Dutiful Duck Battalion has been moved back south due to the damage we dealt to them. The controller behind this is at least letting my people heal, eat, drink and sleep, they won’t last long without Fontaine’s military strength otherwise. So the bridge is now currently under the watchful eye of the Fontaine’s Clawitzer Cannonade units, which is actually good news for us.” Coming up to us was Motochika, I really didn’t like where this was going. “Let me start off with the objective I seek to accomplish today, we’re here to capture the Clawitzer units. If this works, it’ll be a huge boon to my kingdom, as we’ll have our artillery specialists back. Any questions before we start?” “Yeah, how are we going to get all three units of Clawitzer back across the bridge? Their main arms are kind of heavy.” Geoff was the one that brought it up. “That won’t be an issue once we get Pom’s team across the bridge.” What did Motochika… oh wait, I think I understood. The Kecleons did teach me how to use the Rescue Team badge to rescue Pokémon, which is one of the things a rescue team normally specializes in aside from finding items and or getting Skitty out of a tree. If I rescue the Clawitzers after they get incapacitated, they’d naturally be out of range of the mind controller. Still don’t honestly know how the puppeteer can still retrain control of a Pokémon after they’ve been knocked out. Also we only have the one rescue badge… “I think I understand what my team’s part in this is and what you’re hiring us to do as a Rescue Team, but what is our strategy going forward?” My question drew Motochika to grin at me. “Good question, first Geoff’s unit will be drawing all the Clawitzer units’ fire while firing Electro Balls back at them. The three enemy units are at the other end of the bridge and a little to the east and west.” Pulling out a map, the three units had been marked on the map by Motochika. “Once all three Clawitzer units are distracted by Geoff’s unit, we will be quietly using crossing the river with the help of Aurora’s combat engineers. You know them already and they’ll be here soon enough.” “Skitty Squad reporting for duty Motochika!” Didn’t even take a second for the four Skitty, without their mother, to show up and throw tiny salutes our way. They looked to be in good health, Captain Skeeball must still be on the mend. “The Skitty Squad will help our assault units cross the east and west side of the bridge to attack the two Clawitzer units directly while they are distracted. To do this they will be splitting two to an assault group and using ice beam attacks to create temporary pathways straight across.” He moved his paw over the map to show where the Skitty Squad would be crossing. “While on the offensive the Clawitzer units have very bad tunnel vision and will be unlikely to see us coming once distracted, they are quite vulnerable to close range combat where aiming their claw cannons will be hard to do under duress. Our plan of attack is to hit the east and west squads before squashing the central squad in what will hopefully be a three way pincer.” “Is this all we have to work with?” Dazzle asked as it was just my group, our traveling companions and the Skitty Squad so far. “We’re here, sorry we’re late! We were picking up healing supplies for the inevitable injuries, Happiny is set up and ready to go when the patients start coming in.” King Evan and Maiden Jig showed up. They were with Teeth’s Rattata unit. “I’m ready to fight, our Pidgey unit is watching the north to fend off any raiders if they show up. If raiders or unknown forces do manage to get past the Pidgey, then our castle is being defended by Jiri’s unit. We could have used them here, but better to be safe than sorry with Aurora’s security.” “Okay, now I can divvy up our groups.” Motochika started to organize us and himself. Smolder, Ocellus, Dolly, Dazzle, Quetal, Shine and I were together. Dazzle was a fire type, so she wouldn’t like being close to the line of fire. Maiden Jig was going to be with at the start of things, but would switch to supporting Geoff’s unit with the supplies she was carrying once my group began crossing the bridge. A Clawitzer were blue shrimp with one small pointy stabilizer leg where a claw should be to dig into the ground and act as balance, the actual claw… was a humongous and bigger than the rest of their body. Said stupidly large claw can outmatch any cannon in fire rate and raw power as long as they were set up by digging their tails and aforementioned stabilizer leg into the ground to perform bombardments. They were not terribly mobile aside from forward and backwards crawling movements, they could retreat and shoot decently. Asking them to turn quickly and or deal with an opponent in melee range was something they couldn’t do with their cumbersome big meaty claws. Clawitzer can compress blasts of water that hit harder than cannonballs, which was not something Dazzle wanted to be hit by and we were to stay primarily out of range until we could charge across the bridge. The assault group on the east side was going to be led by Motochika. Their group involved Shanty, two Skitty and three ratatta one of which was Talia. Shanty was with their team, her unique abilities were ridiculously useful in this scenario. The assault group on the west side was being led by Evan. The other two Skitty and three other rattata one of which was Teeth. Favela was to be serving the same rolled as Shanty in being a specialist with unique abilities. My group, which would be waiting out of range behind Geoff’s unit who had the most dangerous job next to us. My group is the central assault, we’d start moving for the bridge at first opportunity. We could signal Geoff, if we did so his unit would try to lead the central Clawitzer unit to shooting off to the side to the east or west, where we would quickly approach from the opposite direction. We would start crossing the bridge while they weren’t looking directly across it. When noticed we were to distract the central unit from the inevitable pincer attack by quickly move to take them down if we could, with Geoff’s team offering fire support via Elctro Balls attacks. The other two teams hoped to be done and lending assistance to take down the Central Clawitzers for minimal danger to my group. The bridge may take some damage, but that was considered an acceptable loss by both Motochika and Evan. “Wait…” I interrupted. “What are the chances of us running into other units that will back up the Clawitzers?” “Highest chance of that is at least one Clauncher unit, maybe two from what Evan’s scouts say. They are not as powerful at long range, but still quite capable of it even if they can’t arc their shots and have to fire directly towards you. They are a more agile short range issue, that’s thanks to being much less encumbered than their evolved form of Clawitzer.” Informed Motochika as I was getting an idea of what a Clauncher might look like from the Clawitzer in the distance across the river to the south. “Other chances are that we might see previously encountered controlled water Pokémon as backup. We’ll react accordingly as to whether or not we can keep fighting to free them too. Remember, our main objective is rescuing the Clawitzer units and pulling out. Doing any bonus rescues on top of that would be good thing, but I’d rather retreat before we face any reinforcements as soon as we successfully complete the commission I hired you for Pom.” Well let’s see how this would turn out, I’m quite thankful to be on the backline for this. -Approximately thirty minutes later, Geoff- “Okay guys, let’s get their attention and then prepare for evasive maneuvers. Remember, we’re going to be shaking and shimmying for our lives my wonderful comrades!” I opened my mouth and aimed it slightly upwards around the center of the other end to the bridge where six Clawitzer were sitting. To both sides of my four Wooloo unit took aim at the east and west Clawitzer units to draw their attention and hopefully knock at least one of them out, at this range it was unlikely that would could manage a good enough direct hit for that. “Unit command, Electro Ball Barrage!” Balls of condense electric energy flew forth from our mouths, the east and west Clawitzer were caught in the splash of the electrical explosions we had one direct hit to the west that fried a Clawitzer immediately. That should make things a little easier for our Eevee King. My shot landed among the Clawitzer at the other end of the bridge and barely grazed two of them. “Ready to dodge, then we’ll start alternating targets from west to east!” My group made noises acknowledging what I said as we all dodge the eighteen shots of ground destroy blasts of water arcing for us with incredible accuracy from across the river. A lot more accurate than we were, as the shots of water hit the places we moved away from and would have likely resulted in direct hits on my units had we stayed in one place. “They are incredible Pokémon, their cannonades prove the pure beauty of their military history. It’s just too bad that we have to try and dodge it all!” We were scrambling and forced out formation, we wouldn’t be able to do unit commands under these conditions, so we started randomly taking electro ball shots one at a time on the westward team until we all had fired a shot. We then did the same by firing at the central team keeping their eyes off what was happening off to the sides. I managed to get off an electro ball to distract the eastern Clawitzer unit as they were about to notice the incoming assault teams, but I kept their attention squarely in our direction and under a barrage of heavy attacks that ruptured the ground, turned it to mud and tore apart anything caught in the deluge compressed water exploding on impact. We were quickly getting roughed up as we weren’t exactly the fastest Pokémon around, but we would start to make up for that with my special formation that I and the others have practiced. “Barricade, Break, Blast!” Having shouted my orders we gathered together and the outer two Wooloo and I used the Protect move to block the incoming shots, we were weathering a pure storm of powerful blasts that threatened to break our overlapping barriers. The two Wooloo next to me fired back at the central unit. “Let’s hold their interests like the sexy Tyrantrums we are!” We proceeded to swap positions where the two Wooloo next to me spread out and were now using overlapping Protect moves, while the outer two Wooloo moved closer to being behind them. They and I were firing on each of the majestically blue enemy units with one shot per unit doing minimal damage at this range. We’d soon have to focus our attentions on the central unit as the other units were about to be hit by the assault teams. This was an energy intensive maneuver, but it was worth it if we can help save these incredibly powerful and tough Pokémon. -Eastern assault unit, Shanty- “Wow, they sure are making the Wooloo dance for it.” One of the Skitty be saying before he and his brother be running forward. “Neat Protect cycling idea too, won’t stop some Pokémon from circumventing it with hyper beam or other raw force moves though!” They opened their mouths and leapt forward. The Eastern Clawitzer unit didn’t be noticing the two Skitty leaping at the edge of the water with us quickly following behind them, they went sliding forward across the ice on their bellies side by side as they created a wide and thick enough flat ice bridge to cross the river for all of us. Also the slipping and sliding being a fun side thing to do, I be using my scythe cane as a hockey stick for balance as I slid across with Motochika and the Rattata. When we be getting to the other side and gathering up, the Clawitzer still be distracted. “Time for an aqua jet.” Motochika shot forward and up before angling down sharply. “Iron tails, never fails!” The two Skitty shouted as they moved forward. “Quick Attack, get in close, don’t give them time to aim those claw or reorient our way!” With Talia’s order, the three Ratatta glowed white and surged forward. By the time the Eastern Clawitzer unit heard us coming it was too late and they were bowled over by the six attacks from their right sides. The iron tailed Skitty, despite being the slowest, notably be doing the most harm and cracking the shells of two of them leaving them immediately unconscious due to what looked to be painful blows. I be leaping into the action twirling my cane and then slammed the butt down into the face of one with a sharp cracking noise taking out a third that had been bowled over by a Rattata. The three remaining Clawitzer tried to turn and fight back, but we were already on top of them and they didn’t be having time to build up for a shot. Oh they be trying, didn’t make it in time when Motochika and I got in close to slashed their building projectiles apart in their claws. I took out two of the projectiles with a wide cutting arc from my cane and then, as I be running by, hooked one of the large claws Clawitzer. I heaved the claw upwards and flipped the Clawitzer onto its back where it was rendered mostly helpless, it was left prone for attack by Talia’s and two of her friends. -Western assault unit, Favela- I went skidding across the ice following Evan. I didn’t know much of about the king, but I didn’t know much about Greenleaf’s king either. Once I was on the other side we all charged the western Clawitzer unit from their left, like with the east side, they were facing away from us and dealing with the Wooloo that be having their attentions. One was already down thanks to a lucky shot from Geoff’s unit. I quickly lashed out two vine whips as we charged, I timed it well enough to slap two of the outer leftmost Clawitzer’s cannon arms and they both misfired directly into the Clawitzer to their right near them knocking them over. That’s when Evan took down one of the Clawitzer with a single painful blow with his tail. Teeth leapt on to one of the heads to start biting at the carapace of the Clawitzer I had redirected and I wrapped the next one in line and slammed it against the ground face first several times with my vines while making sure it couldn’t aim its large claw at anyone. The Skitty and other Rattata were dealing with the remaining two, but Evan was looking south for some reason as I dropped the Clawitzer I finally recognized as being knocked out. I made my way up to Evan and he looked concerned at the sight of a Clauncher unit coming from the south as Pom and the others crossed the bridge. “Rattata form up on me! Favela, Skitty Squad members make sure they stay out cold until they are rescued by Pom’s team.” At Evan’s orders the three Rattata moved over to him. “Now follow my lead, we need to move fast. Unit command, Dig!” Within seconds all four Pokémon disappeared into the ground in fountains of dirt as they dug downwards and disappeared completely from sight as the dirt resettled where they were second prior. What did Evan hear or see from the crossroads that required him to go to ground? In any case I turned around and watched out for the Clawitzers with the two male skitty who held iron tail attacks at the ready in case one of them tried to make any sudden movements. The Wooloo team was signaled and started drawing the remaining Clawitzer unit’s fire that way as Pom’s team started forward towards the bridge. Our eastern unit was soon going to hit the central Clawitzer unit from the right, but I still wondered why Evan went underground. -Pom- Surprisingly things were going well, what was the horrible thing that would happen here? The Rattata certainly became a lot stronger than when we met them, they also look well fed too and Evan seems to have gotten them well trained enough to take down scarier looking Pokémon. Maybe this time things wouldn’t end in tragedy or a series of life threatening incidents. “Signal Geoff!” Calling it right now as I saw both the east and western units were done crossing the river. “Mystical Fire!” Shine leaned back and the lower pumpkin half of her body glowed brightly and then spewed forth a fireball into the sky, after a certain distance it exploded outward. -Geoff- “What happen?” A female Wooloo in my unit asked. “Somebody set up us the boom.” A male Wooloo stated before firing an Electro Ball. “We get Signal.” The mystical fire exploding in the sky. “What!” One Wooloo said in confusion as he brought up a Protect barrier. “It’s us.” I stated to focus my group. “We draw east or west?” “We go west, eastern unit is about to flank them.” Another one of my companions stated. “They really are tunnel visioning on us!” “What he said, now slowly draw them fire off from across the bridge!” We all started moving to the right and continued to fire electro balls as we took several impacts and dodged several mores as the Clawitzers continued to batter us. We couldn’t use Protect while moving and the hits kept coming, but were quite cheerfully painful. At least none of us have fainted yet. At least we had drawn and kept the central units fire on us as the east and west Clawitzer units were swiftly and mercilessly brutalized. This is why we never wanted to go to war, but it was necessary to see if we could save them. -Pom- “They’re drawing west, curve towards the bridge form the east!” I turned left and started running forward towards the bridge, Maiden Jig broke off to go assist Geoff’s unit which were starting to drop from exhaustion and injury. “I’ll escort Ocellus into position to hit them from above if they see you coming.” Both Ocellus and Smolder took off high into the air as we continued to pelt towards the bridge. The central unit needed to be taken out before Geoff’s unit got injured any further, they were tough, but they were starting to flag in their ability to evade or use that Protect move. My hooves were on the bridge with Dolly boarding at my side, Shine, Quetal and Dazzle followed closely behind us as we charged across the bridge. So far the unit of barely scuffed Clawitzers hadn’t noticed, much to my relief. Though some were starting to turn our direction the closer we were getting. “Doing a dragon pulse!” Opening her mouth as we ran forward a brilliant ball of energy formed in Dazzle’s mouth and she fired it. The head of a dragon appeared and the beam that was its tail pulsed as it sped forward and hit a Clawitzer sending it sprawling. Quetal sped up and bounce around to the left and right, before sweeping past another with his Aerial Ace move. It was about then that the Clawitzers were drawn away from paying attention to Geoff’s unit and onto us when several Electro Balls dropped down among them in small explosions of lightning that stunned them from launching any shots at us. I rammed forward into the small body of one with my shoulder bodily flipping them entirely and got on top of them to pin them down and start smashing my hoof against their head while glancing around at what the others were doing. Dolly shot off to my right bring the back end of her board around the slapped another in the face knocking them backwards, it managed to stay upright. It opened its claw wide and attempted to crush Dolly when it surged forward, she simply stuck her board sideways into its claws to prevent it from firing or closing it. Taking a few steps back, Dolly jumped forward and used the exposed portion of her board to pivot her body at the shrimp with the ridiculous arm cannon, she slammed both her rear paws into straight its skull and used the added force to flip it over and knocked it out. Feeling the Clawitzer beneath me go limp after it struggling to get out from under me, I pulled the rescue badge from under my pink scarf and held it aloft. The badge glowed and in a flashing pillar of white light the Clawitzer disappeared. I held my badge in the direction of the one Dolly knocked out and it disappeared too, allowing her to retriever her board and get sent flying as she leapt to block a shot meant for Dazzle. She caught herself in the air and glided back towards the offender only to stop when Motochika’s group arrived and rushed the last three. I turned while still holding the badge to get another Clawitzer after Quetal leapt up, flipped forward and brought his left heel down on the Clawitzers head to knock it unconscious. Three left, Shine was simply distracting them and hitting them lightly with her leafy hair as Motochika and the Rattata started ripping into two of them. “There’s a special place in my heart, where I would rather do depart~!” That was the sound of Dazzle doing a Round attack. It struck true and the Clawitzer attempting to fire exploding bubbles missed as its aim was thrown off. “To the realms we’ll go, to where who knows~!” Followed a battered Geoff singing in tune and his attack doubled in strength immediately wiping that Clawitzer out. “We know we’ll find a way to rise, so that we can all travel upon the hills and skies~!” Sang another Wooloo, reminding me that Round was an attack that increased in intensity as it is sang in turn. It battered another Clawitzer. “Who knows where we all will soon be, we like the fact that all are free~!” The fourth Round attack took down another Clawitzer. “Everyone can share the air, take a breath it’s beyond compare~.” The Female Wooloo sang only for her attacks to be deflected. “We love our home, but there’s so many places with which to roam. In the end we’ll never see it all, but we will at least see a wonderful sprawl~.” The attack was again deflected. I quickly rescued the two Clawitzer and the last remaining one was flailing trying to hammer anyone that moved close to it with its glowing oversize claw arm. “Aero!” Wind erupted, but instead of blasting upwards, the Clawitzer was flattened against the ground and Motochika capitalized on the moment to ram into it bodily. I raised the badge to it and it disappeared. “One unit down, quickly get the other while… Scatter!” Motochika launched himself skyward, I rolled to the side into Dazzle to push her out of the way of the attack, then ran to rescue the eastern Clawitzers. “Darn it, it's the Blastoise!” “Dolly stay here and help them with that.” My job was to rescue the Clawitzer, I wasn’t here to fight that thing! “Dazzle with me!” “Don’t need to tell me twice!” Dazzle whimpered loudly. When Motochika yelled scatter, a huge furrow had been dug into the ground by two powerful jets of water that looked like they could punch through solid metal with the force they struck, the Rattata and Shine had been knocked about from the shockwave of the blasts hitting the ground. Quetal stayed standing and readied himself for the new threat. The giant turtle monster almost came out of nowhere from the south, with requisite glowing red eyes and what looked like twin biological cannons poking out of its shoulders roared. Motochika moved to challenge it and the two Clauncher units that showed up clacking their claws loudly behind me as I continued to go towards the down Clawitzers. I quickly made my way over to the six unconscious Clauncher that the two Skitty and Shanty were watching. “Go!” The two Skitty and Shanty took off in a flash towards the massive turtle and its forces, as I started rescuing the Clawitzers over here one at a time. I sorely wanted to activate the secondary function of rescuing and return to Helper’s Hamlet personally, but I wasn’t about to abandon anyone. When rescuing someone the badge gave you a temporary amount of time where you can use it to retreat back to base, in our case Team Harmony’s Guild Hall in Helper’s Hamlet. -Motochika- “Come on, you think you’re so great hiding behind all these Pokémon!” I held my shell in sword form aloft, I fended off the Clauncher with the Rattata having slightly more trouble with the. We were outnumbered three to one and were getting quite tired. Quetal was getting pretty battered and was almost down, he was taking a brunt of the attacks for the Rattata. Dolly was doing better, but she couldn't go on the offensive. The Blastoise was preparing another attack and was about to Hydro Pump our butts when five Electro Balls slammed into it stalling it for a few seconds. Five electro balls from Wooloo wasn’t nearly enough, twenty wouldn’t be either as the Blastoise started to lower itself and angle it’s cannons for the militia while we were busy fending off the twelve Clauncher in the way. “No!” The Hydro Pump built up and then fired overhead at Geoff’s unit. “JIGGLYYYY!” The hydro pump never hit Geoff’s unit or the bridge when Maiden Jig inflated to ridiculous size, giving off massive amounts of energy with glowing yellow eyes and tanked the whole attack without injury, but then she quickly shrunk down to normal and immediately flopped over out cold. Was that a partial Dynamic Maximizing?! I’ve never seen one, but surely a Dynamax would last longer than that! The two Skitty and Shanty arrived from the east arrived and dug into the Clauncher as the Rattata backing me up were on their last legs. I started to put more pressure on the Clauncher, but I was having a hard time pushing them all back. Two of the Clauncher lunging for me were struck down by direct Electro Ball hits from the Wooloo. “We need more time!” Pom stated as she sped past with Dazzle heading for the west side Clawitzer unit to rescue them. Dazzle stopped for a moment to hit the Blastoise with Toxic, it was a big target and we were already having problems dealing with the Clauncher, then continued after Pom covering her from a Clauncher trying to break off. That Clauncher was soon slapped back by a vine whip as the two other members of the Skitty Squad and Favela showed up. The Blastoise was grunting, it was thankfully poisoned. It was only a matter of time before it dropped as Salandit’s, or the eventual Salazzle’s, poison was some of the worst imaginable to any Pokémon. To think the ambush went off without a hitch, then the actual hitch shows up when we’ve about all but won and blindsides us! “We’ll give them time!” As I deflected another Clauncher’s claw, the three Ratatta finally gave out under the offensive of sharp edged claws and were knocked back forcing Dolly to protect their and Quetal's prone forms with her unique weapon. The four Skitty, Favela and Shanty were now on task to hold back the ten or so Clauncher staying up close and personal to us to avoid being attacked by the Wooloo. I knocked away a Clauncher as The Blastoise fired again and all the Wooloo immediately put up a Protect, as much good as that did them. Knowing that this particular Blastoise was a Power Style attacker, it was no surprise that his Hydro Pump hit all of their combined barriers and pushed every Wooloo back across the bridge and by the point they were at the other end their barriers all shattered at once. It had been near the end of the attack, but there was still so much force in it that they were sent flying with Geoff seemingly being the only one to retain consciousness through the assault. Geoff definitely wasn’t getting back into the battle with how badly that had hurt, in the distance I can see him standing up and he was holding onto Maiden Jig’s unconscious form protectively having used his body to shield her from the brunt of the Hydro Pump. Nearly took a claw to my face, I twisted my blade into the claw and flipped the Clauncher onto their back and kicked their skull harshly. They were stunned by the blow, but they would be up again soon. Not really my major concern like the Blastoise was. We were almost through with these Clauncher five left, the Skitty were going strong, as were Shanty and Favela. We couldn’t let it… oh great it’s firing again! The guns on its back spun up a hydro pump and then the ground shifted, I quickly hopped backwards wondering what was going on. Then a large section of the ground fell out from behind the six foot tall turtle Pokémon that weighed about several hundred pounds, starting around its heels. It topple backwards was immediately sped up when it’s Hydro Pump attack was angled up and away from us and started firing from the two tubes poking out of its shoulders, once it bodily got stuck on its back and the tubes were firing water straight into the sky harmlessly. Even as it fired the water three Rattata, including Teeth the black furred one, burst from the ground defeating the three of the Clauncher leaving us with two that were swiftly taken down by Shanty and Favela. Simply a blow from Shanty’s left rear hoof kicking out and Favela stomping down with her front hooves. The Ratatta proceeded to quickly rally into defensive position with Dolly in protecting the others. It left me wondering… where was… King Evan proceeded to erupt from the ground smashing his head against the Blastoise making cry out in pain and try to get up, but it couldn’t. With the way it had fallen backwards and the way the ground had been dug out from beneath it, it was immeasurable stuck as its arms were too short to reach the ground. “That worked? Yes, it worked, woohoo! Skitty Squad with me, unit command Iron Tail, aim for the Blastoise’s head!” The Blastoise roared, but it was helpless as Evan’s tail lit up with a silvery glow and the four Skitty Squad joined him in raising their tails. Multiple slaps to the skull later, thanks to the Salandit poison worsening, it was getting weaker by the second even if it’s flailing was still somewhat strong. A second later a few lightning bolts dropped from the sky and struck the helpless Blastoise who couldn’t get his cannons pointed at anyone, it was rendered out cold. Looking up I saw Ocellus and Smolder breaking up a cloud. “Now what King Evan?” Teeth asked as he gathered his hurt comrades, which included his sister. “Now we rescue them…” We could hear the roar of a Gyarados in the distance. “And ourselves, we don’t have the strength to face a full Gyarados unit today!” A Gyarados was a scary flying serpent, multiple working together in unison was terrifying. “I got it!” Pom stated as she and Dazzle came back from rescuing the last of the Clawitzers and rescued the Blastoise first before rescuing the Claunchers. That was a really good call in case the Blastoise knew the move 'Rest' and somehow recovered from its position. -Helper’s Hamlet, Pom- Dazzle and I were the last ones back, arriving right where the Kecleons said they said they set up the Rescue Point. We returned with the rescue energy of the last rescue, which was used to rescue Maiden Jig and Geoff. Exhausted in a variety of levels, injured in equal measure, but we all made it back safe and sound. “Seriously guys, how am I supposed to deal with all of this!” Happiny was grumpy and looked at battered head of the large turtle monster that almost reminded me of a Terra Tortoise back home on Equus, except it was blue. Happiny, the small pink puff that wears a pouch around the lower half of her body, already forced a pecha berry down his throat to deal with the poisoning. Goodness knows there is likely something that actually looked like Terra Tortoises in this world. “We need to hire more medical professionals, I can’t do this much work by myself!” “Calm yourself Happiny, we’ll work together to help you figure that out. We’ll see about hiring more Happiny or Chansey when we can” Evan stated as he flopped onto the ground chin first. “We’re exhausted and injured, but we managed a great victory for our allies in Fontaine today.” One of the Clawitzers we rescued raised a large claw skyward and bowed his head to Motochika while using his wobbly looking stabilizer leg to stay upright. “What were the giant floating blue dragon like serpents I saw before me and Dazzle evacuated?” Thankfully were on the north side of the river getting Geoff back, otherwise we might have had problems with those things. “Water and Flying types called Gyarados, you wouldn’t believe the Pokémon those things come from.” Motochika stated as he started chewing his way through an Oran Berry. “Small orange or red fish Pokémon called Magikarp, one of the least threatening Pokémon imaginable in this world. They make for good listeners at least. I owe you big time for helping me get my militaries artillery units back, especially the Blastoise and the claw fighting Claunchers. At least we’re not dealing with a military genius… just someone who has a lot of power behind them and no wherewithal in how to actually use the Pokémon they’ve enthralled effectively.” “If it’s okay with you Motochika, we’re sticking to Aurora for the next three days.” My blunt comment was met with nods. “Just know that I won’t let this debt go unsettled.” Motochika rubbed at his nose. “I’ll figure out something big to do for you after Fontaine is freed up, now that I got some of my units back I can work my way into starting a resistance by trying to connect with those who fled to northeastern Fontaine for safety.” “How did this stuff in Fontaine all start anyway?” My question was warranted given Motochika and Captain Skeeball were said to be doing peaceful ally negotiations, Motochika must know at least something. “With a shadowy spooky phantom castle coming up from out of nowhere to the south of my Kingdom’s Capital in the ocean. It was definitely out of nowhere, because that castle certainly wasn’t a part of the depths the castle sprung from. I would know, I have been swimming those waters since I was a much smaller Oshawott. It all started when a voice started singing and before I knew I was up to my neck in Pokémon that started turning on me, civilian and military alike.” Motochika crossed his arms. “The strange music’s rhythm was quite discordant to me, despite the singing voice behind the sudden fall of Fontaine sounding sickeningly sweet. Captain Skeeball tried to talk to her husband in getting us out of there quickly, but he just attacked us. At least Skeeball got me out of my Kingdom’s castle before we were overwhelmed, other Pokémon that resisted that voice went with us or covered our retreat. You know most of the rest of it. Whatever that vile force is, it definitely wanted me either dead, captured or controlled like all the other Pokémon.” “Anybody need a hot bath?” It looked like Eriflamb was cheerful about something as he skipped his way up to us. "Just tell me how hot you need it! Also, Pom, can you and your friends look into a commission to find a Pokémon that is willing to open a cooking place around here? That would be great.”