Chapter 49: Battle Over Ilragorn

My mind was racing as fast as my rapid-fire heartbeat to keep up with everything happening around me as the situation kept escalating further and further out of my control. My Passimian had killed Evan's Frosmoth in a rage, who Evan's Intelleon then retaliated against by murdering Passimian right back - and then proceeding to get electrocuted to a pile of soot by my vengeful Emolga, all of us still miles away from any kind of civilization and trapped in the aftermath of a short blizzard that had come down upon the barren wasteland of No Man's Land.

And if it hadn't been enough that my brother had just permanently lost two party members, I had then put salt in his open wounds by taunting him by using his own words against him to insult his Intelleon for going down so easily to my Emolga. I know it was petty, but Arceus it was worth it, fewer things had felt so good. However, there was no denying that there was a certain unhinged look in Evan's eyes after I'd insulted him that was scarier than him previously drooling in excitement over battling.

"I have been playing with this bitch with kid gloves against him a little too long, wouldn't you say, Dodrio?" Evan asked the Dodrio he was riding rhetorically, as if he had ever cared about any of his pokemons opinions in his life, but the blindly loyal Dodrio's three heads all scoffed aggressively at me and my mons in agreement. "He's getting a big head because he's beating the mons I almost never even use, isn't that fucking cute? It'll be so funny to hear how fast his tune changes when he has to actually face the pokemon I use every day."

"Whether you borrowed them from some other Anonymous asshole, stole them off a trainer, use them every day or use them once every Arceus-damn decade - it isn't going to change shit, Evan! You're still going to go to jail and this bullshit charade of yours is going to have to come to an end soon, bro."

"Is that so?" Evan asked with the utmost confidence as he grabbed and wrenched free a pokeball near the front of his trainer belt, and from it released his fourth pokemon - probably the most dangerous member of his entire team, the bizarre Mr. Mime, forever placing his hands flatly all around his body and stopping at various invisible points as if he were trapped in a box.

"I'm not worried about a stupid clown, I have Emolga," I said with pride, swelling my chest up subconsciously and feeling pumped and ready to finally take on one of Evan's longtime members - the great Mr. Mime. But then, no pun intended, but Gengar completely stole my thunder and made me so weak in the next moment and I hardly even had time to react or realize what was happening because, like I said, my mind was racing enough as it is.

Genar zoomed through mid-air, seized one of my rarest-used pokeballs from my belt, unlatched it, and let it topple to the ground, where red energy quickly formed into the tangible, familiar green and brown figure of my main flying type, Tropius. Gengar seemed to be trying to push Tropius by the side like a man would try to push a jeep whose tires have sunk deeply into wet mud - both were hopeless. Gengar caught eyes with Tropius, then motioned and pointed dramatically toward the west, chanting his own name repeatedly and frantically. While I was uncertain what exactly Gengar was saying or if Tropius understood, the basis of the message was clear - 'get him out of here.' That much was obvious.

"Gengar, I can't just try to leave in the middle of a battle like that and wuss out, it would be - " I was halfway through thinking of the word, knowing 'dishonorable' was the word on my mind, but then realized with a crazed chuckle that after Evan ordered his Frosmoth to Blizzard a trainer during a match and after both of our pokemon were guilty of taking it too far in their quest to beat the opponent, honor had gone flying out the window long ago.

"You're not going anywhere," Evan said, turning to Mr. Mime. "Mr. Mime, Psychic that Emolga as punishment for her cheap shot on Intelleon. I don't want that thing breathing in the next 5 minutes."

Mr. Mime's eyes didn't even close as the cornea changed and mutated until his eyes were black-and-pinks swirl resembling a hypnotist's tool, and a cold aura radiated throughout the area as if Mr. Mime was actually stopping and shifting the very air around them unnaturally, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.

"Gengar!" Gengar was looking at me now, his arms frantically waving, him weaving back and forth in mid-air from me to Tropius and I could see the panic in his eyes, the concern for my safety - the need, not the want to get me out of here. I could tell he could sense something I couldn't. And somehow, in the recesses of my brain where a trainer and pokemon communicate non-verbally, I could almost understand Gengar for a minute just from watching him and I knew why he wanted us out of here. We were out of our element here, it was too open, and Evan had the jump on us, and none of my pokemon appreciated being slowed down by the snow left behind on the ground from Frosmoth's mighty hailstorm. If we continued to fight my brother out here in No Man's Land, we would lose.

I moved with purpose to hop aboard Tropius (behind his fluttery, leafy wings) as Mr. Mime fired off a Psychic from his open-faced palms directed at Emolga who had still been hovering high up in the sky, just a speck you could barely see. But Emolga was no dummy or slouch, if I had learned anything about that one - she was perceptive, and speedy, and ready. Emolga has summoned a second, sudden bolt of Thunder from the gray clouds above to meet the Psychic, and the two powerful moves collided with an explosion of sparks and smoke that sent Emolga almost spiraling out of the air and back onto the snowy ground, but she recovered after descending a few feet to regain her flying status several hundred feet above Mr Mime, slightly more wary of her opponent since she seemed to ascend even higher up.

"Tropius, uh -" It killed me, but I had to get my leader voice on and bark at him as well as do what Evan would look at as running away like a frightened Torchic. "Let's get out of here! Now! Come on, up, up, fast, let's go west like he said, anywhere, just fucking move!"

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?" Evan snapped as Tropius began to flap his wings and kicked up off of the ground.

"This shall be continued, don't think you're going to get away with all this shit you've done!" I called to him as Tropius began to fly away, knowing in my heart it was hopeless and Evan was far too committed to resign so easily. "Gengar, Emolga, come on!"

"You think we're going to just let you walk away alive?" Evan said with a laugh of disbelief while slapping Dodrio's back end. "Dodrio, Fly!"

Emolga and Gengar were trailing directly behind me, protectively hovering just at Tropius' tail, with their backs to us as they kept their eyes focused on Evan and his pokemon team, both of them smart enough to not turn their backs on him. Mr. Mime had effortlessly and silently glided up several hundred feet in the air in seconds, carrying himself with his own telekinetic abilities, to accompany Evan and Dodrio by their side as they raced after us.

The wind whipping at my face would've felt relaxing after being cooped underground for a while, but being pursued by my vengeful older brother and his bloodthirsty pokemon was keeping the adrenaline pumping too much.

"Emolga, Thunder Dodrio right out of the fuckin' sky, I don't care if you kill my brother in the process!" I made sure to scream it as loud as possible so that Evan had a chance of hearing it as rage roared through me. "Gengar, Hypnosis Mr. Mime, hopefully he breaks his neck falling back down to earth!"

Tropius pressed onward, focusing not on attacking but simply flying as fast as he ever had before, and just heading west, toward the cities and the towns and the police and the people again. Tropius was never exactly renowned for his attacking prowess anyway, but it didn't matter as he had always been more important to my team as the essential flier with some decent resistances and immunities that helped me out along the way. I didn't need him to be attempting to be firing off resisted Energy Balls at ghost and flying types that were just going to miss anyway if that would risk him derailing or delaying the flight to head west as fast as possible and get us out of the the sky because it felt like even with more numbers on our side, we were still outnumbered. And I was proud of Tropius for keeping up despite the stressful situation because the rocky and barren ground below was passing fast and it wasn't too long before it shifted into a series of steaming lakes, smaller pools of water, and hot streams that I recognized as Scalding Springs, the place I had caught my feminine Lapras ages ago.

The roar of another of Emolga's forever-surprising Thunders passed by a little too close for comfort as it sailed about a hundred feet above us, directed toward the Dodrio who was keeping up with Tropius with ease, but staying back about the length of a football field due to Emolga and Gengar acting as bodyguards, as well as carrying Evan on his back which surely limited its mobility somewhat.

The Thunder missed Dodrio by what looked like a considerable amount, as Mr. Mime retaliated by unleashing a stream of what looked like brightly lit hot pink firecrackers and sparklers from both his palms, and his Dazzling Gleam came firing toward the four of us. Damn, that clown had good aim. Gengar had meanwhile fired off his Hypnosis which got pathetically swallowed up and destroyed by the incoming Dazzling Gleam which was getting closer. Maybe an inaccurate move like Hypnosis hadn't been the best bet to use against such experienced, fast pokemon traveling through the air in hindsight.

The pink fireworks traveled too fast, and they struck their target - most of them slapping at Emolga and Gengar, with a few scraping past and striking Tropius' butt and one even managed to reach my elbow, burning and singeing it and almost causing me to lose my grip on Tropius and go sailing down into the hot waters below. It was a harsh reminder to how serious this match was and how far the stakes were. This really wasn't just a battle anymore, no matter how much I wished differently - this was a duel to the death.

"Guys, that one almost knocked me off!" I chided Gengar and Emolga with a stern tone that reminded me of the asshole I used to be to my team, the near-death experience over such a small thing like a throwaway Dazzling Gleam getting past my teammates getting to me in the moment. I tried to recover. "We just got to use teamwork to beat these fuckers! Don't get intimidated! I've seen Evan cry like a bitch over having his old holographic Snorlax trading card stolen on the playground after showing if off all day at school like an idiot. No matter how crazy he is these days, he's still just a dumb showoff with more bark than bite!

"Emolga - you just keep firing off Thunders to keep them at bay - you don't gotta try to hit them, just keep them away and keep their attacks from coming through. Thunder's just way too inaccurate to try and hit such fast moving targets, let's keep our goals realistic and use our energy wisely. And Gengar - same applies with Hypnosis, no way we're hitting those so let's just throw off attacks to keep them away and to block their own attacks - so start spamming Sludge Wave! Send that gunk everywhere, I wanna see purple rain!"

There were immediately multiple jolts of Thunder and gallons of toxic Sludge Wave being flung through the air splashing in every direction, both of them successfully keeping Evan and his mons at bay - and this seemed to be grabbing the attention of passerby below. From the mountains below, I recognized the formations and the rumbling ocean just north of it marking this area as Rocky Road, a forgotten about route just north of ritzy Wintervale City. And there camping in a clearing of Rocky Road that some time ago I had battled and beaten a Sudowoodo and Hitmonlee with this same Tropius, two trainers were watching from way down below from the campsite they had set up there as they traveled through Rocky Road. It looked like a boy and girl, and they were cheering excitedly by waving their hands and pumping their fists, probably at the sheer spectacle of what looked like two trainers pursuing and battling each other through the skies and throwing off such powerful attacks at each other. Seeing the pairing made me briefly think of Eliza, and I had to wonder if she was still alive since it seemed like everyone and everything around me was dying.

It occured to me that Tropius was flying blind with no clear vision of where we were headed, and somehow while flying back west over these familiar locations, the idea seemed obvious and natural - we were headed back through all the places we came - we had to go home. Just like we had been planning on doing from the very beginning, whether we had gotten all four badges and into the Ilgragorn League or not. And Team Anonymous invading Naporia City would have certainly put a stopper to that even if I had gotten all four badges and registered in time anyway. And there was a beautiful kind of clarity with that knowledge that gave me an inner peace even amongst the chaos in the moment, flying at high velocities over rural lands.

"Tropius, take us to my hometown, Lunaris. It's just south of the Gord Woods, where I caught you. Just keep heading straight, you'll pass over Wintervale City, then we'll pass over Exeter Forest which is the biggest forest on the island, you can't miss it. Then we skip over the mountains and Duggie's Ruins, and then we'll be right at the Gord Woods, where I first caught you, remember? You know where that is! And Lunaris Town is just south of the woods! Keep going at this speed and we should be there before you know it!" I said with really no idea how much longer the flight would take and if it was realistic to expect Gengar and Emolga to reliably fend off Mr. Mime and Dodrio for that long in the air. But I couldn't let my team think I didn't believe in them.

And for the proceeding period of time, Gengar and Emolga did indeed manage to fend off the clown and bird to the best of their abilities. Whether it was 10 minutes, 20, 45, or an hour, I truly could not say in the moment as looking at my pokedex and checking the time had failed to be an option when at one point Mr Mime fired off a torpedo-like Psychic beam of telekinetic energy that managed to fire between Emolga and Gengar's shoulders, and strike the side of my pants as well as Tropius' sensitive skin beneath his left wings, leaving it red and raw, and tearing through the fabric in my sweatpants with such ferocity that my pokedex went flying out from a side tear, toppling to the streets of Wintervale below and hopefully not landing on a passerby's head.

There were dangerous points of interest along the familiar route Tropius took to escort me back to Lunaris Town as quickly as he could, as I wish I could say the pokedex being lost was the worst of the ride.

At one point while we were flying over Exeter Forest, passing just around the gigantic volcano in the center named Mt. Roland where I recall such fond memories of eating around the family dinner table with Evan bragging about catching not just one, but two Skarmory at the very top to my parents who would overreact with such joy and pride while I never had anything of interest to tell them. So, naturally, it would be right there where Evan made his first real attempt at an assault beyond the spare attack or two making it through my barrier of Gengar-Emolga.

As Tropius was altering his level of flight from so high to slightly lower, to the point where we were just a few feet above the tops of the tall, luscious ocean of oak trees that marked Exeter, and at a point where both Gengar and Emolga's Thunders and Sludge Waves were thrown out with far less efficiency as well as amounts as when they had started - that's when Dodrio and Mr. Mime made their move.

Dodrio bum-rushed his way right up in Tropius and our faces at a speed that I hadn't known he was capable of, taking advantage of Gengar and Emolga's weary states from shooting out so much energy during the entire trip to keep Evan at bay.

"Drill Peck and slit that pathetic mon's throat!" Evan ordered with callousness, looking directly into my eyes the entire time he ordered his execution, mere feet away from me as Dodrio hovered in place and kept up with Tropius. Before I, Tropius, Gengar, or Emolga could react - the left head slashed downward, the right head slashed downward, then the middle head went down like an experienced guillotine, swift and hard, right into the top of Tropius' neck.

Everything went quiet and still for a moment as my grip on Tropius' shoulders became slippery and unstable, and I realized that my hands were wet with my pokemon's blood from 3 swift Drill Pecks to the back of the neck in an attempt to decapitate him, but Tropius still, amazingly, kept his tempo going with his wings keeping us airborne, and while his speed was significantly haltered from the attack, Tropius was continuing his orders to take us to Lunaris, and my heart went out for the little guy in that moment, remembering him as the true underdog of my team that I never gave enough credit for, but here he was, blinking blood out of his eyes and flying through the pain of nearly losing his head because I, his useless master, had failed to protect him.

Thankfully Gengar and Emolga were concentrating and present while I was focused on Tropius, because when I finally returned from zoning out over thinking I was about to lose another pokemon and possibly die crash landing into Exeter Forest, I saw they had been quick enough to react to Tropius' attack to save his life, since they were now all way behind us, locked into a battle as Tropius kept putting more and more distance between them.

I could barely make out Emolga locked in combat with Dodrio, Emolga using Acrobatics to dance and weave around Dodrio who was trying to swat her out of the air using all 3 heads, which gave Dodrio an advantage, as he always had at least two eyes on her as she attempting to get an attack sometimes behind, sometimes underneath, but never succeeding as Dodrio had lightning fast reflexes and he would recoil to safety.

Then there was Gengar who had engaged with Mr. Mime, who was using Psychic to break apart chunks of rock from the wide of the volcano and fire them at Gengar, creating his own version of a powerful Stone Edge, while Gengar managed to fire off some kind of energetic ball of brown energy that wobbled unsteadily as it made its way to its target of the many chunks of dangerous rock until both moves exploded upon contacting each other, leaving me to assume Gengar had landed an inaccurate Focus Blast on the rocks to shield himself, the clever bastard.

A part of me wanted so badly to turn around and help, as it felt innately wrong to leave Gengar and Emolga to fend for themselves against my psychotic brother, but now Tropius was bleeding out, he needed medical support and a part of me was telling myself that if I could just talk to Mom and Dad, explain to them all of Evan's developments, maybe they could call him off; perhaps they were the only people on this entire planet that Evan would listen to, because it wasn't me. And all of that started with us getting to Lunaris, I told myself as Tropius arched around a sharp corner of the volcano and my brother and all four mons were out of sight, way behind us with no signs of catching up.

Gengar and Emolga (and Drapion) are on a whole other level than my mons like Tropius or Lapras - they can take care of themselves far better than most, they can solo against Evan for a while, they can hold him off, I know it, I know it.

The lonely and nerve-filled ride with Tropius over and out of Exeter Forest, with him dripping blood the whole time as his back was getting increasingly red with blood pooling out of gashes in his neck where Dodrio's beaks had sunk in, was almost worse than the whole part before being chased since before I didn't feel so alone, no offense to Tropius who was using all his energy and giving everything he had to keep us airborne. The not knowing if Gengar or Emolga were okay, if they were currently getting overwhelmed by Evan and his mons without me there to back them up. I spent most of the trip turned around, as dangerous as it was, since it was increasing my likelihood of sliding right off of Tropius, but I was eager to see if anyone or thing would be popping out from behind Mt. Roland as it got further away, but my hope began to sink the further we got away, with no signs of friend or foe as Tropius began to shake unsteadily and waver through the air with uncertainty as he began to feel a bit of blood loss, right as the small town with a misnomer like Peltagrow City appeared not too far off in the distance, and the sprawling Gord Woods laid out beside it, extending far into the south where it would meet along with some mountains that housed Duggies Ruins, where I first met that abusive asshole Marvin Bloom.

"Tropius, I can see the Gord! We made it, buddy! You fucking made it! Come on!" I exclaimed with excitment that civilization was near, a pokemon center was near my parents were near, home was near.

"Adam," a familiar, cold voice came from behind, and I couldn't even blame myself for not hearing them pull up behind me as I'd learned to not underestimate the speed and tact of this mon. "Now that those two insects are dead, it's your turn." I turned back around to face Evan, who has somehow sustained a bloody, swollen lip that did nothing but add to his already sinister, twisted smile as blood leaked out between his teeth.