35 - Beset on All Sides
“Sorera o korosu!!” Koga snarled, throwing the shurikens in his left hand at Rarity, who managed a shield in the nick of time.
The old Salazzle charged in while the Crobats simply manoeuvred to keep any of Rarity’s team from escaping. Keldeo growled while rolling his eyes, “Ah yes, the good old ‘join us or die’ shtick. Cute you left off the whole ‘or’ bit of that, you rat-ass bastard!”
“I should have known, from what grandfather said. You always were the gentle protector, never willing to delve into the world to root evil out of its dens. Such a shame, the number of tragedies that could have been prevented, were you just willing to take the fight to the oppressive!” Koga growled as he surveyed Rarity’s protective barrier. He looked over at Salazzle, busily feinting, bobbing, and weaving to unearth a breaking point in the unicorn’s melee defenses while her flames tickled the shield. He yelled, “Salazzle, she’s learned how to defend against normal Pokémon moves! Improvise something new, something unexpected!”
“Wha...??” Rapidash blurted, his head jolting backwards. “Can...can a trainer even give such an order?! Is that legal!?”
Keldeo spat, “Since when did he play by the rules? Besides, this isn’t exactly a League-sanctioned battle, is it? Normal rules wouldn’t apply.”
Salazzle paused a moment, tapping her chin. As Rarity fired a beam at her, Salazzle slid to her left, crouched, rolled into a forward somersault, and leapt through Rarity’s shield. Rarity barely sounded the start of a squawk as Salazzle snatched her by the muzzle as she slammed Rarity to the ground back-first, having rolled herself over Rarity and used her angular momentum to throw the pony down. Salazzle clenched Rarity’s mouth shut, digging her claws into her nose and lower jaw past the point of drawing blood as she slammed Rarity’s head against the ground repeatedly, snarling and glaring with undying rage. With each hit Rarity yelped, muffled through her forcibly closed mouth. A hard blast of water knocked the old Salazzle off of Rarity after the fifth head-on-earth hit. Rarity struggled back to her feet, staggering and off-balance with out-of-focus eyes. Fearow’s voice quaked with fear as she asked, “What’s going on?! Who is this trainer, and why does he have such a problem with her?”
Rapidash stood in front of the stumbling Rarity, gritting his teeth and scraping at the ground with his front right hoof. Keldeo came to join him as he barked to Fearow, “We’ll explain once we’re out of this mess!”
“We’d better get out of this mess...,” Rapidash grumbled softly as the old Salazzle popped back to her feet with a savage roar.
“Get me out of here,” Rarity muttered, her voice sounding distant. Her horn began to charge heavily as she kept repeating herself, growing louder and more forceful, “Get me out of here...get me out of here. Get me out of here! Get me out of here!! Get me outta here!!”
Rarity’s magical charge burst droned a high-pitched whine, then burst. Blue light formed a breaking sphere around her and her companions, who all disappeared. Koga shrieked, “Find them!!”
Rarity, Rapidash, Keldeo, and Fearow popped out of a blue ball of magic with a bursting sound, each of them disoriented with carbon scoring on their bodies. Rarity had the most, especially on her horn. She fell down, and showed no coordination as she tried to get back to her feet. She groaned, “My head....”
Keldeo shook out his head while Fearow gasped, “What in the name of Arceus was that!?”
“Shh...!” Keldeo urged, crawling forward. They had appeared under some small young trees atop a hill, or something that looked like a hill from where they were. There was little vegetation here, as if it had been rocky for a very long time. Keldeo peered down, keeping himself hunkered against the ground. He backed up still on his belly, and harshly whispered, “That was a teleport spell?”
“I...I’ve never used one before; I don’t know how,” Rarity answered airily, still not sounding like herself. Blood dripped from the punctures on the bottom side of her jaw. She almost toppled again, and barely audibly said, “Feels like I’m gonna throw up...it’s so loud here. Why is everything so loud?”
“Great,” Keldeo muttered. “That’s about the last thing we needed. Really wish we had something to bandage her with...Rapidash, keep her awake while we run; her falling asleep now would be bad for her.”
Rapidash frowned, but nodded with an unhappy grunt. Fearow looked back as Rapidash gingerly helped Rarity onto his back, then turned to Keldeo and asked, “So, she teleported us?”
“Yes, but only about twenty metres. Those Crobats could easily hear and find us,” Keldeo whispered. “Stay low to the ground, and follow me. Don’t make a sound.”
Keldeo led them into the brush while Rapidash carried Rarity, doing his best to keep anything and everything away from her head. Occasionally Keldeo looked down into the ravine below, at its maze of shrubs and the trainers bustling about with each other. After about ten minutes of this crawling, everyone and everything around in unison stopped what they were doing and looked up. The moon rapidly moved around out of the Eastern sky, positioning itself a little below the sun. A sort of haze issued below it, teardrop in shape. Once it fully detached, that part of the sky brightened, then came the meteors. Meteor after meteor, to the point of nearly appearing as a solid line, fired themselves to somewhere to the east-by-northeast. Fifteen seconds later, the meteors ended, and the moon exited to the west just as quickly as it arrived. While so many other stood stupefied, Keldeo raspily urged, “This is our chance! Descend the sides of the ravine, and we cross Route 25!”
The four rushed down the sharp rocky hillside. Trainers stopped and discussed with themselves what the heck that was, even those in battle. Wild Pokémon did the same, and even still did the Pokémon who seconds earlier were slugging it out in varying degrees of hotheadedness. Quickly but quietly Keldeo lead them across Route 25 about fifty metres west of a house there, and up the other side. They all looked back once atop the hill. No one and no-mon appeared like they would stop their discussions anytime soon. Rarity airily asked no one in particular, “Was that Princess Luna’s doing?? Why would she be here?”
“Don’t know, but I’d love it if she’d stop monkeying with the moon!” Keldeo hissed. Once they were hidden atop the rise, Keldeo whispered, “Let’s move!”
{Heading north, out of Kanto.}
Keldeo broke into a full sprint headed east-northeast with a curve northward, with Fearow right behind him. Rapidash took a moment, but before long was up to speed with them. Soon they neared trees, but with a very clear and clean-cut line where they were not. In their place was a fair bit of torn-up ground, a road cut under construction, and numerous large metal machines painted yellow with black lettering. Several temporary living trailers were there as well, one with a banner that read “Connecting Kanto and Sinnoh: Route 200 is a go!” Nearby were large men and larger Pokémon, each slowly returning to work. Among the workmen were Steelixes, Machamps, Golems, and Rhyperiors, there was one, and only one, Alakazam. No women or female Pokémon were in sight. Two of the workmen and the Alakazam had a white hard hat while everyone and everymon else wore orange ones. Rarity gazed down from Rapidash’s back at the construction site below, and muttered, “My jaw hurts....”
Rapidash answered in fatherly tones, “Yes, dear, I’m sure it does, but I think there’s not much we can do about that right now.”
“Do they have a first aid kit?” Rarity asked, still sounding out of it. “In Equestria, we simply must have one on-hoof by law...is it so here?”
Keldeo said, “Sorry, I don’t know human laws.”
Rapidash snorted, then turned and started down the hill. Fearow squawked, “Are you nuts!? We’ll be caught!”
“She needs help!” he snapped back.
Keldeo sighed and shook his head as he came to a stop, looking down the side of the road cut. “Let him go. No stopping a fool in love.”
Rapidash walked into the construction site with his head held high and a stern face while the blood dripped slowly from Rarity’s wounded jaw. People and Pokémon both stopped just as they were returning to their duties as he strode through. Many blinked. Some made caring or snide remarks under their breaths, each pointing out the obvious in his own way. The Alakazam looked Rapidash in the eye, then pointed one of his spoons at one of the trailers. With a nod, Rapidash started that direction. A bearded man near the trailer’s door offered a sad smile and opened the door. Rapidash struggled with the steps, and fitting through the door, needing to duck his head. Inside was a man with a red hard hat, and plenty of gear expected of a first responder. His eyes widened when he saw Rarity and her bloodied muzzle. He asked, “What...happened?”
Rapidash began to answer, but stopped when the man sighed and muttered, “Really, really wish I had a Pokémon language translator. Some professor oughta get on that.”
He put on some blue latex gloves before he closely examined her muzzle. Looking at her eyes, he saw one was contracted and the other dilated. He asked, “Can you speak?”
She hesitated, and answered, “I can.”
“What did this to you? This doesn’t look like any Pokémon attack I’m familiar with,” the man said as he grabbed a sponge and some dark orange-yellow solution, and thus began to clean out Rarity’s wounds.
Wincing, Rarity gasped, “A lunatic and—oww, oww!!”
“Hold still; you don’t want an infection.”
“Sorry,” offered Rarity insincerely before continuing, “And his Salazzle, whom he told to ‘improvise.’”
“Huh. There aren’t many of those in this part of the world,” the man answered. “Looks like she did improvise, too; I think you have a concussion. You need to rest.”
“But—” Rarity began.
The man sighed with a small, unhappy smile. “Look, you’ve been in the news over the last several days. Everyone knows who you are, Rarity, and that you’re not from this world. Just the same, you need to rest to keep this from getting worse. Where’s your trainer? We all know it’s not this Rapidash.”
Rarity blinked hard and hung her head. She lamented, “He’s dead, killed by that lunatic.”
The man gasped, staring all around him. Rapidash, once the man looked at him expectantly, nodded sadly and looked away, trying not to cry. The man took off his hard hat, sighing long and low, and shook his head. He stared at the floor for a moment, then asked, “This was very recent, like just before the moon acting up, wasn’t it?”
Rapidash nodded while Rarity appeared to shake some fogginess from her head before softly and distantly saying, “Yeah, I...I think it was then...I can’t remember it clearly.”
Walking over to the cabinets and drawers, he opened several and pulled up a number of items, saying, “Given how I saw no beginning of scabbing or even slowing of your bleeding, I had already figured as much. And it means your attacker is still nearby, and you still have plenty of ground to cover. While I don’t like it, and can’t stop you, I don’t doubt you’ll keep on the move; these will help with the headache, disrupted senses, and nausea. You’ll have to hold the gauze in place below your jaw, and put this antiseptic ointment on it first. Make sure you get plenty of water, and if possible, stay under shade. And you, Rapidash, try to give her a steady a ride as you can.”
Relief washed over Rapidash’s face while Rarity just stared. She took the items in her telekinesis as she thanked the man, albeit absentmindedly for both, and they left. Rapidash took her out of the construction site and back up the steep rock face, to about the same reaction as their arrival. Keldeo snorted as they returned. “That went better than expected.”
“Most humans aren’t like Koga or his grandsire. Most of them just try to do what’s best as well as they understand it, and to the best of their ability,” Rapidash spat in return. He looked down and away, muttering to himself, “Makes me wonder how much of all this madness could’ve been avoided if the humans and ponies had just talked....”
“Few words more useless than ‘could’ve,’ ‘should’ve,’ and ‘would’ve,’ Rapidash,” Keldeo scolded. He shook his head as he sighed while Rarity attempted to apply the ointment to the gauze. Fearow lent a wing in stabilising the items in her telekinesis. Snorting again, Keldeo snidely offered, “Let me guess: she’s concussed.”
“Would’ve taken a moron to not notice,” Rapidash answered, rolling his eyes. “If you can, find a path that’s shaded, flat, and with as few turns as possible.”
With a scoff and eye-roll, Keldeo spat, “Anything else, Your Highness?”
“Please, not so loud...,” Rarity moaned in muffled agony.
Keldeo scrunched his mouth in irritation as he looked away. He motioned forward as he took off, muttering something mostly inaudible, but heavily profane. Rapidash and Fearow exchanged worried and uncomfortable grimaces. With a nervous laugh, Fearow asked, “So...can you guys catch me up on what’s up with that Koga guy?”
Time passed as Keldeo and Rapidash explained their stories leading up to now, the trouble with Koga, and how Rarity inspired him to vengeance. Aengus’s lack of explanation, and that both brothers had led her into the battle scene on false pretenses, quelled Fearow’s sudden desire to abandon Rarity to her fate. All the while, Rarity hung on the edge of sleep or subconsciousness, scarcely aware of the passing pastoral scene, two instances of a magenta wave crossing the breadth of the sky, nor even the day’s seconds, minutes, and hours.
{Not the usual happenigs in this town.}
Devontae dismounted his Charizard outside the Cerulean City Pokémon Centre just as Koga came around the corner. They both gasped with widening eyes at the sight of the other. Then Devontae pointed a finger as he gritted his teeth, snarling at the top of his lungs, “Murderer!!”
Everyone stopped and turned, including a few policemen. A pair of young twin girls, no more than six years old, stood and stared, eyes flicking between the two of them. A redheaded woman in her late twenties, sporting the figure of a world-class swimmer and the latest high-tech racing swimwear, slowly walked over while the policemen talked into their radios. The green-eyed blonde girl in white with her hair in a ponytail cowered behind her Ivysaur, who had assumed a battle-ready stance. Stepping in front of them both, the redheaded swimmer bluntly asked, “What’s going on?!”
“You heard me!” Devontae insisted, still glaring at Koga. “This mo-o-o—” he drew out the syllable as his eyes flicked to the twins for a moment, “—o-onkey-faced loser murdered m’ best friend!!”
The crowd gasped. Koga’s face hardened with a frown, and shouted back, “That is the biggest pile of shi-i—” he also noticed the young girls, “—i-ifty malarkey I’ve heard! Me? A member of the Elite Four, tarnishing my honour and that of my colleagues?! Can you believe that, Misty?”
“Freeze!!” yelled the policemen as they drew their firearms, hammers cocking with a click apiece. Devontae instinctively put his hands on his head and knelt down while Koga gave them a disbelieving look. Misty raised her hands and slowly backed away as the officers closed in. One in the back, wearing the mirrored sunglasses, said into his radio, “I do not have a copy. Please repeat.”
Over the radio, a woman’s voice answered, “There is a 10-28 on Master Koga for a 1-01 just south of Goldenrod. Bring him now.”
The police clipped his radio to his shoulder strap, and withdrew a pair of handcuffs. Angrily he began, “Master Koga...I am sorry, but there is a warrant for your arrest, for murder. On the ground, now!”
Koga slowly laid down with his belly on the ground. Devontae took a few steps back, savagely shouting with no regard of proper grammar, “Gettin’ what ya’ damn well deserve! Hope you like th’ ham slice!! Yeah! Gonna get the runs!! And you gonna deserve it! Hope you can’t stop sneezin’ neither! Get ‘em at once!! Change them drawers, day in, day out!”
As the police started to apply the handcuffs, a burst of smoke filled the area, clouding everyone’s vision. Some coughed. Before it cleared, Devontae heard Koga’s voice from right over his shoulder, “May both sides of your pillow be hot.”
Devontae whirled around, throwing a punch, but hit nothing but smoke. A gust forced some dissipation. As it cleared, two of the police officers were cuffed together. Devontae looked up to see Koga flying away to the east, and well out of range. He screamed some non-word in frustration, stomping angrily. That same policeman radioed in, “We got a 10-13, eastbound and airborne! Repeat, 10-13, eastbound and airborne!”
“Acknowledged. Officers in the area, free up and pursue,” answered the lady. Two of the policemen there jumped on the back of a Pidgeot, one wearing a blue light bar, and took off after him. Police lights and a siren rang out from the Pokémon as it tore after Koga.
Another officer patted Devontae on the shoulder. Kindly yet firmly, he said, “Don’t worry, son. We’ll give your friend the justice he deserves. We’ll get ‘im. Since he’s already ran over regional boundaries, this case will be escalated, and every department in every town in every region will be looking for him. He can’t hide. Did you already give a statement in Goldenrod?”
“Yes, sir,” Devontae said earnestly, unfolding a piece of paper, an official-looking form. Pointing at a specific box, he continued, “There’s the case number, and statement number.”
Jotting it down, the policeman said, “Got it. Thank you, son. As I said, don’t worry. He’s good, yes, but we’re better. He can’t hide for long.”
“I hope so, sir,” Devontae answered. “I apologise, but I have to finish doing something for my friend, something he couldn’t finish because of Koga.”
The policeman nodded, and offered a handshake, “Yes, of course. Good luck. And please, contact any of us if you find out anything, or see him.”
“I will, sir,” Devontae answered with a nod.
An encouraging pat on the shoulder, or at least seemed like it meant to be encouraging, was how the policeman bid Devontae adieu. Devontae rushed inside the Pokémon Centre, running to the PC. He switched keys amid his fumbling around the screens, then ran out the door, making a bee-line for the PokéMart. There he spent what seemed to most to be an inordinate amount of time at the vending machine, purchasing more bottles of water than what the machine should have been able to hold, let alone fit in his trainer’s bag, before purchasing more at the counter. He dashed out the door and leapt onto his bike, taking off nearly at full speed. He headed out of town to the north, across the bridge of Route 24 and turned east onto Route 25. Swerving around other trainers and ignoring challenges for battles, Devontae pressed forward as if he was in the last leg of a race and behind on his split time by a few seconds.
Route 25 dead-ended atop a small rise with steep sides to the sea below. Devontae stopped there, looking across the water, and put his bike away. He summoned Feraligatr from his Pokéball, and called an encased disk from his bag. Feraligatr raised an eyebrow at the machine in his new trainer’s hand. Devontae began, “Aengus said you don’t like HMs. It’s just for now, and...wait...the hell was he thinkin’? No support moves?? Nah, brah, that gotta go. Superpower? Hell nah. That undercuts ya’. We’ll get it right when we get back.”
Feraligatr nodded sadly, but did not resist when Devontae touched it to his muzzle. Putting the disk away, Devontae then clicked on the other balls, summoning his Charizard, a Noctowl, a familiar-looking Pidgeot, a familiar-looking Gyarados, and a Lapras. Feraligatr looked over at Pidgeot and Gyarados, all of whom upon meeting each other’s gaze were on the verge of tears. The three took a moment for a group hug with quiet sobbing, while the other three patted them and stifled tears of their own. Devontae did the same for them, and gave them the time they needed to settle their emotions.
“We finishin’ somethin’ for Aengus,” Devontae began, looking across the six Pokémon and disregarding the expected contraction. Feraligatr, Pidgeot, and Gyarados nodded emphatically, while the other three simply waited for elaboration. With an overwhelmed and disbelieving chuckle, Devontae broke into a nervous grin and said with the same vernacular, “We doin’ somethin’ batshit crazy.”
{Why wait for her to get all the way back to Pastoria?}
Twilight Sparkle stood at the battle map, drawing lines with a magical pen. It was dusk in Sinnoh. Earth pony and unicorn soldiers were departing through the portal one after another, except one particularly gruff contingent who held it protected on all sides. As several of them carried out some of the tables and weapon stands, Rainbow Dash and Starlight Glimmer approached her, with half a dozen armoured pegasi behind them. Trixie stood close to the portal, but came over when she saw Starlight there.
Twilight began handing out lathed wooden rods that bore a green aura among the pegasi, and a particularly tall such rod to Trixie. She said, “Thank you all for volunteering. I had hoped to get underway before dark, but this enchantment was not an easy one to weave. Rarity’s on the move, and going at a pretty stiff clip, likely helped by some Pokémon she’s befriended. Her last known location was in undeveloped territory between the Kanto and Sinnoh regions, about a tenth of the way across, but that was hours ago. I can only assume she has progressed further by now. With the time we’ve been given to clear out of this world before a bounty is put on all of our heads, we will meet her partway. The rods you all have are for point-to-point teleportation. Since it’s too far for even me to teleport unaided, the rods will create a precise exit and reentry point for me; even leagues away I can teleport both you and the rod back to the reentry rod. Starlight, Trixie, your job will be to keep the reentry rod powered at all times, so that I can target it from the other side of the Sinnoh Region.”
“You got it,” said Starlight.
“The rest of us will fan out over southwestern Sinnoh and into the wilds beyond in search of Rarity. Once we fly over Sandgem Town, we are to make our aerial presence obvious, and in a way that Rarity can recognise from the ground. She knows how to send up a signal; I expect she will know to do so upon realising it’s us. Once any of us have made confirmed contact with Rarity, there’s a button on the bottom of the rod that’ll cause the others to flash blue. Hold your position when you see that,” explained Twilight.
The others nodded. Seeing this, Twilight continued, “We will break into waves, in case of some inexplicable bad luck, Rarity missed one of us on the first pass. Rainbow Dash, Spitfire, and Fleetfoot will take the lead wave. Soarin’, Sky Commodore Stormrider, and Misty Fly will be the second wave. General Merry Weather and I will be the final. Any questions?”
Fleetfoot asked, “Your Highness, you said it’s too dark now; what’s the plan if this takes more than one day?”
“If it comes to that, we camp at Lake Verity and continue as we were until she is found, or Starlight and Trixie send us word that Rarity got past us all. Anything else?” Twilight responded. When silence answered her, she said. “To bed. We are all to be up, in armour, and fully breakfasted by first light. That is the latest we depart.”
Daybreak gouged Rarity’s eyes, or so it felt. Her headache had not improved overnight, but at least the bleeding had stopped and the nausea had passed. She got up and took a drink from the pond, before realising she was taking a drink from a pond and had no idea where she was, nor how or when she got there. Her head jolted up as her eyes darted every which way; the headache flared in response to the sudden head movement. Rapidash stepped out from behind a tall shrub where Fearow’s and Keldeo’s voices spoke at a reasonable volume. She smiled upon seeing him, and started his direction. Another pang through the forehead gave her a stumble, but she righted her gait and met him with a hug. Lifting her chin, he kissed her on the lips and said, “Morning, you.”
“Morning,” she answered with a slight blush. Rubbing just below her horn, she quietly asked, “How long was I asleep? The last thing I clearly remember is touching down in Cerulean City...it’s but a blur afterward.”
“Probably about ten hours,” said Rapidash. Rarity gasped, then winced as she held her head. Rapidash frowned and said, “Be careful, babe. You’ve got a concussion, from Koga’s old Salazzle.”
“Salazzle’s alive!? How??” Rarity burst, but held her head again.
Rapidash shook his head. “No, this is the mother of the Salazzle that...that...well, that Salazzle. She got the better of you, beat your head against the ground, and gave you a concussion before we got her off of you. Now take it easy; you don’t want any progress you made healing your head to be reversed, do you?”
“I...no. Wait, how did we get away from Koga?” Rarity suddenly asked.
Rapidash sighed. “Damn, she really did get your memory with those hits. You don’t remember teleporting us all away?”
“No...I’ve never used a teleport spell. I don’t know how,” Rarity answered in amazement.
Shaking his head, Rapidash said, “Well, my love, let’s not worry about it right now. Let’s get some food in you, and get going. We’re between Kanto and Sinnoh, and we’re starting to see more Sinnoh Pokémon now. Keldeo says there’s a wide marsh coming up, and we’re probably going to have trouble there.”
“Trouble? What kind of—wait, you would have no idea. I’m going to have to ask him, aren’t I? Really don’t feel like talking to him, after he got so upset with my standards of cleanliness,” Rarity said grumpily.
“Yeah, well, that’s just him,” Rapidash answered. As they started for the others, Rapidash stopped her again and said, “Oh, something to think about, he’s cross, but not with you. It may sound like it’s you, but Keldeo’s upset about Koga and what happened to you, not you. Okay?”
“Okay, darling,” Rarity answered.
As they rounded the shrub, they saw Keldeo and Fearow, both eating some berries. They looked up. Fearow gave them a cheeky grin and said, “Had a good night and morning, you two?”
Rapidash sighed and hung his head, shaking it slightly. Scoffing, Keldeo instead grumbled, “They’re not looking to make an egg, and even if they were just fooling around, we’d have had every Golbat, Crobat, and Noctowl in a twenty-five kilometre radius on us last night.”
Rarity scoffed, “Keldeo! How dare you insinuate we should be so crass as to brazenly do...do...that like some uncivilised, unsophisticated, base ponies! I never!”
Keldeo raised an eyebrow. “Don’t even try to pretend. You are not quiet. I heard you screaming his name on the far side of the Daycare, and outside their barriered fence at that.”
Rapidash looked away as redness crept through his cheeks. Fearow raised a wing to her beak while she flushed slightly. Fanning herself with her other wing, she exclaimed, “Dang, girl! You got a keeper for sure!”
“Why, the nerve!” Rarity protested scandalised while Rapidash did his best to disappear completely. “Even in the throes of passion a lady maintains her poise, her restraint, her—”
“Then you are no lady,” Keldeo interrupted, trying not to laugh. Fearow did not try, and tittered.
“Dear, just stop, please,” Rapidash urged, both in tone and countenance.
Rarity huffed, but said no more. She partook of the berries gathered, and whatever grasses she could find growing close by. After twenty minutes, Keldeo signaled to head out. As Rarity climbed onto Rapidash’s back, she timidly asked, “Darling...was that the truth? Am...am I really that, uh...loud...when you, uh, went and did...um, those wonderful things to, uh...to my—”
“Sweetheart,” Rapidash whispered honestly and cautiously as he turned back to her. “I want to be with you, I’m gonna stick with you as long as you’ll have me, and you’ve brought me joy like I’ve never imagined already. But dear, you, um...you’re not subtle...at all, about such things. I don’t doubt what he said, about hearing you.”
Rarity hid her face in her forelimbs as it burned scarlet. “...I could just die right now....”
They carried on at their crazy speeds for about forty-five minutes with Rarity agonising over her embarrassment and not showing her face once. She looked up as she felt Rapidash slowing to a stop. Before them was a wide marsh with tall grasses and precious few trees, most of them dead. A couple of kilometres to the right was the ocean. Off in the distance to the left were some mountains. On the horizon ahead was the indication of more forestation, and it also appeared higher in elevation. Keldeo looked back at Rarity and gestured to the terrain before them. “This, this is something I’d rather avoid, but it’d take far too long to go around. We’re talking adding days to the trip to traverse those mountains.”
“It’s a brackish marsh,” Rarity grumbled with an upturned nose.
Keldeo let out a nervous laugh. “Oh, it’s much worse than that. Being filthy by the time we’re across is a given, but even you will admit that’s the least of your concerns.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Why? What is—”
{You see the enemy; how shall you prepare?}
As if to answer, a dark cloud picked up from the marsh. It undulated, flowed, twisted, and whirled as one, turning, oozing, and reconvening much like a school of fish. After half a minute or so, it settled back to the marsh.
Keldeo grumbled. “Those are Staraptors, every last one of them. That murmuration had several thousand individuals, and was by no means the biggest one I’ve seen here. Anywhere we try to cross this marsh, there are tens of thousands of them between us and the other side.”
Rarity stood aghast and agape. She felt a throb in her ears briefly. Emptily she asked, “How could they have known? Aengus and Paddy were exactly right, but how could they have known that?”
Keldeo sighed, looking at his hooves and shaking his head. “I’ve seen some biologists out this way a few times, observing and recording the murmurations. Not all of them made it home.”
“How shall we cross, then?” Rapidash asked, stuffing down a whimper.
“By not upsetting them like those few scientists,” Keldeo said sheepishly. “Sure, they’re by no means the only Pokémon in the marsh, but they also are far and away the species that makes itself known the most to any who traverse this place.”
Rapidash muttered, “I wonder what those Route 200 workers are gonna do when they get here.”
Fearow snickered, “Need a change of pants, likely.”
Keldeo asked, “What do you see, Rarity? Do you see any particular places where the ground should be stronger, or weaker, from here?”
“You’ve been here before,” Rarity countered. “Shouldn’t you know what to look for?”
“Not exactly. If there’s water underfoot, even in muddy ground, I can absorb some of the liquid and run across it without trouble,” Keldeo explained, staring at the myriad of tall grass swaying in the breeze between the meandering water channels. “Rapidash can’t. He can’t even come close to doing that. He’ll need as much solid ground as possible, and as solid of ground as can be found. That’s nothing I’ve had to worry about before.”
“Should we have taken the days-longer route?” Rarity asked. “This is just asking for trouble.”
“I’m starting to question that,” Keldeo conceded, looking away.
Rarity shook her head and sighed. “Too late now, we deal with what’s in front of us.” She stared at the scene a moment, then said, “Where streams curve, one side is higher and sturdier, and the other is lower and softer. We should jump across where the streams are as straight as possible.”
“So...,” Keldeo began, gesturing with his hooves, “sorta like this?”
Rarity blinked hard as the headache reared up again. She sighed, “Let’s...just do it. They all look about equally bad.”
“True.”
Rarity climbed back onto Rapidash’s back and down the embankment they went. Immediately the ground was softer. Rapidash said, “Dear, I’m sinking...!”
“Oh. Sorry,” said Rarity drily as she hopped down.
The going was slow. Rarity and Rapidash both struggled when Keldeo and Fearow had no issues at all. Keldeo had the thought to absorb more water as he went, dropping it all back into the streams when they crossed one. While this did firm up the ground considerably, by no stretch of the imagination did it make the soil below as firm as it was through the forest. After jumping the fourth channel, Rarity turned at the sound of a squawk to her right. On a dead tree about a length away sat a Staraptor. The bird watched on imperiously with a sour expression while Rarity blinked at it in doubt and apprehension. She felt lightheaded. She had before, but the stink of the salt marsh made matters even more so. As she shook it from her head, she felt eyes upon her. To her left were two more Staraptors. Others were flittering around amid the tall grass. Another stared at her from atop a cattail.
“Keldeo...??” Rarity began fearfully.
“Yeah...,” he answered slowly. “This isn’t a good sign.”
Staraptors thickened their groupings. Soon there were groupings of four, and then five. Chittering calls sounded between their respective clumps. Hundreds of eyes were on them at any given moment. Some tails shook out. Feathers on chests ruffled now and then. Rapidash suggested, “So, at what point, then, shall we make a mad dash for the other side?”
Groups cawed at them in unison. Keldeo raspily whispered, “If we do that, I think they’ll strike.”
“Do we really want to let them get the first move?” Fearow asked, looking around anxiously.
Seven streams had been crossed, without much of a view to guess how many remained, but they did not appear halfway yet. A Staraptor landed in front of Keldeo and cawed. He gave it a cordial nod and kept going along. The others followed suit, carefully watching as the thing suspiciously watched their hooves intently, its head jerking forward toward one once or twice, but not striking.
Rapidash harshly whispered, “Honey, on my back, please.”
Rarity hopped on as they neared the eighth stream. This had been going on for close to an hour and a half now. Shortly after hopping across, a trio of Staraptors landed in front of Keldeo. He genially bowed, but they blocked his path when he tried to walk around. Two rows of them bobbed in the waving blades of the extra tall grass to the left and the right. Keldeo asked, “Excuse us, please, we are but simple travelers who must get this young lady to Sinnoh.”
The centre of the three seemed to cackle, a broken cawing reminiscent of a fish crow. Rapidash looked down, pulling his right front hoof away from a Staraptor that lightly was touching him there with its beak. It stared up at him indignantly, then the same to Rarity. Her headache swelled again. Rapidash stepped aside again as another one lightly pecked at his foot from his left. Fearow blurted, “Um, guys...??”
Keldeo watched as the central Staraptor cawed at him again, letting its head list to the left heavily, then stood there with a vacant-eyed stare and its mouth open. Keldeo helplessly pled, “Rarity, any idea would be grand...!”
Rarity felt her balance waver again. A Staraptor landed on Rarity’s left front leg as it hung off of Rapidash. It stood in front of her face, tapping at her nose lightly as it stared into her eyes. A broken caw from this one as well, but all Rarity could do was blink as it tapped on her nose some more. A smattering of chortles echoed around the gathered Staraptors, growing more and more threatening the longer it went on. The central Staraptor in front of Keldeo snickered as it slowly waddled toward him, jerking its head back to a righted position, slightly spreading its wings. Keldeo looked back and called, “Uh, Rarity?”
He looked front with a start. That Staraptor hovered in front of him, its beak touching Keldeo between the eyes. Another fragmented caw echoed from its throat. Keldeo whimpered, “...crap....”
Well, well, well. Sorry about the delay again...but some real crap happened that lead to me not sleeping for over 40 hours. Still dealing with it, too. 
Being grown up really blows.... 
So. The chapter. Devontae’s doing the crazy thing, Koga’s got the law after him, Twilight’s looking to meet Rarity partway, and Rarity’s...got a concussion. Given how when Aengus sprayed her with an Antidote to ease the damage from the night she drank way, way too much, but it could not stop it, I figure items would have the similar effect of only partially handling a concussion. Probably should have still done it...too late now.
And it seems Rarity’s...loud. 
Yay for Rapidash?? 
Things are about to go awry in the marsh, but how, and to what end, and what does it all mean for our heroes? Stay tuned to find out!
Thanks for reading. 
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Despite the seriousness of the rest of the chapter, I had a hearty laugh at this part.
Koga now on the run, but can Keldeo learn Blizzard? Best area of effect anti avian move I can think of that fire types should be relative immune too and makes solid ground for them to move over?
8216903
No, Keldeo cannot learn Blizzard. The only multi-target damaging moves it can potentially learn are Surf or Icy Wind. Also, while Staraptor is Flying type, so is the friendly Fearow they’re currently traveling with, so Blizzard probably wouldn’t be the best idea anyway...
Twilight has a plan and this sounds really good.
time for a rain boom as a marker.
a vary good chapter.