Author's note: This chapter was originally omitted from the publication of Rebel and finished twelve years after the fact.
Tuesday, October 25th, 302AS
15:21
Isis Island, Celaeno region, Jade Islands League
Constance scrambled to the spot where the Alaka-Wham had teleported away with Vince and Reshmi. It was like all that was left of her master was a set of footprints in the grass, a tamer's belt with a damaged buckle, and the pokepack. The rest of Vince's harem were all falling into various stats of panic as well. The Tick Tock went to pick up Vince's gear, but when her fingers touched the fabric an image flashed through her mind. For the tiniest fraction of a second, she saw Vince thrown by the force of a blow delivered by an obscured attacker.
Constance was brought back to reality when a hand fell on her shoulder. Yin Zhi was the only one with a clear head still. “You are our alpha. Lead us.”
“R-right.” Constance grabbed the belt and shrugged on the pokepack. “Does anyone know where we are?”
Yin Zhi spoke again. “I recognize this area. I've fought here before. We aren't far from where my first master was lost.” The Samurai's words stirred up another wave of dread in Constance, but then she had an idea.
“Your master was attacked because you discovered Vsevolod's base, that means it's nearby!”
There was the sound of a man's groan behind them all as the league scout came to. “Yeah... it's nearby.” They turned to see him rubbing his head. He put his hands up in the air and stared nervously at the tip of Yin Zhi's blade. “Hey, easy. I was brainwashed by that Alaka-Wham, I swear. I just want to get the hell out of here... Shit.”
“Where is his base? We need to rescue our tamer.”
“Forget about it. That son of a FarFuck'd hired some entire boatload of pirates to act as his guards here. You'd just be killed or captured by them. Better off if you forget about him.” He made a grab for the tamer's belt Constance was holding, but she pulled it away from his reach. “Come on! Staying here is suicide, your tamer's probably already dead and I need guards if I want to make it back to civilization.” After another unsuccessful grab he shouted, “You know what, screw this I'm commandeering you all for Jade Islands Land Forces-”
The scout was cut off by the sound of a musket blast heralding his death. Constance, Ava, Verse, Ione, and Yin Zhi all dove for cover as a thunderous boom heralded a wide swath being cut through the foliage.
-
“Vince, run.” Reshmi's eyes were locked onto the hovering psychic type who was looking down on them with a smile that oozed arrogance and malicious intent. Vince could feel across the delta bond that Reshmi was afraid and uncertain. She didn't know if she could win this fight, and he wasn't sure either. He could feel how desperate she was to make sure he made it out of this alive, but that wouldn't do him any good if she didn't make it out with him. Even without taking the delta bond into consideration.
“Only if you're with me.” The spider type pokegirl didn't respond, she stayed fixed onto the Alaka-wham who was still just floating there as if considering something. “He's only got one girl out, just keep your guard up and we'll get out of here.” Vince took one step backwards, turning sideways to watch where he was going out of the corner of his eye while keeping Vsevolod and his Alaka-wham in sight as well. Reshmi could follow him blind thanks to the bond they shared. Vince's Arachnae lifted one leg to move when a pile of crates shot into the air and towards the both of them. Reshmi spun around and picked up Vince, leaping over all the telekinetic projectiles. The Alaka-Wham's eyes flashed and an invisible wall crashed down on Reshmi, swatting her to the floor as she curled around Vince to protect him from the impact. He still felt the phantom pain from the fall through the delta bond.
Their psychic adversary just smirked from where she was suspended in the air by her own powers. More objects were picked up and thrown at them each time they tried to start their retreat, and no matter how Reshmi tried to evade, the crates, steel drums, beams, and whatever else was being thrown about would either alter their course mid-flight, or they served as a distraction from an invisible psychic attack that was coming in their wake.
-
“They've got some pirate bitch with a cannon near some kind of building!” Verse shouted out to the rest of the harem. “They're firing canister rounds!”
Now that all of the small, green plants had been obliterated by what was essentially a giant shotgun blast, Constance could see that they weren't very far from a building that would have been well camouflaged before the destruction was unleashed on all the underbrush. Thicker trees and rocks stood up to the blast, with the rocks fairing much better than the trees, but thanks to them all of Vince's harem were still in one piece as the cannon was being reloaded.
“Ione, use Bullet Seed to pin them down so they can't fire again!” The Belle Awesome peered around her cover before firing off the attack. A surprised yelp followed by violent cursing carried over the sound of the hardened seeds imbedding themselves into the walls and ricocheting off the metal cannon. Ione readied a second barrage of seeds when she had to duck back behind cover. Fragments of stone peppered the area, and as one shard sailed through the air to land next to the Tick Tock, Constance recognized the substance as coral.
Now they were facing at least three pokegirls, assuming the Spike Cannon attack only came from one 'girl. Constance clutched Vince's tamer's gear close to her chest. Without her magic she couldn't fight, she couldn't help at all. This was exactly the kind of situation she'd been dreading ever since the night the Vampire had attacked them. The same fear she'd been feeling from all of the random visions of the future were now invading her heart with their full strength. But the visions are just what could be, she reminded herself.
I mean, if you can go back and change something before it happened, who says you can't change things that are going to happen the first time. Nothing's set in stone. Nothing is certain. Constance tore the pokedex free from its holster and aimed the device around the rock. It picked up the pokegirl operating the cannon and her guard with the musket, both Piratits. Peeking around the other side she could see an obvious rock type, covered in red tinted coral plates. The pokedex identified her as a Corala. Another flash of a vision revealed to Constance that there'd be more enemies joining the fight soon.
Vince's alpha took in the surroundings in as much detail as the situation allowed. Verse and Ione were to the left of her. Ava and Yin Zhi were on the right. In all likelihood, more pokegirls would be joining the fight, and Constance's sense of probability was telling her they'd come from that way. “Ava, Yin Zhi! Get around to that side of the building and hold off any pokegirls that show up. Ione-” Constance's orders were silenced by the second blast of the cannon. The Belle Awesome threw herself flat as the tree she was behind splinted past the point where the trunk could support it. “Ione! Petal Armor and RUN!”
Purple flowers exploded into the air around the Belle Awesome as the petals wrapped themselves protectively around her body. Ione sprinted for the rock Constance was behind, coral spikes embedded in the earth behind her heels and one musket ball destroyed a chunk of the flowering barrier. Constance caught her harem sister around the waist to keep her momentum from carrying her to the other side of their cover. Grabbing a healing P-Med off Vince's belt, she quickly sprayed a dose onto Ione's shoulder where she took the shot.
Verse had selected better cover when the shooting had started, so there wasn't any immediate risk, but if they did nothing but sit still eventually one of the enemy pokegirls would flank them while they were pinned down. The Tick-Tock noticed something on the body of the JILF scout that would help them out in this situation, and motioned towards the corpse within arm's reach of the OfficerJenny. The police pokegirl quickly identified what had caught her alpha's attention, and with a grim smile retrieved the elemental pistol and spare magazines holding a full assortment of rounds.
Clear of the south facing wall and cannon, Ava and Yin Zhi met with the reinforcements for the pirates hired to defend Vsevolod's facility. There was a hulking Sharptits in her land based form and three very near human pokegirls all carrying weapons. One was dressed in gaudy, fantasy pirate costume and carried a wide, flat, curved sword. Another was covered in scars and wielded an iron club in one hand and a weighted chain in the other. The last was decked out in light mail and leather armor with a polearm tipped with a curved, Edo style blade she was leaning her weight against. Yin Zhi summed the four up instantly. “You take the fish, I'll deal with the rest.”
The two were divided by a pillar of water spewed from the mouth of the shark pokegirl. The explosion of a fireball detonating on the side of her face drew the Sharptit's attention to Ava. Yin Zhi squared off against two of the fighting types, the third one in armor opting to lean against a tree trunk instead.
The Samurai dodged the steel weight of the Gladiatrix's chain as she drew her tachi and kodachi. The Piratit with the cutlass charged in close, waving the blade and bellowing out a loud “Yarrrrr!” Yin Zhi was about to end the pirate pokegirl's role in the battle with one blow when the chain wielded by the other fighting type whipped by again. This gave the Piratit the chance to get in close with the cutlass, but fortunately for the Samurai the attacks from her opponent had little in the way of grace or accuracy. Still, having to guard herself against the two attackers was putting her on the defensive. Deflecting the cutlass and evading the attacks from the chain kept her from making any kind of effective counter attack. She let her breath out in a hiss as the Piratit got the chance to crowd her again, this time pulling a dagger from a concealed location to attack with. Yin Zhi was barely able to step away from the blade in time, and although her skin was not cut her clothing didn't fair as well. She knocked the Piratit onto her ass with a snap kick, but a sharp pain in her knuckles caused her to drop her longer sword as the iron weight thrown by the Gladiatrix smashed into Yin Zhi's fingers. The tachi was kicked away by the Piratit's boot. The Samurai struck with her short sword though, scoring a hit in the pirate pokegirl's throat and leaving her to thrash on the ground and bleed out. The iron chain wielded by the Gladiatrix gave Vince's fighting type no time to savor the small victory though, this time it wrapped around the blade of the kodachi and yanked the weapon out of her hands.
The brutal and scarred fighting type stomped on the short sword, snapping the blade.
Yin Zhi went for the odachi on her back only to realize that what had suffered the most from the now dying Piratit's dagger had been the strap attached to the sheath of her third weapon. It too was lying on the ground just out of reach.
Ava threw a chi blast to split an incoming Hydro Pump too wide to dodge in time. Both combatants had an elemental advantage over the other, Ava being weak to water and the Sharptits weak to fighting techniques. The Sharptit's advantage had the added bonus of being ranged though, and the shark girl was at least bright enough to recognize that. She also looked to be built robustly enough that the weakness towards fighting techniques may not have been as pronounced as with other members of the Sharptit's breed. Still, there was no doubt in Ava's mind. She wasn’t going to lose. She couldn't afford to, none of them could.
-
A ripple of silk strands broadcast the incoming wall of telekinetic force heading for Reshmi, giving her enough prior warning to successfully evade. The Arachnae had devised the tactic when a failed string shot attack was caught by an incoming blast of psychic energy. Now the entire area where she was fighting against the Alaka-Wham was crisscrossed by random pieces of webbing.
Although she'd taken a few nasty hits, the advantage she was gaining by spreading webs around was swinging the course of the battle towards her favor. Not only did it alert her to otherwise invisible telekinetic assaults, the strong webbing also caught the physical projectiles, slowing them down or stopping them entirely. Anything that got stuck in the webs was something that blocked the Alaka-Wham’s vision of them and interfered with her repositioning to reacquire them. Reshmi’s exoskeletal armor stood up to the psychic pummeling admirably but she was still battered and bruised, but they weren’t so dreadfully on the back foot.
The hovering psychic type darted out from behind a stack of crates and was met with a spray of String Shot. Her eyes went wide and her antennae stood up straight when the webbing landed. With a mighty tug Reshmi jerked the floating Alaka-Wham down towards the floor and then lunged. The Arachne’s foe scream was laced with telepathic reverberation as she cried out in pain from the bite.
-
Yin Zhi stood ready and unarmed against the Gladiatrix. She had tried to retrieve any of her weapons several times but the weighted chain knocked them away before the Samurai could get hold of them. At this point, trying to rearm herself was a liability.
The teal haired fighting pokegirl could see in her peripheral vision that the last of the pirate pokegirls was still leaning against the tree, content with doing nothing but spectating. It was this ambivalence or honor that Yin Zhi had to thank for her fight going as well as it was.
The Gladiatrix threw the weighted end of the chain forward again and Yin Zhi ducked away by a fraction of an inch and then grabbed the chain. She pulled at the same time its wielder jerked it back, bringing the Gladiatrix off balance and one step closer. Yin Zhi closed the rest of the distance and struck her opponents wrists and elbows. The Gladiatrix dropped both her weapons from the pain of forced hyperextension and Yin Zhi caught the massive iron club before it hit the ground. The Gladiatrix scrambled away and took up her Samurai opponent’s fallen tachi to arm herself.
Yin Zhi charged and the Gladiatrix stupidly raised the curved Japanese sword to guard against the club being brought down on her. For a split second Yin Zhi felt the urge to pull her strike to save her weapon but quashed the sentimental weakness. The steel blade snapped under the weight of the heavy bludgeon that was only partially deflected. Yin Zhi let go of the club as it was still falling to catch the largest fragment of her shattered blade between her two palms and drove the point into the stunned Gladiatrix’s neck.
Yin Zhi surveyed the battle and drew in a few deep breaths as the third enemy pokegirl pushed her back away from the trunk of the tree she’d been shading under. Ava managed to close the gap with the Sharptits. Good. The Samurai’s focus fixed on her slowly approaching opponent.
The armored pokegirl armed with a curved polearm stopped and bowed her head slightly. “Mercedes,” she said when her head was held upright again. “Armsmistress.” The Armsmistress motioned towards Yin Zhi’s odachi, still sheathed.
The Samurai retrieved the weapon, drew the blade and discarded the sheath with its ruined strap. She returned the bow and then introduced herself. “Yin Zhi. Samurai.”
The Armsmistress smiled coldly and took a ready stance. “I was disappointed when you got away the first time, Yin Zhi. I’m glad you made it back.”
-
Ava landed a jab. She landed her follow up jab. A cross, a hook. A knee. She had the Sharptits completely on the defensive and was raining down blows on the much larger pokegirl who could only duck her face into her upraised arms to protect her skull against the expertly delivered blows from the fire and fighting type raised and trained by a fighting family.
Suddenly the Sharptits surged forward and stretched her arms wide to snatch her opponent. At the same time she grew, her legs vanished and were replaced with a powerful tail. The Sharptit’s head became massive and completely inhuman with the massive jaws of a shark coming straight for Ava’s head. The Blazicunt couldn’t back out away from the suddenly massive arms so she did the only thing she could. She caught the jaws in her talons and used her ki to boost her strength as much as she could. She pushed with all of her might against the gnashing maw inching closer and closer to her face as the Sharptits pulled her closer with her bear hug. Ava knew she was losing, but Ava didn’t feel fear. She only became angrier. With a shriek of rage the Blazicunt spat out her Flamethrower technique down the Shartit’s throat. Smoke billowed out of the shark pokegirls gills as she flung the fire type away. The water and steel pokegirl thrashed on the ground and clutched at her neck.
-
“A’deen!” Vsevolod’s shout came from the rafters above the fighting. He sounded legitimately concerned. So the mad scientist was only a mostly heartless bastard. The call from her master cut through the pain and fear and galvanized the psychic type’s will. With a blast of telekinetic energy she propelled Reshmi off of her, violently withdrawing the Arachne’s fangs from the meat of her shoulder. The Alaka-wham’s eyes glowed with a different shade of psychic energy as she focused on healing the damage and curing the poison.
“Don’t let up, Reshmi,” Vince shouted his encouragement. It was still an opening, they couldn’t let the ‘Wham get her guard back up. Reshmi still had hold of the silk line and she gave it another pull.
<NO!> The Alaka-Wham’s thought was broadcast like she had shouted it through a megaphone. Reshmi seized up briefly, then she dropped to tuck up into a ball, rubbing her fingers and whimpering in terror. Across the delta bond Vince felt his knuckles being wrenched to their limits. A voice was mocking him. Calling him demeaning, degrading names. A large man’s voice. That Team Machismo freak with the Monster Out trait. Vince’s finger was finally pulled back far enough to break and it was on to the next digit. The petty gangsters obsessed with masculinity only laughed when he begged to know why they were doing this.
<You. Insignificant. INSECT!> Vince’s mother swung the empty wine bottle at him again and screamed at him with shrill rage. Denouncing him, shrieking that he wasn’t her daughter. It was the bond, it was Reshmi’s mother. She bludgeoned her over and over again, ranting and raving and blaming Reshmi for getting caught and transformed. Demanding she renounce her own name, denying her the right to call herself Diane.
<You think you have a chance because of one lucky bite?> Vince ran as fast as he could to get behind cover, his lungs were burning and he just couldn’t pull in enough air. Just as he was about to turn to get behind the ancient, weathered concrete he felt a terrible blow to his side. He was sent into a spiraling fall. He… Reshmi heard Vince’s voice, felt his arms pull her to safety, but it was too late. Vince saw from Reshmi’s perspective the memory of having her arms sheared off by the thrown slab. Pain and panic started to overwhelm him.
<You are nothing compared to me! You have no chance, none! I’ve been toying with you this entire time! You can’t win, I was careless because you and your master are so pathetic!> A’deen telepathically screamed as she assaulted the Arachne’s mind over and over. Vince brought his hands up to shield his face after the Tigress’ slashing claws dragged across both of his eyes. He screamed in terror when he couldn’t open them, couldn’t see, could only feel the burning pain.
<Pathetic, stupid, worthless bug!> It was the second time Vince felt the sympathetic agony of Reshmi getting burned by Ava’s Ignite when she went berserk. He grit his teeth and focused on the pain. Devoted all of his concentration on determining where in his body it was coming from. It made it smaller, made it manageable. It brought him out of the empathic feedback and back into the warehouse turned arena.
Reshmi was curled up in the fetal position, or at least one could imagine she was, given the nature of her body. All her limbs tucked up under her, except she had rolled onto her back. Vince's stomach sank like a rock when the way she was laying reminded him of the way spiders rolled up when they died, and the thought that any time now the Alaka-Wham could decide to crush Reshmi the exact same way someone with a shoe could crush a spider curled up like that. He had to do something.
But he was just a human. His heart pounded out one beat that reverberated within him like a bass drum in an empty stadium. There was nothing he could do against an enemy one of his pokegirls couldn't defeat. Another heartbeat thundered in his chest. He was helpless. Helpless again, just like he was on Wadjet. A third time his body pulsed from the thumping of his heart. But he had to do something.
With as loud of a bellow as he could, Vince charged the Alaka-Wham, putting as much strength as he could muster behind one punch. A miniscule globe of energy darted out in front of his knuckles, exploding into specs of light and energy as the bones in his fist fractured against a telekinetic barrier. Vince roared again and smashed his other fist into the barrier, but got even less results. Then Vince heard the clapping.
From up above on the catwalk, Vsevelod was applauding him, a slow, calculated applause that echoed once Vince's heart calmed some and Reshmi's screams ceased. “There it is,” Vsevelod sneered with a small hint of excitement. “There it is. As much as you've aggravated me I couldn't waste the chance to witness that for myself. Couldn't miss the chance to gather as much data on you as I could. A'deen.” As he snapped out the name of his pokegirl, he tossed a small round object down to the floor. Vince recognized it as a pokeball with a strangely customized case just as it hit his beaten and exhausted Arachnae. Reshmi was absorbed by the capture beam and the illegally modified ball that captured her was carried back up to the rafters alongside A'deen.
“GIVE BACK RESHMI!” Vince screamed up at the two in defiance of them and his own helplessness. Vsevelod merely laughed.
“Don't worry, fool. I'll leave her in there, safe and sound. I wouldn't want you to be distracted by that delta bond during your challenge.” The last word was drawn out in a sinister manner as Vsevelod let another pokeball drop from his fingers, this one splitting open to spill red light out as its occupant was released. A shimmering metallic pokegirl coalesced from the energy that spilled from the pokeball. “Do it.” Vsevelod ordered from above them.
The steel element pokegirl ran forward to attack. She didn't run fast but then most steel types weren't known for their speed. Vince's boost trait did allow him to move faster though, and the effects hadn't worn off. He dodged the attack nearly automatically as his mind raced trying to come up with something, anything he could do. While steel types weren't known for their speed, they were known for their durability, which was more than anything Vince would be able to crack through. Boost active or not.
-
Verse pumped three quick breaths before ducking out from behind cover and, aiming from memory rather than even waiting to verify her target was still there, shot a fire elemental round from the fallen JILF scout’s pistol. The Piratit manning the cannon was standing with one foot raised on the powder keg that was the OfficerJenny’s target. The pirate pokegirl vanished in the fireball. Though Verse would remember seeing the booted leg flying off in a high, smoking arc after the battle was over. She ducked behind the rock she was hiding behind and turned to Ione, “Now!” Coral spikes shattered as they hit the face of the boulder and tiny fragments cut up the police pokegirl like shrapnel.
With the Corala focused on avenging the cannoneers, she was caught defenseless against Ione’s Solar Beam. Plant techniques were incredibly effective against both water and rock types, and Solar Beam was one of the most devastating techniques in the plant type arsenal. The Corala was blasted back against the outer wall of the complex she was guarding and slumped down bonelessly.
Constance stared in disbelief and wonderment for a fraction of a second. They did it. She did it. They’d won, they could go save Vince. The ringing of steel and a flash of premonition of her tamer lying broken in a pool of blood ended her premature celebration. “Come on, we need to get inside,” she called to her harem sisters. The three of them ran around the corner of the building and happened upon the scene of Ava and Yin Zhi’s battle. Ava wasn’t anywhere to be seen but the corpse of the Sharptits with smoke still wisping out of her gills suggested the fierce fire type had been present recently. Two slashed bodies of the fighting types dispatched by Yin Zhi were fallen a little ways off and with one last song of metal striking metal the Armsmistress who had named herself as Mercedes was disarmed by her Samurai opponent.
“Yield,” Yin Zhi commanded her enemy.
“Just kill me,” Mercedes said with a grim smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s better that way.” She dropped to her knees and lowered her head, exposing her neck.
The Samurai merely nodded and raised her odachi with a gently spoken, “Very well.” Her decapitating stroke was stopped by a crackling magical barrier that suddenly manifested in the air above the other fighting type’s head.
“Can’t have you killing my dear, sweet Mercy,” a commanding woman’s voice called out. A garishly dressed woman with finned ears, webbed fingers, and squid tentacles for hair had arrived via teleport with an accompaniment of several more pirate pokegirls. Constance still had Vince’s pokedex so she quickly scanned the She-Captain and her crew of more Piratits and Buttaneers. “Ho-hoho,” the She-Captain sang with amusement. “Maybe I can. It’s the lovely Samurai. Be you reconsidering my offer of joining me crew? I see you’re responsible for even more openings!” She threw her head back and laughed from deep in her belly, with her posse joining in with their own nervous chuckling.
Vince’s pokegirls approached to stand shoulder to shoulder with the battle weary Samurai. The Armsmistress was still kneeling, her eyes fixed with hate and fear on the She-Captain. Constance pulled off an empty pokeball and tagged the armored fighting type with it. There was a strange look of relief on her face as the containment beam surrounded her. Constance asked her question of Yin Zhi without looking away from the new enemies, “Ava?”
“Inside,” the Samurai answered.
“We need to get to Vince, he’s in danger. Who do you need to help?”
“Go,” Yin Zhi answered resolutely. “All of you.”
“But,” the Tick-Tock started to say.
“I will hold them off, there’s no time. You know that more than any of us.” Yin Zhi’s focus turned to her alpha for just a split second and when their eyes made contact the premonition of Vince on the floor, dying, entered her mind again. Constance’s eyes got big momentarily before she nodded.
Constance took the time to strip a P-Med dispenser from Vince’s belt and pressed the nozzle against Yin Zhi’s shoulder. With the hiss of it administering its dose the magicless magic type merely stated, “He likes you, Yin Zhi. He wants you to stay with us.”
“Go,” Yin Zhi ordered with a tight voice. So Constance, Verse, and Ione went and left her to face the five pirate pokegirls alone.
-
‘She’s a Mercury,’ Vince thought with strange calmness as his ribs shattered and he coughed up flecks of blood. He was sent sailing through the air from the whiplike blow to his side as the liquid metal pokegirl’s arm stretched out. He pushed himself up to his feet and charged again after one stumbling step. Another snaking strike from the Mercury’s extended limb sent him crashing to the floor once again. He stood up and wobbled for a while before staggering forward, throwing his feet out to change the fall into a run forward. Vince was backed into a corner. He couldn’t escape, he didn’t have his pokegirls and Vsevolod wanted to see him fight. So Vince would show him a fight. It was all his obstinate mind could think of.
Vince’s legs were swept out from under him and he did his best to change the fall into a roll. A liquid metal limb was brought down on his back from above. More spit and blood flew from his mouth. It wasn’t a good plan and it wasn’t much of a fight. He had no idea how long he could take these beatings.
That seemed to be the point, for him to receive the beating. The Mercury was definitely holding back. They could turn their limbs into blades and spikes, after all. Fine. Vince could take a beating. He pulled one leg underneath his chest, then the other. He pushed himself up with an elbow, still bent over double. He got his head up in time to see the Mercury winding up to smash him again when there was a thundering crash from the distant warehouse wall. A huge metal door shuddered from another impact. The Mercury looked nervously towards the sound and then up to the rafters.
“Don’t look at me, keep fighting.” Vsevolod shouted down. “You’re worthless to me if you don’t bring out everything he has for me to record.”
Another cacophonous thud was paired with the scream of metal shearing. The tracks that the bay door followed to raise and lower were starting to warp and the center of the inverted impact crater was starting to glow cherry red. Vince grinned in spite of his copious injuries. He knew who was on the other side of that door now. “You’d better finish this,” he coughed out. “Before my girl gets through there and sees what you’ve done to me.”
-
Dodge, parry, deflect, sidestep, snap kick, dodge. Strike! Yin Zhi hissed when her cut was stopped by another magical barrier. The She-Captain’s personal guards were capable fighters. Not the level of Mercedes but there were four and their captain’s magic protected them. They would be dead two times a piece if not for it.
As it was, they were winning through attrition.
She whipped her head back away from the arc of one of the Buttaneer’s scimitars. Bright teal strands of hair falling like feathers towards the ground let the Samurai know how close the cut had come. A click of metal told her to twist away so the blast from the Piratit’s hand cannon only grazed her stomach. The whaling harpoon’s barbs cut into Yin Zhi’s thigh before she could shift her balance and pull the leg away. A second snap of a flintlock heralded the attack she couldn’t avoid so she tensed her diaphragm and abdominals. The musket ball shattered against her front, burning through her already ruined gi. She winced from the obvious pain of internal bleeding.
It was this horrible attrition that had forced her to run the first time. She couldn’t run again.
“Hold,” the She-Captain called out. She twirled the smoking musket pistol around in her hand. “This be a waste, lassy. Why ye be rejecting my generous offer?” Yin Zhi took the momentary reprieve to spit blood at the She-Captain’s feet. "Come now, is this all really necessary? You've beaten my Mercy, that shows you have a lot of potential. Why throw your life away? What is the point of all this?"
“This?” Yin Zhi asked as she shifted into a wide, low stance. The barriers were planar, they only protected from a single direction. “This is me avenging a good man, good pokegirls.” The Samurai lifted her blade and dropped it to her side, edge aligned horizontally. “This is me saving another good man. More good pokegirls.” She focused her energy and will, drawing both from the vast well of fighting type ki and also the shallow reserve of something else. Something unique to her and her dam. Something laboriously bred into their line generation after generation. “This is me triumphing over evil.” She ignored the laughter of the pirate pokegirls. Her intent wasn’t to make a grand speech, it was to stall. She bunched every muscle in her body in preparation for a wide and obvious swing. The blade of her odachi started to glow with the vital power she was channeling into it. All five pirate pokegirls became wary as they recognized what technique their opponent was about to unleash.
“My magic’s stopped a fancy flashy slashy Zombacho before,” the She-Captain warned. The four crew stopped shifting backwards upon hearing their captain’s boast.
Yin Zhi ignored them. She could only perform this technique once, but that was all she would need. “This,” The Samurai vanished. The She-Captain tried to spin around to respond to the deathly calm voice that was suddenly behind her. But her legs weren’t moving and the motion caused her top half to tip off from where it was balanced on her bottom parts. She saw the bright wave of energy split her crew in half as she fell. “Is my Zanmato.”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t use her diaphragm at all, but the pirate captain mouthed in wonder. ‘Never seen a Samurai teleport afore. Why, oh why wouldn’t you join me crew?’
Yin Zhi stood silently over the dying She-Captain. Finally the Samurai recognized the familiar dimness of lifeless eyes. She let her sword drop from her hand. It impacted softly on the sandy ground. The Samurai trudged towards the building, one heavy footfall in front of the other. Once she got to the wall she leaned against it, dragging her shoulder across the metal siding of the building. She was only a few paces from the door leading inside when she slumped down, unable to take another step. With labored, agonizing breaths she turned to lean her back against the building so she wouldn’t collapse completely.
Teal eyes searched up towards the bright sky. “Master…” She thought she was speaking to a man who was dead, a man she would be joining, but the word pulled a different image from her memories. A younger man. A brasher man. A man with pink hair and blue eyes. A kind smile. She felt tears welling in her eyes as Constance’s parting words replayed themselves in her mind.
‘He likes you, Yin Zhi. He wants you to stay with us.’
Tears flowed down both cheeks as the Samurai squeezed her eyes shut. “I’m sorry, Master Vince. I fear I cannot remain by your side.” Yin Zhi started to slump over as her strength left her. Then her head was smashed against the wall as hands shoved against her chest and revitalizing energy poured into her.
“Aiden! I found one of Vince’s girls!” Yin Zhi blinked up at the dark skinned face of Shannon, the Archmage. The magic type belonging to Vince’s estranged father noticed the Samurai’s return to consciousness and she asked, “Where are the others? Yin Zhi, where’s Vince?”
The Samurai lifted a hand to point towards the building entrance when the entire structure and ground shuddered from the force of an explosion.