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Back And Forth Ch. 7

Deviation Actions

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Chapter 7: Crash Course


'Commander-'

'I don't want to hear it.'

Behind his desk the Charizard was a looming shadow of flame. Tongues of fire flickered around the edges of his jaw like his personal vitriol in visible form. The Maractus could do nothing but baulk before it, beads of sweat running down his face as he did. Whether it was the heat or the fear was a purely academic detail.

'Unless you have a perfect excuse for your failure and a detailed stratagem for how to actually achieve your goal next time, I suggest you choose your words carefully,' the Commander said like a falling anvil. 'You told me your soldiers were sufficient.'

'They are, sir!' the Maractus pleaded desperately. 'They are strong and capable battlers, all of them-'

'Then kindly tell me how they failed to assassinate a FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOY!' the Commander bellowed in a sudden roar that make his Units Master buckle in fright. 'If they can't even kill him, how are they possibly going to recapture a girl with the power of an ancient nightmare abomination in her head?!' There was a silence, then 'Go on! I'm all ears!'

'Sir, I...' The Maractus sought for words. 'I suspect he still retains the training we gave him. The only excuse I can give, sir, is that our own tactics are so good that we had difficulty beating them. Especially when he was on his home turf.'

The Commander was not yet sated. For a second his eyes seemed to flicker towards what looked like a very full ashtray next to him. 'And the girl?'

'For her, we simply have to not attack her in a way that prompts Lyz to take over,' the Units Master replied, a little more confident of his footing. 'The girl herself is not very strong - schoolyard brawls, nothing better. She has some sort of annoying friend, but if anything that one's even weaker. If we just don't stir Lyz - don't put her life in danger, and don't put her in too fierce a battle -, recapture should be easy.'

'It had better be,' the Commander replied, rising from his seat with a tone of distant thunder. 'I am not patient with people who cannot do their jobs, are we clear?'

The Maractus' head practically cracked the ground as he bowed and scraped every step towards the door.

He was passed going the other way through the closed door by a Haunter, who looked up at the Commander on the way in. 'Marther?'

'Oh. Igor,' the Commander said in a voice that was technically friendly, in that it promised no immediate harm over the next few minutes. 'What do you want?'

'You have a methhage from your agent in Foretht County Bathe,' Igor said obediently. 'They thay that they are ready, and that although they have plenty to be doing for now, they are in pothition and can ecthtract the Kricketune whenever you want.'

The Commander's furious expression uncreased slowly, forming itself into a wicked smile in its place. 'Ah, that's better... I think it might not be a very long wait at all now. At least something's still going as planned around here...'


---


The Primpeape's fist slammed into the wall, leaving a dent. 'This can't keep happening like this!'

'Cannot it?'

'No!'

'No.'

The two voices in unison created a fearsome overtone, one of heated rage and one of cold judgement. Behind the two Elite Four members glaring down upon her, a Jynx and a Scizor wheeled the moaning Empoleon on the bed around the corner and out of sight.

The Porygon-Z before them did not seem to flinch in the slightest. 'You ask Emily to give a serious challenge. She does. Why have you now such anger?'

Dan the Primeape punched the wall again, harder this time. 'That guy there?! The one that was just wheeled out of your challenge room?! That one?! He nearly died fighting against you!'

The Porygon-Z's expression was a mask. 'Did he?'

'Emily.' The cold voice of Takeyoshi brought Emily's disconnected head back round to the Delphox, who stared down at her over his folded arms like a Roman emperor. 'We have fast-tracked several challengers through the Elite Four over the past couple of days. They were expecting the opportunity to enjoy solid battles after we had been closed for so long since Foggy left. They were not expecting to be fighting for their very lives. Do you just have an issue controlling your power? If so, you have no excuse but to learn to do so.'

'Or we'll have to control it for you,' Dan added darkly.

Emily's head turned between the two, and finally had the decency to look slightly aghast. 'I... thought maximum power was intention... thought this was a chance to put maximum power to use... That was what it was sounding of I did apply. Thought that this was place where you wanted to test people.'

'We don't test people to their breaking point, Emily,' Takeyoshi replied. 'You didn't even look like you were trying to hold yourself back against those challengers - including the ones that are now in the Intensive Care unit. You fight at maximum power... as if you don't want to be fighting at anything less. Did you know you might kill those people when you fought them?'

The Porygon-Z's eyes looked back and forth between the two Elites, Dan grinding his knuckles into his palm with a muted growl and Takeyoshi staring at her with the air of a High Court judge, and eventually turned to look down. Even though her expression consisted of nothing but two large eyes, she somehow still gave the air of profound sulking.

'This job was looking fun when I applied,' she muttered tersely before disappearing with a blip into thin air.

'You little!-' Dan growled furiously, making his fur stand on end. 'She just bailed on us! I was about to give her a piece of my mind and she just- Does she even care?!'

'Her recklessness definitely leaves a lot to be desired,' Takeyoshi understated, a small, controlled sigh escaping his muzzle. 'She seems only too gleeful to deal severe damage to opponents... I fear there may be a lot of work to be done with her. Hopefully she won't hospitalise all of the base's most promising fighters before we reach that point. For now, though, there seems to be nothing we can do, especially when she disappears like this.'

'I'm going for a shower. That battle got dirt in my fuzz,' Dan said brusquely, life being too short to waste the time. 'You seen Paul anywhere?'

'Oh, goodness knows where that serpent has got to. Could be in the cafeteria already by this point. Apparently he's been socialising with some of the new students like that feverish-looking Bug and his friend, though, so at least some good seems to be coming from his determined timewasting.'

'Psh. You're just jealous that he has a far more active social life than you, aren't you?'

'Don't be ridiculous.'


---


The scalchop soared through the air in a graceful arc and embedded itself in the ground handle-first. Immediately Tracey leapt after it, only to leap straight into the path of a Shadow Ball that intersected her dive and sent her rolling backwards across the floor.

'C'mon, Tracey!' she heard Para call as she pushed herself up and tapped her other scalchop to check it was still in place. 'I can just go easy on you... in theory. I'm not so good at it in practice.'

'Oh, I won't put you through that,' Tracey called back with a small smile. Time to work the tempo a bit more. She motioned towards her fallen scalchop and then immediately feinted the other way, her nimble Dewott figure easily bending around the second Shadow Ball she'd baited without harm. She clapped her hands and shot a Water Pulse at her opponent, not minding as Para blocked it with her arms as she took the chance to dive forward at the Espeon and swing right-left-right and then across in a Razor Shell slice that Para could do nothing but bear the brunt of with a pained grunt. Tracey let the momentum carry her forwards, caught it, spun on one foot and launched herself back again.

Really, it was a question of how much of a range each kept the other at. Para grinned as she snapped a paw out and a bench at the side of the arena lines rose into the air and threw itself at Tracey, too distracted by recovering her second scalchop to block it effectively as she took the blow with a cry. Para was quite happy to keep her enemies at long range and bombard them with mental energy and Shadow Balls all day. She had a few tricks for those who insisted on getting close, but mostly her opponents could keep their distance and take their licks as far as she was concerned. Tracey pulled herself up again and there was a moment where the two locked eyes, one steady and still with paw still extended, the other constantly moving, head bobbing slightly as one foot swept behind the other and then in front, and then behind again around the other. Both smiling with confidence and enjoyment of the match.

Tracey moved first, an en pointe glide that became a twisting jump to dodge a wave of Psychic energy that flew at her in the position she would have occupied if she'd remained on the floor. From the air she threw her scalchop and it aimed true, the shell striking Para just as she was thrown off mid-attack. Tracey landed, ran forward, caught her scalchop from the air and brought her momentum forward with her. Up close, it was Tracey who was in her element - her natural weapons were of course short-range razors, but it was in a closer proximity that she could really do a routine. With a smile and a laugh she weaved around a desperate grabbing paw and cut a sweeping upward arc, two arcs, and then carry the spin through so that there was a heartbeat's pause and then a straight side kick to the sternum that made the Espeon stagger. An onlooker that happened to be passing would have remarked on a sort of poeticism, a pattern and flurry of wide swings and neat slices to Tracey's movements that followed a continual, momentum-based flow. The neat set of attacks, dodges and, where Para got the upper hand, recoveries flowed like one continuous movement and one unceasing whole. Tracey danced, her feet light and her razors flashing almost visible light trails through the air, and as long as she was within her range her rhythm was almost impossible to catch up on. Of course, there were no onlookers. Generally no-one troubled these two girls when they were sparring, or really at any other time. They didn't mind. They were having all the fun they needed between the two of them.

Para's arms crossed in the best defensive block she could manage against such an intricate and varied assault, but fortunately she didn't need hands to fight. She closed her eyes and suddenly Tracey stumbled, a hand snapping to her temple as she winced in pain. Para smiled and summoned the energy for a finishing blow - Last Resort. She flexed her paw - and the power didn't come. Her eyes widened, and she snapped her paw out again. Nothing. Bollocks. She hadn't used all her moves yet. Trust her to not keep track. This was all the delay needed, though, for the beat went on and suddenly Tracey was rushing straight at her. Thought shut down and instinct took over - she blocked the first two swipes, then when the third overhead swing came she twisted round and caught the Dewott's arm so she and her friend were face-to-face.

There was a moment's silence, just the two of them trying to get their breath back. Para grunted. 'Not bad. You're getting better at dodging.'

'Thanks,' Tracey replied, a little breathlessly. 'You actually have a certain rhythm of your own, Para - try listening for it next time.'

'Maybe. Speaking of, though, you know what rhymes with "tango"?'

'What?'

'Iron Tail.'

Tracey frowned. 'That doesn't rhy-'

Para's Iron Tail flew up and carried Tracey off her feet as the Dewott fell back into a bedraggled heap. Para was already rushing forward as Tracey pushed to her feet and began to spin with her scalchops out, but before her whirling pirouette slice could gain momentum Para's fist glowed this time and she threw a straight that hit with an impact beyond anything she could produce herself. Tracey fell down again, and this time barely had the strength to rise up on one knee. Para slowed, the glow disappearing from her fist, and again for a few seconds there was silence except for attempted recovery of breath. Then Tracey raised her head, looked up at Para and smiled weakly. 'Good game,' she managed.

Para smiled back. 'I'll get a Hyper Potion.'

It turned out both girls had done quite a number on each other - more than one Hyper Potion had to be applied each before strength felt fully rejuvenated. Para at first had refused medicine and opted to let her injuries heal themselves, but Tracey had been the right mixture of gentle and firm to tell her to stop being ridiculous. The last spray aerosol hovered over to and dropped itself in the bin as Para rubbed her arm and relaxed her focus. 'Phew. Guess that tutoring session to learn Iron Tail had been worthwhile, am I right?'

'I certainly didn't see it coming,' Tracey said as she patted her furry thighs down, and glanced at the bin. 'Do you really have to use psychic powers for everything? You can just walk there, you know.'

'Then again, no reason not to. By the way, Tracey...' Para paused, considering her words. 'I've been meaning to ask, but... You when you talk about the 'rhythm of the fight'? ...Do you actually hear anything?'

'Eheh...' Tracey rubbed a hand behind her head, and sought for a way to describe colour to the blind. 'In reality all there is is the flow of the attacks, to be honest, but if they follow a flow or pattern then you never lose your place in the battle, and if you can match the beat so that you can always get another move in... Heh, I, maybe sometimes... you can almost put an audible sound to it-'

The door opened suddenly and the two of them looked round as a Mandibuzz with a crate under each wing stuck its (well, her - all Mandibuzz are female, after all) head into the room before striding in through the doorway, a Venusaur with a frankly enormous crate held atop its flower following awkwardly behind. The two new entrants scanned the room up and down, searching for someone more authoratative than the two teenagers in front of them before the Venusaur decided to take what he was given. 'Alright there?' he called in a slightly-rushed, slightly-frustrated tone. 'Do you know where these supplies are supposed to be going?'

Para was already not interested, so Tracey took up the responsibility of the job. 'I'm sorry?'

'The headmaster says we've got to send the last set of deliveries to the Battle Class storage lockers,' the Mandibuzz said efficiently with just a quick glance down at the note on top of her crate. 'You know where they go in here? We wouldn't bother you, but you're more likely to know than we are.'

'This, um...' Tracey gestured around them. 'This isn't a storage locker. This is a sparring room.'

'Perry, you've taken us to the wrong bloody place,' the Mandibuzz snapped with a harrassed expression, rounding on her co-worker. 'Again. Give me that map.'

'I swear, it said this was the right way when we looked at last time,' the Venusaur said beleaguredly as a folded sheet was produced from his person by a pair of vines, the large and bulky storage crate going on the floor so he could focus on trying to unwrap and read the schematic. The Mandibuzz set aside her crates too, pouring over the diagram with a mutter of 'So where is this room, then?' As they argued Tracey wandered over towards them, curious to see if she could be of any help as Para followed along automatically, her arms folded and her gaze defiantly taking stock of the quality of paint drying on the nearby wall. The two delivery workers kept pointing at and squabbling in sharp comments over the map even as Tracey approached and cautiously raised a hand. 'Er-'

'Look, all we have to do is go back to this staircase and take the left, not the right.'

'That's left from this angle, you idiot!'

'Um, could we be of any asssistance, perhaps?'

'Look, does it really matter? As long as we're in the right area, it's not like these guys are going to get a refund.'

'Well I know you aren't bothered, but I say it's time we just make our deposit and get out of here.'

Behind Tracey, the jewel in Para's forehead flashed and her eyes widened suddenly. 'Tracey!-'

Tracey got halfway through turning round when the Venusaur suddenly shouted and his flower seemed to explode at once. A blossoming cloud of thick green powder burst in an instant from the petals in an eruption that filled the surrounding air. Tracey was too surprised to even stand a chance at not breathing it in. Para fought back, covering her mouth with an arm and attempting to push through and wave the cloud away, but by that point it was too late to avoid the effects and soon her knees buckled. She gagged, her eyes rolled upwards where she stood and she sank to the floor, her head coming to rest near Tracey's as the two lay there, breathing gently in their powder-induced sleep.

A beat of the Mandibuzz's wings blew much of the rest of the powder to the floor, clearing the air and making her toxic smile visible. 'Now that is a useful move. I see why they wanted someone with Overcoat for an ability if it meant you could do that.'

'Did the cameras see that?' the Venusaur asked quickly, no time taken for pleasantries.

'I don't just carry this EMP for fun, you know,' the Mandibuzz retorted as one by one the lights started to go out above her. 'Barely set it off in time, that girl was close to spotting us. I hate going undercover around Psychics.'

'What're you complaining about? Let's get a move on.' Working quickly, the Venusaur opened the front of the huge crate he had carried, revealing nothing but dust on the inside. Two strong vines snapped out and wrapped around the unconscious Tracey, making lifted her an easy task as the Mandibuzz grabbed Para in her talons and flew her over to the crate. The Espeon fell into the box like a rag and barely muttered in her sleep. The Mandibuzz grinned. 'Now how about that? No sign of the monster anywhere. It really was just a case of not giving the beast a chance to surface.' She stepped aside to let her colleague approach, who casually tossed the Dewott into the crate as well. 'Wait, both?'

'She was the only one who saw us and knows we attacked anyone. Besides, it never hurts to have a hostage that the target is emotionally attached to.'

'Except for when they attack your base to rescue them and go on a rampage, killing everyone they find until they've reclaimed what they came for.'

'Did anyone ever tell you why you're not in charge for this mission?' The Venusaur looked into the crate and the two ragdoll-like figures piled within, giving Tracey a push to get her entirely within its frame. 'Huh. Looks like a bit of a squeeze in there.'

'Since when did you care about the vermin's feelings? Now get the crate shut again, we don't have long until people start coming to find out what that disturbance was.'

The crate shut up neatly, and just like that there was no clue anywhere as to what was being stored in it. Working quickly the two Extinctionists let themselves out, this time the large box being held aloft with several tough vines and a slight strain on the Venusaur's expression, the Mandibuzz dutifully dropping her parcels off at the door of the training room. And then they walked out, as simple as that. It really was easier to just not make a fuss - not as satisfying, no, but the survival rate was exceptional (especially considering the experiment in question). They even tipped their heads respectfully to the headmaster's secretary on the way out, who nodded politely in return. 'Thanks for the delivery. I've already had a call up from the cleaning team that this was exactly what the needed at the right time. Good work, you two.'

'Oh, please,' the Mandibuzz said offhandedly, 'just doing our job.' It wasn't as if that stupid Hitmontop could possibly know about the original delivery team who had been diverted via. the Black Valley Pokextinction base and were probably already sleeping off their wounds in a dream machine, after all. 'We'd better keep moving - schedules, you know how it is. By the way, you should get your lower-floor lighting checked out. Now come on, Perry, we're off.'

The van was outside, and it was as simple as that.


---


Para's eyes fluttered open briefly, closed again, then opened again for real as conscious light slowly dawned within. Then widened. The darkness around her was absolute - she may as well have kept her eyes closed. Only lighter patches of grey revealed the airholes and gaps in the side of the crate that she was seeing from the inside.  Dust lingered in the air and as she breathed in deeply she nearly inhaled a noseful that sent her into a coughing fit. She was bent over in a curved heap, and her head, spine and throat hurt. Outside the crate she could hear the muffled sounds of an engine nearby, but mostly the cold silence of the inside of a van trailer that strangled all noise that attempted to permeate through.

'Oh, bloody hell,' she cursed in the silence. 'Not again.'

She was lying on something soft. Further inspection revealed it to be a person of some description. She prodded them with her foot, and got a sleepy yawn in response. Her foot brushed something hard and curved and her eyes widened. Tracey! 'Tracey!' she hissed discretely, rocking back and forwards to make the most impact, prompting a motion of some sort below her in response. 'Tracey! It's me! We're in a trap!'

'P... Para?...'

'Stay quiet, they might hear us.' Para lay very still as slowly her friend woke up below her and began to take in the situation they were in. Gently, she closed her eyes, not that it made much difference. What could she do? If she tried to blow apart the crate walls, it could just collapse on them...

The van went over a bump and the two of them jolted upwards, Para's forehead cracking into the lid and Tracey gasping as she was jolted very quickly into awakeness. Owww. Never mind that, then. Concentrating her mind, Para felt at the edges of the box both physically and mentally for something she could take hold on. The walls were definitely not safe and too solidly joined to get a result... but the nails...

In the front of the van there was a sound like a machinegun being fired inside a popcorn popper. The woman in the passenger seat looked round in shock, her ring nearly coming off with the sudden movement, in time to see the top and furthest side of the container fly off as a figure emerged crawling and coughing from the heap, dust spilling out as they came. In a second she saw the indents in the van walls with what looked like nailheads and swore through her teeth. That imbecile had told her the crate would be enough if the Sleep Powder wore off! As the prone figures emerged and attempted to struggle upright she snarled and raised her laser gun to fire, when suddenly her colleague driving the van stiffened, turned his head and punched her across the jaw unexpectedly, knocking her down in one go. At once he blinked, frowned as the glaze left his eyes and stared at his colleague and his own fist in shock as if he'd never seen them before, before raising his head into the terrifying grin of Para.

'Thanks for being so willing to co-operate,' the Psychic said with a vicious smile. Her eyes pulsed with purple glow and the man collapsed in his seat.

And immediately Para realised she had just knocked out the only people who knew how to drive the van. She turned and rushed to the very back of the van body, gesturing to Tracey as she went as the Dewott stood up from having re-gathered her other scalchop from the ruins of the crate. 'Come on,' Para said quickly. 'This van's going to crash any minute and we need to get out of it before then.'

'How?'

Para dramatically opened the doors by way of answer and then immediately wished she hadn't. The change in momentum made her nearly fall out as she pushed the doors open, and it was good that she stopped herself because if she hadn't she would have ended up as a pink streak a hundred metres long and twenty centimetres thick. The road underneath them was still whipping past at an unstoppable rate, the trees at the side going by too fast to make out details of each individually. And, she realised with a cold wave of dread as she saw the motorbikes pull in behind the van with clear sight of the open doors, that Pokextinction had brought an escort. Of course they had. If they wanted her for something so badly then they'd naturally have preparations in case they opened the van doors and it wasn't her in the cockpit.

But even so, why did they want her so much?...

She felt Tracey's paw on her shoulder as one of the motorcyclists behind them raised his head at the sight. 'Para!' Shouting was beginning to become necessary over the wind ripping past the open end. 'I have an idea for if we crash! Do you trust me?!'

'What?! Yes! Of course!'

Tracey turned around to face the front, back-to-back with Para. 'Then hold-' Her eyes widened.

The road here took a sharp right turn. The van, however, did not. It plowed straight into the steel barrier blocking the gap on the other side and smashed to an instantaneous halt, the windscreen shattering like a spider's web and the front of the van crumpling like an accordion. In obedience to simple laws of momentum and inertia the two girls kept going in the same direction forwards, lifting them off their feet, the front of the van rapidly approaching the way a sentence approaches a full stop. Just as impact seemed inevitable and what little of Para's life she could recall flashed before her eyes, Tracey splayed her hands with a yell that was more like a scream and a torrent of water burst forth, an instantaneous wave that rushed forth from her palms and hit the front of the van and the driver's area head-on. The van lurched forward and the barrier outside gave a sound that would be right to call tortured, but as the force of the water pushing one way started to push its source back Para and Tracey's forward momentum slowed until when they hit the chair backs and dashboard it was just a shuddering and painful impact, not a bone-breaking and fatal crash as it could have been. The van lurched again from their impact and Tracey hissed in pain as she hit the front interior of the van, only to realise that the limited space in the front was now driving the water back out again. She barely had time to grab Para and hold her above her head before the wave pent up behind the seats in the front washed back out again, its current easily enough to wash them off their feet and Tracey onto her back, keeping Para's head clear until the backwash unceremoniously dumped them out of the end of the van on the unforgiving tarmac below. Tracey's upper-body strength failed and she dropped Para, who rolled off her chest onto her back as well. There they lay, staring up at the beautiful cloudless day through the trees above, each breathing very rapidly.

After many long seconds, Para regained control first. 'T-Tracey?'

'Yeah?...'

'Let's never, ever do that again.'

'Agreed.'

There was several more seconds of laboured breathing, broken eventually by the unmistakable sound of several guns being cocked at once. Para raised her head. Six Pokextinction-cosplaying grunts had fanned out around the two of them as they on the ground, blocking the road militarily. She couldn't see what colour the switches on the guns were set to, but she knew enough from classes that neither of them were good news. Oh, for goodness' sake.

One of the grunts motioned with their gun. 'Get up. Hands where we can see them. If that Psychic tries anything then you run the risk of choosing the Dark-type in the squad, and you don't have the liberty of guessing wrong. Up.'

They stood, reluctantly. Para's eye cast over the troops before them, expression flicking between each as if trying to guess anyway which might be a Dark-type from general appearance. Tracey's head, however, remained bowed as she stood, her expression a picture of misery. 'Please, sir,' she said like a schoolgirl as she stood, her hands above her head, 'I dropped my scalchops. I don't feel right without them.'

A grunt to their right stepped forward. 'I'll take those,' he growled as he scooped the two shells up from where they lay on the road a few feet from the hostages.

'I... I'd feel much better if you gave them here, please,' Tracey said meekly, her head still bowed.

The grunt turned back to return to his position. 'As if,' he muttered as he went.

Tracey sighed. 'If you wish.' It wasn't as if she had to be holding them for it to work, after all.

Almost back to his position the grunt yelled in shock as the scalchops in his hand suddenly pulsed with a turquoise edge as a water field as sharp as a razor enveloped them. There was a second as he attempted to juggle the knives in his hands before they came down with a hiss of pain and he grasped his arm, the rest of the unit turning to him instinctively as the shells clattered at his feet, still glowing too sharp to be touched. The sound of creaking metal drew their attention back, though, and they just about had time to see that Para's eyes were glowing the same shade of purple as the van doors before they burst from their hinges and flew forward, sending the grunts flying like bowling pins.

Tracey's scalchops lost their azure glow before turning briefly purple and flying back to her hand. 'Come on,' she heard Para say. 'Let's get out of here.'

'Can't you just teleport us to safety?'

'Tracey, I spent all this time developing my telekinesis and you choose now to tell me I was being picky? We'll be cut down on foot.' The Espeon was already vaulting into the back of the van with the nail impacts in the walls. 'Time for something a little better.'

'Oh no, this is a bad idea,' Tracey was saying even as she followed Para in. 'Do you even know how to drive?'

'These two idiots can do it, so it can't be that hard.' As Para spoke, one of the two idiots slid back through the gap between the seats and fell at Tracey's feet. Tracey glanced over her shoulder nervously. Some of the grunts were already pulling themselves to their feet and looking around to see why their quarry had gone. They could either drive and probably die in a crash, or they could run and definitely be cut down by armed troops faster than they were.

They. Both of us, Tracey realised. They took both of them this time. They were pointing guns at her too. She could actually die doing this and no-one in the base would ever know.

The other grunt slid back at her from between the seats, piling up on the first. 'Come on, Tracey!' Para shouted. 'We need to get moving!'

The troops outside were standing up now. The decision had been made for her. 'Coming!' she called back to Para as she gave the two unconscious goons a shove to get them out of the van's back, a muttered 'Sorry' coming out as they fell out onto the tarmac. Quickly she rushed to the front and into the passenger seat, doing up her seatbelt as Para searched under the wheel for the ignition keys.

Besides, it wasn't as if she hadn't been face-to-face with something that could have killed her effortlessly before, anyway.

'Freeze!' the soldier outside shouted at the same time as Para crowed 'Found it!' and gunned the ignition.

The van lurched horrifically and there was a tortured scream from the metal barrier they had nose-piled into.

'Reverse gear!' Tracey screamed with a little less composure than she'd like to admit to. Para wrenched the gearstick into a new position and tried again. The van launched backwards, the wheels barely missing the previous drivers as the soldiers on the road scrambled to get out of the way. Para spun the wheel perhaps a little more dramatically than was needed and the van did a what was technically a J-turn to face up the hill the way it had come. Thinking quickly, Tracey shifted the van from reverse into first, on the grounds that it make sense to start at the bottom. 'Go!'

Para floored it.

They actually went slower than either of them expected - the hill they were driving up had a noticeable gradient, and the inertia barely jolted either of them. Within a few seconds, though, they were soon going at a speed that neither of them would want to fall out the back of the van at. Tracey leant over and buckled Para in, leaving the Espeon free to round a corner with a slightly more appropriate degree of control as she wrestled with the steering wheel. 'Thanks. I'm starting to get the hang of this. It's not so bad when you work it out.' There was a pause as they swerved back into lane to avoid hitting a car coming the other way. 'I never knew you learned Surf.'

'It doesn't fit the rest of my moveset,' Tracey said, trying not to focus on the road either ahead or behind. 'I was thinking of losing it. Um... Do you hear engines? Like, behind us?'

Para cursed under her breath and glanced into the rear-view mirror. Through the open space at the back the sleek motorcycles gaining on them from behind were clearly visible. The accelerator wouldn't go any further into the floor. She rounded another corner and an ironically beautiful view of the hillside swung into view, ruined only by the sound of laser fire right into the back of the van.

'Keep yourself tucked in!' Para shouted to Tracey as she maneouvred in her seat. 'They can't hit you with lasers if nothing's showing!' The sound of revving from a disturbingly close distance caught her ears and she glanced out of the corner of her eye. The trees along the side of the road were streaming past, but the goon in black who had just pulled alongside them was keeping pace nicely. She saw him raise his rifle barrel to the van window and panicked. 'Take the wheel for a sec!' she shouted at Tracey, and closed her eyes and reached out with her mind. The rifle barrel bent at a right angle just before the beam came out of it, and the driver stalled in confusion as the laser shot harmlessly into the sky. With a frustrated growl he threw the gun itself bodily at the van, disorientating them just as the steering wheel was handed back and prompting a violent swerve that knocked the motorcycle sneaking up on the other side off the road into a ditch. A second rider drew alongside, and raised his weapon to fire instead.

At this point the road that had meandered and snaked its way up the side of the hill crested and suddenly turned downhill. The transition threw the grunt's aim off briefly, but he soon corrected and was back to his well-trained, instinctual self. However, as he came to raise the gun again, the van was not where it should be. In fact, it was increasingly falling behind them.

'Why aren't we speeding up?!' Para cried anguushedly as if the engine would respond to verbal reasoning. Through the windshield the bikers who had kept their speed up were flying ahead and looking back over their shoulders in confusion. 'We came over the hill, why aren't we speeding up?' Tracey was looking desperately over the dashboard and hardware of the car, looking for anything that might avail their problem. 'Oil? Gears? Traction control?'

'Stop just naming things! Wait, gears? That's probably it. I've never heard of anyone winning a race in first gear. If they're used to people driving competantly, no wonder they didn't keep pace with us.'

'That's surprisingly humble of you.'

'I think I'm starting to realise that this driving business isn't as easy as it looks. Right. Hold on, this might work.' Para grabbed the gear lever, mentally thanked the gracious person that gave her dextrous paws as well as her bipedal frame, and wrenched it into a suitable high number.

There was a loud screeching noise from the engine and the van jolted sharply. When they dared to look up the already-crumpled front of the van had a new angle in it and was leaking some kind of steam.

Para swallowed. ‘Um. I just remembered about this other thing called the clutch.’

A car coming the other way blared its horn as the battered van hurtled down the hillside, its ragged escort of motorbikes trying to work out how to even stay level with it let alone take shots. They had at least gained some speed now, even if the crushed engine was undergoing strain the designers had probably not intended in its production for it to do so. One of the bikes drew level again as the road began to flatten and drew his gun carefully. Para slammed on the brakes and the van jerked backwards, knocking the two bikes that had been tailgating them over and their riders into the back of the van as the gunman was once again left out in front. Tracey leant round and quickly fired a Water Pulse at each of them as they stood up, knocking them over again and disorientating them even further. Para did a hard right and the grunts in the back half-slid, half-staggered, and in their Confusion couldn't stop themselves falling back out off the open end into a grass verge.

'I think the base is in one of these fields,' Tracey said as she turned back, trying to temporarily stifle the fact that they'd just thrown someone from a moving vehicle. 'There's lots of reed thickets and long grass, you could hide an entrance around here.'

She glanced across, and suddenly realised that Para's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. 'Which field?' didn't so much seem to be said as escape from Para's mouth through clenched lock and bar.

'I, er...' The moment of terrible realisation that she no idea which of the many indentikit fields held their secret base was interrupted sharply. Para yelled, a panicked scream as the grunt that had drawn alongside next to them fired suddenly into the front of the van, the glass having no power to stop the laser coming straight through and hitting Para's arm. The green burst vanished as soon as it come, but Para's arm fell from the wheel hanging uselessly at her side as full control was suddenly transferred to her one remaining, weaker arm on the other side. This is a very poor position to be in if, say, you have never driven a car before. In a fit of panic Para swung the wheel right before the grunt could shoot out her other arm. The impact with the green Protect screen around him jarred both their spines and knocked the van off its course down the road.

Just as Para lost control of the wheel, in fact.

With a roar like a triumphant bid for freedom the van pointed its nose at the dry-stone wall lining the side of the road and declared that enough was enough. The impact shot shards of rock the length of the field, the ground erupting under the mad tyres in a hail of exploding dirt. It would have been no small comparison to say it was like a bomb had hit it instead. The van burst through the wall, its nose even shorter than from its first impact, ploughing away from the road, ground itself along the field churning soil, grass and stone in its path and eventually dragged itself to a halt in the middle of the blasted earth, at which point the engine finally died after a long and tragic illness.

If Pokeumans were not more resistant to damage and more capable of healing than a normal human being, it would have been the end of the two of them. If Pokextinction had not thought to prepare for PRT raids by installing crack-proof windscreens, it would have been the end of the two of them. As it happened, after several long and silent seconds one, then two, heads rose from the airbags and tried to blink their thoughts straight, what felt like their whole bodies covered in bruises and sores. This thing wasn't a van anymore, it was a meat tenderiser. There was no way of knowing what was broken, except for when you tried to use it and it worked (or not). It took a long, long while before either of them could summon the strength and resolve to even move, let alone step outside the van - it is entirely possible that neither of them would have if not for the continual threat of imminent death.

They climbed out to be greeted by one of the grunts, now on foot and cautiously entering the field, wave to his colleagues as a signal and start running to them even faster. Para tensed and threw a Shadow Ball that he didn't block in time, but he still forced himself up again and onwards at them. With a muttered curse from Para there came another Shadow Ball, which only had the effect of holding him up so that he set off again in line with the other goons that were with him. Sometimes, Para thought, it just isn't worth getting out of bed in the morning.

She felt the void at the back of her mind stir, and strangled it with all her might until it was still again.

'These people aren't taking damage from moves,' she said to Tracey, unable to disguise the stress in her voice. 'They're in much better position for a fight than we are.'

'That doesn't mean moves are useless,' Tracey replied with somehow a smile, and she turned and shot a Water Pulse towards the minions coming at them. They raised their arms to break the attack easily, but it never impacted them in the first place. The shot of water broke at their feet, and for a second there seemed to be a spectacular non-effect before suddenly came the shouts as the ground drank up the water and had more than its fill. At once the soil they were standing on became a marsh and a bog that sucked at their feet and pulled on their legs. as they tried to stand. The grunts looked around in confusion, angry shouts breaking out as in an instant their progress up the field was slowed to a less than a crawl as their feet dragged in the sudden, dense mud that surrounded them.

'That should slow them,' Tracey said, turned and grabbing Para's strong arm. 'Let's get somewhere where they can't hit us with laser-'

The Shadow Ball appeared to fly out of nowhere, but Tracey took the full brunt of it and was sent flying with a cry as Para whipped round in desperation. There was a screeching noise from above and the fur all down her spine stood on end simultaneously, and she barely managed to dive away so that the claws only glanced her side rather than raking straight down her back. Instinct took charge and she combat-rolled, her head coming up to see the Mandibuzz circle round and come flying back up at her again.

‘You fool!’ the vulture screeched from above. ‘Why do you make this so difficult?! Just give up! We’re never going to leave you alone, you hear?! You can’t win!’

‘Then I’d better get some practice in,’ Para growled and her eyes gleamed. Mid-swoop the Mandibuzz’s path was dramatically intercepted as a rock from atop the nearby dry-stone wall glowed purple for a second and then flew at it, battering into the Extinctionist and knocking her out-of-course as she attempted to fly straight at Para's jugular. Tracey sat up and pulled herself to her feet as quickly as she could, firing off a Surf at the Extinctionist goons beloww that were struggling out of the mud and up the hillside towards them. The one nearest the top caught the full brunt of the wave and was swept down the hillside, landing in a bedraggled heap at the bottom. Cursing, he sat up and pulled his ring off, and the Carnivine rose off the ground and began to float above his bedraggled colleagues in the mud below, anger sparking in his eyes as he bore down upon the Dewott at the top of the hill. Carnivines are not a fast species by trade, but there was a certain horrible momentum about it and the look in his eyes promised all kinds of suffering for those who had been so inconvenient.

The Mandibuzz swung low with another screech and Para couldn’t grab a rock again in time, unable to stop the Cut claws raking her front and side. She turned with the impact and her Iron Tail came up after the bird, only to hit thin air. High up above the Mandibuzz laughed. ‘Oh, children! You honestly thought that would hit me? You’re so close to being pitiable!’

‘Didn’t expect it to hit,’ Para said through gritted teeth. She could feel it now. Next to her Tracey fired a Water Pulse desperately but the Carnivine simply twirled in the air out of the way and it passed harmlessly. A sudden Energy Ball shot back in turn and Tracey gasped at the impact. The Mandibuzz circled again and hovered above the two, her wings beating down Air Slashes at them below as she smiled cruelly. Para dodged, dodged, rolled, forcefully shoving Tracey out of the firing line as she did, and finally came up right underneath the bird. ‘Hey!’ she shouted, still dancing from foot to foot to avoid the Slashes tearing up the grass. ‘You know what I can do now that I’ve used all my moves?’

‘Do I care?’

‘You will now.’ Para gave a grin with no warmth whatsoever and her paw came up, the glow practically emanating from it already. The Mandibuzz squawked, the surprise throwing her attack off, before the bolt of energy of Para’s Last Resort slammed into her and sent her pinwheeling through the sky. Next to her Tracey clapped her hands and shot an Ice Beam towards the Carnivine that struck, but could not hold him back. The grass at her feet seemed to shift, and as the Carnivine smiled evilly as his Grass Knot-

We shall never know exactly what it was that his Grass Knot would do, because suddenly a bolt of draconic energy shot up from the adjacent field and blasted right into the unexpectant Grass-type. He fell out of the air, prompting a cry in shock from the Mandibuzz before an electric bolt of lightning dropped from the sky and knocked her straight to Earth too. She rose to her feet almost immediately, only in time for a Galvantula to scuttle over the lowered wall and shoot a sharp Electroweb in her direction, knocking her onto her back again and shocking her all over as she was pinned down. The two Pokextinctionists straggling up the hill halted in their tracks at the sight of their two colleagues being floored so quickly, but before any tactical decisions regarding retreat could be made the giant figure of a Dragonite cleared the wall and its shadow fell across them like a disc across the Sun.

Para touched Tracey’s arm. ‘And this is where we leave,’ she said before turning and running for the nearest side of the field from which a Pokeuman had not emerged in the last ten minutes. For once, Tracey was so willing to agree that she was actually the first one there. The two girls threw themselves over the wall and into the long grass and reeds on the other side, which would have been up to a human’s waist when standing and was now a particularly dreadful kind of field disguise. However, as the remains of a Dark Pulse flew over their heads from the other field, the Extinctionists had enough to deal with for the moment to not go looking for them right now.

There were several long seconds of silence, if you didn’t count the rampant battle taking place one wall away, before Para laughed to herself sarcastically and muttered ‘Warning, wild Pokemon may live in the long grass.’

'I have to say, this wasn't what I expected to be doing when I woke up this morning,' Tracey said almost conversationally as they lay in the field next to the wall.

Para closed her eyes. 'Yes, Tracey, I've been meaning to ask about that... I... Well... Tracey, why do you still associate with me?'

'...What do you mean?'

Para sighed. There it was. On some deep, basic level, Tracey wasn't even sure why the question was being asked. Bless her heart of gold. 'Ever since you've started spending time with me, you've been kidnapped, assaulted, shot at, picked on by bullies, stuffed into crates, caught in a car crash, targeted by psychopaths and had to fight an ancient dark monstrosity. You could cut all of that out if you just... didn’t hang out with me anymore, you know.'

'But then who would you have?' There - there was the thing that both attracted and confused Para the most about Tracey. 'All these things would come for you anyway, it seems,' Tracey continued as the tail of a Flamethrower toasted the top of the stones on top of the wall, 'at least now you have an ally. No-one should have to go it alone. And besides, I like you, Para. I genuinely enjoy the time we spend together, even if it's occasionally somewhat hazardous to do so.'

'And that makes the rest of it ok, does it?' Para muttered, staring blankly into the reeds.

'Yes.' No justification. No qualifying edits. It just was.

Para folded her arms and looked the other way. 'What an amazingly simple life you must lead.'

'Sorry?'

'Nothing. Thank you, Tracey.'

The two of them lay there, nothing to do but hide and stare until the sounds of battle on the other side of the wall faded away, eventually followed by the careful but purposeful tread of someone following a trampled grass trail. The Dragonite's head appeared over the top of the wall, blocking the light, and her eyes widened at the sight of the two transformed Pokeumans lying in the grass. 'Oh my gosh... Stay calm, you two,' she said in the voice of someone under pressure trying to remember what came first in the internal script. 'Andy! They're over here! Now stay calm,' she continued, turning back to them, 'and don't be afraid. I know this is hard and I don’t know how to break this to you, especially since you've seen all that happen to you, but it turns out Pokemon are real. But don't worry, you're safe with us, the bad guys have gone for now-'

'Um, we know,' Tracey said almost helpfully as she looked up, Para still keeping her face down. 'We've both been living in a base for at least six weeks now.'

'What? This isn't a van rescue operation?' The Dragonite's eyebrows knotted, causing the string-like membranes on her forehead to almost tie round each other. 'But we scrambled as soon as we saw the chaotic van-driving passing flanked by guys with laser guns, so we thought it was just a normal... Right. Ah. Er, gosh. How on earth did that happen?'

'Well, er...' Tracey fumbled briefly, before deciding that honesty was the best policy and activating her biggest, most believable smile. 'As it happens, we were kidnapped by Pokextinction. We managed to turn the tables on them halfway through the abduction and were commandeering the van to try and get back. Um. It worked for a while.'

'But you could have been in so much trouble!' the Dragonite squawked almost as pronouncedly as the presumably-ill-fated Extinctionist Mandibuzz. 'You could have been seen, you could have been killed, you could have revealed the entrance to the base to the entire world... Oh, the Headmaster and the Commander are going to have a collective fit when they hear about this...'

'I'm here, Cecilia,' the Galvantula intercepted as he scuttled on top of the wall, evidence of fresh carapace battle scars not appearing to plague him as he climbed up. 'What seems to be the sit-' The sentence cut off and his six eyes widened as he looked down on his helpless rescuees and saw Para raise her head to look at the two of them, the breath catching in his throat a little too audibly. 'Hell's teeth,' he muttered at a volume that he wrongly believed no-one could hear him at. 'What's that one done now?'
Phew! Nice to be writing this again. I have to say, planning out that car chase was a pain in the backside, but I'm actually pretty happy with the result. And I think I'm improving at not dragging scenes out for too long, although I've already shown my inability to detect these things so please tell me if actually it's still an issue.

And my goodness, Scott doesn't even appear in this chapter. And Para manages to get through a major appearance without being taken over by Lyz. Wow. Time to let the second protagonist shine!

This story is set somewhere in the British Isles, by the way (can't remember where I decided exactly), and cars over here have gearsticks. Just for anyone abroad who wasn't expecting to see that in a scene like this. I mean, a lot of people in fiction seem to know how to drive something the instant they sit behind its wheel - on what grounds, exactly?

I think that's about all for now. As I've said many times, long breaks do NOT mean series have been cancelled.


Next: We've got the infinite number of monkeys and supply of typewriter ink, so it's just a matter of time now.
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yellowfire7's avatar
"The Maractus found himself unable to not baulk before it"

This sentence took a little parsing before I understood what you were getting at.  I think the double negative confused me.

The commander's frustrations seem to sum up Pokextinction in general.  They have all this training, skill, and technology, then they get beaten by kids and can't explain how.  Speaking of being beaten by kids...

This took me two months, oops.