Emerald Fist by Obsidian Blade

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon, Kanto, Johto or Hoenn.

Claimer: I do own Fidranger, Polienix and the other Janeran Pokemon. If you want to use them in your own fic, fine. Just ask first and let me see how you use them. Raven, Jay and team Emerald are mine too, but you can't have. :p

Chapter seven: Stone Cold

I thundered down Route 38, my feet beating out a rapid tempo as my toes bashed painfully against the inside of my loose trainers. Houndour ran in front of me, avoiding every one of my pathetic attempts to catch him as he neared his quarry. The trees shot past me in a blur and I could see Polienix struggling to keep up under her own steam through the corner of my eye.
“Gotcha!” I threw myself forward as fast as I could, wrapping both arms around my struggling Pokèmon and sliding along the ground. Great clouds of dust rose from around me and I was about to go into a mad coughing fit when one silky blue wing was clamped over my nose and mouth, silencing me.
“Shhh, look!” Polienix urged.
She pointed the tip of her free wing through the rapidly clearing haze of brown dust while I choked and gagged as silently as I could.
“What is i-” I choked, and this time it wasn’t on dust.

We’d slid to a halt at the top of a small ridge in the earth, a little behind a small grey rock. Right then, I loved that rock. It had probably saved my life. 20 metres away a huge steel cage glinted in the crimson red of the dying sun. Inside it one or two Pokèmon cowered away from two huge men clad in army clothing and tawny leather gauntlets, whips brandished at their heads. From the churned up earth around the cages I could tell that there had been plenty more Pokèmon in that cage, easily seventy, if not eighty. The thought of eighty helpless Pokèmon jammed against each other in that hideous cage made me sick, but I stopped myself from marching over there and punching one of those men’s lights out. Why? Well, each had a pistol strapped to his hip for one and they didn’t look like they were for show.
Another man, supposedly a sentry, was sat on a fallen log near the edge of the route, smoking a ciggy and running his tough fingers absent-mindedly over a swath of emerald velvet that encircled his upper arm. But what scared me most was the real sentry. The one that was doing its job. The one that circled the perimeter of the area slowly, its shaggy furred ears pricking as it made out different sounds in the surrounding bushes.

Mechyena still bore the after effects of our last encounter. Its huge nose was slightly swollen from my last-chance kick and its obsidian black coat was charred in many places from Arcanine’s mighty firewall. It must have sustained another injury as it fled, because a thick wad of gauze was taped triple around the lower half of its left front leg and a small box I couldn’t identify was attached to its neck.
But even with all that, it was still as fearsome as ever. I started wondering if it had heard me, was going to hear me, had smelt me and was coming around for a final pass… But all it did was pass our hiding place unmoved, dinner plate size paws biting into the earth as its metal tendons flexed and loosened.

I glanced down at Houndour, who was straining against my grip to get at the much larger creature. As quietly as I could, I unclipped his Pokèball from its place on my hip and tried to aim it at the squirming dog.
CRUNCH!
The rock in front of me crumbled into a pile of pathetic pebbles under the weight of one giant foot. I looked up in horror at the creature I was sure would haunt my dreams forever more and was rewarded with a gust of warm metallic breath.
“Oh no…” Polienix breathed, all her feathers going flat against her skin in fright.
“DOUR!”
Surprising me completely, Houndour leapt from my shivering arms and launched himself onto Mechyena’s muzzle, gouging small red lines with his baby teeth as he hung on for dear life. The huge grey wolf shook its head furiously, trying to rid itself of its unwanted passenger.
Thoughts of escape flicked through my mind as the shout of one of the men boomed over the noise of general chaos.
‘We’ll run while Houndour creates a distraction, then return him to his Pokèball when we’re out of Mechyena’s range.’ one side of my mind decided.
‘And if Houndour is killed while we’re running?!’ another part argued, ‘Return Houndour and use the trees as cover to get to Ecruteak!’

But there was no time to do either as the grizzled face of the sentry appeared around Mechyena’s hulking body. He snarled at Houndour and sent the baby dog flying with a flick of his gun, crashing heavily into a tree and sliding to its trunk.
“Go get ‘em boy.” He urged Mechyena, but the Pokèmon seemed transfixed by the greeny black jewel around my neck.
“I said GO GET ‘EM!” The man yelled impatiently.
Shaking its crimson striped head Mechyena turned and raced over to my fallen creature.
“NO!” I screamed, struggling to get up and save him.
I was silenced and stilled by the cold touch of a steel barrel to my temple.
“You aren’t going anywhere poppet.” the man sneered, his fingers resting threateningly on the trigger of his gun.

I was forced to watch in terror as Houndour was lifted non-too-gently into Mechyena’s jaws and shaken furiously from side to side, his fragile head bashing against the massive dog’s heavy jaw bone.
“Houndour!” Polienix cried, levering herself into the sky to get to her team mate before his death.
“Polienix NO!” I hissed.
They hadn’t noticed her. Simply hadn’t noticed the ultra-rare blue bird that had been cowering behind me. But they had now, how could they have missed her?
“Articairion’s spawn!” one of the men in the cage yelled, stampeding out and brandishing his gun.
BANG! He took a shot at Polienix’s wing, trying to down her without actually killing her. Pol dodged with amazing speed and shot towards Mechyena, her sharp talons aimed directly for its soft ears.
But she timed it wrong, very, very wrong. She went barrelling forwards, screeching the battle cry of a bird… and was slammed aside by Mechyena’s thrashing head. It dropped the motionless Houndour to the earth and turned its attention to my best friend.
“Polie-” I started.

The sound of my voice was drowned out completely by the loudest Pokèmon cry I had ever heard. I looked up just in time to see the sun’s red light cascade off a royal blue gem in a rain of tiny rainbows. What looked like a huge version of Polienix’s aurora beam tore through the air, eating up the unlucky branches of overhanging trees with icy power before slamming into Mechyena itself.
The huge dog let out a pained roar as the attack enveloped it, the little box exploding on its neck as the amazing attack surrounded it completely. As soon as that gadget was gone my Pokèdex sprung to life in my pocket, almost unheard over the roar of Articairion’s move.
“ARTICAIRION, THE ARCTIC BIRD POKÈMON. WHEN FRIGHTENED OR HURT IT CALLS UP A DENSE MIST OF SPARKLING ICE TO PROTECT ITSELF FROM DANGER. THIS MIST IS VERY POTENT IN THE MEDICAL ASPECT AND TREASURED BY POKÈMON LOVERS EVERYWHERE.” It droned, “SPECIAL ATTACK: ARCTIC CANNON. A LARGE BLAST OF ICY PSYCHIC POWER SHOT FROM THE BEAK. ACCURACY: 100 POWER: 200”
My eyes widened, two hundred? Mechyena must have been nearly down already! Eagerly I watched Articairion’s mega blast as it started to clear, the gun barrel pressed to my head forgotten as I awaited the sight of my greatest fear’s defeated body. Slowly the ice blue glow disappeared until all that was left were a few departing wisps of crackling energy.

The ground was frozen solid, huge cracks visible where the ice had forced it apart. Tree branches and bush leaves simply shattered as the wind blew, raining down around a completely unharmed Polienix in a swirling storm of crystal. And in the centre of it all, surrounded by frosty devastation there was… there was…
The dark shape of Mechyena. My heart nearly stopped in my chest as it bodily hauled itself to its feet, shaking glass-like shards of ice from its thick coat and snorting huge bursts of pale steam out into the air. How was that possible?! Mechyena should have been frozen solid, or at least fainted… But there it was, red eyes narrowed as it tracked its flying opponent’s path through the sky. I could see that it was wounded; my Pokèdex claimed it was down to less than a quarter of its full HP, but it shouldn’t have even been that.
Articairion seemed to agree with me, coming to a stop and hovering in the air. Her opal eyes flashed angrily when she saw that Mechyena still stood, the gems on her tail shimmering between royal blue and silver. Everything was perfectly silent for a moment, but then there was a whisper from the man holding the gun to my head.
“Kill it.”

Mechyena reacted instantly, bounding up from the hardened ground with a crunch and snapping razor sharp canines at its opponent. Articairion barely avoided the attack; a last-second beat of her majestic wings manuovering her out of harm’s reach and then sending her own hasty slash at Mechyena’s throat.
She spiralled up into the sky and then dove, the air whistling like wraiths over the razor-like edges of her sapphire wings. Bird and dog slammed together ten feet above the earth, then fell in a tangled mess onto the dark soil. Mechyena was up first, hurling its massive head at the exposed throat of its opponent, two rows of deadly knives aiming for her jugular. And Articairion was powerless to stop it.
She squirmed pathetically in the dust, wings scraping uselessly at the unforgiving dirt but finding no life saving grip. I was sure that this was the end of her, a great legendary - no matter what some might have said - downed by a creature of human produce. But I was wrong. At the last second Polienix herself slammed her small body into Mechyena’s broad forehead, sending the wolf yelping backwards in startled fright.

In the small amount of time she had Articairion struggled up and leapt into the air, fluttering her marvellous feathers into alignment and glaring angrily at her almost-murderer.
“You should not mess in the affairs of your betters, human made.” she hissed, “I suppose that is a lesson I’ll have to teach you.”
“No! Let me teach you what it means to mess with HUMANS!” the guy holding me captive yelled, throwing me to the ground and taking a different aim.
RATATATATATATATATAT! A stream of silver and gold exploded from the muzzle of his gun, which I could now see was not your average slowpoke pistol (I never was very good with guns). Articairion seemed more surprised than alarmed at first, but quickly regained her composure and dove straight down. At the last second she spread her wings again, sending up a whirlwind of dust and sand before coiling back upwards into the sky followed by the relentless shots of the Emerald member’s gun.

Meanwhile, I picked myself up from where I had been thrown and dusted off the shards of broken ice. Some had pierced my skin, but nothing as bad as what I had received on my escape night so I wasn’t too fazed. Glancing back up at Articairion I saw her fire a searing beam of lilac psychic power straight into the huge cage. The metal prison went up like a rocket, leaving nothing but the stunned forms of the last freed Pokèmon. Apparently Articairion’s attack only effected what she wanted it to, because they were unscathed and Polienix was helping Houndour up onto unsteady legs.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” I soothed, reaching my two Pokèmon and squatting beside them.
Houndour whimpered pathetically and leant his head on my knee, looking up at me through pained eyes. Parallel lacerations were cut deep into his dark furred flesh, oozing thick red blood. Purple bruises made even darker patches in his beautiful coat and one leg was swelling up badly but he was still alive. For that I was eternally grateful. Petting his head softly I watched Articairion dance death with the bullets fired at her, my mind trying to come up with a plan that didn’t end up with one of us being shot.
“Raven,” Polienix’s head nodded and circled on her neck as she followed her mother with her eyes, giving her a rather comical appearance, “Are those shooting things dangerous?”
I sighed, how naïve could you get? And opened my mouth to answer. It snapped closed. The last thing I wanted to do was make her launch herself up to ‘help’, which was something I didn’t doubt her the capability of.
“They can… Hurt a bit.” I lied, “You don’t want to get hit by them.”
Polienix nodded as if she understood and switched her gaze back to the skies.

I bit my lip, guilty about lying to her, and continued to plot.
‘Throw a rock at him? Tackle him to the ground and wrench the gun from his hands? What to do…’
My mind skimmed over a multitude of moves, some I could execute perfectly, others so complicated I was more likely to end up on my arse, having my brains blown out of my head by one or another of those grunts’ guns.
A light touch on the arm brought me back to earth as Polienix stared up at me timidly.
“Where’d she go?” she whispered.
The sudden lack of gunfire had gone unnoticed by my ears, tuned out as I turned over idea after idea, but now I looked up I realised that everything was silent, the lack of sound accompanied by the lack of light as the glowing sliver of sun sank below the tops of the trees.
The star swept sky was empty aside from the probing gaze of all us ground dwellers. Articairion was gone, completely and absolutely. Even Mechyena seemed perplexed, its thick black ears thrown forward in an attempt to catch even the slightest sound indicating its adversary’s return. The three Emerald members stood still, their guns slack in their hands as their eyes flicked across the sky.

My chance! I saw it, so clear cut, so easy in my mind’s eye that I just went for it. I was sprinting full tilt at the nearest grunt before my mind had even fully managed to comprehend any dangers that might be present. It was a good thing. It meant I couldn’t feel any apprehension to it all.
“Huh?”
The scout’s eyes had barely seen my form flying at him when I was on him, shoulder ploughing into the soft and vulnerable flesh of his stomach as I took him down into the dust. We scrambled for possession of the gun, each gaining a death grip on the deadly machine.
RATATATATATATATATATATAT! What the-? This guy’s comrades-in-arms were shooting on both of us! Bullets sang past my ears, sinking and exploding into the ground near us, one so close that it blew the radio from the Emerald’s belt. He let out a little high-pitched squeak that I’d call uncommon in a man his size and yanked the gun from my hands.

“Noooo! MINE!” I screamed possessively, wrapping my fingers around the barrel of the weapon and yanking it about everywhere.
“Watchit kid, you’ll-”
He was silenced by a bullet from his ally’s gun as it sliced its red-hot path through his chest, exploding out the other side in a rain of red. I yelped in surprise as the gun came free from his slack grasp, my own force sending me over backwards and shooting a stray shot over my shoulder.
I didn’t have time to check as to whether I’d accidentally hit anything because the two remaining Emeralds had regained their composure (if they’d ever had any to start with) from shooting their own man and were opening fire once again. I was standing up though! There was no way they could possibly miss, not now not when-
“OMPH!”
Something I couldn’t even see slammed into my back, knocking my legs out from underneath me and sending me towards the ground. But instead of ending up seated firmly in the dirt, I landed hard on something soft but firm.

“Hold on.” Articairion snapped at me and changed the positioning of her wings.
“Blooooooooodyyyy Heeeeelllllll!!!” I screamed as the ground suddenly disappeared.
All I could see was the deep midnight blue of the sky and the bright pinpoints of light from the stars. The moon loomed up ahead, a silver bow hanging above us. I clung tightly to the cutting edge of Articairion’s powerful wings as she hauled us higher into the sky.
The chaotic battle sounds beneath us faded out of reality, as did the feeling in my fingers, as we soared closer to the wispy clouds overhead. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, a sort of ship through the seas of peace.
“Hold on tighter.” the great bird ordered, giving me half a second to brace myself before she shot straight down.

It was like some sort of roller coaster, but it was so much better. There were no safety bars, no hideously ugly fat man screaming his head off in the seat behind. And the speed… I can tell you, there is nothing out there better than a flight on such a skilled flyer as Articairion was. She trimmed her feathers even closer in, wings folding just that tiny bit more as we shot closer.
“There it is!” one of the Emeralds screamed and suddenly I found myself in the painfully familiar situation of being shot at.
Articairion dodged the bullets like a pro, but I was being jolted about like nobody’s business.
“I hope you humans have a good landing system,” Articairion commented when we were mere seconds above the gunmen’s heads, “You’re going to need it.”
“WHAT?!” I exclaimed, but my voice was ripped away by the wind.
Remember how I compared it to a roller coaster? This part was like that bit where you drop and are suddenly caught, soaring upwards and leaving your stomach behind. This time, however, I followed my stomach. Articairion broke sharply, her wings battering the wind as she pulled herself up into the air again. I got dumped just as she started to pull away, momentarily falling the last foot or so and slamming straight into the midst of the two.

Bruises all round. I rolled to avoid taking the brunt of the wall to one place and came up with the gun aimed at one of the men’s chests, Lara Croft style. Both of their guns were trained at me, ready to fire, so I didn’t think twice about pulling the trigger. The thing about Lara Croft, is that she is one, a video game and, two, probably knows about recoil.
The gun leapt in my hands, sending a bullet flying off in anything but the direction I had fired it in. There was an ear-rending twisting noise and the one of the guy’s guns was blasted out of his hands. He stared at the empty hand and blinked emptily before his eyes blazed angrily and he came after me with a fist.
The RATATATATAT of gunfire started up again and I caught a glimpse of Articairion’s glowing plumage as she sent a swirling gust at Mechyena before this meat-fisted bloke came at me. I pulled the trigger again, bracing myself for something, ,anything, but it just clicked and clunked. I threw the useless hunk of metal away and got to my feet, ready to fight this out properly. To tell the truth, I was happy it didn’t work. If I killed someone like that I’d never have managed to live with it.

There was a loud SWISH as the Emerald grunt’s fist went soaring past my head with unbelievable sluggishness. I dodged easily and he took a second to retract before coming at me again. I have to say, it was incredibly funny to watch this huge hulking brick of a man coming at me so comically. It was obvious he’d never been trained properly so I could beat him at any second. Which I did, knocking him out cold against a tree as he hurled himself so foolishly at me.
As Stupid Bloke #1 collapsed to the ground with a thud I turned to face #2, but he was gone, completely and absolutely. A patch of ground molten together with psychic strength was all that was left of him. I raised my eyebrows and skirted the area, sidestepping over to join Polienix and Houndour.
“How y’doing, chaos dog?” I asked him, sending a concerned eye over the wounds from Mechyena’s teeth.
He managed a weak bark, his tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his gaping jaws. I smiled back, and then turned my attention once again to the full-on Mechyena vs. Articairion battle. The bird of psychic and ice dove and soared, dove and soared, scoring hit after hit on her adversary that Mechyena seemed incapable of returning. It sure couldn’t fly, so how was it meant to hit her at all? There was something I had noticed, however, and that was that not a single one of Articairion’s high-powered psychic blows had done anything to the huge dog. They hit dead on, with perfect accuracy and power, but did nothing.

Uncertainly I once again produced my Pokèdex from my pocket and tuned it in to the battle. It showed both combatants, but neither status effects nor anything that could possibly… My eyes roved over the type description of both and a memory of a lesson my mother had taught me resurfaced.

“Now, Raven, LISTEN already!”
I looked up from colouring in the ‘o’s, ‘a’s and ‘e’s in my workbook, my face a mask of childish innocence.
“Yeah?” I asked sweetly, acting out a façade I’d used for ages.
My mum didn’t fall for it.
“I’m talking, you listen.” She ordered, frowning at me.
I nodded, not wanting her to stop biscuit time later, and listened.
“All Pokèmon have types,” she explained, “And each type has a weakness. Now, can you tell me which type is weak to fire?”

It went on like that for a while, to the point where I was half asleep and answering like a pre-programmed machine. But then it changed a tiny bit…

“And ghost doesn’t effect what type and vice versa?” mum asked, raising her eyebrows at my mechanical answers.
“Electric is good against wa-What?!” I looked around for… Something.
She sighed, “Ghost doesn’t affect normal, normal doesn’t affect ghost. Psychic has no effect against dark, but dark is ultra-effective against psy-”

“ARTICAIRION!” I yelled, “DON’T USE PSYCHIC MOVES ‘CAUSE THEY DON’T WORK!”
She looked up in mid-dive, startled by my sudden contribution, but nodded in reorganisation of my logic.

I shouldn’t have shouted then. Damn, I shouldn’t have shouted then.

She looked back to the task at hand just in time to swerve up from the ground, but the pass has been much lower than normal and she hadn’t landed the usual hit. Metal teeth the length of good-size Remoraid-gutting knives clamped down on the thick quills of her tail feathers, dragging her down. Articairion gave an ear-splitting screech, and then turned her head around and pulled out her own feathers.
Free of Mechyena’s snapping jaws she took to the thermals once again, flying higher and higher into the sky. The dark-type dog dropped her beautiful feathers to the ground and howled in frustration, its voice carrying eerily through the cooling air. Articairion turned in the sky, fixing her opponent with a haughty eye and clicking strangely in what I guess was bird Pokèmon laughter.
And then it was cut short, an almost silent ‘thud’ going off in the bushes nearby. For a second she hung motionless in the air, wings stuck straight out in frozen animation. And then she dropped.

Like a stone she fell through the air, crimson blood pouring from a gaping hole in her back.
“MUMMY!” Polienix screamed, fanning her wings and fluttering up towards her mother’s falling corpse.
Articairion’s body hit the ground at Mechyena’s feet, her delicate wings shattering on impact and limbs twisted at odd angles.
Polienix landed beside her, seemingly oblivious to the carnivore towering over her, and took her mother’s lifeless head between her wings. “Mum.” I heard her whisper over the frantic beating of my heart.
“Wake up already…” she murmured.

“Wake up, you’re all wet! How can you sleep like that?”

“Mummy…”

If you don’t wake up I’ll eat all the biscuit-”
I put my hands over my ears, blocking out both past and present. Houndour looked up at me and whined at a bush as it rustled silently. Must have been the gunman, whoever was in that bush. If I went after him though, I was likely to get shot. We didn’t need anymore casualties, not today.

Not ever.

Mechyena stared down its thick muzzle at Polienix, seeming to consider whether or not to take her. I was just about to get up, go over there and have another hopeless go at kicking its lights out, when a familiar voice called out a short way back along the path.
“Yeah, and then I hatched from the egg! First out! Better than alllll the rest!”
“Uh-huh.” Jay’s bored response came back.
I held my breath. If they came back here Mechyena wouldn’t be happy… And Cerberus had to be in his Pokèball or else he would’ve made the same fuss Hades the Chaos Dog did. Hades… Not the best time to think up nicknames, I know, but I could hardly seem to get a grasp on reality at all. Hmmm, no Cerberus meant not even the most remote possibility of protection…

Mechyena’s head went up with the sounds of voices. Taking one last look at Articairion and her daughter, it turned tail and fled, sending me a last second snarl before it disappeared off into the trees. I stood up and walked unevenly over to Polienix, kneeling beside her and taking her up in my arms. She wrapped her wings around me, tiny crystal tears seeping from her eyes.
I reached one hand out slowly, brushing Articairion’s beautiful feathers in an attempt to find some sort of pulse. Nothing. And as I touched her, the bird Pokèmon’s body froze over, delicate swirls of frost coiling up all over her corpse. As I watched in fascination the ice went deeper and deeper, feathers, flesh and organs alike turning into deep blue ice. By the time it was done, the only remnant of her was a huge Articairion shaped block of ice, and the four feathers she had removed from her tail.
Polienix looked up at me, her eyes watery and a bit puffy. “Now all of her Polienix babies will be fighting for the right to evolve.” she informed me, “They couldn’t before because there can only be one Articairion at a time.”
I nodded, stroking Polienix’s head with the back of my hand comfortingly. That was why the Emeralds had fired on Articairion, although I didn’t understand why Mechyena had left so suddenly…

“Hey! Raven, Polienix, Houndour!” Jay called, “What the heck was going on around here?”
“Woah, big battle musta happened.” Magenix observed excitedly, flying around everything.
He must have seen the dead remains of his mother, but he paid them no heed.
“Why isn’t he mourning?” I whispered to Polienix.
“Pokèmon aren’t supposed to mourn.” she replied, “I’m only doing it because human emotion rubbed off from you.” She sighed and turned away from Articairion, “Everything has to die, so we shouldn’t regret it.”
I had a feeling that she was regretting it, but didn’t push the subject. ‘It would almost be mean if I did,’ I decided as I returned Houndour to his Pokèball in a flash of scarlet light, ‘Like stopping her from moving on.’
This thought firmly imprinted in my mind, I offered Polienix a shoulder and waited for Jay to catch up. After all, I’d sort of missed my amazing chance for escape.

“Big battle went on here.” He stated, “Cerberus heard all the shooting and headed over here.” he rolled his eyes, “I missed catching that Swinub because my Pokèmon ran off!”
“Hmmm.” I hummed to say I was listening, even though I really didn’t care less. “Let’s get moving, it’s getting late.”
Jay raised and lowered one shoulder, “Fine.”
Raising a hand to his lips he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.
“CUMMON CERB! WE DON’T HAVE ALL DAY!”
An answering bark could be heard, along with the thundering of paws. After about two seconds the shaggy grey dog exploded from the undergrowth, licking his lips with his long pink tongue before trotting over to us. I stared at him, wondering how close to Articairion’s murderer he must have been, and sighed.
“To Ecruteak.”
Hey! I just got over the shortest case of wrtier'sblockitis I've ever heard of! Not that I'm complaining, but ya know. If this chapter seems a little disjointed (the end, no matter the fact that I have re-written it seven times, sucks) that would have something to do with me writing it in chunks. I tried to smooth it out, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped... Bother.
As always, if ya dislike anything or would like to point out any mistakes e-mail me at trinethstorm@hotmail.com. Byez,
~Obsidian