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[ strong language ] :: [ moderate violence ]
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Some parts of this chapter may seem familiar to those who've read an old story I was associated with by the name of Storm Island. Truth be told, this was one of the first chapters I'd written of this story, which initially started out as a rewrite project of that story. That said, only one plot element should remain from that old story in this chapter, and it's been radically altered for the new characters and story around it.
Chapter 8: Clouds on the Horizon
June 12th
Crystal Bay, just outside of Silvermist Bluffs
"Hey, this looks like a good spot," Julia said, taking a moment to lean against the guardrail. "Pass me your binoculars, please?"
The two had stopped at an overlook in an effort to get their bearings as well as come up with a plan for the day -- despite her initial misgivings with completing Dr. van der Linde's contract, she'd been convinced it would be a good idea to do so, but ideally, she didn't want to spend all day on the task. With a bird's eye view of the area, she tried to plot a route around the area that might save her a bit of walking, and ultimately hoped that their vantage point would spare her the trek entirely, if she could spot any of the Frigitusks from where they were.
He stepped beside her and marvelled at the view before unhooking the binoculars from his backpack. "Wow, you're not kidding. Looks like you can see the whole south side of the bay from here. What an incredible view!"
With the binoculars raised to her eyes, she started scanning the lengthy beaches and sandbars in the area. She was surprised that the beaches in the area weren't crowded, but at least it would make searching for their quarry a bit simpler. Unfortunately, nothing of particular note stood out -- there were flocks of Wingulls, Pellipers and Windrifts congregating on the beaches, as well as small groupings of Deerlings foraging amongst the tall beach grass. Far in the distance, on one of the sandbars, she spotted a Walrein surrounded by what she assumed were the Frigitusks that Dr. van der Linde had talked about: blubbery seal-like creatures with a trio of horns sprouting from their brows and snout.
"I think I see some!" she exclaimed. "Dr. van der Linde said they had horns, right? Big blubbery blue things?"
"Yup."
"Mmk," she said, making a mental count of them. "Five are hanging out with a Walrein on that sandbar out there. But that's about all I see..."
"Hmm. Not seeing many people out here to spook them away, either," he commented, leaning over the railing as he peered down the cliff below them. "Maybe they haven't made it to this side of the Mainland yet?"
"I dunno," she quipped, focusing on the people along the beach. "I see a mom and her
very energetic kids, I'd probably high tail it if those little snotnoses were making so much noise around me. Looks like a pair of backpacker ladies out there, too, but I doubt those two'd be too much of a bother for them." She paused, and after a few more seconds of scanning, she continued, "Huh. When I made my gracious exit, did you two discuss the matter much afterward?"
"Not really. We talked about you more than anything."
She exhaled sharply with mild annoyance. "She said herds had been spotted in other places, but didn't mention how big they were, did she? When I think herds, I think Walrein herds: 20 or more. This place is a ghost town compared to that."
"Yeah... How about we go down there and investigate? From up here, we don't have a line of sight on quite a few spots thanks to all the limestone towers around here."
She scrunched her lips together in thought as she lowered the binoculars. "Sure, guess I'm getting my steps in today, too."
"Ha! I'll try to go easy on ya today."
. - = ( ○ ) = - .
As they made their way down the hewn stone stairs towards the sandy strands, the two discussed the benefits and the challenges of pokémon ownership. Her primary concern was tied to the problem that had plagued her for the past year: would she even be able to afford it at the start of her career, when she had no personal savings to invest with? What did healthcare costs for pokémon look like? How often would she have to pay out of her own pocket for meals for her pokémon? What other hidden expenditures might there be that she hadn't accounted for when she did her initial reading on the career? Potential costs of pokéball maintenance entered her mind, as did replacing the worn-and-torn gear that she would use while on the road.
He reassured her that most healthcare costs for pokémon were subsidized by the Storm League. Basic care and fitness checkups were entirely free, while emergency surgery for critical injuries were mostly covered for trainers registered with the league. He lamented the fact that such medical subsidization wasn't extended towards trainers themselves, like it tended to be in most overseas countries, and admitted he felt a little bit vulnerable thanks to that reality.
"As far as feeding your new pokémon, well, luckily you've picked up two that don't really require that," he added. "Baybree should be fine grazing on the grass when you're out in the countryside, and I'm sure your dad will be happy he won't have to mow the lawn anymore when you're home. And when you let Gale out to stretch her wings? If you're anywhere near the sea, or even some of the lakes, she can find her own dinner."
"Is that a good idea?" she asked as she studied Gale's pokéball. "Letting something like Gale go unsupervised, I mean. What's the likelihood she just takes off and never comes back? I just captured her, surely she wants her freedom back."
"Very unlikely, that's not really a thing. Most species, which I'm sure includes something like a Windrift, value strength and respect those who can best them in combat. And those that don't, well... Pokéballs usually 'fix' that during the capture process."
Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach took a dive. "Yikes, don't like the sound of that."
"Mmm," he hummed with a grumble. "Yeah. But you have to hold your nose sometimes when you become a trainer. But if that troubles you, you can soothe your conscience with this knowledge: pokémon are deeply competitive, social creatures and quickly develop bonds with their trainers. And if you're a good trainer, you give them a better life than what they'd experience out in the wild -- opportunity for personal growth, the ability to grow stronger, hopefully a more balanced diet and medical care. That kind of stuff. What they lose in terms of absolute personal freedom, they trade for all of that."
"Hmm. I guess. Hopefully it's something I can live with, or this will be an even shorter career than when I worked at Whale Tales."
He smiled. "Oh yeah? A girl like you, working at Whale Tales? What was it like?"
"Awful! I came home smelling like fish every day, and covered in gunk from handling the bait! And all those gruff fishermen who came ashore after weeks out at sea, inviting me back to the docks..." She crossed her eyes, stuck her tongue out and hissed lightly in displeasure. "I can't tell which was more gross!"
"Ha, yeah, I can see how that'd get old quickly."
She returned the ball to her belt and added, "Very quickly. I was only there for four days."
"We'll just have to make sure you last at least five days as a contractor, then!"
"Hopefully! I've already kinda committed with catching these two, and with how much you've spent on me already..."
Their new vantage point at sea level restricted their ability to see, but was ultimately beneficial; Crystal Bay was characterized by dozens of vegetated tower karsts that jutted from the sandy beaches or straight from the water. Some were short and squat and others tall and seemingly on the verge of collapse, but all of them offered a place to hide for the local wildlife, and upon rounding the first one, they discovered that applied to Frigitusks, as well as their companion Walreins.
"Let's see, that's three more for a total of eight so far..." Julia started as she made a mental note of their findings. "Hardly the makings of a large herd, right?"
"Mmm... You were right before," Rickard answered back, his nose buried in his phone. "According to PikaPedia, herd sizes for Frigitusks typically range in number from 20 to 40 while they're migrating across the isles of the Atalacian. Oh, wow! Wanna know how big they get up in the ice reefs?"
"Tell me."
"Anywhere between 1000 and 2000."
"Good glory above! How does the ecosystem in a frozen hellscape like that support that many?"
He shrugged. "Maybe there's lots of fish up that way, though I don't know where the fish would find their own food in an
ice reef of all places."
She lingered behind while Rickard continued onto the next spire, cautiously gawking at the large creatures. Despite the ambient heat of the area, the triple horns of the Frigitusk seemed to live up to their name -- each horn on each member of the group was coated in a thick layer of ice that showed only minimal signs of melting away. As she gingerly approached, the Frigitusks seemed to be terrified of her and scampered away a considerable distance before turning back to stare at her. "Huh, what'd that mean old doctor say? Aren't they supposed to be bold and fearless during mating season? Wonder why they're so scared..."
"Oi! I'd be careful!" Rickard called back. "C'mere!"
She pushed herself back upright and rushed towards Rickard.
"It's a bad idea to approach a wild pokémon that closely without your own called out to protect you. You might be used to getting close to them while you're in the city, but those are usually well-trained ones, or at least ones that are used to interacting with humans most days."
"Yeah. I don't know what I was thinking, sorry." Grisly mental images of her being impaled by the frozen horns or gored by the massive tusks of the creatures flashed in her mind and caused her to shiver. "I'll definitely keep my distance now."
Their journey around the spires took them across sandy beaches, through ankle deep water and into the salty tide pools that the area was famous for, but their search was for the most part fruitless; after having inspected the shade beneath six of the spires, they'd only found two more Frigitusks, both of which shied away from them and ran away when they got closer.
"Hmm. I think this is a good time to call out Gale," he said. "Might not be a bad idea to split up a little bit -- she can explore the islands out there and see if there are any, while we can go across the bay and check the tide pools over there."
"Across the bay?" she asked, almost complaining. "Aren't we going to have to climb back up the cliffs to get over there? I'd rather only do that once, to get back into the city."
"Nah. I've got a neat idea you'll like."
A few seconds passed by as she waited for him to explain what this idea was, but he simply stood in silence, inspecting the coastline across the bay. Figuring she wasn't going to get an answer, she reached for her belt and grabbed one of her pokéballs from it. With a gentle toss into the air, the ball burst open with a shower of falling leaves, summoning Baybree. "Oh, oops! Heh, uhh."
Rickard turned around and snickered.
"Sorry, get back in there," she softly said as she quickly recalled Baybree, then replaced his pokéball with Gale's. "That's a thing -- is there any way to help me remember who is in which pokeball? It could cause problems if I grab the wrong one at the wrong time..."
"If you remember to keep them in the same spot on your belt, it becomes muscle memory after a while -- but if you want something visual to set them apart, we can get you a sticker pack when we get back into town. Or if you'd like, I can get you a differently designed pokéball to put one of them in. I brought a couple with me from Lanark, but I left them back at home."
She watched as her Windrift waddled around the slick rocks, exploring her new surroundings. Gale splashed around in the tide pool and squawked happily as she extended her wings and flapped them, then started to dart around in circles like a rambunctious child. "Gale!" she called out, catching the Windrift's attention. "Gale! Yes, that's your new name. How do you like it?"
Once more, energetic flapping preceded a mirthful song.
"Okay, so. Me and Rickard -- uhh, that's that guy over there -- are trying to get a feel for how many Frigitusks are in the area around here. So far, we've found ten."
"There's probably more out on those islands, but we wanna know for certain before we head out there," Rickard added.
"Right, would you be able to do a little scouting for us and tell us which islands have Frigitusks on their shores?"
Gale nodded her head forward with a forceful swing.
"Awesome! I'd be grateful if you could do that for me."
Gale let loose a shrill honk before dashing towards the water and taking off for her scouting mission.
"So, umm. Knowing if there are herds of Frigitusk on the other islands is nice and all, but... How are we going to get to them to make a final count? I doubt Gale will be able to give us specifics. And if we're going to go over there and investigate ourselves, well..." She grabbed the hem of her skirt and lifted it slightly before letting it fall back down. "I'm not exactly dressed for a swim, so I hope you have a plan!"
"I can take care of it, don't worry."
"With what? As I was going over your pokémon collection earlier, the only thing that stood out as capable of crossing water was your... Bramblemurk, was it?"
"Bramblemire."
"Yeah, that. Didn't you say it's covered in venomous barbs? We can't ride that thing!"
"Nah, we're doing something else. Looks like this spot is as good as any to do it." He reached for his belt and grabbed the Master Ball that hung from it, then pressed the button on it and tossed it forward.
Accompanied by a heavy, billowing fog, a bitter chill radiated from the ball. As the fog faded, a white draconic creature stood tall, towering over her at a height of at least 8 feet tall. She immediately recognized it as a Charizard, but it also wasn't; not only was it remarkably larger, it lacked the singular identifying feature of a Charizard, the flaming tail. Instead, the tip of the tail was coated in a chunk of ice, flanked by several rows of icicles.
"Oh! Wow! Holy! This is so cool!" she shouted with giddy glee as the creature lowered its head and started sniffing her extended hand with a frigid, growly breath. "This is your Glacizard, isn't it?!"
"Yup! He'll help us get across the water if we need to visit the other islands."
"Really? Can he carry two people as he flies?"
He shook his head. "Unfortunately not. Rime's too much of a big lad to fly -- Glacizards are heavier than Charizards, but their wings aren't adapted to their new weight. They can't fly at all. The best they can do is glide, and even that they're not great at."
"Then how --"
"Hey Rime!" he called out, pointing across the bay. "Julia and I want to save a bit of time and legwork as we explore the area. Mind helping us get over there?"
Rime shaded his eyes from the sunny sky with his hand before brushing past the two. At the water's edge, he deeply inhaled and let loose a foggy breath that froze the seawater solid upon contact, then stepped onto the ice and continued, forging a straight line across the placid water of the inlet.
"Woooah..." Julia marvelled. She took a few steps towards the frozen bridge before freezing in her tracks as Rickard called out:
"Hold on! Not yet. You ever walk on ice before?" he asked.
She kicked the tip of her boot against the ice, shaving a small amount of it off. "I don't think I've even seen ice outside of a drink, come to think of it."
"It's gonna be slippery, so give him a minute," he said before cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting, "Hey! Rime! Come back and give us some stable footing, would ya?"
Rime ceased his bridge-building effort and returned ashore. Once again, he took a deep breath, but this time kept his claws in close proximity to his mouth as he exhaled sharply; the fog rapidly transformed into a blustery cloud of white snow, depositing gently onto the surface of the ice.
"There ya go!" Rickard exclaimed as he took a step onto the tightly packed snow, completely safe from slipping on the ice.
She stared blankly at the sight before her. It was indeed true that she'd never seen ice in such a manner, let alone snow. At the edge of the bridge, she dropped to her knees and raked her fingers across it before gathering some up in her hand. "Wow, colder than I expected!" she said before dropping it almost as quickly, with a painful numbness starting to set in.
"Yeah, the ice and snow he makes is well below zero, so try not to touch it too much. And watch your step, he's not the greatest at creating a consistent coating of snow yet -- it'll likely still be a little slippery in parts."
As she carefully crossed the makeshift bridge, she asked, "How long is this ice going to last?"
"Hmm. Five, ten minutes? It's pretty warm out here compared to when we usually do this out on Loch Alstan -- that stuff usually lasts closer to twenty."
. - = ( ○ ) = - .
Across the bay and into the eastern end of the tide pools, they were having even less luck with their search; though they'd spotted a few Frigitusks before making the journey across the waves, they seemed to be completely absent now. And it wasn't just their absence that concerned Julia.
"Where
is everything? Everyone? Usually beaches like this are either crowded with people, or pokémon, but there's... so little here."
"Do keep in mind, it is a week day. Lot of people are probably at work," Rickard theorized.
"Mmm. I dunno. Back when I worked at that jewelry shop, I'd always be looking out the windows and get jealous of the people who were on the beach -- lots of them, even on weekdays."
"Pretty sure Silvermist has a quarter of the population, too," he added.
"Maybe that might explain it... That makes me think, though: are we sitting ducks for a rapidly moving stormfront or something? I didn't even look at the weather forecast, and that might be why no one's out here."
"Nah, I looked before we left. Other than a wind advisory, weather's gonna be clear until late tonight," he said as he scanned the western sky. "I get what you mean, though. I don't like how quiet it is out here. Usually you run into at least a few people as you move about your business."
During their exploration of the area, they circled several of the karsts in the hopes of finding any skittish Frigitusks, but all they could find was the extremely diverse sea life that had made temporary homes in the tide pools. From Staryus to Corsolas, Binacles to Crustles and Krabbies to Corphish, they were all interesting sights to Julia, but meaningless to the task at hand. With her enthusiasm starting to fade, she suggested they start making their way back towards the cliffs and call it a day.
"We should probably stay down here for a bit and wait for Gale to come back," he said.
She sighed before looking for a place to sit that wouldn't get her skirt wet. "Yeah, I guess. Bit of a bust today, huh? What'd we find, fourteen?"
He nodded. "Yeah, bit of a disappointment. The way Faith made it sound, they've been spotted in the dozens in other areas across the east coast."
She patted down as many surfaces as she could to check for moisture before finally huffing with annoyance. "Ugh! I can't find anywhere to sit around here... Are you sure Gale won't be able to find us if we get a little closer to the way back up?"
"If it would please the princess," he said with a bow.
"Hey, don't be a smartass now." He snickered, then followed her lead, and after just a few seconds into their walk towards the cliffs, Julia pointed out, "Hey look, it's those two backpackers that I saw when we were up on the cliff. Think they might have some useful information for us? Maybe they've seen some of the Frigitusks."
"No harm in asking," he said.
No more than a minute passed before they both said in almost perfect unison, "Wait a sec..."
They watched as one of the backpackers pointed in the direction of one of the spires; behind her, a small blue creature covered in cotton-like sprouts lifted off and took flight on the wind. As the creature carelessly and slowly drifted behind the spire, a pair of Frigitusks appeared from behind it and scampered away in a panic, and when the blue creature entered their line of sight again, they saw that it was releasing a massive cloud of glittery dust as it flew over them. Very quickly, it was evident that the dust was likely a batch of stun spores, as both Frigitusks succumbed to the effects of it and flopped over motionlessly. With the Frigitusks incapacitated, both of the backpackers took aim and tossed pokéballs at them.
"That... doesn't look right..." Rickard said as he watched the backpackers pick the pokéballs back up. "Tell me there are god damned poachers out here..."
"I hope not," Julia added. "But you're the training expert, does that look like poachers? Cause that's what it looks like to me..."
"Let's pick up the pace a little bit -- and be ready for a confrontation."
"Huh?" she asked, being left behind as his pace quickened. "H-hey, hold on! What do you mean a confrontation?"
"We're putting a stop to them before they hurt anything else."
"Isn't this the job of the Crown Rangers?" she protested.
He stopped and turned to her, his voice raised perhaps a little too high. "You see any game wardens out here!? Sometimes you have to step up when no one else can, or even will."
She groaned, but kept close to him. He'd been a trainer for five years, and was brashly confident in everything he did -- ccnfidence backed up with a long list of professional achievements; surely he knew what he was doing, right?
The two trailed the suspected poachers for several minutes as they crossed the tide pools towards another one of the limestone karsts. Just like before, the pair stopped in their tracks when they spotted a small group of Frigitusks, and one made a motion towards the herd. Behind her, a massive murky cloud of black smoke coalesced and blew in the direction she pointed at, a pair of disembodied claws trailing behind it. With the ominous cloud closing in on them, the Frigitusk herd scattered in a wild panic; before they could get far, the cloud rapidly enveloped the slowest Frigitusk. Within seconds, after flailing with panic, the cloud emerged from the defeated Frigitusk and rushed after another.
"What the..." Rickard gawked.
"H-ho-holy shit! What the fuck was that?!"
"Pretty sure that's a Haunter, and they're tricky things to take on. That blue thing? That's a Jumpluff -- I need you to call on Baybree and focus on that. I'll take on the Haunter, then we can put a stop to these two."
"Uhhh, are you sure about this?"
"Don't worry, we've got this. Kinda been wanting to show how good I am as a trainer, anyways." Without conferring with her, he rushed forward with a burst of speed, maintaining his footing against the slippery stone beneath him. "Hey Pinkie!" he called out, referring to one of the poachers' pink hair. "What are you two up to? You got a license for catching that many pokémon?"
"Ehh?" The taller of the two backpackers, a woman clad in bulky black clothing, turned around and fixed a piercing glare on Rickard. For the briefest of moments, a look of concern crossed her face, only for her cold, steely glare to return. "Hey. Black Rose. We might got trouble over here."
The other, immediately perking up upon hearing the name Black Rose, turned around as well. She made a motion towards the Jumpluff, which ceased its floating and bounced beside her.
"The fuck business of yours is it?" The pink-haired poacher flicked her head lightly in the direction of the city. "Get outta here, jackass, we ain't got time for you."
"If you're out here victimizing innocent --"
As the two were escalating their words in both intensity and volume, Julia studied the two poachers a little more closely, figuring she would have to file a police report and make a witness statement of some sort. She first focused on the one who responded to the name Black Rose -- an early-30s-looking woman with a commanding presence that seemed to be in charge of whatever they were doing, despite the other's vicious bulldog personality. Black Rose was remarkably plain looking: no makeup, no piercings or other jewelry, and her blonde wavy hair was tied into a boring and loose ponytail. Despite the heat of the day, very little of her skin was exposed, and she wore a baseball cap that was angled down to obscure her face. How she was going to describe the woman to police, she wasn't sure -- blonde, brown-eyed, pale skin and a simple pair of jeans and white blouse combo didn't narrow down a list of suspects by any reasonable measure, though the name 'Black Rose' could potentially be of incredible value to investigators.
The other woman was a bit more flashy looking. She took note of the woman's shoulder-length pink hair, the numerous piercings on her eyebrows, nose, lips, ears and even tongue, as well as her size: the suspected poacher was significantly taller than her, almost as tall as Rickard, and she was quite curvy, with pale, doughy skin. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was something familiar about this woman; her purposely-broken manner of speaking and intonation rang some bells from people she'd met in the past, but her deep voice was totally unfamiliar, and a face littered with metal and thick emo makeup made it difficult to know for sure.
The pink-haired poacher reached for the buttons of her jacket and started to undo them. Julia feared that she might be pulling a weapon of some sort, but rather than escalate that far, the woman simply removed the jacket and dropped it to the ground, then turned to show her back towards the two. The woman's charcoal gray racerback sports bra partially obscured it, but her back, upper left arm and full right arm were completely covered in an intricate set of tattoos that depicted a Haunter emerging from swirling clouds of cyan and pink smoke. At the base of her back was a narrow scroll that was decorated with intricately designed lettering, spelling out an unknown phrase that was clearly Romatti in origin: '
NOS TE OCCIDERE'.
"You'll back the fuck off if you know what's good for you!" the woman warned.
"Spooky looking ghost!" Rickard studied the tattoo for a brief moment before turning to Julia. "Didn't the guys in your ninja movies have tattoos like that?"
She tugged on Rickard and pulled him backward. "Dude, we have to leave, now! This girl, and probably her friend, are Syndicate."
He scoffed and wrestled his shoulder out of her grip. "Syndicate? What, those two-bit suit-wearing protection racket guys from up north?" He turned to address the two, Anya's spiderweb-topped Goth Ball in his hand. "Clear out, before I make you."
"Rickard, no, please," she pleaded. "Syndicate aren't two-bit, they're --"
"The fuck you say?" the pink-haired poacher roared before landing a quick sucker punch on Rickard's jaw.
Julia acted quickly and caught him as he stumbled backward. "You okay?"
Rickard rubbed at his sore jaw with his empty hand as he dropped the Goth Ball to the ground. The ball burst open and summoned Anya beside them with an eerie howl before he answered, "I was gonna let 'em walk, maybe rethink their lives. Not anymore. Grab your phone and call the cops."
"Nera!" the pink-haired poacher called out. The ominous clawed fog that had been attacking the Frigitusks congealed behind her, a twisted, otherworldly face half-formed amidst the black smoke. "Nos te occidere!"
Julia cowered and backed away as the black cloud started to grow in size, clawing at the pocket of her skirt with panic. "Fuck me... This is bad..." With her phone in hand, she dialed the emergency services number, only to have her ear blasted by loud static. She lowered it to inspect the screen, finding it littered with similar static. "What the hell? Ugh, phone chose a great time to break!"
Without orders, Anya immediately took action against the Haunter; with her psychic powers, she formed an invisible barrier and pushed it against the Haunter, causing its cloud-like body to squash flat. With a set of somatic gestures, she guided the barrier downward towards the ground, crashing it hard enough against the tide pool to squeeze the water out through the sides, trapping the Haunter inside a dome-like forcefield. The cloud inside rapidly dissipated, then started to leak like steam from the rocks around it.
"Uh oh," Anya quipped before shattering the once-invisible barrier into hundreds of refractive shards. "Forgot that ghosts can do that..."
"Can you encapsulate it fully?" Rickard asked.
"Uhh," she flinched before quickly shielding herself from the Haunter's rending claws with yet another invisible barrier. "If I could bloody concentrate, maybe!"
Meanwhile, Julia had already called upon Baybree to help assist Rickard. Since it was her first real battle with high stakes -- at least higher than losing a side of fries -- she wasn't quite sure what to do. Rickard suggested she and Baybree focus on the Jumpluff, but she could tell it would be a difficult job; just by observing from afar, and getting a better look at it up close, its ability to hover in mid air and turn abruptly when the situation called for it made it a much more agile target for Baybree to deal with than Gale was.
"Just do what you did before, Baybree, try to grab a hold of it with your vines. Might be tough, that thing looks pretty mobile..."
Baybree hopped toward the Jumpluff, which had been floating lazily back and forth, watching the scrap between Nera the Haunter and Anya. With Baybree rapidly approaching, its lazy back and forth floating switched to intense darting in jerky, unpredictable motions. Baybree lashed out repeatedly with one of his vines but failed to connect.
"Thought so, hmm..."
Despite his initial failure, Baybree tried again with both vines. At first, the Jumpluff seemed disinterested in retaliating, opting to fly to the other side of the battlefield and observe the fight between the Rockibelle and the Haunter, but continued harassment by Baybree evidently changed its mind; it rose to a high height, then made a bombing run in Baybree's direction, sending a flurry of sharp leaves in his direction.
The leaves cut through the long silky grass that covered him before bouncing off of his body. The low trajectory the Jumpluff took with its attack clearly left it vulnerable to Baybree's vines, and she encouraged him to try grabbing ahold of it yet again as it circled around for another dive. Tried as he might, he just couldn't make contact with his vines; at the last second, the Jumpluff would dodge out of the way with an almost unnatural speed that seemed to violate the laws of physics.
"What the..."
Another shower of razor leaves cut through his grass coating, and he obviously felt the pain that time.
"This isn't working, Rick, what do I do?! Baybree's a sitting duck!"
"Uhh," he said as he stepped beside her to observe the Jumpluff's erratic movements. "Other than Anya, I don't... really have anything that can deal with mobility like that, other than Bolt. But we can't use him here with all this water around."
"Great... So let's cut our losses and run, this isn't our problem!"
"Nah, once Anya deals with this Haunter, that thing'll be toast. Just give her a little time."
"Jumpi!" Black Rose called out, hands cupped around her mouth. "Ardente polvere!"
She watched as the Jumpluff raised high into the sky, well beyond Baybree's reach. The diminutive creature's movements ceased as it baked in the rays of the sun, and as it did so, the three puffs of fluffy cotton that sprouted from its body began to glow with a harsh golden light. With them reaching a blinding level of brightness, the Jumpluff rocketed back towards the ground in a swooping arc, and as it pulled back up to avoid a collision with the ground, it unleashed a whirling torrent of glittering spores.
"Shit, watch yourself! Looks like Burn Spores!" Rickard called out as he tried his best to dance around the blizzard of glowing dust. One of the spores made contact with his hand, causing him to shout with pain before dropping to his knees and plunging it into the tide pool.
Baybree suffered the brunt of the attack, being coated from head to toe by the Burn Spores -- within seconds, the thin, long grass of his coat had started smoking before bursting into flames, sending him in circles around the battlefield with panic. Julia was initially shocked by the sight and hesitated a brief few seconds before recalling him into his pokéball -- whether that would spare him the pain or even put him out, she didn't know.
He grumbled with frustration and inspected his hand as Anya and the Haunter battled for dominance. "Hmm, hate to say it, but you might be right, we might have to get out of here. Anya!"
Just as he raised Anya's Goth Ball to recall her, the cavalry had arrived; coming in from the south, Gale rocketed above the battlefield and aimed straight for the Jumpluff. Rather than make direct physical contact, Gale instead veered off to the side at the last second, trapping it in a squall that sent it tumbling far into the distance.
"Ey, how about that timing? That takes a lot off my mind!" Rickard triumphantly said, watching the Jumpluff sail straight into the distance, completely unable to regain control. "Okay, Anya, let's finish this! Maybe Gale can do the same thing with this Haunter!"
Gale made a quick turn back towards the battlefield, causing a curious phenomenon: as she turned, clouds flashed in and out of existence at the base of her wings, seemingly powering her extremely sharp turn radius. Within seconds, she'd already locked onto the Haunter and started flying towards it like a missile in heavy burn, yet again leaving a trail of short-lived clouds in her wake.
"Good glory these things are fast!" Julia shouted as Gale collided with the blackened cloud and flew right through it. The sharp tailwind that followed her hit the Haunter next, blowing a majority of its smoky body away, leaving a glinting gemstone suspended in midair. "What's that thing?" she asked.
"That's the heart of a Haunter -- the source of its power. Ever hear of a phylactery?"
"A what-ery?"
"Never mind -- Anya! Now's your chance! Seal that thing off!"
Anya extended her fingers and then arched them tightly, squeezing the air between her hands as a shimmering orb of energy surrounded the gemstone. With a forceful yank in her direction, the orb -- and the gemstone with it -- flew in Rickard's direction. With the gemstone fully enclosed, the black smoke that had been blown away started to dissipate.
"Ugh, you motherfucker!" the pink-haired poacher screeched. "Gimme back my Haunter!"
"Beat it, before I beat you," Rickard warned, fingers wrapped around the Haunter's gemstone. "Erm. Well. Metaphorically. I don't hit women, even when they hit me."
The pink-haired poacher approached Rickard with a menacing gait and a raised fist, only to be stopped in her tracks as Anya stepped forward, eyes twinkling with latent power. "You heard the man! Get out of here!"
"You little pipsqueak! How about I curbstomp your ugly ass into --" the pink-haired poacher started before being yanked back by Black Rose.
"Look, let's get out of here, this isn't worth it."
"B-but Nera!"
"But nothing. This guy is clearly several steps above us in terms of skill and knowhow," Black Rose said. "We'll find a way to get Nera back." She placed her hand on the pink-haired poacher's shoulder and shoved her in a northerly direction. "Now move!" Before turning to run, she grabbed two pokéballs from her jacket pocket and threw them directly at Rickard and Julia. Both balls exploded on contact with the ground, quickly unleashing a pair of injured and agitated Frigitusks, who started thrashing about violently.
"Back up, back up!" Rickard warned, putting his arm up in front of Julia and ushering her backward.
"C'mon, back you go!" Anya commanded, raising both of her hands in a fluid motion. Though it couldn't be seen, it was obvious another of her barriers had been created between her and the agitated Frigitusks; as she advanced toward them, arms still held high, the two Frigitusks were invisibly shoved along. "Water's that way, go take a dip and cool off!"
Rickard watched as the two poachers disappeared into the distance, and grumbled loudly. "Damn it, they got away... You okay? Did those Burn Spores touch you at all?"
She stared at him for a moment before abruptly and aggressively shoving him in the shoulders, hard enough to knock him back into one of the pools.
"'ey! What the hell?! Is that how you celebrate?!"
"If we're going to partner up together for my first few days as a contractor, you're going to have to start listening to me!"
"Huh?"
"I told you! Don't get involved! Those two were Syndicate -- dangerous people. We're lucky all we escaped with was your sore jaw."
He rubbed away at it, nursing the miniscule cut that the pink-haired poacher had left on the edge of his chin.
She offered her hand to him and picked him up, then sighed. "Sorry... But, look, you might know a lot about training, but you've been gone from the islands for almost five years, and it shows. I've still been here, I know a thing or two, and I'm asking you for one simple courtesy: listen to me when I'm trying to warn you about something, okay?"
He studied her for a brief moment noting that she was obviously upset. "Umm, yeah, sure. I didn't realize, sorry. What's the big deal, though? Aren't the Syndicate just a loose collection of Ambervale street gangs?"
She shook her head. "See, this is why I want to be taken a little more seriously -- things have changed in the past five years, and I've been here to witness it while you've been overseas. They're not just a loose collection of thugs anymore, they're a serious organized crime ring and they've been spreading like wildfire. They're not just in Ambervale, they've expanded across the north, partnering with groups in the Barrier Islands, up and down the east and west coasts, the Cinder Hills... They're not even really just in the north anymore, because when I got out of jail, what'd I see? The Ridge Rioters and the Garden Street Gangsters were totally gone, and big Romatti guys in suits were all over their former territories. From what little I know, there are
five Syndicate Families operating in Azure Ridge these days. There were
none back when we graduated from high school. And it wouldn't surprise me if we see some as we wander around Silvermist, too -- and you just pissed off two members, so we might have more trouble before we leave town. So thanks for that."
"Ugh, sorry. I didn't realize. Is it possible they weren't Syndicate, though? You seem pretty certain, what gave it away?"
"You pointed out the tattoo that pink-haired skank had -- a full back of ink is a requirement for Syndicate membership. It's an initiation rite, every soldier's got one. If you've got a tattoo like that, you're either a very dedicated rebel punk, or you're a Syndicate member. Add on the fact that they were giving commands in Romatti..."
He sheepishly blew air between his lips and puttered around in awkward silence.
"So now what?" she asked. "I don't feel safe going back into town..."
"Hmm," he hummed, before turning his attention to Gale, who'd been pecking away at the water of the pool next to them. "Hey, Gale!"
Gale's pecking ceased as she looked up at him.
"See anything out on the islands?"
A fierce nod.
"We talking big numbers?"
Another nod.
"Hmm. Those two must have been why we weren't finding any. Wonder how many they made off with... What do you say we island hop for a few hours, Julia? It'll take your mind off things, and with any luck, we can slip back into town tonight without any trouble."
She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in thought before nodding. "Sure, whatever. Anything that puts some distance between us and those two..."
