Raven: Emerald Fist
Mechyena Saga

Chapter XVI - Red Sky

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Jay inquired slowly, peering at the dilapidated shack of a boat rental building from his place beside me on the rickety wooden jetty.

We had walked to the end of the platform, which extended about twenty metres out from the beach, under the misconception that one of the boats moored to it would be the tourist one I had set my heart on. After we realised our error we had decided to wait for a few minutes instead of hurrying back. The early morning sky was an awe inspiring ruby red over the shimmering surface of the ocean beneath it and, combined with the gentle lap of waves against the dock, the scene had a hypnotic effect that I found hard to resist. It was only the tug of my pride at Jay's sceptical comment and the chill of a breeze set on reminding me of the late autumn setting that helped me to turn away from the water and back to my companion, the shore and the boathouse.

"Of course I'm sure," I told him confidently, crossing my arms not only to show my tenacity on the subject but to fend off the nip of the wind, "A boat trip will be good for us, if nothing else we can catch a break from the chaos we've been in the middle of lately. Anyway," I pointed out, "Where there is water there are water Pokémon, and we have none. Is that incentive enough for you?"

"That doesn't change the fact that, last time I checked, you were terrified of water," Jay retorted calmly, although there was a certain glimmer in his eyes at the thought of a new addition to his three 'Mon team that told me the argument was already mine.

"Being in water, not on it," I dismissed his comment casually, "I've been on barges before and they never bothered me."

Jay simply shrugged, a submissive 'whatever you say but don't hold me accountable' gesture, and we started back along the jetty, my hands shoved into the pockets of my new jeans as my feet skirted dried patches of white Wingull guano. There weren't any huge flocks of the pale feathered bird Pokémon crowding in the sky, and for that I was grateful.

After crossing the beach, carefully hopping over explosions of seaweed splattered over the sand and trying not to crush any tiny orange Krabby that darted about the salty green refuge, we found ourselves standing hesitantly outside the little wooden house. It was built on top of an elevated wooden deck, some of the platform jutting out from beneath it, and the space was littered with salt encrusted coils of various types of rope. When the ripped and faded state of the poster proclaiming the place's identity was added to the picture I couldn't help but wonder if it had gone out of business years ago, but stepped forwards never the less to knock on the door.

With each rap of my knuckles the nails holding the door to its frame shook alarmingly but other than a little dislodged dust the house gave no reply, standing as old, silent and empty as before.

"Abandoned, no doubt," Jay muttered after a few seconds, "Probably due to a lack of people so stupid as-"

Although he said more, the rest of the trainer's sentence was drowned out by a much louder voice that made me jump backwards so fast I tripped, my head and back colliding with the doorframe of the boathouse with a thud.

"Ahoy!" cried the voice, a word that caused my lagging expectations to plummet so far I had to wonder if an abyss had opened up in my brain and my optimism fallen into it.

Rubbing my head and trying to force away the dizziness the impact had dragged back up with the power of my mind, I watched with detached amazement as a grizzled man with wiry grey hair pulled back into a ponytail beneath his battered captain's hat emerged from behind a particularly large stack of Crawdaunt pots and rope coils. He dressed like a particularly bad costume player, the impressive dark blue coat that fell thickly from his broad shoulders ruined only by threadbare elbows and the way sea water had bleached patches of it to lighter shades of blue, leaving me with the lasting impression of cheap camouflage print gone wrong. Beneath that he wore a much more normal pair of dirty jean overalls but had insisted on tucking the trouser legs into his thick grey socks, for whatever reason. Add to that a pair of converse trainers on his feet and the man was the epitome of bizarre.

"Well?" the crazy pirate-sailor wannabe prompted unexpectedly, squinting at us critically, "Ahoy!"

"A-uh-hoy?" Jay tried hesitantly after a few seconds' confused silence.

The man beamed, "Ahoy! You be here for th' sailing, I reckon."

"N-nah, not really!" I blurted squeakily, the thought of sailing skills as bad as dress sense haunting the back of my mind, "We just saw this house and wondered what it was, yeah, that's all!"

"Ah, well," his grin widened to impossible proportions, "Good thing I saw yez then, ye'd 'ave missed out on a most tremendous voyage! Only six dubloons each!"

Jay and I swapped glances but to my surprise his expression was one of interest, unlike mine. For a second I was shocked, but then it dawned on me… Pokémon. He was still determined to catch a water Pokémon for his team.

'Damn it,' I cursed, thoughts of powerful Dewgong, Starmie and Kingdra starting to hack at logic and common sense.

"Fine," I sighed, "But what the heck's a dubloon?"

"What's a dubloon?" the man seemed appalled, "How can ye not know what a dubloon is?"

Seeing my consistently clueless expression, he sighed and dug around in one massive pocket of his coat.

"Here," he held out a small copper coin, allowing me only a quick glance before shoving it back into his pocket, "Though that one's mine, ye hear?"

"Naturally," I responded, reaching into my own pocket.

Jay blinked, "Raven, I think we both know that you don't have any-"

I shoved him back and smiled, holding out my hand for the man to see. Twelve of the shiniest pennies in my purse glittered in my palm, and the man snatched them up greedily, tilting the worthless coins in the sunlight as though they were some sort of rare treasure.

"Well I'll be damned," he muttered after a second, amazed, "Th' gal's rich! Ye two 'ave got yaselves a boat!"

ooo

Two shapes, one tall and humanoid and the other wolf like and walking on all fours, made their way through the forest noisily, glad that the human who had accompanied them had left them to the rest of the walk a while ago. The huge dog, his shaggy black coat stuck together in places with his own blood and his external metal ligaments and skeleton scuffed and scarred, had lost its once proud posture and now walked with its head and tail down, glaring venomously at the creatures they passed through murderous red eyes.

"Oh stop it, Shadow," his companion snapped in exasperation, all four of her well muscled arms crossed over her toned chest, "You'll get nowhere by sulking, it's most unbecoming of you."

"Fine, fine, so he'll punish you," she continued as though his response was as clear as day, "It's your own fault for putting yourself forwards for that experiment, anyway. You should have followed my example, hmm?"

The reminder only caused Mechyena to release a furious growl from the back of his throat as they separated to go around either side of a deep mud pit. Joining again beyond the foliage that hid the erroded lip of the pit from sight, the two Pokémon continued on in silence. They covered ground faster that way, both impressive specimens that moved far faster than any human, and soon the roar of a busy city's roads reached the wide ears of the hound.

"Home again home again, eh?" the Machamp commented as the first towering spires became visible through the steadily diminishing canopy of dark leaves above them.

As they reached the last few trees of the woodland, Mechyena stopped suddenly to stare up regretfully at the oppressive grey buildings, his ears pressed back against the dome of his skull.

"Hey, we had to come here, you know?" the other Pokémon reminded him, "I know he isn't here, but the people who can fix you are… the people who can make you even better."

His head rose at this last comment, the tantalising thought of additional strength making the next few steps easier. The Master might not be here to see him, but perhaps that could be seen positively. Perhaps the next time he saw him, ShadowSteel would have succeeded in his simple task, all because of a few useful upgrades…

ooo

One thing worth remembering is that a boat is not a barge. A barge is a boat, yes, but it doesn't necessarily work both ways. As we bobbed out across the bay, land getting further and further away as the waves jostled our little craft relentlessly, I just started to regret having never known that useful fact.

"Hey, look," Jay offered as comfort, slinging himself down beside me as I stared out at the diminishing line of land, "You can't catch big Pokémon from a barge, can you?"

"Ahgreed," the voice of a dragon I now regretted releasing cackled, "The wahter's not deep enough there. Out here though…"

"Shut up, Raijin," I snapped, my head snapping around to glare at him as he sunbathed on the roof of the cabin.

It had been guilt at letting him loose to Miltank two days before that had caused me to let him out but I wasn't the only one who hadn't forgotten the loss. Pride hurt more than his body, the Mydral hurled even more nasty comments at me than usual and his eyes had lost the joking look they had gained in more recent days, reverting right back to the sinister malice that sent shivers down my spine when I saw it.

"Only when I wahnt to, humahn," he hissed, smirking at my disquiet.

Trying to cover up said reaction I turned back to the view over the side, appreciating the job my new training uniform was doing of keeping out the worst of the cold wind so I could enjoy the sun on my back. Well, try to enjoy. The land was almost invisible now and I swallowed as the last skyscraper disappeared beyond the horizon.

"'Ey now lass, cheer up," the man who had identified himself simply as 'Captain' said with a pat on my back, "Now that we're this far out we can fish!"

I looked up at the smiling sailor, "Fish?"

In response he shoved a fishing pole and bucket of bait into my hands and pointed at the water, "It's simple: just spear th' bait on th' hook, throw the hook overboard and wait for a tug, then pull it up. None o' tha' fancy stuff here - even I don't understand them new things!"

Another pat on my shoulder and he was gone, shoving similar implements into Jay's hands before disappearing off below deck for whatever reason. We swapped looks but settled down on a bench near the side, the fact that we were city-bred teenagers with the fishing experience of Trapinch glaringly obvious through our clumsy handling of the supple wooden fishing poles.

"So," he started, pinching a wiggling worm between thumb and forefinger and grimacing in distaste, "Think we'll catch anything?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but the boat chose just that second to hit a particularly large swell in the water, cutting me off as the deck heaved up and down again. Grabbing Jay's arm, I squeezed until he yelped, refusing to let go until we had returned to the standard rhythmic rocking.

"Thanks for that," he said dryly as Raijin cracked up in the background, "If I'd known boat trips were so bruising I never would have agreed to come."

I ignored his comment. Something had hit my foot and, as I reached down to see what it was, my hand closed around what felt like a medium sized Pokéball. Awkwardly tossing thebaited hookof my fishing rod over the side, I held up the fruit of my short search and gave Jay a questioning look.

He winced at my expression, "Ah, well…"

In my hand sat a Pokéball, but not just any Pokéball. Its smooth, perfectly spherical surface was a glistening pearl pink, the gap between halves and around the button painted gold rather than black. To finish the abomination sprouted more of the pink plastic over the top of the button, splaying out like a petrified ribbon bow.

"Just what the hell is this?" I inquired, for a moment forgetting the hateful ship in the face of such a hideous item.

"Poppy's Pokéball," my male companion responded sheepishly, taking the ball out of my hand and tucking it back securely into the bag he had slung at his feet.

I waited for an explanation, wanting some comment that might redeem my companion's mental status, but when none came and Jay added his hook to the ocean I prompted bluntly, "Why?"

He gave me a sideways look, "For easy identification."

"Why?"

"Because she's too young to battle," he responded, apparently surprised I didn't already know this, "If I accidentally sent her out in a fight I could lose my licence and I don't particularly want to be illegal."

Desperately trying to cover up a wince at the mention of illegal trainership, I asked, "But you don't accidentally send out the wrong Pokémon normally… In fact, I've never seen that happen."

He rolled his eyes, "Raven, it's the order of the balls on a trainer's belt that stops mistakes most of the time - you know that because you do it yourself - but I don't want to run the risk, alright?"

"A 'necessary precaution'," I mimicked with a slightly uncomfortable grin.

We fell into silence, the ocean sounds of screaming Wingull overhead, the slap of the waves against the bow and the creak of the boat itself interrupted only occasionally by the scrape of Raijin's dangling tail against the cabin wall. The vastness of it all was overwhelming: sky and sea spread out in all directions uninterrupted until they merged together in a mass of blue on the horizon. We were very far out, I released while Jay made himself more comfortable by stretching over the bench, so far out that if we were to sink…

Thankfully, that disturbing thought was broken off before it reached fruition by a sudden, sharp tug on my fishing pole. It took me a second to realise what was going on.

"A fish!" I yelped, leaping up and hauling on the rod.

The taut wire sliced through the water as whatever was on the end pulled back, but I grabbed onto the little handle and turned it, reeling in the water Pokémon. It resisted furiously, threatening to force the handle from my fingers, but with a mighty heave and an explosion of foam and spray a huge white and gold fish burst from the water.

"Deen!" it cried, sailing over the side and colliding heavily with the deck at my feet.

Its egg shaped body convulsed, the long, trailing tail that sprouted from the wider end flopping haplessly about. The horn that protruded from between its glistening eyes scratched the rough wood beneath it while decorative fins waved in the air.

Jay was quick on the draw, his own fishing pole clenched in one hand as he lifted his metallic red Pokédex in the other.

"Goldeen, the goldfish Pokémon. Its tailfin billows like an elegant ballroom dress, giving it the nickname of the Water Queen. Goldeen loves swimming wild and free in rivers and ponds. If one of these Pokémon is placed in an aquarium, it will shatter even the thickest glass with one ram of its horn and make its escape," it reported with the usual robotic air of trustworthiness.

"Raijin, shock it!" I ordered, stabbing a finger at the flopping fish as though he might not have noticed it.

A sharp, condescending snort reminded me of yesterday's events.

"Fine then!" I snapped, snagging the icy blue Regenball from my hip and tossing it in the air.

"Poliii!" Polienix cried as she materialised, beating her wings to keep aloft when her yellow claws encounterednothing beneath them.

"Pol," I called up to my starter, "Help me capture this Goldeen!"

She gave a chirp of agreement, flying a quick loop-de-loop in the air before diving straight at the water type. Her bright yellow beak slicing at Goldeen's flesh, the bird quickly pulled out of her near-vertical descent and arched back upwards, a feral gleam in her black eyes. The fish convulsed, spluttering with pain, but somehow managed to right itself. Its tail spread out behind it like an ornate fan, it propped itself up on its front fins.

"GoldeengolDEEN!" it cried, a high pressure beam of water blasting from its red lips.

"Polienix, watch out!" I warned but she was way ahead of me, clipping one wing and wheeling out of harm's way.

"Okay then, quick attack!" I ordered, grinning at my Pokémon's improving reaction time.

She hesitated for a second, her eyes glowing with blue and purple light in a mixture I recognised from the fight with Clefairy. It pooled around her before lancing forwards in a jagged beam. Again Goldeen seemed unaffected but from this distance I noticed its blue eyes starting to cross. Some sort of mind alteration…?

I had no time to ponder this new move, Pol was already diving once again, although at much higher speeds this time. She rammed her shoulder against the fish's scaly side, flipping Goldeen into the air and quickly reversing direction so as to knock it once again before it landed. She zipped back and forth, each passing stroke furthering the extent of the damage that marred its glossy hide.

"Pol, that's enough!" I cautioned her as blood started to seep from the broken skin, "I think it's weak enough to catch!"

"But-" the battle thirsty bird protested, enjoying the exercise even if it was at the other Pokémon's expense.

"But nothing!" I snapped, feeling pity for Goldeen and not wanting it to resent me forever when I captured it, "Pokéball, go!"

The ball arched through the air, a pre-emptive feeling of accomplishment building up inside me as it hurtled towards the beaten and bloodied form of Goldeen. There was a flash of light, the ball snapped open, my gut clenched and-

"Goldee-een!"

Apparently having regained its senses, Goldeen suddenly propelled itself from the wooden floor with the last of its strength, hurtling over the edge and towards the water.

"Pol!" I cried helplessly.

Flattening her wings against her sides, the icy bird dropped straight down. Flaring at the last possible second, her talons grabbed handfuls of the escaping water type's dorsal fin. Her outstretched wings trembled for a second under the strain, then gave completely. Lilac light surrounded her as she attempted to use her psychic powers to keep herself above water with her catch, but the weight was too much.

"Polienix!" Jay yelled as Goldeen hit the water with a splash, my starter still gripping it tightly.

Salt water exploded upwards in a colossal splash, Polienix missing submersion by little more than a last-second beam of scarlet light that drew her back into her Regenball. Jay and I stood, blinking, for a second.

"Damn," I finally muttered, letting my arm drop to my side, Regenball still in my hand.

"I'll say," Jay agreed, holding up two broken fishing poles with a pained expression, "So much for catching water Pokémon - you probably scared them all away with that sort of ruckus."

Cringing apologetically, although Jay looked more amused than angry, I was about to sit down when the voice of Captain called out from the back of the boat. We swapped glances, unsure of what he was blowing out of all proportion this time, but couldn't help but go in the direction of the noise when he started yelling something about pot - my desire to be on a boat had drained away a while ago, my desire to be on a boat with a drugged captain as our only sailor had never even started.

Giving Raijin a wide berth as we passed, the two of us made our way over to where the crazy old mariner was standing, his shoulders hunched and arms tense as he pulled on a thick rope that extended down into the deep. A large orange buoy, encrusted with white salt and a few tiny barnacles, was attached to the end and sat dripping by Captain's feet.

"What're you doing?" Jay inquired curiously, peering over the side as it he might be able to see far enough through the murky waves to catch sight of whatever was being lifted up.

"Pullin' up me old Corphish pots," Captain responded cheerfully, oblivious to the line of water that was dribbling off his elbow and into the sleeve of his battered coat.

"Corphish… pots?" I repeated in confusion, "What's a Corphish and why… why d'you give it…?"

Leaping on the chance to answer a question, the man continued to pull up more and more algae covered rope as he responded, "Corphish, they're them lil' orange shellfish Pokémon. Got claws, tha' sort of thing. Ye make a trap for them outta wood, put some bait in it an' throw it overboard. Leave it for a few, come back an' haul it up an' there's these Corphish innum. S'good."

A dull clunk of wood on wood sounded just after his last word, Jay's eyes going wide as he watched something emerge from the water. There was another thud as it hit the side again, accompanied by continuous clacking. With one last tug, the "Corphish pot" tumbled onto the deck, water sloshing around it.

It was not the terracotta vase I had imagined, but a cage made out of thin slats of wood. Through the gaps I made out the odd rusty orange claw snapping angrily and the skittering of hardened feet was prominent now. While Jay inspected it from close up, jerking back when one of the pot's occupants attempted to catch his fingers in a vicious pinch, Captain finished pulling up a duplicate of the first and wrenched it open, peering inside.

"Argh!" he exclaimed suddenly, snatching up something steel blue and shiny, "Not these damn fishes again!"

He went to throw the creature back into the water, ignoring the spray of water that it fired at his shoulder, but I leapt forwards and grabbed his elbow.

"Wait! If you don't want it, I'd like to catch it," I told him, not a second too soon.

"Eh?" he turned, the Pokémon thrashing in his hand, "Catch? This aggr'vating little thing?"

"Yeah, I guess," I responded, watching the foot-long fish as it snapped its small maw and flailed its large fins.

It was bullet shaped, streamlined to the extreme, with darker blue-grey lines marking its smooth sides. Its large, rounded eyes rolled to look at me as Captain held it out sceptically.

"Thank you."

Taking the fish in both hands and holding on tightly as it continued its thrashing, I decided to cut the battle short so as to avoid another episode like the Goldeen. Making sure I had good enough grip to aim, I turned back towards the boat and threw the water type in a huge arching curve over towards the cabin. Right into Raijin.

"Maaaaadriiiiiil!"

His roar of surprise, followed by a remarkable burst of electricity that crackled through the air above the boat, made we three humans duck and wince. It had a literally electrifying effect on the poor fish, lighting it up for a second so that every thin bone was visible as dark shadows before it dropped, smoking and motionless, onto the deck. I wasted no time, snatching an empty Pokéball from my bag and chucking it effortlessly in the creature's direction.

As the ball snapped shut, I grinned at Raijin, too pleased with myself to be afraid, "Ha, instant Pokémon!"

"Humahn…" he growled warningly, golden eyes narrowing to slits as he crouched on the roof of the cabin, tail lashing like that of a furious cat.

Doing my best to make my involuntary swallow invisible, I quickly went over to where my new Pokémon's ball lay and picked it up, sidling back to Jay and Captain before polishing it against the hem of my shirt.

"Tha' 'Mon's dangerous, lass," the crazy sailor speculated gruffly, his voice pitched low so Raijin wouldn't hear, "He belongs somewhere else, th' pound, for example."

I shot Jay a look, but the one he returned it with was disapproving. I had upset him again, though how I didn't know. Something to do with Raijin, no doubt.

"The pound?" I repeated carefully, "You know much about it?"

A beaming grin let up his weathered face, and Captain said, "O'course! Me sist'r ownsa place, 'tis a grand dumping ground for whiny buggers like tha' one."

"Your sister!" Jay exclaimed, beating me to it, "You wouldn't happen to have any… leverage with how it's run, then? Only we've had a few bad experiences with the pound and-"

"Leverage? Bah!" the sailor glared at us both angrily, "My sister does th' best job with tha' place tha' anyone else ever could, I won't hear a bad word against her!"

He turned, muttering under his breath about impertinence, and started tending to his lobster pots with brusque movements.

"An' now you've made me lose one o'em!" he snarled, peering between the wooden slats, "There were four o'em in tha' pot, I tell ye!"

He did not seem to really care about getting an answer, which was good because we were already backing away, slipping past Raijin to the other end of the ship. The wind was stronger here, without the bulk of the cabin to shelter us, and I pawed futilely at my cropped hair as it lashed around my face.

"I bet there's a stupid little clawed thing scuttling about now," I muttered, "Just waiting to pinch me when I'm not expecting it…"

I looked up to find said "stupid little clawed thing" staring dumbly at me from Jay's hands. Not as small as I thought - it was taller than Jay's forearm was long, with claws bigger than my balled fist. It stood on six needle like legs that protruded from the hinged tan plates that guarded its underside.

"What - how?" I stuttered, amazed.

"Slight of hand," the boy responded curtly, "I make a good thief."

"But it's the size of a… of a…" I struggled for something that fitted, came up blank and simply stared at him.

"Doesn't matter," he dismissed the subject, retracting his hands and holding the Corphish to his chest so it couldn't escape, "What does matter is that you nearly got us all killed. An electric attack? In a boat in the middle of the ocean? Are you totally mad?"

I snapped back, "No! It… I mean, it sounded like a good idea at the time!"

I glared at him, fiery amber eyes meeting stormy blue-green, and we held a brief staring match before he looked away.

"Well, it wasn't a good idea. Seriously, Raven, you need to stop letting Raijin get to you. He's full of hot air - he might disobey you but he's not going to do anything drastic. No Pokémon would," his expression had turned softer, almost apologetic, and he nodded his head at the squirming creature in his arms, "I need a little room, if you don't mind."

Leaving him to properly capture the Corphish he had swiped off Captain, I ambled over to our bags and sat back down on the bench. The fact that I had as good as overcome my seasickness occurred to me as I stared out at the dips and swells of the deep water, the wind insistently pressing against my cheeks as clouds built up on the horizon, but I was too preoccupied to really care.

Jay's oddly naïve outlook on Pokémon surprised me - I had always viewed him as a knowledgeable, experienced trainer who knew a hell of a lot more than I did. The latter was still true, obviously, but the way he had dismissed Raijin as harmless made me doubt this "knowledgeable" aspect. Raijin was not harmless. The experience within Sprout Tower, when Raijin had kept up his electrical attack to the point at which I was completely helpless, had proved that to me. He might not have done damage as lasting as Mechyena's, but if Hades had not been there…

Well, some paths were best left alone.

Restless, I snatched up my bag and rifled through its contents, searching for something to occupy myself with. The temperature was dropping, giving the wind a biting quality, and the waves had gained small, foamy, white caps that splashed against the sides of the boat rather than rolling under us. After a few rains of spray had started to sink through my double layers, I started towards the cabin door, taking our bags with me on impulse. As I pushed aside the small, varnished door that led away from the effects of the elements, I noticed Raijin folding his sail-like wings meticulously so that they lay as flat as possible against his grainy sides. His eyes glimmered was an odd light but then I was within the safety of the cabin and not in the mood to even think about him.

The cabin was fairly bare, with a bench seat running along the far wall and all other corners stacked high with Corphish pots, their slim wooden slats looking much like smooth bones picked clean in the dull light of a lamp overhead. Dumping our bags on the floor near the bench I sat heavily on the moth-eaten padding, only to jump to my feet an instant later. I had a sudden urge to be productive but a quick glance around the room told me what I already knew: there was nothing to be productive with. Eventually I found a cabinet half hidden in the Corphish pot graveyard but it was as bare as the room itself.

I grumbled incomprehensibly to myself for a while, staggering over to my seat once again as the deck heaved a few times beneath my feet, before my attention was drawn to one of the Pokéballs in my pack. I raised an eyebrow at the thoughts jostling through my mind but the sceptical side of me stood no chance in the face of my boredom.

Swiping up the ball I twirled it fancily between my fingertips before crying out, "Arina, go!"

Order of the day: spider psychology.

She appeared out of the crimson beam, eight legs splayed on the wooden floor. Her eyes rolled in post-Pokéball confusion, but the second she was back in reality…

"HUMAAAAAAAAN!"

"Wait, Arina!" I cried, cursing her internally as I grabbed a leg to stop her from disappearing into the hill of pots, "I only want to talk!"

"LIAR!" she screamed, the sheer volume of her shout making me flinch back in surprise.

Quick reflexes were my saving grace once again, however, and I caught hold of her leg behind the knee this time before she could take advantage of my lapse. Spider psychology was quickly spiralling into spider restraint, I realised with a groan, but I wasn't about to give up just yet.

"Listen!" I demanded, voice raised in the vague hope that she could hear me over her own yelling, "You're being stupid! Trainers aren't dangerous we're… we're…" I groped for words before finishing stupidly, "More scared of you than you are of us!"

"NO YOU'RE NOT!" she hollered straight back, and I would have sworn my ears were beginning to bleed, "YOU'RE EVIL!"

She suddenly hurled her whole body weight away, surprising me, but I would have managed to keep a hold on her if it wasn't for the slick white material that plastered itself to my face seemingly out of nowhere. I gave my own yelp, fingers pulling away long, slender strands of the spider silk that covered my face from left jawbone to right temple, covering one eye completely.

I heard her laughter as she skittered away out of my reach and grabbed the silk in both hands, pulling until my eye was uncovered, the material dangling from my face like dislodged bandages. I left it there, not even considering it as it snarled itself around strands of my shortened rust red hair.

"Arina!" I thundered, any imposing effect my height and broad shoulders could have created eradicated forcefully when the ship started to buck more wildly over waves, causing me to pinwheel my arms and squirm like a demented hoola dancer as I struggled to stay standing.

The deck pitched again and I crashed into the Corphish pots, one of the traps breaking under my knee and imbedding curved fragments just beneath my kneecaps. I yelled again, more out of surprise this time, and thrust myself quickly backwards, loosing much of the silk in the process.

"SEE!" a furious little voice screeched, "EVIL! TRYING TO KILL ME!"

I would have come up with some sort of retort, perhaps slowed by the fact that I could feel my stomach starting to rebel, but I would have done. I hadn't the chance. One minute I was standing, the next I was cracking my back on the edge of the bench and having the wind knocked right out of me. I twisted, fingers hooking like claws into the old fabric seats, and then I was buried in Corphish pots.

"Gah!" was all I could really come up with as I thrust the mostly broken wooden structures from my body, "Damn it!"

Caught up in one of my surges of furious single-mindedness, I snatched up the three spidery legs that protruded and yanked the wailing Arina from her upturned position in the sea of fisherman's equipment.

"Let go!" she cried, her voice dampened somewhat by what must have been a near-death experience in Spinarak terms.

"Hell no," I ground out in response, forcing myself one-handed to my feet and wading towards the door.

Kicking wrecked pots out of my way, I swung the door open, intent on finding out what was going on, just in time to see an enormous wave roar over the bow and crash down onto and into our tiny boat. The tortured wind shrieked about my ears and I immediately regretted stepping outside. The sky was black. Occasionally flashes of jagged lightning would rip through the air, illuminating heavy clouds and reflecting against the churning expanse of inky black sea with ghostly iridescence. It looked like we were caught up in the middle of a storm but… how? I had never seen something advance so fast!

"What's going on?" I bellowed at Captain, who was bent double over by the side to yank on a trailing rope, his silhouette momentarily illuminated to reveal the rippling of his sailor's muscles beneath his soaked blue coat before it faded back into a struggling lump of black.

He didn't respond, not that I was surprised with the racket the storm was creating, so I gritted my teeth, narrowing my eyes into determined slits, and gripped the squirming body of Arina to my chest as I began to make my way over to him.

It was hard going: the deck lurched like a thing alive beneath me, sometimes my steps coming up short, sometimes long, so that I stumbled all the way there. The gale was no help either, slapping my matted hair, still threaded with silk, against my face and driving rain and spray into my near-closed eyes.

"Captain!" I yelled again, reaching out with one hand to grab his shoulder, when suddenly the ship's floor reared up so much I thought we were going to roll right over.

Instead I just fell, rolling down the near-vertical plane of the deck as we suddenly slid sideways as though on some sort of well greased slide. I smacked into the side of the cabin, bruising my bruises, with arms flying akimbo as my hands sought to keep me sitting upright. Arina, free from my incarcerating embrace, chose to bury her legs in my hair, obviously fearing the sea more than me if the way she hung on for dear life was anything to go by.

I floundered for a second, cursing and crying and trying to stop, then I managed to look up the way I had come.

My heart stopped in my chest - just froze, as though someone had set it in concrete - and my jaw slid open limply. A curving wall of water towered over us, so high I would have sworn the skyscrapers had an aqueous rival, its black bulk blocking out the lightning-torn sky as though there was no sky, only water. The scream tore itself from my lips, tortured and animalistic, and I scrabbled mindlessly at the wood against my back, dragging myself to my feet by my bloodied fingertips. I was soon out of air, the intensity of the scream was such, yet it continued on anyway, an extension of sound that gathered within it a demonic frequency that accented perfectly my panicked response.

I had no idea what to do, I had no idea what I was doing, I just ran, back and forth at first and then to the base of the mast, trying to wrap my arms around it but failing, failing so terribly. Primal, crazy instinct carried me away from the mast once again, running and stumbling over the raised planks, my fingers reaching for the railing that encircled the cabin, grasping, holding-

And then the wave was on us.

My scream was swallowed by the rushing water, just as I was. I tried desperately to pull myself closer to the bar, to wrap my arms around it, but the current made my fighter's muscles irrelevant. Salt filled my mouth, forced itself up my nose, my head aching like someone was smashing it with a hammer and my fingers broke, or at least they felt like they did, as I was torn away from the railing, limbs flailing, caught up in the wave. The side of my hip collided with the side and then I was over, horribly, inevitably overboard and struggling for air, not sure which way was up but hoping I could reach it anyway, not thankful for the extra weight on my head.

My lungs burned but there was no way to tell if my vision was darkening, everything was pitch black already. I was soaked, hurt, drowning and blind, fighting against something I could not beat, could not even get a headlock on. I could feel the end looming, an ominous evil that, even in my suffering and terror, I shunned like my greatest enemy.

And then my head pierced the surface. Impossible, I thought, but no, I gasped and got air, yes, a lot of water too, but air. I think I might have been crying again, but I couldn't tell. I was already spluttering, my eyes already streaming, so making such matters definite seemed excruciatingly trivial.

So I kicked, that dumb instinct infusing me with a basic knowledge of treading water, possibly crying but perhaps not, as the huge waves (although none so horrific as the one before) bounced me up and down like a worthless piece of driftwood. If nothing crested over me I would be alright, yeah, yeah, alright, my legs weren't really biting cold, it was shock. Yeah, shock.

My eyes rolled, searching for the ship, but I saw nothing, only rolling waves that hindered my range of sight to ten metres or so. They had to be there, of course, couldn't just disappear, I just had to-

Another one!

This time I managed to suck in a mouthful of air before the monster wave knocked me under, but it was worthless: it was blasted from my lungs in a high-pressure beam as the force of the water slammed into my shoulder. So again I thrashed, breathless, beneath the water, and again I kicked, against all odds, to the surface. Only this time I wasn't bobbing. Each swell filled my nose and mouth with water, I was eternally spluttering, and I cast about for something, anything to grab onto so that I might get one good, deep breath. I thought I saw a stick, like a mast, holding stalwart behind another one of endless waves, but then again I also thought I saw a bat-like wing protruding from the water and a great white beast dart between clouds overhead. My senses were obviously beyond the point at which I could trust them.

As another wave sloshed over my head, depriving me of oxygen for more precious seconds, I felt my limbs turn to lead. It felt as though some sort of paralysing fluid was seeping through the cords of my muscle, encircling the shafts of my bones so that my kicking slowly started to fade, my arms becoming dead weights, dragging me down… down… down…

Down into never ending darkness.

Let's all join the Obsidian slapping game, for Obsidian is stupid and generally dull-witted. I wrote this chapter half a month - no, a WHOLE month - ago and totally forgot about posting it here. SPPf is eating me alive. Well, so is DW5, but I shalln't blame that because I love it so.

Dream4Evermore: Nope, that's the sort of QuickEdit evil I was talking about. I just wish ffdotnet would tell me what's so bad about HTML... I never had this much difficulty with that.

kayasuri-n: ...which begs the question: is Raven a sane person? Well, maybe I'm just too harsh on her. 'Tis an easy thing to do.

The Mad Tortoise: Whitney always annoyed me, crying whenever she was defeated. Considering how early on in the League her gym is, surely she'd drown herself eventually?

As for Raven, yeah, I tried to make her as bitter as possible over the defeat, as that's the sort of person I visualise her as being. Hardly the sort to try and hide it all behind some sort of facade of politeness. One of the reasons I like Raijin so much is that he's quite the weakness for her - she recognises him as strong and so uses him more than her other Pokémon, despite the fact that he's currently more of a weakness than an asset. And if he evolves before Hades or Pol get any stronger... yeah, I can see some danger/hilarity stemming from that one.

((slaps self some more)) Again, my appologies for this being so late, and the different style that somehow hopped on board near the end. I hope this chapter was good, anyway, and I WILL get to work on the next one ASAP. Because cliffhangers are evil.