Liftoff 1.13

June 2015

A crustle. A motherfucking crustle. Just when I thought things were settling down into a pattern, it turned out our food thief was a goddamn tank on stilts. How the hell had it gotten there?

No, that was the wrong question. It probably evolved down there, like a crab molting. That would explain all the food they'd been stealing; it likely needed a lot of food to get through the evolution. Maybe the other dwebble lined up behind it like one of those hermit crab housing shuffles I saw in nature documentaries. Sabrina could probably tell me more but that would have to wait.

I stuck two fingers in my mouth and let out a shrill whistle. Rocket heard and immediately blurred to my side. It was practically the very first signal I'd taught him. Thankfully, Spade took his cue from my much more experienced partner and scrambled to my side where Sabrina scooped him up into her arms.

"Crus-Crustle!" it roared. It was an unnerving sound, somewhere between the grating of stones and a crab-like gurgling.

The evolved pokemon looked around with a dangerous gleam in its beady eyes. Burnt-orange claws as large as watermelons waved in the air, clacking furiously in an obvious threat display. Its shell was layered in different shades of brown, as if emulating the layers of soil and earth that made up the earth's crust. Yet, I knew it to be far sturdier than mere topsoil. For one, I doubted Spade could just Dig through it.

The six dwebble rose up around their leader, pincers clacking repetitively. They were diminutive, a foot and change tall at most compared to the crustle's four and a half feet. Still, that was a lot of pokemon, enough to make me nervous.

I wasn't the only one. The townsfolk that had gathered around to see Austin try to negotiate with the dwebble were quickly backing away. Finally, a modicum of sense from them. Behind me, Tom and the rangers stood by cautiously, some with their guns raised.

We had two more pokemon now, a pair of orphaned poochyena cubs that some of the boys tamed a month ago. Rocket taught them some moves, but I didn't think they were too reliable. Howl. Tackle. Bite. Technically, Roar too, though they sounded more cute than threatening. Just about the only good thing about them was that they followed Rocket around like lost puppies. They'd probably be decent at keeping a dwebble occupied.

Austin pushed a wheelbarrow full of food. It wasn't a popular decision, giving them even more of our food; it stank too much of "rewarding bad behavior," but Austin got the vote eventually. The wheelbarrow was filled with foods rich in iron and other minerals, things we knew they liked from the raids.

"Woah, woah, let's calm down," Austin said. He held out his hands to try and calm the situation. "We just wanted to talk to you."

"Crus!" The crustle eyed the food for a moment before snorting in a distinctly humanlike manner. It dug its claw into the dirt and swung upward, creating a large slab of stone that hurled towards Austin.

"Austin!" I heard Sabrina scream.

The sound of bones snapping filled the air as the wheelbarrow tipped onto its side.

"Aahhh!" Austin cried out, clutching his left hip. Had the crustle had better aim, or had Austin not twitched ever so slightly, he'd be dead.

"Crustle! Crus-Crustle!" it roared.

There would be no talking this one out. Was evolution-stress a thing? Or did the water really piss it off this much? Or maybe we'd forgotten the most basic rule of pokemon: Battle. Even in the anime, it wasn't uncommon for pokemon to test potential trainers with combat.

I didn't have the time to think about it. Tom and the rangers opened fire as Rodney, Austin's father, shouted for his son.

"Rocket, distract them!" I told him. I sprinted for my friend. He needed to get dragged out of there.

I watched Rocket lead the two poochyena in a flanking attack out of the corner of my eye but my focus was on Austin. He didn't look so good. Though he was able to avoid taking what amounted to a bowling ball to the nuts, it was plain to see that he probably wouldn't be walking anytime soon, if at all. A visible dent had been left on his hip, as if he was a clay figure and a great hand had pressed its thumb into him.

He screamed bloody murder. I placed my arms beneath his armpits and pulled, wincing as his screams took on a higher pitch. There was no way to carry him without agitating his injury. I grit my teeth and got to work.

One dwebble lunged for me with a verdant glow to its claws, probably Fury Cutter, but Rocket launched into it with the fury of a honey badger soaked in vinegar.

Austin's screaming died down into choked whimpers as I dragged him along the ground as fast as I could without making ourselves an even bigger target. He wasn't exactly a small man.

X

Rocket

I rushed down the dwebble aiming for my partner, Slash meeting Furry Cutter. I easily overpowered him, both in weight and force. These bug pokemon weren't very strong, might even be tasty, but I didn't have the time to finish him off before one of the others came to his rescue.

I wanted to run. This was a pointless battle. Countless smells assaulted my nose. Blood. Loamy soil upturned in the dwebbles' movements. The acrid black stuff that Shane called gunpowder. Musty odors of the flooded cave. Even some urine from the humans.

It was all so chaotic, so unlike a true hunt. A hunt was precise, clean. There was the search, the chase, and then a swift, singular stroke to determine who lived and who died. There was strength in that. Order.

There was none of that here. The humans fought and thrashed like a drunk miltank, most of them worthless. Why had they even bothered to come gawk?

The humans here were a suspicious bunch. They thought I stole the food but what did their thoughts matter?

I had my human, the one who was called Shane. He was the one who taught me the wonders of cooked food. He taught me to love the smoke and spice. He taught me to move with explosive power, like a seviper's lunge but better, for I could lunge up as well as forward. He taught me to communicate in signals, a flare of my tail, a short bark, or the twitch of my ears.

We were mighty predators, he and I. He guided and I struck, with speed and deadliness that left prey no room for retaliation. Under his instruction, I felt myself grow strong. I evolved. My claws became sharper than ever, the earth parting before me faster and smoother. Together, we blended into the forest, became part of the order of things.

Shane Hayes was my human. He was my trainer in every way that mattered. I decided so on one lonely night as we looked up at the stars. We would hunt together to the end of our days, challenging the world that I might become the greatest linoone to ever walk this new land. The world was cruel and the Distortion came for us all, but we would not face that end alone. Nor would we be forgotten. My claws would carve our names into history.

And yet, a human had needs. I saw his eyes light up with newfound life when he met the one called Tom. I saw him laugh without burdens as he spoke with the Professor Kush, she who knew much and held the cowardly drilbur.

I could not provide him this relief. This town, for all its frustrations, allowed him to meet his own kind. It allowed him to communicate without language barriers, to experience the highs and lows of relationships.

No matter what they said of me, I would not take that from him. My claws itched to answer each insult, but they were a necessary annoyance.

I dodged out of the way of another Fury Cutter. My tail rose up and slapped the morsel away.

"Roar," I barked.

The poochyena pups responded in good order. As they should, I was their pack leader.

This was a tactic Shane made to make use of the pups even while they were so weak. They had surprisingly strong bites, but were frail in their youth. Roar allowed them to strike fear into the hearts of my opponents from a distance, giving me the room to do as I pleased.

Or, not quite. They were little and their Roars did not carry. Even so, their menacing growls made the dwebble hesitate, a fatal mistake.

I launched myself forward, dodging between a pair of claws until my jaws closed on a dwebble's head. There was resistance, his shell was as hard as stone, but I'd long since learned to bite deep into the hardened stone walls of the town border.

I knew to rotate my jaw, twisting on the ground in a pattern that Shane called a "death roll," apparently something a normal animal did when it captured prey. By the twist of my seven feet long body, I could snap the necks of most prey, not that my fangs had trouble finding their jugulars.

Dwebble did not have jugulars. My fangs slid and scraped noisily against my prey's cracked shell until they found purchase in between the segments that protected his head and the neck. Then, with a loud crack that vibrated through my gums, it was over. The rotation tore most of his head away from his body.

It smelled rather appetizing, truthfully. His lifeblood filled my nose and mouth with a heady, fishy scent that I'd grown accustomed to since coming here. It was a tasty but unwelcome distraction.

"You killed him!" I heard another of the dwebble shout.

I ignored them. They were food. They attacked my partner. That was reason enough for me to end them.

Around me, the rangers, lesser humans, fired on the other dwebble. They were good humans, at least they tried to be useful, but they were unable to do much to these rock types. For whatever reason, they had trouble aiming at things shorter than them. And when they did hit the dwebble, their bullets bounced off their shells while missing the pokemon beneath.

I had the poochyena wait for the salvo to end before sending them to face one dwebble together. If they worked together, they ought to be able to take down a single opponent.

Then, I was forced to dodge as many rocks fell on my position. The crustle swore he'd kill me but that was okay. We all killed each other. It was the way of things here: The strong ate; the weak went hungry.

"Rocket, Dig," I heard Shane call. Good, he had moved the lanky, screaming one away and had returned.

Now, we would show this crustle that we were strong.

X

Shane Hayes

This was a shitshow. There was no other way to put it. We focused so much on trying to get the dwebble out that we didn't do enough to prepare for a fight. In a way, I felt like I got sucked into Austin's optimism, particularly after seeing Mr. Pebbles be so easygoing.

I ignored Rodney and Sabrina as they fussed over Austin. I wasn't a doctor but even I knew that a pulped pelvis wasn't something you walked off. They grabbed Austin by the arms and legs and carried him off. Luckily for him, he passed out from the pain sometime while I was dragging him.

But Austin didn't matter right now. Right now, there was another fully evolved pokemon wrecking havoc and Rocket and I had to step up, again.

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I turned back to the battle and took in the situation.

Rocks flew in the air as the dwebble retaliated for getting shot at. And though the rangers and I were somewhat accustomed to dodging projectiles by now, that didn't mean the rocks stopped flying. Several rocks the size and speed of professional baseballs struck the townsfolk, some cracking bones and others inevitably doing fatal damage.

I shut that all aside to take a tally of the dwebble. There were six that emerged from the flooded caverns alongside the fuck-massive crustle. Two were being harried by Scout the tranquill. Though bug types would normally be picked off by a half-decent flying type, the dwebbles' secondary rock typing flipped the matchup. Scout's Air Cutters fared poorly against their stone shells and he was forced to keep his distance lest he be knocked out of the sky by a Smack Down.

The two poochyena the rangers adopted were running circles around a solitary dwebble. They looked equally fierce and adorable as they put into practice the hunting tactics engraved into their ancestral memories. I doubted they had the bite force needed to do any true harm as young as they were. The dwebble would realize that they were paper tigers sooner rather than later.

Two more dwebble were wreaking havoc against the rangers. It was always hard to shoot down at something. Even harder if that thing was about a foot tall and had a bulletproof, dome-shaped shell it could withdraw into at any time. Though bullets could make the dwebble keep their heads down for a few seconds, they couldn't finish the job, while a ranger struck by a stone either died outright or was carried away.

That made five. I looked around for the sixth and found its headless body near where the fight had originally began. Something, probably Rocket, had twisted and torn its head clear from the rest of its exoskeleton.

The crustle let out a shout of anguish as it spotted the headless dwebble. Its beady eyes locked onto Rocket with murderous intent and I knew we were truly fucked. Perhaps there was the possibility of driving it away. Not anymore. Now, we were fighting to the death.

"Rocket, Dig," I shouted. My crossbow came up and I snapped off a shot at the crustle, only for the bolt to bounce harmlessly off one of its massive claws.

The crustle ignored me completely, focusing instead on the much more credible threat. Rocket dove into the dirt as a hail of stones whizzed past him. The rest of the battlefield faded to the back of my mind as I focused on the opponent in front of me.

Rocket burst from directly beneath the crustle with explosive force, knocking the massive crustacean five feet into the air. He followed that with a swipe of his tail, launching a rain of Pin Missiles. That was one of our go-to combos against rival pokemon in the wild, a way to deal good damage, restrict mobility, and disorient. It worked against everything from mightyena to stantler.

Unfortunately, this thing was a rock type, a group notorious for great physical defense. Those Pin Missiles were neutral, type-wise, and didn't do much damage to it. It looked more pissed than anything when it landed with a heavy thump.

"Cru-Crustle!" it shouted, digging its claws into the dirt. A spray of sand appeared out of nowhere; the loamy, frigid soil and gravel wasn't exactly a sandy beach.

Rocket closed his eyes with a bark of pain.

"Odor Sleuth!" I snapped off another bolt. I thought I got near a joint this time, though it was more luck than skill. "Run rings around that fucker!"

I wracked my brain for what I could remember about crustle. They were… The Unova dex said they were aggressive. They were one of the few pokemon that were stated to fight each other for territory.

"Shane!" I heard Xavier call. I instinctively ducked, which was good because I felt the wind of a rock's passing ruffle my hair.

I didn't have time to stand around. Reloading my crossbow, I ordered Rocket to continue his hit and run strategy and sprinted out of the way of the ongoing fights around me.

I looked around and saw Scout. He did good work even if he couldn't put down a dwebble on his own. The two he had been dancing with were so caught up in trying to Smack Down the flying type that they were completely exposed. They leaned up out of their shells, sometimes even standing on their back four legs to wave their claws menacingly at the oversized pigeon.

I took a knee for a better angle. Pokemon weren't morons; I only had one shot to take out a dwebble so cleanly. Taking a deep breath, I centered the dwebble between my sight markers. I didn't just want to hit it, I wanted to strike the underbelly of the hermit crab, the joints and seams right where its legs met its head. Surely that would be a kill.

I let out the breath I'd been holding. Slowly, almost gently. Everything followed the breath. If my breathing was even, so too was my aim. Then, as the dwebble raised itself up to fling another slab of rock at Scout, I loosed my arrow.

My arrow struck true.

The dwebble let out a screech of pain as its legs locked and spasmed. The stone slab it had conjured fell harmlessly to the ground as Scout shrieked triumphantly in the air.

I turned back to Rocket, just in time to see the crustle emerge out of seemingly nowhere. Its many legs were optimal for lateral movement, and apparently that translated to Feint Attack, a dark type move that never missed in the games. It crashed into my linoone with a claw soaked in inky black, launching him with a yelp of pain.

"The shell!" I heard Sabrina shout. Her shrill voice cut like a fire alarm through the cacophony of the battlefield. "Crustle lose their will to fight after their boulders break!"

"Sabrina! What the hell are you doing? Get back!" Tom shouted for his daughter.

Ah, that was what I'd been trying to remember. The dex did say something to that effect. But knowing that breaking the shell was the best way to demoralize a crustle and actually doing it were two separate matters. The only one who might be able to was Rocket, and probably not without getting hurt in the process.

Still, more people would die if we didn't do something. Unfortunately, me being able to intervene was contingent on me surviving the next ten seconds. The crustle saw one of its brethren die, and to a crossbow of all things, and it was pissed.

It let out an enraged cry and zeroed in on me.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuck!" I yelled, panicking. I dove out of the way of a Rock Throw and rolled to my feet sloppily, bruising my shoulder. If I lived long enough to feel that in the morning, I'd be grateful.

Arceus made pokemon. Somewhere along the line, he decided in his infinite wisdom that the perhaps quite literal ton of stone on crab stilts should be able to sprint. I'd been under the impression that crabs were best at lateral movement. Maybe that was true, but I learned today that crustle could sprint forwards just as well.

I wasn't out of shape. If anything, I was in the best shape of my life. I was a healthy man in my twenties who spent most of the past few years outdoors, hiking, hunting, and competing with magic super-fauna.

And it was still a near thing. I almost died.

The crustle almost closed in on me. I had to watch where I was leading the damn thing, lest it bulldoze through some other poor bastard.

Just when I thought I'd begun to make some distance between us, its claw slammed into the dirt, creating a shockwave that traveled in my direction.

I'd sometimes wondered just how an Earthquake could be so devastating in the games. Real earthquakes moved the earth only a few inches. Most people died from falling buildings, not because the shaking itself was lethal.

I now had my answer. This wasn't Earthquake, probably just Bulldoze, but shockwave of the attack traveled the fifteen feet or so I'd managed to put between us. It was like standing on a ship at sea. Suddenly, everything my body knew about balance and stability vanished, replaced by rippling agony as ground type energy climbed up my legs.

I fell on my back. The vibrations got even worse now that my entire torso became a conduit. I felt like a leaf tossed in a hurricane. My teeth rattled. My spine groaned and pinched. My ribs ground against each other and jostled for place. From my chest to the tips of my fingers and toes, the shaking was completely paralyzing, an excruciating pins and needles feeling that couldn't be ignored.

I didn't even know when I started screaming. The crustle was gaining now and I had to move. I hastily fired my crossbow but it was empty, the notched bolt having long since been shaken loose.

Once again, Rocket saved my life. He recovered from the crustle's Feint Attack and launched himself head-on at the much heavier rock type, claws gleaming white.

"Double Team. Hone Claws," I croaked out as I scrambled back. Double Team was one of the few moves I'd managed to teach him, something that augmented his already deceptive fighting style.

He blurred into several copies and began to harass the crustle again, giving me the time to retreat. I crawled back several feet and then dragged myself to my feet on shaky legs by using a nearby tree for leverage.

This was a fucking disaster. Rocket's continued Slashes were having an effect, the crustle was definitely slowing down, but he wasn't doing enough damage to land a decisive blow.

"DAD!" I heard Sabrina's terrified scream pierce the air.

I spared a glance their way and felt my heart stop for a beat. The short blonde knelt in the middle of the battlefield, her father's bloody head cradled in her arms. I didn't see what happened but I could guess: Sabrina wasn't a fighter, not even close.

Another dwebble, the last I could see, launched a Rock Blast her way. Austin. Tom. And I was sure I'd lose Sabrina today too.

Then, Spade intervened. The cowardly mole finally found his courage, launching himself from behind Sabrina with a snarl. His claws glowed with a silvery sheen as he ripped the rocks apart.

'Metal Claw,' I realized, the staple move of the drilbur line. Spade wasn't a steel type, not yet, but he still knew the move.

A hasty plan formed in my mind.

"Rocket, keep the crustle busy," I said unnecessarily. What else was he supposed to do?

Still, I began moving towards them in a stumbling run. My legs were still weak and my joints felt like they'd crack if I stepped wrong, but I managed. As I went, I reloaded my crossbow with trembling fingers.

The dwebble was struggling now. It had a hard time holding off an enraged drilbur. As green as Spade was, his type advantage was enough to close the gap.

I watched him rip the hermit crab apart.

It started with one massive hammerblow to the domed shell. The steel type energy must have done something, or maybe Spade was just that strong, because a loud crack resounded through the field. A second, third, and fourth strike followed, until the dwebble was left defenseless. Then, as if in a trance, the drilbur tore it limb from limb, metallic claws overwhelming its exoskeleton.

Spade looked down at his paws. His fur was matted with dirt and blood, coated slick and dripping.

"D-Drilbur…" he moaned. Despite the language barrier, the abject horror in his voice was unmistakable. I'd seen it before.

Shock. Pain. Sorrow. Self-loathing. Disgust at what he'd done.

I couldn't have that. Rocket needed Spade. Right now, he was the only one who could decisively end this madness.

I fell before him. My knees thumped painfully into the gravel but I ignored it. Setting my crossbow aside, I grabbed him by the paws, clenching his claws together.

Spade flinched back. The normally perceptive pokemon hadn't even noticed me. It was like the world was reduced to him and the corpse of the dwebble he'd eviscerated.

"Spade!" I called. "Look at me. We need you."

"Drilbur. Dril."

"You didn't do a bad thing. You protected Sabrina. And we need you to protect us again."

He shook his head. His whole body shuddered and flinched back, almost yanking his oversized forepaws from my grip.

I didn't let him. I couldn't afford to. I felt the sharp claws digging into my hands and a trickle of wetness that wasn't the dwebble.

Still I held on.

"Look at me, Spade. Look at Sabrina. Rocket can't take down the crustle but you can. Please, help us," I begged.

This was it. This was my plan, to trust the cowardly drilbur who'd never been on a ranging before. Hasty. Stupid. It was unlikely to work but it was all I had.

Spade looked torn. He eyed Sabrina, sobbing into her father's chest. He watched as Rocket ran rings around the crustle, barely avoiding its claws by a hair's breadth. He looked back at me and nodded, a spark of something that hadn't been there before.

"Thank you," I whispered. I forced myself to stand again and let out a sharp, shrill whistle.

Rocket returned to me, bruised and panting but still able to fight. Double Team and Dig allowed him to keep up with the crustle, but that just made the fight a contest of stamina. And against a pokemon said to travel for days through the desert, that was a contest he was doomed to lose.

This was it. The dwebble were dead. Scout perched over one, his left wing sagging behind him. Hopefully, he'd merely pulled the muscle, maybe dislocated it, a broken wing would put him out for at least a month. The rangers had managed to take down the three others.

"Spade, Mud Slap. Rocket, distract it with Dig. Make openings for Spade to close," I spoke hurriedly. "Don't hesitate. Metal Claw. Focus one point until you break the shell."

They split off to engage the crustle. This wasn't like the games; there was no turn-based combat here. Those few words were as much instruction as I could give. Instead, I knelt with my crossbow and looked for the decisive moment. I wouldn't be killing a crustle, but maybe I could distract it when it mattered most.

Rocket dove into the dirt, just as fast as the drilbur thanks to his long months of practice. He practically swam through it.

But the crustle had come to expect the move by now. It raised one claw into the air, ready to slam it down on Rocket as he emerged.

Spade ran towards it. His claws were closed to form his namesake shovels. He dragged them along the ground, creating a furrow of dirt that he gathered in each paw. Then, with a squeaky battlecry, he flung the compacted earth into the crustle's face, interrupting its counter strike.

Rocket's Liftoff hit home, cracking against the crab's underbelly and sending it airborne again.

"Now! Flip it!"

Rocket launched himself into the air after the crustle. The rock type had a distinct advantage in a wrestling match, but he didn't need to win, just keep it from righting itself. After that, the weight of the crustle's boulder shell did the work for him.

I didn't need to tell Spade what to do after that. Now that he'd resolved himself to fight, some of the natural combat instincts native to most pokemon reared its head. He jumped onto the crustle's stomach and began to slam his claws down onto its underbelly with reckless abandon. It was almost like watching a mouse with ice picks for hands.

The crustle did not die quietly. It screeched and thrashed, knowing that if it couldn't right itself, it would die here. It continuously tried to bring its claws around to sweep Spade from its stomach but Rocket wrapped a tail around the base of one claw and ripped at the crustle's face with fangs and claws of his own.

Until finally, with a sickening crack, Spade breached the thinnest part of the crustle's shell. The wailing shriek, half a scream and half a garbled mess, would stick in my dreams for weeks.

Author's Note

Crustle used to learn Shell Smash as a given at level 1 (meaning you could get a tutor to remember the move for you) back in gen V. Now, it's a move it learns only at level 50. I thought it was neat given what the dex says.

Animal fact… Well, more like a conjecture. The biggest hermit crab species in the world is the coconut crab. Like their namesake, they are notorious for climbing coconut trees and ripping open coconut shells with their massive claws. They can grow as large around as the lid of a garbage bin and will eat basically anything they can fit into their mouths.

Now the conjecture: No one found Amelia Earhart's body following her final flight to Howland Island in the central Pacific Ocean. It is thought that her body may have been consumed by scavengers such as the coconut crab.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.