//------------------------------// // 32: Super Effective [Crossover with non-canon story] // Story: To Err is Equine // by RLYoshi //------------------------------// [Perspective: Arrell] Hopefully the bartender won’t blame me for the wall that got shattered when Cinder tackled me through it. I rolled on the ground for about twenty feet or so before managing to get back on my hooves, looking around quickly for my assailant. He was only about three feet away, getting back up himself. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I knew for a fact that if anypony questioned me in the future, the fourteen words I yelled at that moment would sum up the event entirely: “OH MY GOD WHAT WAS THE HECK WAS THE WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT?!” The enraged God/Pokemon just screamed as he flung himself at me. I dodged to the right, the blow cracking the ground where I was seconds before. After another wordless scream, his eyes narrowed. “Swift!” Before he even finished saying that word, he rammed into me with surprising power for such a small creature. I went flying a few feet once more, but the attack itself didn’t hurt me too much. I hopped to my hooves in time to see the possessed Cyndaquil charging at me again, this time at a slower - but still quick - pace. I saw his lips form the words “Fire Spin” and reacted quickly, throwing up my drop shield, just in time for him to become a spinning ball of flame. He rolled at me anyway, either not noticing my shield or not caring about it. This proved to be a mistake, as he just slammed into the barrier and fell down, dazed. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but snap out of it!” I yelled, letting my shield fall. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” “You know what you did,” the possessed Pokemon growled. “Rollout!” He curled himself in a ball again, and sped towards me a lot faster. There was no time to throw up my shield again, so I decided on a cheap tactic: I flew into the air, about twenty feet above him. “No I don’t!” I yelled down to him, growing more annoyed by the second. “Why don’t you come up here and tell me? Oh wait, you’re not a Flying-type! Shoulda been a Charizard!” “Fire Charge!” he growled, his body producing flames at a rapid rate. Then, they were suddenly sucked into him, the glow in his eyes increasing and turning to a deeper shade of red. Fire Charge, Fire Charge...that makes him stronger, basically. Would also probably give him more power for his fire attacks, meaning he OH HORSEAPPLES! Quickly, I flew up another thirty feet or so, just barely avoiding a barrage of flames he spat upward. “Holen Sie hier unten du Feigling!” the possessed Pokemon cried up at me. I had no idea what he was saying, so I just flew up higher. This is NOT going well, I thought to myself as I tried to figure out what to do next. I couldn’t get anywhere near him, or I’d be burned to a crisp...or a puddle, rather. And I didn’t have enough long-range attacks to knock him out from afar. The Pokemon narrowed his eyes. “Ember,” he declared with determination. I barely dodged out of the way as a barrage of flames way too large to be embers flew up at me. “Okay, overpowered Ember... I’m calling hacks on that one,” I muttered to myself. Coming up with a plan, I turned towards him and began flying back down. As soon as I was close enough, I unleashed Din’s Fire, hitting him with his own element at as close a range as I could. He shrieked out “Rollout!” as I got close to him, rapidly spinning towards me through the fire. Before I could process a DragonForce reference in my mind, he slammed into me, sending me flying into the brick wall of a nearby building and leaving a rather large dent. I staggered to my hooves, only to be hit by yet another attack and slammed back into the wall. How I didn’t end up going through it, I’m going to attribute to pony logic. He prepared for a third go, but I jumped out of the way in time, and he went through the wall without taking me along for the ride. Using this momentary distraction to my advantage, I turned and began running for safety. I saw Risk and False along the way and skidded to a stop in front of them. “Before you ask, I don’t know what’s going on either, aside from the fact that I’m getting my ass handed to me by a creature that’s only a quarter my size,” I told them breathlessly. “How’s it going for you? And where’s Nimble and Asylum?” “Asylum’s looking for help and Nimble’s wherever he is,” Risk answered. “I’ve given up trying to keep track of him.” “Yeah, ninja and all that. Nice. Mind helping me not die? I don’t know what’s going on, but that Cyndaquil’s got moves he shouldn’t have for another evolution or two.” Risk raised an eyebrow at my words, but elected to not bother questioning it. “That’s what we’re here for. Go hide somewhere, we’ll handle this.” I nodded, for once not against hiding from a fight. I galloped off, leaving them behind to take care of the fiery ball of rage that burst back onto the streets at that moment. [Perspective: Risk Reward] False and I got ready for battle the second we saw Cinder appear. As soon as he saw us, he charged, apparently deciding we were the threats instead of Arrell. He ran towards us, narrowing his eyes at False, then focusing his gaze on me. “Swift!” he cried out, and as soon as he said it, I was hit by a force seemingly going at impossibly fast speeds. I was thrown into the air and sent flying backwards several feet, but hours upon hours of training with False had given me durability, and I landed on my feet with nothing bruised but my pride. False, meanwhile, jumped at Cinder from behind. This was an unfortunately poor choice, as before she could even reach the Pokemon, dark purple flames sprouted from his back and threw her backwards, hissing in pain. She got back up quickly, but by that point, the living ball of flame had turned to her and was charging straight at her. She jumped out of the way in time, but he wasn’t deterred, simply turning around without missing a beat and trying again. This time, though, he came at her much faster than before. She prepared to dodge, but before she had the chance, it mouthed something like “Tackle”, and almost immediately she was sent flying backwards, skidding for a few feet, as the Pokemon stared at her from where she had once stood. I looked on in shock as False hissed at the creature as she stood, drawing her sword. Of course, it was after she was blocking a blow from the creature that I realized I should be fighting too. I quickly charged up the Fine Rock replacing my horn and prepared to fire a blast of magic at the creature. What I was not prepared for, however, was how close the two were as they were grappling, and I couldn’t get a clear shot at the creature without having a chance at hitting False. I swore silently, diffusing the magic I had built up. This was going to get either complicated or messy, both of which were the worst option. I saw False throw the creature off of her and into the air. Acting quickly, I caught it in a net of levitation, lifting it up into the clear. Again, I charged up my horn to cast an attack spell, but I couldn’t concentrate on two spells at once with the small amount of magic practice I had, and my levitation faltered for a moment, making the powerful spell miss the frozen creature completely and smash into the home behind it. Hope that was unoccupied. I decided to just stick with levitating the creature at that point. I had little practice controlling the crazy amount of magic that came with having a powerful magical artifact for a horn, and if I missed, there was going to be a lot of collateral damage. I had assumed that I could just keep the creature suspended while False disabled it, and was about to tell her so, when my spell simply ended. It was a strange feeling. I was casting it, but it wasn’t having any effect. Where the creature should be levitating, he was on the ground, cracking the bones in his neck menacingly. “Wha...” I barely got out before he ran at me. I braced myself for another collision, only to watch as he was sent flying to the side by a gray blur. Nimble landed on the ground where Cinder was just before, glaring at the temporarily downed Pokemon. “Have a new opponent,” he growled before charging again at amazing speeds. I don’t know where he came from, but honestly, I didn’t care. While he tussled with Cinder, I ran over to False to make sure she was okay. “I’m fine,” she grunted before I even said anything. I nodded. “Nimble’s got Cinder right now. I think he’ll handle it better than we did.” She raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?” “They’re both roughly the same size and speed, Nimble’s stronger than he looks, and he can probably dodge anything Cinder throws at him.” I bit my lip. “Still, Asylum better hurry back here, or we may be in serious trouble.” “Smokescreen!” we heard the Pokemon shout. My eyes stung as the area around the street we were in almost instantaneously filled up with a thick cloud of smoke. I heard False coughing beside me, struggling for air. I did the same, getting low to the ground. I tried to tell her to do the same, but I couldn’t get a breath in from the insane amount of air pollution that had appeared. “Tackle!” I heard the Pokemon shout, immediately before Nimble went flying past us. He got up instantly and sprinted away from us. Unfortunately, that was evidently the wrong way to go, and the exact same thing happened. Nimble groaned from his spot on the ground. “That did not go in the way I was expecting,” he muttered to himself, getting up off the ground just in time to avoid another attack from the creature. As Nimble was being his namesake and dodging most of the Pokemon’s attacks, the smoke was starting to slowly clear up. I saw a pair of blurs exchanging blows before simultaneously backing off, seeming to come to a standstill. Then one of the blurs was gone. I sucked in a breath. I was almost certain it was the Pokemon that had disappeared. I looked around frantically, coughing slightly to get the smoke out of my lungs. It was only then that the idea came to me I could have created a wind to blow the smoke away, and cause the creature to forfeit his prime advantage. I swore loudly, mentally berating myself for not giving Nimble the early advantage to possibly end the fight early. Now, the young pony in question lay in front of me silently, letting out a wheeze before checking out a spot on his side that looked like it was bruised. He winced silently, rising slowly to turn back to face his assailant. The creature just glared, saying nothing. Then, it grinned. “You do know you cannot defeat me, correct?” it hissed loudly to us. Nimble glared and coughed in return. “We will never know unless we finish this fight, will we?” the young ninja whispered in return, sprinting to the right and running quickly around the Pokemon, seemingly looking for an opening. It only occured to me later that he was creating an opening for us to attack the creature, not him. Nimble suddenly cut backwards and began running around the creature closer, and in the opposite direction. The Pokemon calmly curled into a ball and said “Defense Curl” the instant before Nimble struck it. The creature went flying into the house across from the one I had accidentally destroyed, passing right through it unharmed. I thought I heard it shout something before entering the house through the second story floor. It sounded like “Fire Thing!”, but I wasn’t sure. Nimble hadn’t moved, looking exhausted. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, before turning around and walking away. He never saw the attack coming. I never thought I was going to see Nimble surprised, or even startled. But to see him outright shocked when he was hit with a spinning ball of flame was not even considered. It scared me. The creature’s attack had sent Nimble flying into the debris of the house I had earlier destroyed while trying to subdue the Pokemon, crashing through the one standing wall, having it then fall on top of him. I didn’t even hear him cry out. The Pokemon took out a small seed from who-knows where and put it into his mouth, a small bit of yellow energy leaking out of his mouth as he stood. False and I gaped as he did, the flames on his back now bigger than ever. He didn’t even look out of breath. He turned to us, smirking, and started running at us. I braced myself for whatever he had in store. “THAT’S IT!” Suddenly, a light blue blur crashed onto Cinder from above, causing him to slam into the ground. The blur turned out to be a certain Windigo we thought had fled. “Arrell?” False nervously asked. Whether she was still scared of Cinder or more startled by Arrell’s appearance, I don’t know. For his part, the Windigo didn’t respond to her. He simply stepped off of Cinder and glared at him. “I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you in the past fifteen minutes, but I don’t like it. You’re going to stop this, right now, or I’m going to be very angry. Got that?” he hissed. Cinder stood up and shot a barrage of flames in Arrell’s direction. They were instantly deflected by the latter’s shield, and as soon as the flames died down, he tackled Cinder and shoved him up against a wall, front hoof on his neck. “Wrong move.” Arrell glared harder. “There are a lot of things I don’t like. Some are fears, some are pet peeves. You may control fire, my biggest fear...but you’ve also hurt my friend. And that is my biggest pet peeve.” He slammed a hoof into Cinder’s face. “You don’t just waltz in here and start beating up me or my friends. It’s just something you don’t do. But you’ve done it, and therefore, you’ve broken a rule. A rule that I made. And I don’t like it when my rules are broken.” He grinned maniacally. “You like Pokemon attacks? How about Sheer Cold!” Suddenly, Arrell opened his mouth, and out came a visible cloud of freezing air. As soon as the air made contact with Cinder, he shivered, and the fire on his back went out. He stopped struggling and hung limp. With an enraged roar, Arrell turned and slammed Cinder down onto the ground, causing a large assortment of cracking noises. The Fire-type stayed there, not moving or breathing. The Windigo stood there for another minute or so, just panting angrily and glaring down at his defeated foe. I moved to approach him, but his glare snapped up to me when I did so, and I instantly stopped moving. Finally, it all seemed to catch up to Arrell, and his glare softened. He looked back and forth between Cinder, Nimble, and myself for a moment, then suddenly took off. He just flew away, not even saying anything else. And just as he left, Asylum came back with two Royal Guards behind her. “What happened?” she asked as she surveyed the scene, clearly shocked. “Arrell happened,” False quietly replied. I looked at the two confused Royal Guards and sighed. Time for a lot of explaining.