The Children Are Hunted

[Fuyu]

Ash and Zaria

Ash was not surprised when they appeared, but she did let concern rise over her. Zaria shuddered and went over, only to scramble back a second later. The Aura was disrupting the shadows. It was best not to get involved. Zoran remained blissfully unconscious, or... not blissfully. Ash could actually see the shadows in physical agony. Not even that lady's poison could do the damage Aura could to him. And his backlash is now really rearing its ugly head... Zora... She knelt between them and looked at Van first. "Van..." she began, almost inaudibly. "Recognize me, Ash, the resident lover of explosives? I'm going to see if I can heal your physical wounds. I can't do anything for your head or heart. But Zoran's right next to me and Winny's close too. They aren't going anywhere." She hesitated for only a second before adding. "Don't worry about Zora. It's not your fault, all of it was Theo, like it is. You're still his friend, he still cares about you. I know it. In his thoughts right now, I can hear it. He's in pain but he's worried about you." She released Kira as she spoke, letting him heal the fox.

Ash placed her hands gently over Zoran's head. His Aura, his life force, was desperately out of whack. Resynchronizing it would take a lot of effort but she could do it. Of course, if anyone interrupted, she would lose focus and possibly break him more. Riley growled a little and she smiled, closing her eyes and glowing blue.

Dora and Sparx

Sparx's eyes flashed and Vaporeon scrambled backwards, terrified. The Luxray fired a Thunderbolt and knocked the Water-type into a wall. She might have killed it. Dora didn't stay to find out as the lion hurried to her with Adler perching on her back. She teleported away, landing behind Marcus and Robby. Dora allowed herself a tiny moment of disdain at the sight of the unconscious Thomas before shaking her head.

"Shall we?" she asked hurriedly, wary of Theo trying to worm his way over.

Adler chirped excitedly. At least someone was having fun.

Day

Day heard it as well as Mare retreated. She was good at killing, not Pokemon battles. Floyd grabbed her by the back and caused her to fly over them to the Salamence. "Stop," she told it softly, wondering where its trainer was. "This is a stupid thing. Your human is wrong. I can't give up Poly."

Floyd let out a soft cry of agreement. "Day is not allowed to give up Poly," Day insisted. "You will hurt him more if Day gives him up. He will be caged up again and Day can't let that happen. Not to Poly or anybody else. We'll fight you if we have to." HEr tiny, determined expression spoke volumes.

 

[Dawn]

Kai reached the beach with Garet and eyed the combat going on. She was slightly hesitant to jump into the fray. Luckily she hadn't been asked to. Instead, she had been asked if she could get Espore out of there without fighting. On one hand, she didn't think even King could outrun a fully fledged warrior. They couldn't rely on running away. But what could they... An idea sprung to her. Shu could create illusions and Kimiko could /fly/. Surely they could do something with that, right? At least it didn't look like a Leafeon could fly after them. On the other hand... Perhaps relying on illusions was the safer bet. Kai responded in a matching whisper.

Kai (Bulbasaur): "I think so..."

she then turned to face Shu.

Kai (Bulbasaur): "Shu, do you think you could use your illusions to get that espeon over here without either of them noticing..?"

Shu paused for a moment before responding.

Shu (Yamask): "...Yes..."

Short and sweet, how typical. Shu proceeded to float at a downward angle so that he vanished beneath the sands. He silently considered how he felt deja vu over this. Cue emo angst. The real question was whether Espore himself would need to be dealt with, or the off chance that Leo mistakes him for an enemy. Regardless, Shu proceeded to use a modified version of night shade with more emphasis on illusions and less on agonizing headaches to create the illusion that there was a mound of sand where Espore was. Only Espore himself was spared the illusion. That is to say both the leafeon and Leo would see it. Next step was to rise up behind the illusion and try to haul Espore off. Hopefully the two combatants would be too preocupied with their fight to notice. Really though, why would a mound of sand on a beach attract attention? It wasn't like it vaguely resembled Arceus' face or something.

 

[Nideous]

Amber

Amber leapt back, beginning to glow again.

"If you had a mission and were surounded by hostile people, would you want to wait around and sip tea with them?" she countered. She fired a Solar Beam at close range, right at him.

Espore

Espore sat and watched the fight. He sensed the energy swirling about, and sensed Shu behind him.

"It's awfully rude to sneak up on people you know," he said, flicking his tail absently at the ghost. He stood up and looked at the combatetants. He supposed the ghost was here to get him away from Amber. He could sense Garet nearby. He cocntacted the Arcanine.

"You know it will be impossible to get rid of her now that she's found me, right? Why not bring her along?" Espore suggested. He looked at Garet to see what he had to say to that, keeping the connection open so he could answer back via telepathy.

Van

Van whimpered. He heard Ash's words, but wasn't sure anymore. It was his fault, all of it was his fault. He didn't know what he had done wrong, but he had. Clearly he had. He curled up into as small a ball as he could and put his tails over his head, lest anyone see him crying.

Draco and Winny

"What are you-" Draco began to ask, but Winny cut him off.

"Shut up idiot! You don't want her to get messed up too! I have no clue what she's doing, but it's got to be helping Zoran!" she said as she rested one hand on Van and held the other one raised, keeping the shield up and Draco out. It was pretty clear she did not trust him at all.

Zeal and Rena

"Like I care about my master being right or wrong. He told me to do something, I do it. Now hand over that pokeball..." Zeal said gruffly as he hovered in front of her. Rena's serpentine form flew up next to him. She looked from one to the other.

"Zeal... Be nice... Our trainer doesn't want her hurt..." she said softly as she hovered out between them.

Marcus and Robby

Marcus stopped a second before Dora appeared behind him.

"Robby, hold it." he said. Robby stopped and turned around, nearly knocking Thomas headfirst into a wall.

"What?" he asked. Marcus didn't need to answer, as Dora and the other pokemon teleported in after a half a second.

"That, it's time to leave. Bye Cynthia, take care of yourself!" Marcus said as he reached his hand back to grab Dora's so she could get them out of there.

 

[Fuyu]

Ash

There was no way Ash could try to convince Van that everything was okay. She knew all about guilt, over half the kinds. Zoran would probably be able to help him but not while he was screwed up. But...

"Van," she said quietly in his mind. "Crying is the last thing you want to do right now. I know it hurts, I know. If you messed up, well that's just fine and dandy. But you need to help me. You need to fix what you did, whatever it was. What is Zoran gonna think when he wakes up after his backlash and finds you a heartbroken mess? He's going to think he tried to kiil you or something and then where will we be? You've been caught in a Pokeball and been treated like pure crap. FOr all he knows, he helped. He's not gonna remember. So please. Just..." She thought for a moment, looking for some way the broken fox could do something. "Come over here. Be by his side. Be his friend. That's all I can ask of you."

She closed the link gently and let go of the Pokemon's mind. She centered herself back to Zoran, listening to the light jittering sound of his Aura pulse. It was erratic, weakened greatly. Ash smiled a little, kindly, her whole body covered in pale blue light. "Ha ha, this is so weird," she murmured, smiling a bit. "Usually you've been saving me Zoran. During this journey, I've had to save you. Guess we're even." Ash felt her Aura pulse, countering the erratic jittering below her. There was a jolt and she said nothing, carefully trying to manuever it to match hers; steady, calm, and soothing. Hopefully Van would catch on to what she needed him to do.

Zoran needed her to come back. He needed Van's help to stay here.

Mickey awoke suddenly, a miracle for someone operating on low power. "Ash!" She couldn't move to dodge the suddenly awake Psychic's throw. Alyss did, yanking the knife from the air and pocketing it. She tackled Brie to the ground, flying up and throwing feathers to stab into Sabrina's chest. Sabrina winced and leapt up to attack her, Alyss diving down to kick her aside. Sabrina coughed heavily and scowled.

Alyss dropped to the ground, dark hair falling over her face. "You were my friend," she said quietly, almost inaudibly. "But I will not let you or anyone else-" She swung her arm in an arc, wind sending her opponent skidding. "Hurt my family!"

Day

The girl shook her head, guessing at Zeal's growls. She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't give up Poly. Poly was her friend She had to protect him... Day set her expression, knowing that she was likely doomed if she tried to fight the two Dragons like this. Shaking her head, she clenched her fingers around another Pokeball. Wrapping her fingers around it, she hesitated. This was her brother's idea. She hated doing this. Dropping it, she bolted as the Pokemon opened to reveal a Golem, which promptly exploded in mid-air, falling unconscious on the ground. Xavier had wanted to release it anyway. Day skyrocketed into the sky with Floyd, her face pale and miserable as they flew. It was only temporary she knew, but there was no choice.

Dora

Cynthia waved as Dora teleported them away. Adler took to the air the second they were back, circling over the fighting girls with worry, crooning anxiously. Sparx growled and paced over to Mickey, watching the unconsicous Thomas warily. Dora was quiet, telepathically communicating to Zaria

 

[Garet]

At this range, Leo had probably a split second to dodge. Not quite enough time. The impact of Amber's SolarBeam was enough to send Leo flying backward a few yards. He hit the ground hard, lying still for a few seconds. Good thing I have some resistance, Leo thought, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "You're the one," he growled, trying to take deep breaths, "who asked if fighting...was all I knew."
Sensing no follow-up attack, Leo swept the immediate area with his Aura-sense. Garet and the Mapmakers had gotten here, it seems. "That's twice now I've been hit by a beam," the Lucario relayed to the Arcanine. "I hope you appreciate what I've been doing ever since you got me into this mess."

Short notice, and the Mapmakers had come up with something. Good. In response to Esper's suggestion, Garet replied, "And risk her finding out-- Nevermind. I don't want another member of the CTs' group to be forcefully torn away, not on my watch." He didn't mention that Esper had already been taken away from the CTs, one of which was supposedly messed up in some way. If he were to stick to what he had in mind, Garet would need the CTs to have as many friends around them as they could. The retort he hadn't finished had sprung from the thinking of an RDM Deviser.

"I'll try talking to her about it, though," Garet added to Esper. To Leo, he answered, "If everything that can, goes my way, then you'll have a chance for a break." This telepathy business was starting to give Garet a headache. To Kai, he whispered, "Good, on short notice. I suggest your main objective would be to get him out of here, with or without me."
The Arcanine stood up from his crouch and walked out into the open area. "Would you stay with Espore, even if it meant coming with us?" he called to the Leafeon. In his opinion, there were plenty of times when a person, or Pokemon, should be blunt. Hopefully, talking to the Leafeon would distract her long enough for Leo to get back up and get enough breath back.