Ira Deorum: A-Poké-Lypse

[*Scizor*]

Lachlan was too stunned to speak. His heart thumped heavily in his throat, Kyuu growling at the approaching zombie.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Click, click. The zombie fell to the floor with the bullets ripping through its flesh.

"They're getting closer. Call out your Pokemon!" The man yelled. He stood over Lachlan.

Click, click.

"I'm out of bullets", he said.

"****."

Lachlan looked at the man, out of bullets? But he did as he was told and sent out his other five Pokemon, all taking stand around the small group of survivors. Kyuu was in front of Lachlan, Shade the Sableye immediately climbed up Lachlan's leg to reach his shoulder. Shiru and Keda, Grovyle and Flygon, stood either side of Lachlan and Whisper stood with Kyuu. Aerodactyl, Terror, stretched his wings and took off to a nearby wall which he perched himself on. Lachlan was proud of his team, they knew what to do.

He waited, the zombies could be heard but it wasn't clear how close they were. Lachlan zoned out, mentally separated himself from the other people, he needed full concentration on what was to come.

He heard a shotgun go off, minutes later. Looking around at the loud noise Lachlan spotted another man. He was the biggest of them all and seemed to be well equipped. When he spoke, Lachlan knew this was the one he had heard before.

You, people!" He yelled as if to catch further attention. "Listen to me. My name is Balthazar, and I'm here to take you all to a safe place. No time for chit-chat right now; for if you haven't noticed, there's a horde of zombies approaching. If any of you have weapons or Pokémon, I demand you to take them out now and prepare for the fight. Stand your ground."


Lachlan saw them now. Hundreds of zombies of all different kinds rushed forwards in a very messy fashion.

"May Arceus help us…" Was the last thing Lachlan heard for a short while. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out everything but the noise of the zombies. He opened them and stared out of the house, Terror screeched as a zombie drew closer. "Kyuu, Flamethrower." Whisper hold it in place with Confusion." He ordered, his Pokemon did as requested and the zombie fell to the ground in a heap of burnt flesh. But it wasn't the only one. At least 20 zombies had now gathered at the house with many more close by. He knew not all could be taken out with just his Pokemon, but he had to try.

"Terror, HYPER BEAM!" He shouted and the large prehistoric bird let loose a huge beam of light which ripped through the large group of undead. Dust and stones flew up and bits of flesh splashed everywhere. This had only made the zombies hesitate, while some were put down the number left made it seem insignificant. Kyuu and Whisper continued to hold back zombies, halting them shortly with bursts of flame and creating weak psychic barriers.

"Kyuu use Sunny Day!" Lachlan cried. Kyuu growled and then cried out. The sunlight seemed to rush down onto the area below, zombies cried out in pain as the sudden light blinded them for seconds. "Now Shiru and Kyuu, SOLARBEAM!" With a quick intake of the sunlight, Kyuu and Shiru both released large beams of light that shot through the horde; it didn't have the same effect as Terror's Hyper Beam but the light was sure to do something. Keda screeched and let out a ball of purple, Dragon Pulse. Lachlan nodded and stroked the dragon's head. She purred before turning back to the horde.

"Shade, confuse any that get through Kyuu and Whisper, okay?" Lachlan asked, the little gremlin still hanging onto his shoulder. Shade nodded and raised itself to stand on Lachlan's shoulder.

Lachlan hoped they would all be alright.

 

[_Diego//]

Average, ordinary, every day superhero

Bang. Click. Bang. Click.

After one second of mental preparation and an instinctive flexing of the muscles, Balthazar raised his foot to the top of a pile of rubbish, lifted his arms, and began shooting. The sound of pellets firing, seconded by the click of the shotgun's pump after each shot, was rhythmical, almost melodic. But not like Balthazar could notice. To the male, the world closed up on him, and the universe weighed his shoulder. For once, all of his senses were blocked; all except sight and touch. His vision field expanded as he put his sunglasses away, and his fingers became nimbler with a stretch. He knew that the other survivors were talking to him, mentioning a couple of things, but all he heard was gibberish. His hearing had been shut down. He needed no distraction. The only thing that could bother him was the cold sweat drop running down his spine.

The dubious amounts of approaching zombies was disturbing. Alone, Balthazar could've in no way handled them. His shotgun hit the front row of incoming undead, knocking the targets out of place most of the time. Bigger creatures, though, –namely things like Charizard, Magmortar, Granbull, or Swampert–, seemed unaffected because of the distance. But that was no trouble. Here and there, projectiles from the other survivors, along with attacks from various Pokémon, delivered a raining death to the zombies. To Balthazar's eyes, they were just killing the bad guys. But deep in his mind he almost felt sorry for all those Zombified Pokémon. Ones who, according to his dad, only died because of the humans' fate. But mourning was of no use, and after a reload, Balthazar continued to shoot wildly. Zero and Marc were at his sides, shooting fierce balls of fire and water while random Lava Plumes and Hyper Beams raged from the house and to the horde.

(…)

On another side of town, at a mere distance from the Route 1's entrance, Ike the Slowking and Dynasty the Ryhorn were waiting for a time to approach. Blatantly, Ike found no survivors, and he was feeling bad about having to report that to Balthazar. His angst ebbed, however, when he saw –from a distance– that Balthazar had already found 5 survivors.

"No wonder we didn't find any, Dynasty." The Slowking said as he looked down to the Rhyhorn he was mounted on. "Bal already rounded any form of life in this stinky town."

The pair of Pokémon stared from behind bushes how the angry stampede of zombies rushed into the city, gap of only a couple of feet being found between each little group. That various colors and shapes made it look like a shooting rainbow of death. After some minutes, Ike said: "Hey, Dynasty! C'mon, let's help Balthazar; go!"

Dynasty stood up on his two hind legs and let out a loud cry before stomping the ground with his front legs and running towards the horde. Out of a side, the Rhyhorn pierced in, throwing out many zombies up into the air as he came out on the other side and then hurried with Balthazar, dropping Ike next to him and preparing to fight. Ike said nothing, for he knew how concentrated Balthazar was in these times, and began to attack with psychic and water attacks.

The minutes passed, and the zombies were gaining ground on the survivors. Yes, the largest ones were being held back, but other smaller small ones niftily found a way to leak in closer to the house. Some survivors were taking care of that while others continued to attack the wave. Balthazar was surprised. These people were actually of some help! Any other survivors he had found before were generic distressed beings, ones that were usually rendered as useless. It was good.

After a couple of minutes, Balthazar broke his own advice of standing your ground and gave a small leap outside. He removed the strap from his shoulder and flipped it around in one quick move, taking the weapon by the barrel and preparing to strike with the butt of it. With a mischievous grin, Balthazar began attacking as if his gun were a sword, hacking anything that approached. It was awesome. Subconsciously, he was stating to everyone his sense of leadership by demonstrating a complete lack of any sort of fear to death or peril. The coolest thing happened when a Voltorb rolled over to Balthazar, body engulfed in a white light and ready to explode, and Balthazar launched him using his gun as a golf club. The Voltorb was blasted past many trees, and only an explosion marked Voltorb's doom. Balthazar smiled before kneeling down and continuing to shoot from his spot.

Minutes passed, and Balthazar only had one cartridge left, and at least another lethal wave of zombies was approaching. Pokémon were beginning to grow tired of the continuous attacking. For the first time in his life, Balthazar felt like he was actually endangered. His eyes widened and his breath became harsh as he turned around and jumped back into the house. Warily, he turned around and pulled out his knife, ready to strike. Deep in his mind, however, he feared for his life; especially when he saw a huge Snorlax approaching.

Balthazar withdrew all of his Pokémon and simply stared, but suddenly, a move that quickly turned the board occurred.

"YEEEEEEEHAAAWWW!!"

What was once the horde of zombies that were going to kill all of the Pallet Town survivors was quickly turned into one big mesh of flying organs when two explosions finished all of them. Balthazar sheltered himself in a piece of roof as various intestines and blood redecorated most of Pallet Town. As the smoke of the explosions dissipated, two familiar figures walked into Pallet Town, along with a girl of blonde hair. At this very sight, Balthazar grinned and rushed towards them, not caring about the disturbing sound his combat boots made every time they squished the insides of corpses.

"Tyson, you bastard! Why didn't you tell me you where coming?"

Yes, the leading figure, one that immediately discarded his used rocket launcher as Bal approached, was the renamed Ty Blarred, one of La Resistencia's heads. Ty was a man that matched Balthazar's height, but he out-muscled him by a lot. Ty had been with the military, a bodybuilder, and a bodyguard before the Outbreak, and his shape was too massive and healthy for a man 40-something. He had long, shaggy, dirty blond hair that reached his eyes, as well as a badly trimmed beard of the same color. Dark brown eyes and crooked teeth gave Ty even a rowdier appearance. He wore a zipped denim vest with no shirt below that, denim jeans, and a cowboy hat and boots. Next to him was another male, a La Resistencia grunt who only stayed back while Ty talked with Balthazar, a female forcefully held in his hand. They ignored for a bit.

"That ain't no way to be greetin me, Balthazar! Specially not after I saved yer skinny a— back there!" Tyson said, his thick accent being obvious. He let out a friendly laugh as he shared a handshake with Bal.

"Thanks, man, I don't know what I would've done. These creeps were closing up on us."

"That'd be nuthin' to worry 'bout. Hey Bal-boy, I see you alredy found yourself a good and a-plentiful batch of kids over there!" Tyson remarked as he pointed at the group of survivors, most of where already walking out of the house, checking the surroundings, or approaching Balthazar at once.
"Yes," the male said happily and with a voice full of pride, "they helped out fighting the zombie horde, and I didn't really have any trouble finding. We should escort them to Pewter City Base as soon as possible."

Tyson let out a loud, sarcastic laugh before speaking. "We, boy? No, no, you're escorting them! Chives back there and myself have some pending business somewhere else, it's still yer mission to take 'em kids to the Pewter Museum. Not only them, actually, but I here be handin' ya this survivor I found in Viridian." Ty then let go of the female he was holding, almost giving her a small push towards Balthazar. Tyson had no sense of hospitality or respect for other humans, unlike Balthazar, who had a slight amount of it.

"Sheesh, Ty, no need to be tough." Balthazar said as he put his hand on the girl's shoulder, preventing any further loss of balance.

—"I've set up a small check point in that ol' RV trailer in Viridian. You kid should go stock up there before headin' up to the Forest, I heard it's a tough place up thar'."
—"Will do, Tyson."
—"Roger. Take care, kid; I want you and this people in Pewter healthy. We shall meet there."

After a handshake, Tyson let out his Rapidash and galloped away, disappearing in the thickness of the trees. The other guy let out a Dodrio and followed. Balthazar let out one deep breath before exchanging an estranged glance with the recently delivered newcomer. Expressing no emotion whatsoever, no sneer or no smile, Balthazar took a step closer into Route 1.

"Listen up, people!" Balthazar yelled as he put his sunglasses back on and let out one shot up into the air. He didn't even bother looking back to see if the 6 survivors were paying attention. "I need you to follow me. And stay close."

Balthazar put his shotgun down and then began a calm walk through Route 1. Route 1 was completely ravaged because of the recent horde, but also because of that, it was clear of zombies. It resembled Pallet Town, with dead flowers and all, except no buildings. Just some seconds into the route, Balthazar spoke again, never even caring to stop walking or turning back. He didn't care if they were following. He had given orders, and he expected them to be followed.

"My name," he broke the silence, "is Balthazar. Balthazar Daint. That's Balthazar for all of you. In case you don't know, I'm a member of La Resistencia, a group of survivors in Kanto; and I was sent here to Pallet Town to look for any form of life. Now that I've found you, I have to take you to Pewter City, from where you will be carried to Cinnabar Island to begin a new way of life. There's only one rule while you're with me, do as I say."

With a scoff, Balthazar cleared his throat and continued to walk. He didn't care if the survivors were tired, he didn't care if they were hurt. He just wanted to be through this quickly. Why bother asking for names? Why even bother waiting? There was no reason, and because of that, Bal remained quiet, hoping they'd have a clear path to Viridian.

 

[jcogginsa]

To Aaron's disappointment, Blaze had not made a very big contribution to the fighting. He couldn't Get at any zombies to close to the house or he'd set it on fire, and he soon came under attack by other flying pokemon, which distracted him from taking out other zombies. He himself had gone to second floor of ther building, using his chain to attack anything with wings not preoccupied fighting Blaze. Empoleon was having a good time tearing through zombies with metal claw, the horde was definately showing signs of thinning out thanks to it.

He suddenly heard a thump to his left, and turned to see a Kabutops standing there. He assumed it had climbed up one of the intact walls to see if it could surprise those on the first floor by attacking from a direction they wouldn't expect. The Kabutops lunged at him, but he easily struck him in the side of the head with his chain, cracking its skull open and killing it. Aaron struck it again to be sure of it's demise.

While this was going on, Blaze was fighting another Charizard, who had the aid of a Honchkrow and a Swellow. Despite his obvious numerical disadvantage, He was fighting well, being much faster than his opponents. The Swellow, he decided, was the greatest threat to him because it was the fastest of the three. So he tricked it into going at top speed towards him, then hit it with a point blank Fire Blast. The Honchkrow was next, dying from the impact of a hundred foot fall after its wing was severed by a metal claw. Last was the Charizard, its skull caved in from a Fire Punch.

Empoleon was easily defeating anything that came at her. These zombies were nothing close to her level, and even if she didn't have years of experience fighting them they would only challenge her with their numbers. But she did have that experience and even the seemingly endless stream of zombies did not affect her. She could go on for at least thirty more minutes of constant combat before needing a rest.

It continued like this until the one with the shotgun's friends arrived and got the last of the zombies. He waited patiently until he was done talking with his pals and then listened to his words. He had several things to say to him but decided to wait to see if anyone else had things to say, no use giving up intel to others without gaining some for himself.