The battle had been raging for a couple hours, and the sun had almost set. Grant looked up past the pokemon battling, past the emperor dustox, to the sky, the edge of starlight just barely peaking down at him through the gray sky. Grant remembered his parents laying with him and pointing up at the different constellations. That had been six years ago, and it was one of Grant’s last good memories of his parents. He stared up now, thinking of them, as he prepared himself to do something stupid.

“Ela.” Tangela said, and poked Grant with a vine. Grant chuckled and reached down to ruffle the vines on tangela’s head.

“Yeah, I’m ready now.” Tangela and Grant moved to the edge of the roof. Grant lifted up the now almost too heavy to carry bucket.

“Alright, put a hole in the side, and close it with bind. After that we’re on the clock.” Grant said. Tangela did as Grant asked. She shot out a tipped vine, which punched through the side of the bucket, creating a large hole. Before tangela could use bind, a good amount of the repel covered Grant’s pants, which was all part of the plan. Tangela used bind and shot out a vine to wrap around the bucket, and then cut off the vine from her body. A little repel leaked out, it wasn’t an airtight seal, but it should be good enough.

“Alright, you know the plan?” Grant asked. Tangela gave a firm nod and wrapped a vine around Grant. It was thick, thicker than Grant had ever seen tangela use, and her body seemed to shrink as she wrapped Grant around the waste with the vine. Then she used growth, and grew from three feet to four feet, and the vine thickened even more.

“Ela?” Tangela asked. Grant was more nervous than he had ever been in his life, but he nodded; he was ready. Tangela looked up and started to aim her throw.

The plan that Grant had come up with was stupid, but it was all he could come up with, and from what he could see, nobody else seemed to really have a plan, besides hoping help from another town or city arrived. Grant’s plan was to somehow get onto the emperor dustox. Deliver a nasty concoction of repels and run away before the dustox had time to kill Grant. There were two primary obstacles to that plan, getting up onto the dustox, and getting back down without smashing to pieces on the ground. Grant tried to put thoughts of the trip down out of his mind, that wasn’t his job to worry about. Grant needed to worry about keeping a strong hold of the bucket, he hugged tight to his chest, and surviving flying through the aerial battle of pokemon to make it to the emperor dustox.

Grant was trying to sike himself up, he took in deep breaths, he would be fine, this would all work out, he would be, but then without any warning tangela sent Grant flying.

If you had been standing on the ground in front of the pokemon center at that moment, and you happened to look up, which given the many trainers with flying pokemon engaged in the battle above several were, you would have seen a boy, spinning end over end soaring through the sky, a bucket hugged to his chest.

Grant had not been prepared for how nauseating spinning end over end would be. He had expected to fly gloriously upwards in a straight line, but the bucket was too heavy to make that possible. As Grant flew dustox parted at the smell of the repel soaking Grant’s pants. Pidgeys, spearows, winguls, and all other pokemon rushed around Grant frantic to get out of his way. An unfortunate fletchling had already been sent tumbling to the ground after Grant slammed into it. The impact didn’t slow Grant’s momentum in the slightest, tangela having calculated that a few impacts with pokemon would likely occur on the way. That didn’t stop the fletchling from tearing a gash in Grant’s leg before it was flung to the ground. Grant did his best not to scream as he flew, he knew that could alert the emperor dustox of his coming, assuming it hadn’t already noticed, but Grant wanted to preserve his element of surprise if at all possible. Still, the pain of the gash on his leg, and the bite on his arm from the dustox earlier were starting to get to him, and Grant thought he might be getting a little lightheaded from the blood loss. Then, as sudden as his flight began, it ended, as Grant smashed into the side of the emperor dustox and went skipping up and onto its back.

Tangela let herself smile as she saw her throw had been right on the money. He might have hit with a little more force than tangela had intended, but that couldn’t be helped. She needed to prepare for the next part of the plan.

Grant lay in a painful heap, the bucket on its side next to Grant. Slowly, painfully, Grant stood. The dustox flew surprisingly smoothly, making it easy for Grant to get up on its back. It had clearly noticed something was wrong, as it looked around, but dustox weren’t really equipped to look and see what was on their backs. The humming the wings gave off, was louder than anything Grant had ever heard in his life. They thundered in his ears, as Grant picked the bucket up. Grant hissed in pain, as the bucket pulled on his injured arm, leg, and now ribs from smashing into the dustox. Grant looked at the dustox’s head and tried to determine the best target.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

The head was enormous, and Grant wished he had two buckets, but he never could have held onto them both the entire way up here. There were two antennae that towered over Grant. They had to be nearly seven feet tall. It also had a pair of enormous compound eyes, that strained to see Grant on its back. These were the two main targets for Grant. The antennae would be ultra-sensitive to the smell, and well nobody liked getting anything in their eye, let alone a dose of chemical specifically made to make you go away. The antennae first. Grant took a few steps towards the waiving antennae when the dustox hissed. The sound rattled Grant’s bones as it reverberated through the giant pokemons chest. It had caught sight of him.

“Okay, maybe only the antennae.” Grant muttered as he limped towards the first antennae. As he limped to the antennae a pressure started to build around Grant. Grant’s face already pale with fear, couldn’t go any whiter, but Grant surely felt terrified as the dustox’s aura pressed down on Grant. The aura was like nothing Grant had ever felt. Grant felt like he should kneel. He was in the presence of a god, and Grant was nothing but an insignificant worm. Grant obviously did not kneel. He continued to limp, until he at last reached the first antennae. Grant aimed his bucket and tore away the vine binding the hole shut letting the repel spill over the waiving antennae. At the first drop, the emperor dustox screamed in alarm.

When the dustox started to scream tangela knew it was time for her part of the plan. Aura’s were something only alpha pokemon had access to, and as a baron rank alpha pokemon, tangela had a decently strong aura. Grant had somehow known about auras and had told tangela exactly what to do. She slammed her aura down on the dustox. She said she slammed, but given the distances involved, she could only get the smallest edge of her aura to reach. Tangela couldn’t see the point, the dustox would notice, but it’s not like it would care since she was only a baron. To her surprise though, the dustox looked at tangela with caution in its eye. It knew exactly where the aura was coming from, but why did it look so cautious of her? Then it all clicked together for tangela. It thought that she was responsible for this attack. Tangela grinned, as its screams continued to ring out. She took a step closer, tried to tighten the spread of her aura, let it feel as much as possible. She could see Grant on its head, start to pour the liquid on its second antennae. The screams redoubled, and the emperor dustox turned. The sensory overload was too much for the pokemon. It turned to fly away, but Grant was still on top of its head. Tangela watched in horror as he slipped, spilling the rest of the repel fluid into the dustox’s eyes, and fell from the dustox’s head.

Grant was tired, in a great deal of pain, and now falling. The original plan for Grant to get back to the ground, was for him to jump back towards the pokemon center, and for tangela to try and catch him on some bushes. Now that Grant thought of it, he felt like that probably would have only gotten him a couple of broken legs. The dustox’s screams were ear-piercing, as Grant fell past the dustox’s mouth. Grant closed his eyes; he was so tired. These weren’t the kind of problems a young trainer who had only been on his journey for two days should need to deal with. Grant smiled, he was going to die, but at least they had been an exciting couple of days. The dustox took off back to the forest, its lesser kin following behind. That was good, at least Grant had managed to accomplish his goal. As Grant fell, he thought of his family and wished he could have introduced them to horsea. He wished he could have caught the tangela and made her part of the team. They seemed to work well together. He wished; the air was smashed out of Grant’s chest as he crashed into something.

“How you doing there Grant?” A grinning professor Oak asked. The backup the village had called for, had finally arrived, if a little late.