Chapter 24
Kalini stood before us in the conference room. The conference room was a new thing. We'd shoved a table in the center, placed a whiteboard at the back of the room, and a projector in the ceiling. With our new work, we needed a meeting room.
We sat on stone chairs while Kalini finished writing on the board. Well, most of us did. Slugma was sitting in a pool of magma within a stone pillar, watching the proceedings with wide eyes. I sat at the head of the table, Grace was sitting on my right, Mimikyu was on my shoulder, and Alakazam sat to my left.
Kalini finished drawing and turned to look at us. "Okay. As some of you know, I'm a criminal."
"...You are?" Grace asked, blinking.
He didn't skip a beat. "Yeah, but I'm growing out of it whenever I'm in front of people," Kalini turned to look at the board. "My sordid present gives me some advantages for this hero gig! For example, I've forgotten more about smuggling routes than anyone else in this city. I may not have handled anything harder than weed and gems for the Dragons, but they use those routes for all sorts of things. One of them being the kind of thing I hated about them."
The joviality faded a bit.
"Human trafficking. It's a big business, folks. Fuckers still want to own people, and the Dragons are Hawaii's pipeline from certain unnamed countries to the United States, and from the US to certain unnamed countries."
"Unnamed?" I asked.
"Not much point in stealing a person if you admit they had a history," he said darkly.
"Kyuuuu," Mimikyu said sadly.
"You're not wrong," I whispered to her. "Okay. I can see why you want this warehouse to be our target."
The 'target' was a warehouse in Honolulu, pointed out to us by the Foreman of the Construction site we'd saved the worker at. While the Silicon Dragons were situated all over Hawaii, Honolulu was the big one for all their bases. So striking there for a good while made sense. Force their defenses there, then switch targets.
Kalini turned back to the board. "Well, the place is only sort of a warehouse. It's been many things. First, the Hawaiian Home For Wayward Boys before it shut down due to allegations of abuse by staff and older students. Then it became a Wireless Station during World War 2, used in the war effort. Most recently, it was a Seismograph Station before newer ones were built to replace it. Place is haunted."
"You believe in ghosts?" Grace said skeptically.
"Kyu?" the actual ghost in the room asked.
"Um, not like you," Grace said with a kind smile to Mimikyu, who nodded understandingly.
"I believe in spirits," Kalin's voice took on the tone of . "The ancestors keep demanding this place stays cleared out. There's bad energy. Locals say huaka'i pō walk around the place at night," he said, referencing the local legend of ghost warriors who marched to battle sites.
"But even if there aren't spirits, the Silicon Dragons have captives there. Good reason to head in and clear them out," I growled.
"Gurdurr!" the fighting-type agreed, coming a bit out of the fugue state his loss had put him in. Tyrunt let out a little sound, but didn't say anything else.
"There's more reasons besides that actually," Kalini turned back and tapped a word on the board. "Experimentation! ...I think?" he gave us a helpless smile. "This is mostly a rumor. The guys would talk about it. People disappear. The Dragons never had a reason to use 'em, but you always heard about them having super-soldiers."
Alakazam asked, tapping his chin. "I can confirm some form of medical research is being done there. I've taken a look at purchases in the area. While I have no real talent for hacking, I've found some discrepancies. An inordinate amount of medical equipment being ordered by one hospital and two veterinary offices near shipping routes that pass by it. Beds, surgical tools, various medicines. Too much. Likely we'll have to have whoever works at those places investigated for misappropriation of funds."
"Do you think…" Grace winced when we looked over at her. She shrank a bit. "It's just… I sent them some of my research. Do you think they might have been testing it on people there?"
"Yes," I said without preamble. She sunk into her seat, her whale-hybrid features twisting with sadness and shame. "They're evil fucks. So if they have been torturing people to test your serum, we're going to get the chance to make sure they stop using your research to make soldiers. But yes. I think we might run into oceanic hybrids there."
"..."
"Kip," Mudkip said, giving me a look, eyes narrowed. When I shrugged, he raised an eyebrow.
Okay, fine, I'd been a bit harsh. I had to be. I couldn't be gentle here. This was a 'Robert Oppenheimer watching a nuke blow up' type situation. A scientist watching their research get ready to be used on innocent people. Nothing that could be done about it but work to take down the bad guys using it.
I doubted Grace would have taken that explanation well right after I'd been an asshole about it, so I continued talking.
"This will take us a bit. We need to perform some basic recon, find out what we're dealing with in there. Alakazam will take position outside the base and read the minds of everyone there as best he can-"
"As best I can?" Alakazam asked pointedly.
"Shields that can block psychics are theoretical, as far as I know, but the Silicon Dragons may be able to surprise us," I explained. Alakazam frowned, but didn't disagree. "So just incase, Slugma and Mimikyu. You two are our stealth units."
"Slug?"
"Kyu?"
"You two are small enough to sneak in, and can hide better than all the rest of us. Slugma can dig her way in, Mimikyu can hide in the shadows. Mudkip is going to be with Tyrunt, Gurdurr, and me. Once we have more info, we'll be able plan out an assault. If Slugma and Mimikyu are on the inside, they can cause some chaos to open things up for us a bit. And if all goes wrong, Alakazam will use Hyper Beam to destroy the building."
"Whoa, what!?" Kalini said, shocked. "He can do that!?"
"I try not to," Alakazam said humbly.
"Those are our options, either beat up people or destroy the whole place?" Grace asked me.
"Those are the options we know are possible. But that's because of a lack of information. If there are any innocent people in there, destroying the building gets removed as a possibility until we can guarantee their safety. If there is any info in there on the other bases, that has secondary priority to saving innocent people. If we can capture any superhumans, that takes third priority. But right now, until we can verify things, the options are to beat everyone up, or go nuclear."
Grace nodded. Gurdurr was scratching his chin thoughtfully, grumbling.
"Grace, can you come along and stay close by?" I asked her. "Kalini is driving us and keeping a lookout, but we may need a scientists perspective."
"I'd be okay with that," she crossed her arms. Then she adjusted the placement of her arms. Once, twice, then finally she seemed comfortable with it. That happened sometimes. Grace getting used to the new body. It was happening less and less, but it did happen. "So I guess I wait in the van?"
"And the rest of us wait. Slugma, Mimikyu. This is your show," I looked between them. "Fire and Shadow. I'm gonna need you two to keep a cool head in there. If these guys are as massive assholes as I think they are, you're going to see some horrific things. I trust you to keep safe. But avoid killing anyone if you can help it."
"Slug," the tiny fire Pokemon nodded seriously.
Mimikyu hesitated, but nodded her Pikachu head. As the yellow costume bounced, I thought of something.
"Also, we're going stealth. Might want to break out the Batman costume."
"Kyu!"
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The former home for wayward boys, a wireless station, and a seismograph now turned gangster hideout looked like the kind of place zombies would come out of. It reminded me of a zombie map, actually. When I was kid… the first time around I was a kid, my brothers and I would play Call of Duty Zombies a lot. The place looked like… I don't know, the maps that took place in abandoned prisons, military bases, that kinda thing. There was even an airfield behind the place. The main building was large, made of a combination of ancient stone, rusting metal, and vines, sections falling apart. It was shaped like a giant 'L'. Graffiti covered the place, some artistic, some garbage, all colorful.
I stood in the woods away from it, panning my eyes across it. I was wearing a new costume. An actual costume, to be clear.
I'd ditched the long coat and hockey mask for something a bit more hero-like, though the hockey mask was now hanging in a place of honor back in the cave. My new mask still had the half-red and half-white coloration, but was much more stylized. Mimikyu had designed a mask that reminded me of Casey Jones' mask from TMNT. Deadshot had some shady type who made gear for him send one in, and Mimikyu completed it with paint. It was still basically a temporary thing, but it looked good!
The rest of the suit did too. But I felt like a dork wearing it. I felt like I was cosplaying outside of a con. Black undersuit that covered, dark red and white vest, a white belt around my waist, and a pair of white boots. Well, I say white. But every section of my suit that should have been way too bright was sewed and colored in just the right way by Mimikyu to be classy rather than garish and annoying.
I reminded myself to look into online fashion school for her at some point. If that was even possible.
I put the question of fashion aside when Alakazam pressed his mind against mine. "What do we got?" I asked him.
"I am… unsure," he said through our link. I could sense him shifting through the air, hiding in the trees. I kneeled down and closed my eyes, focusing on the links between us.
"Grace? Kalini?"
"I'm here," Grace said. I felt her shifting through the link, taking a deep breath. "I'm just getting used to this. Talking without talking. Are you sure you guys can't read my mind?"
"I'm far too skilled for something like that to happen," Alakazam said. "The only thoughts you can send are those you transmit deliberately."
"I can't wait to find out what sort of biological systems allow you to do that," Grace mumbled mentally.
"How do you get used to this?" Kalini asked me, his mental voice more grating than Grace or Alakazams. "Talking in yer own head?"
"I read a lot of comic books, so the idea isn't too far out for me," I said honestly. "Now, focus on the mission and keep an eye out. Slugma, Mimikyu, how close are you to the target?"
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Slugma/The Lava Pokemon
"Slugma," the small red Pokemon whispered to her friend as she dug through the earth. Well, burned through the earth, really.
Mimikyu hummed to herself, then nodded. "Kyu."
Slugma thought about that. True, they were supposed to dig their way through. But honestly, she wasn't sure what the best place to enter from would be. Just under the place and up. Hopefully they would find somewhere that wasn't full of bad guys…
Fine. Up they would go.
Slugma reorientated herself and went upward as fast as she could. After six feet, she wasn't above ground yet. But… The dirt was now concrete. Had she dug herself into a wall? She frowned, then experimentally poked her head to her right, where she could sense an open space. After a bit, she was through the concrete. She looked around experimentally, confused.
The man on the other side of the wall stared at her from less than a foot away, shock in his eyes. Slugma and him blinked in unison.
"Wha-"
"Slugma!" with that tiny battlecry, she smashed her way out of the wall and smashed into the man's gut like a dodgeball. He flew back into a wall with a loud smacking sound. His eyes crossed as he passed out. Slugma didn't need prompting to follow up with a Yawn, a bubble full of knockout gas leaving her mouth and popping against his unconscious face.
"Kyu?" the costumed Pokemon plopped out after Slugma, looking around. Both felt the mind of their master looking through their eyes, but he didn't say anything, only peering through the mental link. After a moment, Mimikyu and Slugma shared a look.
They would have to part ways now.
After a second, Mimikyu wrapped her shadow limbs around Slugma's body. Slugma closed her eyes with a smile. The tiny Pokemon hugged each other for just a second in that room before separating.
"Kyu."
"Ma."
With those last well wishes, they parted ways, heading deeper into the base in opposite directions.
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Author's Note: So. This one is extremely late. But in my defense, I had a LOT on my plate.
For those who may not know, my house burned down, so I've been dealing with that. Bouncing from place to place while working on getting a new place. And one big issue is that my PC is currently chock full of soot, so it's not going to be usable until I can get that cleaned out.
But, I'm working my ass off. Hopefully, I can get back to writing again asap. Next chapter should be Dial, but I'll try to add more to MOMO as well while I'm at work. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great rest of your day, and a Happy New Year!
Chapter 25
Slugma sped her way through the hallways of the building, keeping a close eye on the area around her. The building smelled disgusting. Like a bathroom that had never been cleaned or something. Or a Stunky.
But the place didn't seem dirty. So where was the smell coming from? Slugma didn't have time to ponder this mystery before she heard someone walking close. She hopped up and dived into a nearby concrete wall. In mere seconds, she'd made a small hole and climbed in it. Slugma 'swam' through the concrete walls, feeling a bit like that cartoon Tyrunt had watched the other day with the tall gray skinny Bunnelby that kept getting lost underground.
This place was big. It had looked much smaller from the outside, and much less maze-like. There were ramps going up and down to different levels, rooms dedicated entirely to storage, dozens of boxes of strange smelling powders and liquids. But there weren't many people. Maybe everyone had called in sick? This place was so empty…
Slugma sighed as she walked through the halls, thinking to herself about how boring this had turned out to be. She poked her head out after some more crawling, only to find herself looking into a large round amphitheater, dirt and concrete covering felt seats all across the room, and a wooden platform at the other side of the room from her that had given in to rot. In a section of the room that had been cleared out, groups of men were working with guns, cleaning, oiling, and packing them away in boxes. For such a dirty room, it was a very clean looking operation. They all seemed to know what they were doing-
Then, Master's mind pressed against hers. He was staring through her eyes in shock, directing her to look at one particular man. Slugma blinked at the sight of him.
The man that Master was focused on was tall, thin, and completely covered in from top to bottom in a black costume. The costume was thick and leathery, with a belt on his chest that held grenades, with more of them lying on his hips, thighs, and shoulders. He had a helmet sitting next to him as he sat at a desk tapping on a cell phone, his booted feet up on the table. The helmet was large and round, with two large yellow 'eyes' on either side of it. Behind him, on the floor, was a large set of wings with pods that reminded her of the ones on a Garchomp's head.
His face… Slugma winced at the sight of it. He was burned. VERY burned. The scars swirled across his bald head, a section of melted skin over a corner of his left eye. She felt so bad for him…
"Fucking FIREFLY," Master was apparently not feeling as charitable. "Slugma, he's a fire type… Actually, we might as well call him a fire-type that can use explosion a bunch of times."
Slugma felt a burst of annoyance. She wasn't dumb. She knew what a grenade was. Master apparently felt her annoyance.
"Sorry. It's just… Firefly is a Batman villain. He's experienced, smart, and tough. Even if his fire doesn't work on you, he's intelligent enough to-"
Firefly, the man at the desk, stood up quickly, eyes wide. He was staring at his cell phone. Actually, it was very big for a cell phone. He was lifting it up now. He pointed the back of it… towards her?
Then his eyes snapped upwards, landing on her head poking out of the ceiling. Slugma froze. The man didn't.
"We have a contact!" he ripped a grenade from his belt, tossing it towards her. Slugma instinctively opened her mouth.
"MAAAA!" A stream of fire erupted from her mouth, hitting the grenade in mid-air. It blew up with immense force, shaking Slugma out of the ceiling and sending her tumbling to the ground. She landed hard, crashing in the rotting amphitheater seats and sending felt and wood flying. "Slu!" she shouted, pained. Shaking her head, she looked up at the sound of loud jet engines.
"So you're one of those monsters, huh?" Firefly floated over to her, helmet and wings on, a long flamethrower in his hands as he buzzed above like his namesake. "Guess I'm getting paid early."
He pointed the flamethrower at her, a long plume hitting Slugma… who looked down at her unharmed form, then up at Firefly. The seats around her ignited, sending smoke into the air.
"Fireproof, huh?" Firefly didn't seem deterred. In fact, he looked intrigued. "Well, guess you're more than just cute. Let's have some fun!"
Firefly reached for his chest, Slugma took a deep breath and blasted out flames. One of the criminals in the area screamed as the flames around the two began to rise.
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Mimikyu
Moments before
Mimikyu flitted from one shadow to the next, travelling in her own special way through the halls. Like all ghost-types, she was able to hide in the dark of the world. And like all ghost-types, she was sensitive to the deeper nature of the world.
This place felt… pained. As though it had been physically attacked somehow. She could taste it on the air. People had gone through something bad in this place.
She entered a shadow in one room and looked around. It looked like a hospital. But gross. There was a red stain no one had cleaned on the floor, beds covered in dirt and smelling of sweat, hanging divider cloths splitting them into 'rooms', dirty medical trays in different parts of the room. It looked horrible.
"How unsanitary!" Alakazam scoffed as he followed Mimikyu's path through the room. "This facility is clearly medical in nature, but even the most heartless of scientists would at the least make sure their laboratory was clean! Were these people raised in a barn? Good Arceus, is that meth in the corner!? WERE THEY DOING SURGERY WHILE HIGH!? I-"
Mimikyu ignored him as he seemed to devolve into an absolute rage at the sight of the place. She was more worried about what she could feel. Some of the beds were very small.
She reached the other side of the room, where a door was open to show a set of stairs, leading to a very dark place. She hopped down, stair by stair, the small Batman head of her costume bouncing with each step. A smell was rising up from the place. Like something had been rotting inside the place.
She found herself at the bottom of the stairs. There was water dripping from the ceiling, pooling on the concrete floor.
All across the room were plastic tarps, laid out along the ground going for dozens of feet. Underneath them, lumps of varying sizes lay, only Mimikyu's eyesight allowing her to see them. She walked forward, sadness in her eyes as she contemplated the 'lumps' she was walking past.
"I…" Alakazam stared through her eyes, horrified. "I knew they were doing something, but the scale is-"
Mimikyu stopped. Something was there.
Alakazam's mind pressed against hers. She felt him reach out psychically… then pull back. "I can sense something, but it's mind is strange. I cannot read it. It's like-"
Mimikyu turned to her right. In the shadows, she saw something uncurl from the ceiling. She crouched low, her eyes narrowing as her Batman head curling down to scowl.
It was big. Big as Kalini. A single long leg stretched down, bending unnaturally, claws on the toes of it's feets briefly scratching at the concrete, long pin-like hairs twitching along its length. Two arms let go of the ceiling, while three more stretched and cracked, water dripping on its carapace, sliding along to mat it's long hairy form, then landing on the floor as Mimikyu watched. It landed, crouching, fingers twitching on each arm. The creature had no eyes. Yet she felt it's focus land on her.
"How… strang-strange…" lips opened, revealing fangs, but the mouth that spoke was higher up. "What a little thing you are…"
A hand lashed out, claws snapping outward. Mimikyu, already wary, jumped back from the reaching hand, landing with her wooden 'tail' smacking against the ground.
"I can smell you," the voice of the monster stretched through the air. His mouth opened in a facsimile of a smile, fangs stretching. "Hear you. No fear. Do you know… how rare… that is since I changed?"
He lowered down to crouch on the ground. "What are… you?"
"Mimikyu," she said as both an answer and a challenge.
He had no eyes. But he didn't seem to need them. He laughed, fangs clattering. "I am sorry… You are interesting. But I am hungry."
He scuttled across the floor, fangs lashing out. Mimikyu's shadow tentacles lashed out to try and smack him out of the air, but the inhuman monster leaped over the tentacles as they cracked apart the concrete below him. He slashed at her with his claws, slicing through a tarp behind her as she dodged.
"Kyu!" she focused her shadows, turning them into claws of her own, and slashed out at him. He took the blow across an arm, but snapped out two arms to punch her in the chest. She was surprised when the blow actually landed, sending her flying back. She spun in mid-air before disappearing in the shadows. When she reappeared behind him, she was surprised that he spun around immediately and grabbed her.
"You are interesting!" he pulled her close, fanged mouth snapping out to bite into her.
"Mimikyu!" she reared back, then forward, her head smashing into his. He snarled, falling back and letting her go.
The two fighters glared at each other.
"You… are cute," he licked at a fang, jumping upwards to land on the ceiling.
"Mimiiiiiiii," she lowered herself into her one shadow.
After a deep moment, Mimikyu disappeared into her shadow, swimming in darkness as the monster above sped about, looking for her.
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Mahmoud Schahed/Kahu Kiaʻi
This was WHY I wanted to avoid this hero shit. At it for barely any amount of time, and now we had to deal with fucking Firefly.
He wasn't just some new guy or random unknown like Sidearm, he was ESTABLISHED. He'd fought Batman. Multiple times. He wasn't a moron. He was dangerous, willing to kill, batshit insane and he was fighting Slugma.
And then there was that… thing Mimikyu was taking on. The weird spider monster man. He was an unknown. But he also didn't worry me as much as Firefly.
"My serum wasn't made for arachnid life!" Grace said in my ear as I began running through the woods, Mudkip on my shoulder, Gurdurr and Tyrunt at either side of me. "That person, whoever he is, he's not… I never intended this. He should be DEAD. He must be in so much pain-"
"Grace, focus!," I said as I ran. "He's here now, he's an enemy, and we need to deal with it. Figure out his existence later! Gurdurr, Tyrunt, I want that fucking door down, now! Mudkip, freeze it!"
"Mud!" the little guy blasted a beam of ice at the metal doors in front of us, covering them in sheets of cold.
"Guuur!"
"Tyyyy!"
Dinosaur and Construction Worker smashed into the doors with immense force, snapping the weakened steal apart and sending them flying inwards.
The room beyond must have once been a lobby, with marble floors, a receptionist's desk, and a couch that had seen less shabby days. The[a] people within stared at us as we stood in the doorway.
"Hey fellas. Your lease is up," I said with a smile under my mask.
"What the fu-" some guy screamed, rising to his feet with an assault rifle, only for Tyrunt to jump for him with jaws of blue crystal, snapping into his gun with an Ice Fang, shattering the thing to pieces.
Two more guys ran out of a room, only to get a blast of water to the face that sent one smashing through a table and the other into a crate. Mudkip dropped from my shoulder and ran deeper into the room.
One enterprising woman managed to aim her assault rifle at Gurdurr, pulling the trigger. The hail of bullets bounced off of Gurdurr's I-beam as he twirled it. He ran up to her, bullets clinking off his weapon, then smashed her gun apart, before grabbing her by the shirt and pulling her down for a solid headbutt.
I grabbed a guy as he ran up to me with a knife, broke his arm, and lifted him into the air before tossing him to Tyrunt, who knocked him out of the air with a tail swipe.
"Slugma, Mimikyu, focus on those guys. You aren't on scout duty any more, you are taking on the boss monsters," the next thought I sent out was reluctant. "We'll take down the rest of the base. Now kick those guys asses."
Gurdurr smashed a guy who was going to shoot at me with a shotgun, and I punched another man in the chest, feeling ribs crack under my fist. Tyrunt hopped onto the receptionists desk and roared from atop it, his stone claws scratching the wood. Mudkip smacked a man aside with his paws.
"Alakazam, tell us where to head next…"
With that, the four of us began running through the halls.
------
Grace Balin
"Those assholes!" Grace cursed to herself from the back of the vehicle they were using for surveillance. "The serum is made for mammalian life! Whales, dolphins, hell, a fucking pig would have worked! Not a spider! What have they been doing!?"
"Illegal shit, mostly," Kalini looked back at her. "Oy, calm down. You're breaking the door handle."
Grace glanced at him, then down at the handle in question. She had a death grip on it. When she let go, the metal had finger holds embedded into it. "S-Sorry."
"No problem," he was giving her an odd look. "Hey, don't worry. The kid is pretty good at this hero shit. Him and his little monsters, they'll get this done for you."
...That was kind of the problem. For her. As though it wasn't her fault. Her responsibility.
She looked briefly down at her hands. The white coloration of her palms, the way it smoothly transferred to black. Her hands were so much bigger. Stronger.
Through the mental link, she could feel Mimikyu fighting that… thing. The monster created from her serum.
She clenched her fists unsteadily. She'd gotten in fights a few times growing up. You couldn't avoid it in Gotham. But never anything real...Still.
"Guess the kid got impatient though," Kalini chuckled. "He's nicer than he pretends. Like a mama bear. But hey, they'll be okay in there I thi-" the sound of a door opening surprised him. He turned around in time to see the door slam closed. "Oh, Gracey, what-"
He looked behind him to see Grace disappear into the shadows around the building.
"Ahhhhh… shit."
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Author's Note: We're back. And yeah, Firefly and a weird spider-monster!
If you want to picture the location the team is fighting in, I might upload a map later, something visual to help things, but for now, imagine Slugma and Mimikyu are deep in the base enough that they'll be on their own. Better that way.
For those thinking Firefly is gonna get beat purely because Slugma can ignore fire attacks that aren't magical in nature, keep in mind that not only is he fairly fireproof, he can fly, he has other options for attack, he's smart as hell… and he's insane. Legit insane. And not in a fun way. In a disturbing, quiet, all too realistic way.
As for the spider-monster-man dude, he's got tricks of his own.
Anyways, I hope you guys like the chapter! Let me know what you think, and I'll catch you all later!
Chapter 26
Mahmoud Schahed/Kahu Kiaʻi
I tackled a guy into a room, smashing through a door behind him. I pushed him back, taking a punch to my shoulder when he missed my neck, and grabbed his hair, pulling hard as he screamed.
Behind me, Gurdurr, Mudkip, and Tyrunt were roaring, growling, and laughing, respectively, while the sounds of screaming and things breaking filled the air.
"Get off of me!" the guy whose hair I was pulling kicked out at me. I let him go as his foot landed on my thigh. He punched at me again. I didn't dodge it in time, getting hit in my forehead. Instinctively I jabbed at him, getting his nose. As he reeled back, I stepped forward, drove a fist into his gut and finished him off with a left cross to his chin.
As he fell down, I panted. Unlike in the movies, fighting people was hard. You couldn't just knock someone out with a couple hits, not consistently anyways. And it was exhausting. The guy currently groaning on the floor was the fourth person I'd fought myself, and I was already tired. I'd protected my fists a bit with a pair of gloves, but my knuckles were still sore.
Still, I was used to it. Fighting Rockets was easier, since they tended to depend on their Pokemon and didn't have as much fighting skill on their own, but I'd always end up tired and a bit bruised after enough fighting. In some weird way, this all felt like home.
Still, I wanted to get to Slugma and Mimikyu… We also had to find as much data as possible.
I turned and walked outside, ducking when Mudkip went flying over me to tackle into a fat man with a shotgun. "Guys! I want two guys conscious when we're done!"
"We'll never talk!" one woman shouted as Gurdurr held her by the collar of her shirt. He looked over at me.
"Break a couple things, then knock her out." I held back a wince at the horror in her eyes, followed by the keening scream she let out when Gurdurr followed my orders. Brutal, but I couldn't let her 'bravery' make the others cocky. Besides, none of these guys were angels (Seriously, an entire fucking room of dead bodies screamed that) and bones heal.
I looked around the room, thinking quickly. What was I going to ask these guys? Well, for any passwords of course, any info that could help me infiltrate these assholes. But then, that kind of info was likely not trusted to a bunch of idiots… Idiots. Huh.
I stared at one of the bodies that was passed out, a guy who had been tossed through a TV. I walked over to him, reaching into his pockets. Wallet, keys… phone. After a quick swipe, I found it was locked. I pocketed it anyways, then moved to the next person. Maybe these guys would talk, maybe they wouldn't. But phones might have some information I could use. Emails, texts, phone numbers, GPS locations, even google searches.
Ah, for the resources of Bruce Wayne. Bet he could hack these things with a look. Alakazam would have to do for now.
Even as I was distracting myself, I was still focusing on the main matter. Slugma and Mimikyu.
------
Slugma
Slugma sped under the seats of the amphitheater, wincing at the sound of an explosion behind her, some pieces of chair hitting her.
"You're a fast one!" Firefly crowed as he flew over her. "And you leave little fire trails where you go? Can I keep you?"
Slugma decided this person was weird. Experimentally, she poked her head up and blasted a stream of flame, aiming for his wings. The flamethrower that left her mouth was intercepted by a similar gout of flame, the two streams wrapping around each other before snapping to the sides, creating waves of flame on Slugma's left and Firefly's right. The waves ignited more of the seats around them, sending smoke up to pool against the ceiling. Firefly went through the waves to his right with a laugh, the flames and smoke reflecting off his lenses.
That was clearly not going to work. Slugma narrowed her eyes, thinking. She was a fire-type. But she did have other options.
She focused on the ceiling above, stalactites hanging low. With a keening 'Sluuuuuuu' four of those stalactites became enveloped in blue light, before ripping out of the ceiling and flying towards Firefly.
"What the fu-" the four stones surrounded him, briefly entombing the flying man before pressing in on him. "Ah!"
For a moment, as the stones smashed into him, Slugma hoped that would be it. Then the stones exploded, sending chunks of shrapnel outwards.
"You!" a grenade inside Slugma's body, sinking briefly into her magma body before exploding.
"Slugma!" she went flying, smashing into a row of chairs. She gasped in pain, eyes tight, then glared up at Firefly as he shakily flew over. His right wing was crumpled up a bit, the jet engine there whining as it desperately tried to keep him up.
"Hate this magic bullshit," he growled, apparently not understanding her powers. He tossed another grenade.
Slugma sped away from it, moving faster than ever. The grenade had torn through her skin, chunks of the tough magma that made up her body ripped off by shrapnel and sheer explosive force to reveal the lava 'blood' that lay underneath, leaking through her wounds. She winced in pain.
In this case though, it was a blessing to lose her outer layer. The stuff made her tougher, but it was also heavy. Losing some of it was a blessing now. She needed the boost to her speed.
"Quick little bastard, aren't you!" Firefly tossed grenades at the ceiling. For a moment, she didn't understand why, until the stalactites above started falling around her. She desperately ran for the stairs that separated the rows of seats, dodging a falling stalactite, then hopping over another one as it landed in front of her, shrapnel slamming into her form and melting into her body.
"Slugma!" she caught a few of the stones in her power, tossing them at Firefly, who dodged two before one smashed him in the helmet, cracking his eye lens.
"Ah! Son of a-" Firefly let out a gout of flame, apparently just of anger. Slugma got to the section where they had been filling crates with guns. Two gangsters were coughing heavily as she passed, rushing out of the smoke filled room with their assault rifles dangling from their hands. She couldn't blame them. Even some Pokemon couldn't stand up to this much smoke.
She blasted flames at the crates as she passed, aiming more at the desks before reaching the amphitheater beyond, jumping up onto the stage.
"You still running!?" Firefly tossed down a small grenade. Slugma went to blast it with her flames, only for the grenade to explode in a blast of light and sound.
"Ma!" Slugma shouted, agony filling her as the light blinded her. She tried to back away, only for Firefly to drop down and kick her in the face. Slugma flew back with a shout of pain, while Firefly ignored the way his boot briefly ignited at the heat of her body.
"Finally," Firefly took out two grenades, chuckling as he glared at her, the broken lens over his right eye falling to reveal a gleeful look that twisted his burned features. "Gotta say, you're a cute fucking firecracker. Wish I could take you home. But, a job is a jo-"
"Slug!" Slugma blasted the ground. With smoke. Plumes of purple smacked into the wooden floor and flew upwards, obscuring them in violet.
"Cute trick," Firefly said smugly as the smoke rose to cover his face. "But I can still see you-cough-cough!" Firefly began hacking, eye widening under his helmet. Slugma smirked despite the agony in her eyes. He'd been able to handle the smoke before thanks to his helmet. But now one of his lenses was cracked open to allow all that smoke in, and like all humans, he still needed to breathe.
She raised her mouth and hit him with a whole stream of violet smog, sending him reeling back as the smoke blinded and choked him.
"Hauk!" Firefly reflexively tossed his grenades towards Slugma, but she was already moving, the explosions ripping into the stage and sending splinters and stone flying about.
And as her eyes cleared, Slugma could see Firefly's jets ignite. He tried to fly up, only for his damaged right jet to falter, the flier shaking back and forth for a moment. Long enough for Slugma to force her power into the dozens of stones around them.
"SLUGMA!" the stones floated around her, then came down under her, sending her sliding forward and up. Surrounded by the stones, she slid into Firefly's chest with immense speed and force, sending him rocketing backwards to smash into the seats behind him.
"Ohhhh," Firefly groaned, shakily trying to rise despite the amount of hits he'd taken. Slugma landed on his chest. He glared at her for a moment before she reared back, then forward, smashing her head against his helmet. His head snapped back, cracking against the floor. He let out one final groan before he passed out.
Slugma eyed him for a moment, her eyes wide. He didn't move. She'd… she'd won.
"Slugma!" she jumped into the air, wiggling a bit. She'd beaten him! By herself! And he'd been tough, and strong!
She held in her happiness as best as she could while gripping his ankle and beginning to drag him away.
"Slug-u-ma, slug-u-ma, slug-u-ma!" she sang happily as she pulled the unconscious supervillain along.
Master was going to be so proud!
------
Mimikyu
Mimikyu released a small wave of shadow arms trying to ensnare her opponent. He slid around one, then the next, his back making a strange clicking sound as he moved unnaturally to dodge a third, running around the next before slashing out at Mimikyu. She slid around his claws and punched him in the chest with a single arm. His chitin armor took the attack, the monster bouncing back, before he grabbed one of the bodies off the floor and tossed it at her like a football. Mimikyu ducked it by diving into it's shadow, coming out above him, only for the monster to dodge, letting her smash into the ground before kicking her in the stomach, his whole foot the size of her body.
Mimikyu bounced off the ground, spinning around to clash her shadow claws with the insect man's as she thought furiously. He was somehow always able to sense her attacks. Whenever she slashed, punched, or dived out of the shadows, she would be lucky if she managed to land a hit! She needed to level the playing field.
So she grabbed his shoulders and arms. Before he could do anything about that, she dived into the shadows. And she pulled him in as well.
For a moment, the basement, with those bodies, was quiet. But in the shadows of that room, a battle raged. Claws slashed, punches landed.
From the darkness near the stairs, Mimikyu and the monster leaped out, still clashing in mid-air. "Kyu!" she headbutted him in the face. He wrapped his arms around her, fangs diving forward. She exploded in shadow arms, forcing him off of her before grabbing him for a spinning dive right back into the darkness. The room shook, pieces of concrete falling to the floor.
One particularly large piece of concrete created a long shadow as it came down. The pair of fighters launched from that shadow just before the concrete landed, sending Mimikyu and the monster flying in opposite directions. Mimikyu landed on the floor. Then she stared down at herself. Her body, revealed in its entirety, her wooden tail lying between them.
Her costume! Where was her costume?
She snapped her eyes to gaze at her opponent.
He held her costume in a single clawed hand. His thumb brushed over the bat-symbol on the front. But he wasn't looking at it. And he wasn't reacting to her appearance.
Mimikyu wasn't blind. She knew how people saw her. She knew she was scary, even though she didn't FEEL scary.
So when his response to her costumeless form was a smile, she found herself staring in confusion.
"That world of yours… the Dragons spoke of it. Of the horrors there. You are… Aumakua. One of the spirits that follow the hero," he sighed, a shiver going across his form, fangs clicking as he chuckled. "Ahkahkahkahk… I wish they had told me how exquisite it felt."
His eyes. 6 of them. They were pointed towards her, but… they were covered in a strange sort of tough material. She'd smacked one of them, cracking the material, breaking it in half. But he didn't notice.
Mimikyu realized it then. He was not going to faint from seeing her true form or from being pulled into her world because he COULDN'T see them. He was entirely blind.
"This scrap of cloth..." he said, raising Mimikyu's costume. The Batman ears bounced as he smiled. "Does it mean something to you? Do you hide yourself beneath it? Come child. You are beautiful. I can feel it in the air. The way the world curdles and spoils in your wake. You have no need of it."
His claws closed. And the costume tore. Mimikyu stared as black and yellow cloth fluttered down, swaying in the air, her small body trembling.
"Now, I-"
"CRACK!"
His head snapped back, fangs flying. He fell to his knees. When he felt the pain that followed, blood spilling to the floor and covering some of the tarp covered bodies next to him, the monster screamed. "GAAAAAAAUGH! I- I-"
Mimikyu hefted her wooden tail in her arms, eyes aglow. The tail was surrounded in dark violet energy as she approached her far larger opponent, stepping over the tattered remains of her costume.
"Gah," the monster coughed, smiling around teeth and pale fur covered in his blood. "It seems I've angered you… How interesting."
He grabbed two of the bodies laying on the ground in one hand each, throwing them at her, tarps flying off to reveal the rotting corpses underneath, weakened flesh splitting as they flew towards her.
Mimikyu jumped forward, swinging her wooden tail like a hammer down into one body, sending it bouncing along the ground while she flew higher up, front-flipping through the air, her tail swinging down towards the monster below her. He raised his arms to block.
"Mimikyuuuuu!" dark energy surrounding her, Mimikyu prepared her strongest hit yet-
"Shoot that thing!" a cry said from the stairs.
BrakBrakBrakBrakBrak!!!
"Kyu!" The sound of submachine fire was followed by Mimikyu getting hit by several small bullets. She was thrown back by the force of the gunfire, sent rolling across the ground until she managed to dive back into the shadows.
"What the hell was that thing!?" the voice that had cried earlier said.
"Something wonderful," the monster shouted.
"Shut up, Kane," another voice barked. "Hey, freak. Was that one of those monsters?"
"Indeed it was," the spider-monster didn't seem offended. "It can move in the shadows. Interesting to watch. To feel."
"Shut up Carl," Mimikyu poked her head out from the shadows to look at the newcomers. Two men and a woman, all holding guns. Strange guns, with a section of them glowing. So that was how the bullets had hit her. They were special somehow. They hadn't hurt a lot, but they still managed to hit a ghost-type somehow. "We need to get out of here! That isn't the only monster. Kahu Kia`i is here."
"Oh…" the monster, Carl apparently, seemed ready to speak, when he froze. Then he brought a finger up to point at Mimikyu. "There!"
Mimikyu quickly put up a Protect, blocking the hail of bullets that came at her. She dived back into the shadows, coming out of the ground from the shadow of the woman of the trio, swinging her tail up.
The spider-monster was there, kicking out at her. She parried the kick, only for the nearest person to scream, firing wildly at her. She dived back into the shadows, frustrated.
"W-W-What the hell! That thing, it was just, it looked-" the man who had fired was shaking, his lips pale.
"Calm down!" Carl hissed. "Control your fear. I can sense her! If you shoot at my command, then-"
Mimikyu felt it then. A familiar mind in the link that connected her to the others. It was coming closer. And suddenly, she came upon a plan. Quickly, she stretched her mind out to the person that was approaching, sharing her idea.
She took a breath, thinking to herself. She didn't like this first part of the plan.
All her life, she had tried to get people to love her. To see her for herself. But they had all been scared away. They ran away. So she took the same path her mother did. She copied Pikachu. She took a Pikachu doll, ripped the stuffing out, and sewed it together into a costume. And people had approached her. Children had hugged her. For a time, she had been happy. She'd even learned to mimic one of Pikachu's moves.
But that feeling inside, of never being good enough, began to grow. The feeling that nobody really loved her. They loved Pikachu.
Until… One day, a trainer found her. He'd had a Slugma and Mudkip. He'd looked at her as she came out of the forest. Then he smiled.
"Oh cool! A Mimikyu!"
He caught her after that. And she didn't mind. Because the first thing he saw when he saw her was her. And the first time he'd seen her without her costume, he'd been scared. She knew he was. But he still hugged her. Still loved her. He didn't have to. He could have traded her away. But he never let her go. Her grumpy master, always pretending he was so mean.
She loved her first costume. It was the one that taught her how much she loved to sew. But she wanted to stop copying Pikachu. Stop doing whatever Pikachu did...
Well. She'd been the one to make the plan. She'd have to follow through.
She set her non-existent shoulders, narrowed her eyes, and brought her hands together. Some of her hands at least. The shadowy arms forced her powers to gather. The shadow world around recoiled as light began to shine from her.
She leapt out of the shadows, right in front of the gunmen. The spider-monster jumped to the ceiling, then down towards her. She raised her hands and closed her eyes.
And a thunderbolt cracked the air.
The bolt of lightning slammed into the monster. He screamed as lightning ran through his body, launching him back.
The gunmen screamed as well. Their eyes, adjusted to the darkness of the basement, were not ready for the sheer brightness that a lightning bolt carried to it.
"Goddamn it!" the man reeled back, rubbing at his eyes like it would stop what had essentially been a flash-bang grenade to the eyes. "I-"
The wall behind him cracked, then shattered apart. Two massive black and white arms reached out of the wall, revealing a dug out pit and a massive figure in the shadows. The figure grabbed him by the shoulders, lifting him up.
"Oh fuck! It's got me, it's got me!" he fired wildly into the air before the figure threw him away. He crashed into a pillar and landed at it's foot with a choked sound of pain, while the figure stomped down on the gun he dropped.
Mimikyu summoned lightning in her shadow hands again, the light from it illuminating the figure. Grace Balin. But snarling, her eyes gone black, muscles bunching under taut skin. Grace stepped forward and clumsily slapped the female shooter in the head, sending her cartwheeling through the air.
Mimikyu fired her thunderbolt at the spider-monster, who dodged it with prenatural speed. Too late however, he realized it was a trap. Mimikyu had sped forward at the same time she had launched the thunderbolt. While his senses, however he was able to follow her movement, were sharp, Mimikyu had guessed he had to have limits on how fast he could react to certain threats. So when she'd fired lightning at him, he'd been entirely focused on the loud and buzzing burst of static.
He didn't notice the quieter and relatively easier to miss Pokemon there to meet him in mid-air as he jumped out of the way of lightning.
"KYUUUUUUUU!" her tail, surrounded in dark energy tinged in green, smashed into his chest with brutal force. His sightless eyes widened. A cracking sound came from his carapace and the bones underneath. He landed on the ground hard. Mimikyu landed in front of him, hefting her tail.
He lay there for a moment, gasping in pain. Mimikyu hefted her tail. After a moment though, he stilled. While he wasn't looking at her, Mimikyu could feel his attention land on her.
He sighed once more, before passing out. Mimikyu stared at him, not understanding why he'd-
"BrakBrakBrak!"
"RAAAUUUGH!" Grace screamed.
Mimikyu spun around to see Grace grabbing at her stomach, a gunman in front of her. He fired again, hitting her shoulder. Grace reached out, grabbing his gun, then leaped forward, jaws wide. For one moment, Mimikyu thought she was about to bite him. But instead, Grace tackled then body slammed him, smashing him into the floor. She pulled his gun from his hand, breaking his thumb. He screamed. Grace roared in his face, voice echoing in the quiet space. Eyes still black, she leaned down. Her teeth flashed. He screamed shrilly as spittle landed on his cheeks.
Mimikyu knocked out the screaming man with a single punch before Grace could bite his throat out, cutting off his screams.
The orca woman blinked at the silence. She stared up at Mimikyu, then froze in shock at the sight of her. Mimikyu quickly grabbed the gunman's shirt and ripped it off of him, wrapping it around herself to hide her form from Grace. By the time she was done, Grace was blinking, her eyes returning to normal.
"I… what happened?" Grace mumbled. Then she let out a whine of pain, reaching for her stomach as she hesitantly rose to her feet. "Ah! What is-" she pulled a hand back, revealing blood on her palm. She winced again. "Oh god! I've been shot?"
Mimikyu handed her some scraps of cloth she'd made from the gunman's pants. "Kyu!"
Grace quickly grabbed the strips, wrapping them around her wounds. "That really hurts!" she moaned quietly, stumbling a bit.
"Mimikyu…" she said quietly.
The orca woman grimaced. "No. It's my fault. Let's just get out of here, okay?"
"Kyu," Mimikyu mumbled. Then, she noticed one of the assault rifles. She lifted it into her arms, looking it over. Alakazam's mind pressed against hers, analyzing it. There was some sort of attachment over the barrel. Maybe it turned normal bullets into something more?
"I suggest we take it with us. If our enemies are creating more ways to counter us, I'd like to know what those are" Alakazam whispered in Grace and Mimikyu's minds. "One moment. I'll be there to help you both."
Mimikyu nodded, while Grace sat down, sighing to herself. "Guess Kahu was right. I really need training if I'm going to help with this stuff…" Grace then looked over at Carl, the spider-monster on the floor. She stared at him, the monstrous creature created using her own research, then down at herself. She let out a huff. "How annoying…"
"Kyu?" Mimikyu mumbled, cocking her head to the side. Grace only chuckled, saying nothing else.
------
Author's Note: The fights in this chapter were a LOT of fun to write. I think people were expecting Firefly to just default to fire attacks. Hopefully I made it a lot more interesting than that.
In terms of health, Slugma was down to her last legs basically. If Firefly hadn't gotten overconfident, he might have won. Slugma's Weak Armor is a great ability, but it also slowly weakens her defense with each hit, making her easier and easier to damage in trade for that massive speed boost. But Slugma played it smart. She hit a chink in the armor, used techniques she knew would work, and her own superior strength and speed. I'm kinda proud of that fight.
Same with Mimikyu. So to be clear. The guy's attacks were technically 'dark/bug-type' enough to touch her, in combination with his increased strength, speed, senses, and agility to bridge any sort of gap. That said, Mimikyu did come out of it better than Slugma, as next chapter might note. Carl the Spider-Monster is powerful, but he also has less experience than Firefly. He was also kind of charmed by Mimikyu as a whole. For reference, Daredevil would be more terrified of her than those who can actually see her would be.
That said, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Have a good week!