“Okay maggots,” Ag shouted. “Listen up, because I’m only going to say this once.”
General Ag was not a pokemon to forget. Commander Sev’s feint and Lord Aceus’s message had postponed and sent into disarray a lot of things with the PLA. They were getting past that, however. So now Ag had all the time in the world to do what she wanted.
Which was why she was currently standing in the royal courtyard, overlooking the zebra royal guards….and Alice.
“King Trotankhamun has given me permission to train you lot,” Ag explained, pacing back and forth in front of the group. Her arms were crossed behind her. The reason she could so clearly talk to the non-pokemon right now was because her mate, Gard, had placed a sort of ‘translation’ aura field around the city. Several psychic pokemon within their ranks routinely monitored and replenished the field. “At first, I was rather pleased with that, but now…” She shook her head. “Just look at you. None of you know how to fight, not a real one anyway.”
“How dare you belittle us?” One of the zebra soldiers piped up. “We were hoof picked to protect our king. We’re the best of the best.”
Ag walked over and lowered her face to his level. “The best of the best? Well, tell me this. Have you ever faced a creature made of iron? That can level cities? That could rend your mind into jelly with a mere thought?” When the soldier didn’t answer, she smirked. “I didn’t think so.”
Ag pulled herself up and continued pacing. “Whatever training you’ve been given beforehand is worthless now. Fighting pokemon is nothing like fighting one of those Hyena Dogs. Sure, they look tough, but they can’t make the ground shake or attack from the air. They can’t use magic or anything like that. I will train you to be the fiercest fighting force in the world. When people think of strength and power, I want them to point to Zebrica. I want this little nation to have the greatest army in the history of this planet. Do you think you can make that happen?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the soldiers piped up.
“That was weak,” Ag growled. “Louder.”
“YES, MA’AM,” the soldiers roared.
“Whenever you do anything,” Ag said. “I want you to do your best. I don’t want half tries or an attempt at the best, I want THE best. You are my army now and I will not tolerate failure.”
“Ehem,” Alice coughed to get Ag’s attention. “Not to be rude, actually to be very rude, but what the fuck am I doing here? I’m not part of your army.”
“Yes you are,” Ag stomped her way over to the pest. ‘I have no idea what was going through Sev’s head to hire these goons.’ “I’m your general as of right now. You will do as I say, got that?”
Alice scoffed. “As if. Just give me my money and I’ll do my job.”
Ag snorted. “If you want your money, you’re going to have to earn it.”
“If that’s true,” Alice pointed out. “Why isn’t Felicia here?”
“Because she went out shopping with Lia,” Ag rebutted. “Lia trusts Felicia, so she’s already one of us in my book. You on the hand, need to prove yourself.” She spared a glance to the zebra soldiers. “Actually, I think it would be best if you helped me perform a little…demonstration for the guards here.”
“Whatever,” Alice swiftly moved to the center of the field. “Just don’t go crying to your mommy when you lose.”
“I never knew my mother,” Ag rebucked with a slight growl. “Thanks for reminding me.” ‘I’m going to make this even harder for her.’
“Oh boo-hoo,” Alice mocked. “Cry me a river, why don’t you. You’re not the only one without a mother.”
Ag didn’t bother responding to her, besides giving her a deathly glare. “Watch us closely, soldiers. You’re about to witness a real pokemon battle…Well, almost one. My opponent isn’t exactly soldier material.”
“I’m a mercenary,” Alice shot at her. “I’m ten times the warrior you are.”
Before Ag could respond, another voice called out to them.
“Am I late?” Gard’s voice resounded. All the royal guards shivered in fear, filling the air with the sound of clanking metal. “I would hate to miss my beloved in action.”
“Gard~” Ag cooed, hurrying over to the Gardevoir. The strange duo gave each other a little kiss, before she nuzzled him. She was quite a bit taller, so she was nuzzling the top of his head. “I’m so happy to see you.”
“I know,” Gard smirked. “You showed me that well enough last night.” This caused Ag to turn crimson.
“How does that even work?” Alice piped up. “Shouldn’t she have crushed you under all that fat of hers?”
Ag growled and Gard frowned.
“My mate is not fat,” Gard glared at Alice, causing the Vespiquen to shudder in fear. “And to answer your question, psychic powers can do wonders. Why, last night….”
Ag nudged him. “Not here.”
Gard chuckled and stroked her cheek. “Of course,” he walked over to the sidelines. “I might as well not stand up. I’m sure this will be over quick.”
“I’ll make sure of that,” Alice shot at Ag, to which the Aggron simply rolled her eyes.
“I’ll be the bigger mon and let you take the first shot,” Ag said calmly. She honestly didn’t have much to fear going into this.
Alice picked up on Ag’s surefire attitude and looked ticked off. “You’ll learn to regret that,” Alice raised one of her hands into the air. A ball of air quickly formed into her hand, causing some of the guards to gasp at the display. “Air Slash.” With a wave of her hand, the large ball of air sailed towards Ag.
The Aggron held her ground. At the last second, she punched the air ball, dissipating it. “Soldiers, why did that attack fail on every level?”
“It was obvious.”
“She just threw air.”
“Weak!”
“All good answers,” Ag said, ignoring Alice’s anger. “Each and every pokemon has strengths and weaknesses. Air Slash is a flying type move. Flying moves are weak against me. If she had wanted to really hurt me with it, perhaps she should have tried to close the distance and actually put some power behind it. Even ineffective attacks can do damage if done correctly.”
“Then I’ll just have to try harder,” Alice scoffed. Instantly, several versions of herself sprung forth from her in a perfect ‘Double Team’ move. “Aerial Ace.” The Alice’s charged. Their bodies shone as white outlines showed their presence.
Ag smirked and did something that made all the zebras’ jaws drop. To avoid Alice’s attack, the large, heavy set Aggron started dancing like that of a ballerina. What was surprising was that Ag was great at it. When Alice attacked again and again, Ag simply danced around her like she was as light as a feather. She twirled, danced on her toes, the like.
“How is she doing that?” One of the zebras asked.
Gard chuckled at their reactions. “My mate’s trainer was a ballerina. She taught Ag everything she knew.”
“But she’s so heavy looking,” was the response.
Gard frowned, causing the zebras to quake in fear. “She is not heavy looking. She is just physically fit.” The zebras shut their mouths, afraid to argue with the Gardevoir. He folded his arms and smirked. “Besides, I’ll have you know that she looks exquisite in a tutu.”
The royal guard did not like that mental picture.
Meanwhile, with a clean pirouette, Ag cleared another one of Alice’s doubles. The Aggron general couldn’t help but chuckled as she heard the muttered rage that spewed from Alice’s mouth with each and every failed strike. Yet again, Ag thanked her lucky stars for her trainer’s aid.
Of course, one would think it odd that a member of the PLA would have a trainer. Well, to put it lightly, the PLA were kind of, sort of, hypocritical in some regards; one of them being that they had some humans in their ranks. Ag herself, while disliking human on the whole, loved her trainer dearly. Of course, each and every one of the humans had been approved by Commander Sev. He would call them ‘honorary Pokemon’, so not to really grate his nerves when he had to address them.
Her trainer, a woman by the name of Anastasia, was one of them.
_______________________________________________________________________
*years earlier in the human world*
Sitting against the wall was a small little Aron. She sighed looking at her young trainer do practicing her ballerina moves. They were simple, rather beginner level moves, but the Aron was a little jealous.
Her trainer was a young brunette human with fair skin. She was a rather excitable sort of person, which did conflict often with her more serious twin sister. That wasn’t important right now though. At least, not to the Aron known simply as Ag. She envied her master’s skills. She wanted to dance and be pretty just like her, but she was too shy to ask or at least attempt to.
‘Stupid language differences.’
But she was going to change all that. She was going to stop being shy and ask. Normally, she wouldn’t be able to work on her courage, but thanks to some Ralts guy her master’s twin received recently, she was ready to go. Her trainer was currently leaning against a bar, stretching her legs out. The little Aron nuzzled the foot still on the ground, getting the human’s attention.
“Huh?” Anastasia, her trainer, said in confusion. She looked down at her pokemon curiously. “Ag, what’s wrong?”
Ag knew she couldn’t speak to her trainer, so she decided to lift her legs in an attempt at a pose.
“You want to pose with me?” The little girl’s eyes lit up when Ag nodded. She quickly scooped her up and hugged her tight. “Of course you can, silly, but it’s going to be tough. Ballet is no cake walk…though you often get cake at the end anyways, so it can be a cakewalk…Now I’m hungry. Want to go get some lunch?”
Ag nodded, happy that her trainer was going to teach her….and get her cake.
“YAY~” Anastasia picked her up, holding her like a puppy. “Let’s go. I know daddy’s got some fudge stashed somewhere.”
‘Fudge? YES!’ Ag cheered with delight.
____________________________________________________________________________
Back in the present, Ag decided she had played with Alice far enough. She twirled her body around, with her tail glowing brightly ready for a perfect ‘Iron Tail’. Which came when she span it right into Alice’s side. The Vespiquen was sent flying a ways over, hitting the ground hard.
Ag settled herself and looked over at her opponent. “Are you alright? I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?” She held out a little concern. Alice did look kind of fragile.
Surprisingly, Alice quickly flew back up. She didn’t look that much worse for the ware, except for her panting from exhaustion. “No and neither will be you in a moment. Acrobatics!”
With that, Alice became nothing more than a blur. Ag only had the time to widen her eyes, before Alice smacked into her…repeatedly. While it wasn’t at all effective against her, the constant attacks was starting to get aggravating.
Finally, Ag thrust an arm down onto Alice’s form. Said form disappeared upon impact. Ag sighed.
“HYPER BEAM!” The beam struck Ag’s back hard, sending her tumbling to the ground.
Ag pushed herself off the ground. “Nice use of Substitute, but you failed to capitalize….” Ag was cut off when she saw Alice right before her.
A large, glowing orange ball of energy was held in her hands. She smirked, before thrusting the ‘Power Gem’ attack into Ag’s face. Again, Ag was thrown back upon the earthly courtyard.
Ag had to give Alice credit. She had caught her off-guard. She wouldn’t let that happen again. ‘I know your tricks, mercenary. Come and fight me like a real mon.’
Alice seemed to be growing a powerful ‘Air Slash’ in one of her hands. No doubt she wanted to make a statement with finishing her off with the first attack she used in the fight. Ag thought it a cute gesture, though Alice was already thinking of victory too soon. While Ag did look a bit scruffed up, she had taken on much stronger foes and pulled through. She still had plenty of energy and those blasts had nothing on that one time she took a tank’s shell at point blank. Of course, she had used ‘Iron Defense’ to save herself, but still that shell had stung like nothing else.
Rushing forward, Alice made to end the fight then and there. Ag did nothing. She just appeared to be weak, appeared to be nearly out of the fight. She could almost see Gard smirking, possibly chuckling now as he read her mind.
“You sneak little devil~” Gard cooed inside her mind.
“Oh you know me,” Ag replied. “I’m just full of surprises, love.”
As Alice was about to fire her attack, Ag sprung forth. A ball of energy within her mouth shone and out struck the Vespiquen a rather powerful Flash Cannon at point blank range. The power behind it could have blasted apart a tank’s armor.
Fortunately, Ag didn’t throw all that into Alice. Just enough to send the bug type flying. Alice landed in a clump amongst the trees. She didn’t stand back up, but her low groaning meant she still was conscious.
Ag snorted. “I hope you were paying attention, maggots. That was a demonstration of just a small few of our attacks. They come in different shapes and forms for every single pokemon. Never let your guard down. I did, if not for a second, and you saw what happened. That was a rookie mistake and if that attack had smacked into your heads, you’d be dead. Do you understand soldiers?”
“We understand, ma’am!” They yelled back.
“Good,” Ag snorted. “And someone go get Alice and take her to the infirmary. I don’t think she’ll be flying off anywhere anytime soon.”
“Hate you,” Alice groaned out. “Hate everyone….especially you Felicia.”
Ag ignored her and walked over to her mate.
“It seems you have your worked cut out for you,” Gard looked over the soldiers. “Go easy on them.”
“Gard,” Ag nuzzled him. “When have I ever gone easy on anyone?”
Gard tapped his chin with a knowing smile. “Oh, I can think of a certain pair of human twins who used to arm wrestle with you. If I do recall, they seemed to win most of the time.”
Ag rolled her eyes. “Anastasia and Beatrice were exceptions. Now shut up, or I’ll rough you up so hard you’ll be walking funny for a week.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Gard gently flicked a finger soothingly under her chin. “I best be off. Commander Sev is due in a meeting soon.”
“Really?” Ag asked, curious as to who the Commander was going to meet.
“The zebra nobles and tribe leaders want to come to a decision about us,” Gard explained. “Of course, Sev was not aware of this until I mentioned it to him.”
“And why would you do that?”
Gard smirked. “Because we both know Commander Sev. He always gets his way…somehow.”