Defeat, New Members
Steven, his team and Cyrus and his team fought with each, firing off attacks and fists like they were infinite.
Duchess sliced at houndooms feet, but hound jumped, rolled and shot a flame out of its mouth at the same time, forcing Duchess to dodge and stop her assault, which was then followed up but Smoker hurling his own flaming ball to the houndoom who tanked the hit like it was nothing and continued run around and dodge, evading the moves the two were throwing out like a prized ice skater. It never stood in one spot for more than a moment, making pinning it down with attack a difficult challenge. However, Duchess and Smoker didn't wane or give up and this challenge gave them hope that maybe they weren't so powerful after all! They could still grow!
Houndoom got hit by a wing attack from his left, which caused a fracture in his back leg, slowing him down severely. Smoker took this opportunity and unleashed a mighty fire spin to encapsulate the houndoom! Duchess supported the move and used her silver wind egg move to boost the attack power of the fire in a conjoined attack. The houndoom had finally been trapped and could no longer move!
Duchess quickly flew and hovered above the raging inferno tornado, looking into the eye of the storm where houndoom was pacing back and forth, trying to figure out how to get out. Duchess wouldn't let him though and sent countless bug-energy infused fury cutters down at the houndoom. The houndoom could do nothing as he was being pelted by this rain of fury cutters!
The houndoom got hit at least 10 times before making a desperate attempt at freedom, rushing through the fire spin and silver wind, injuring it it greatly! However, upon coming out the other side, beaten as it was, it did not see its enemies, giving it hope it could escape and regroup.
Yet, fate plays cruel tricks, because right as it thought this Duchess suddenly appeared before and used false swipe on its neck! The hound was hit with a mighty blow to its neck, not killing it, but nearly doing so. Smoker and Duchess had just won.
On the other side, just as houndoom and the others had just started their fight, Prince, Queen and the Sneasel all begin their fight as well. The sneasel quickly takes off and starts circling them with blinding speed! Its so fast that the two can only barely keep track.
Prince realizes the problem and tells Queen,'Two dances! I'll stall!"
Queen starts her first dance as Prince teleports in front of sneasel to catch him off guard. Sneasel it seems was prepared for this and quickly cuts and moves his body so the two dont collide, jumps into the air and does a somersault over Prince, landing gracefully back on the ground as if nothing had ever stopped it.
Prince curses in his mind and starts chasing the sneasel while releasing psychic confusion attacks. Prince teleports every now and then to catch sneasel off guard but the sneasel is not so easily surprised or tricked and learns to expect the teleport at any time. Queen now starts her second dance as Prince and the sneasel play chase around the cave, neither being able to get a hit it. Prince throws out a confusion as their speed accelerates, teleporting ahead while preparing another immediately after. Sneasel beautifully ducks and dodges the confusion while sliding along the ground and prepares an ice attack. Then when Prince appears ahead of it, the sneasel shoots off its ice attack, and Prince has to cancel its attack, teleport away or closer and attempt a different strategy. This happened every few seconds as the two speed demons kept each other in check.
Finally after about 40 seconds, Queen declares she's ready and has both dragon dances up, putting the strain that she had just released from the fighting earlier, back onto her body. She doesn't think about this as she only has the goal of defeating them on her mind. She charges to the area that Prince and sneasel were at an alarming speed, quickly catching up to the two of them.
Sneasel is caught off guard by the sudden speed, backing up into a corner accidentally in his confusion. Queen takes full advantage of this an unleashed a huge boosted dragonreath while Prince just looks on from the side. Queen finally stops after her power wanes out, and her body can no longer handle the dragon dances, and she passes out on the spot.
Prince smiles and looks towards the smoke where a battered, bruised and bleeding sneasel was literally crawling out of the black plume of smoke. The sneasel looked up at Prince with a look of defiance, however Prince only responded with,"Hypnosis" and promptly sent the injured sneasel to sleep!
Finally we have Steven vs Cyrus who were basically fighting hand to hand as they looked for ways to kill each other or put the other out of commission.
Cyrus lunged forwards and set his foot in between Steven legs, however steven squatted and then jumped to side, kicking out with a jiu-jitsu kick while he did so. Cyrus barely manage to dodge as he leaned back, forcing him to do a backwards handstand-cartwheel to land back on his feet.
He shouted as he charged once more,"You're as good as they say kid!"
Steven didn't answer and simply focused on the fight as he dodged a sweeping leg kick, only to get punched in the jaw as punishment. Steven let the momentum carry him and spun around and jumped using his calf to kick Cyrus square in the head! Cyrus went flying as Steven landed heavily back on the ground with a thud!
Cyrus got back up, crazy thoughts apparent in his eyes. His bloodlust starting to take over him as he fought. Steven rushed towards cyrus and threw a punch with a perfect lightweight boxer form, however Cyrus dodged out of the way and deployed his own style of counterpunch as his first glided along Stevens shoulder and slammed his jaw and temple once more!
Steven shook the cobwebs that were now forming out of his head and rushed forwards once more, he fiegned an attack at the head and then at last second, changed his target to the gut. Cyrus wasn't able to properly read the feint due to his bloodthirst slowly coming out and got a heavy, clean hook to his side that made much more difficult to breath. However, to Stevens horror, Cyrus didn't back down and launched another attack immediately after, catching Steven by surprise as a clean shot to his solarplexus caught him.
Steven struggled to breath for a moment and when he did catch it, he looked up and got another clean shot straight to the jaw. Steven was on the ground, bloody and defeated while Cyrus stood over him like he was an ant.
Stolen novel; please report.
Cyrus mocked him, saying,"Is this it? This is all you have? I'm disappointed."
It was at this moment that two attacks came soaring from the entrance of the cave.Cyrus quickly jumped and rolled out of the way of the attacks as they collided with cave ground he was just standing at. Steven, surprised, looked back and standing there with faces of determination, was the gligar and the slowpoke he had saved!
Steven formed a mental link and said,'Run! You are much too weak for this man! You need to run!"
They looked at one another and gligar responded,"You saved us, now we save you. But we wish to travel with you and that can only be shown through dedication!"
Cyrus stood up and said,"What? Friends of yours? Don't worry, I'll kill them after you.."
Steven thought to them,'Thank you, I will help you in the future, but not now, you both are far too weak for this man. Let me handle it!' Steven turned back to Cyrus who was evilly smiling at Steven while cracking his knuckles, thinking to himself,'alirght, time to take this seriously!' an activated his aura.
Previously Steven was not trying to activate this force on the off chance that team rocket would be able to see his aura. But seeing these pokemon, one of which was basically a baby, show such courage had got his blood pumping, and thus he promptly stopped caring about hiding it.
And it was just as Steven feared, because as soon as he enveloped his body in aura Cyrus' face went from excited and bloodthirsty to confused and frightened in under 2 seconds. Which by itself was an impressive feat. Steven looked at Cyrus, pointed at his direction and then pointed his thumb down, much like gladiators in his old world used to do. It seems there was a similar custom here as Cyrus' face went ashen at this action.
Cyrus tried to stammer something out,"Y-y-You.. you a-are a..?"
However before he could finish his question, Steven rushed forwards, almost 3 times faster than he was previously thanks to his aura enhancements!
Cyrus rushed out a flurry of blocks, but was repeatedly punched over and over, his will to continue the fight quickly dissipating. Eventually Steven gets a clean punch in Cyrus' unprotected gut after a bad block. Steven takes full advantage and slams his fist into his stomach, causing Cyrus to lose his breath as he starts to fall to his knees. Steven, however, still had something he need to say, so he grabbed Cyrus by his all black jacket and lifted the now limp Cyrus so his face was facing Stevens.
Steven forcefully opened a mental connection into Cyrus' mind and spoke to him for the first time, saying,"Don't forget to deliver that letter to your boss." And before Cyrus could even properly digest the words he had just heard someone else say in his mind, he was given a clean punch by Steven to the jaw, knocking him out.
Steven sighed a breath of relief as he stopped using his aura as he had broken through when he finally used the aura again. He didn't know exactly why he managed to break through but it only happened after those two stepped in to protect him. It was at that moment when they told him that they had to show up and show out to basically get his attention! Steven began to think about this as he heard the cave battles in the distance slowly start to stop and quiet down.
Steven didn't know what was different about this situation compared to the usual things he did, and right at that moment, all 4 of his pokemon started to slowly walk towards the center of the cave, which was where Steven and Cyrus had coincidentally ended up.
Steven asked them once they had all walked up to him,'Status report?'
Prince replied,'Both combatants were knocked out by us, and neither were killed, although the houndoom might need some potion as Duchess used false swipe as her ending move, on its neck area of all places..' Prince was a little irritated by this as steven had always taught to only go for the neck when your aiming to kill.
Duchess bowed and replied,'You are correct, however this enemy was extremely powerful, and if i had given even a little bit of leeway, as if I were not going for the kill, he would have known, and I may not be standing here before you. So although I indeed did not do as I was trained, this was a special occasion, and thus I improvised and treated it as such.'
Steven nodded, happy with both the status report and the perfect logical rebuttal by Duchess. Steven sprayed a regular potion on the houndoom, returned the sneasel to its ball and then put one more note in Cyrus' houndooms collar, just to antagonize him a little further.
After a few minutes the houndoom showed its incredible vitality and woke up! Steven was a little surprised as this meant that Cyrus had probably already started the introduction of pills like carbos. As this was a new type of medicine that was only introduced nearly 6 years ago, it was not widespread or even used as uncommon practice.
The houndoom woke up in a fright as it remembered its last moments and the feeling of death that loomed to cut his neck! He quickly surveyed the scene and first saw his trainer on the ground, unconscious and seemingly wounded. Then it whipped its head around once more and saw a terrifying sight. Standing only 5 feet away from it was Steven and his team, just staring at them, while Steven had an evil grin on his face!
Steven simply said to the houndoom,'run.' Which the houndoom happily complied with as it grabbed Cyrus by the shirt collar with its teeth and ran as fast it possibly could out the other end of the cave where there was another tunnel system that the rocket goons had used to enter.
Steven smiled and stood bravely as he watched the houndoom exit the cave. However, as soon as the houndoom left the cave, Stevens' smile immediately dropped off his face and he collapsed to his knees!
His pokemon ran up to him in panic to see if he was ok, but Steven assured them that while he would be a little sore, he had no major injuries and simply collapsed from exhaustion. Steven then sent Prince to get the other two pokemon who had helped him with Cyrus. Steven pulled out hyper potions and sprayed his pokemons many injuries as he waited while also letting them eat some berries, while he himself ate some Oran berries.
Steven also had a set of medicine set aside for Prince, so as soon as Prince came teleporting back to the center with the frightened pair of pokemon, Prince simply walked over to Steven while munching on berries while Steven started to apply another hyper potion. They were so used to this routine, they didn't even say anything to each other.
Steven asked the two who had just arrived,'So, you said you wanted to join my team, and you helped me with that evil man because you wanted to show me rather than just tell me. Well, I must say you have grabbed my attention, that's for sure!'
The two pokemon looked at each other and then shook off their scared faces, as new faces of willpower appeared. The gligar replied back,'You saved us, we have seen your power! I want revenge for my trainer and slowpoke wants revenge for its parents, aunts, uncles, and other siblings that it wasn't able to save!'
Steven nodded his head and said,'That is the correct attitude to have. You have taken a severe loss, yet instead of looking at the past with tears, you look forwards towards the future with conviction! You want my support to help you become the best and gain power to avenge your people? I can do that! However just like I told all the pokemon here, I am not an easy person to deal with, I will strip you of everything you hold dear as I mold you into something entirely different!'
Both the Slowpoke and the Gligar, although a little afraid, were both extremely excited for this type of opportunity! They both vigorously bobbed their head yes!
Steven smiled and said,'Well then, welcome to the team. This ratls is Prince, this Scyther is Duchess, this growlithe is Smoker, and this bagon is Queen. Lets see…' Steven thought for a moment and then thought to them,'Gligar, you shall be named Count and you slowpoke, you shall be called Baron.'
Both of them were very pleased with their new names, and were not the least bit offended by the apparent hierarchy in the team, this sort of thing was expected.
Steven then asked them,'What moves do you know? Slowpoke you start first, this will help me gauge your strength.' Technically, and more accurately it would help him determine their levels.
Slowpoke nodded and his inner monologue, which is what was speaking, was slow and monotone as it said,'I was born not too long ago, so I don't know much but I do know, growl, yawn, curse and tackle. My dad had a unique move that I also learned called belly drum, however the move is really confusion and hurts to use, so I haven't used it much.'
Steven thought to himself,'Ok, the unique move is obviously the egg move. As for the pain, the belly drum does take hp in exchange for massive attack power, so this makes sense.Yawn is a really good move as it can put pokemon to sleep, even if they are charging an attack. I think this slowpoke is sitting somewhere around level 3 or 4.'
Count was next as he said,'I only know poison sting and sand attack, however my old trainer had said I should be close to learning a new move called harden. I don't have a unique move or whatever the other thing he said was.' Count was a little embarrassed as he long knew that he was comparatively weak even compared to other pokemon at his same level.
Steven once more thought to himself once more as he thought about this information. Going by the logic that Gliscor was not introduced until gen 4 and it was only then that gligars moveset started to get fixed to be not… well not complete and utter dog shit basically. 'So by gen 3 harden was level 13, so he's maybe roughly 80% through level 12. But I can definitely get him to learn both harden, a move he could learn at level 7 in earlier generations, as well as knockoff, a move he was supposed to naturally learn at level 12 in the future games.'
Finalizing his plans, and feeling refreshed again after the Oran berries finished their work, Steven stood up and addressed all 6 of his pokemon. 'Ok, everyone, we still have about 25 days of walking left to go to get through the cave, however our two new teammates are severely underleveled. So we will only travel 2 miles a day, which I calculate will take roughly 4 months at that pace. While traveling and training, remember to look for any stone or rock that makes you look out of place as it may be an evolution stone and I will need to find at least 2 for a future experiment!