My heightened senses noted that the incredible pain I was feeling was originating from near the center of my chest, just slightly to the right. The speed at which my brain/mind was currently running stretched the excruciating moment I was experiencing into an agonizingly long one. At least it did before my mind finally reacted and cut off the pain I actively felt.
While I was going through the longest second of my life, my second thought stream, who was analyzing the feed from my eyes, got to see a spurt of red that arose from my upper body/chest and began to spread through/die the water in front of us. No.2 also noticed the tip of a blue limb?/tentacle? sticking out of my chest at the (bottom) fringe of our sight.
With the pain I could feel muted, my mind still running at high speed was overflowing with thoughts. There was relief that my body had instinctively tilted to the side since that limb would have gone through my heart instead of "simply" poking through/out of my chest. There were also a lot of questions. How? How did this happen? How had this ambusher managed to sneak up on me like this?
Was this a coincidence? Did a wild Pokémon attack me, or is this an ambush/attack by a trained Pokémon? Did that underworld bounty actually end up biting me in the butt? Actually, ignoring the who; Why had my passive aura and psionic senses not reacted? Oh, sure, they most definitely played a part in my body's reaction, but I should have felt that attacker or at least the attack before it essentially/nearly touched my back.
I was incredibly happy that they allowed me to at least prevent my heart from getting shish kebabed, cause I was not sure if getting skewered through the heart like I had been skewered through the back/chest would have destroyed my heart. The limb felt big/wide enough that I would say that it was not unlikely that I would have needed a new heart if that happened.
Not that the current situation would not have been fatal for 99.99% of the people if it had happened to someone else or me for that matter if I did not have Utopia and its divine healing capabilities. As it was, Utopia would need to regenerate/heal part of my right lung and a small part of the right side of my heart. Well, along with a lot of flesh that had been in the way, as well as the ribs that had also fallen victim to the limb bursting through my body.
That was not to mention the damage that was likely going to happen during the limb removal. That thought put a stop to my spiraling thoughts since I realized that I had lost a full second to them. I immediately turned my focus from my inside back to the outside and felt the shock, pain (emotional not physical), as well as near rabid anger radiating from my Pokémon.
However, I had to deal with the limb in my chest first before I could deal with anything else or risk things becoming significantly worse for me. I immediately had no.2 mobilize my aura to stabilize the wounded area, while no.3 utilized my psionic energy to isolate the area between my flesh and the limb stuck in it, so that the next movement won't affect my wound.
With the situation of my wound stabilized I moved my body forward while simultaneously giving my mystery attacker a psionic push to drive its limb out of my body. As expected I felt it trying to move its limb, likely to cause more damage, but thanks to no.3 it failed. It only had a moment before it got propelled away and the opportunity passed without any further complications.
I swiftly turned around to get a look at my attacker, and as I was doing that I addressed Mothra/Butterfree, Kun/Azuraid, BossBro, and Hades/Gengar to tell them to deal with that Jellicent while I was in/moved to Utopia to let the wound get treated. Even as I did that, I could not help but wonder if Jellicent was alone or if others were around, so I added that they should be wary of others lurking around.
My actions snapped them out of the spiral of emotions they were in straight into action, and they did not say more than alright/okay before doing so. I moved to Utopia while Mothra took off my head, and I kept an eye on the situation outside even as Utopia began to heal my wound. Noticing that my emergency aura and psionic measures were interfering, or at least slowing down the process, I ceased all emergency steps, though I immediately regretted it when the pain hit me.
No.2 had stopped suppressing the perceived pain along with the aura, and I instantly regretted it. I still twitched for a few more moments even after No. 2 re-suppressed the pain, and I could not help but take a look down at my chest to see for myself how bad things were. It was a bit unsettling to see an open wound like that, but I felt a bit introspective seeing mine.
Given the size of the wound as well as the tip I had seen on the periphery of my sight, and contrasting that with the limb I had seen on Jellicent, I concluded that it must have folded/bent its tentacle to form a spear-like shape for better penetration. I was kind of thankful that it did that since the wound would have been significantly bigger if it hadn't.
On the other hand, it would have likely not managed to skewer me if it had attempted to use its tentacle/limb as it was, or at least not as smoothly as it did. That could have allowed me to react in time and dodge or stop it, so it was safe to say that I had some mixed feelings at the moment. As it was, I had a fist-sized hole in my chest, granted it was slowly closing up as Utopia was regenerating the missing flesh, organs, and bones.
I was not sure how to feel, but I truly thought that one should not be able to see inside one's own body the way I could right now, though I could not help but continue to do so even as the hole grew smaller. A sudden thought that popped up in my mind caused me to grimace. I could not believe that I had joined the donut club, though, unlike other members of the club, I was alive to tell the tale.
Actually, scratch that; I was not going to tell anyone about this unless it was an actual assassination attempt from the underworld since I could imagine what kind of furor Mom and the girls would cause if they found out about it. Oh, Dad and the boys as well, naturally. Speaking of the boys, to think that it would be me who copied Ace's multiversal namesake instead of him.
Well, I obviously would have preferred it if it never happened in the first place, but I honestly thought that it was better that I was the one who got the donut experience instead of him or any of the others since I could come back from it without a permanent/enduring scratch while they would actually end up dead.
Anyway, I had kept an eye on the situation outside as my wound healed. During the brutal beat down that followed Jellicent revealed that it was at the dark gold stage; Not that that had helped it against my angry Pokemon, but it at least made me feel a bit better than the idea of getting lethally ambushed by a gold stage Pokemon or Mew forbid an even weaker one.
The way Jellicent was forced to endure the beating as it did, indicated that it had acted alone. Well, that, or its partners were more ruthless than one would think, and given the situation, I felt it was better to be safe than sorry so I chose to let Hades scour the area just in case while the others were delivering the beatdown. Hades grumbled a bit about being able to only get in two hits and missing the chance to vent its anger, but still understood why it was important.
He seriously scouted the immediate surroundings for any other ghosts or unusual Pokémon in general. The result implied that Jellicent had truly acted on its own, which was definitely good to know. Regardless, with the results of his search in hand, and my wounds healed, I decided to return to the outside. I finally called for a stop right before I left since I felt that my Pokémon had vented enough, both for themselves and for me.
Had Jellicent not been a ghost type it would have definitely died halfway through the beating it suffered. As it was, its physical form had been torn apart twice. The first time it took Jellicent only a few moments to reform, while the second time it took nearly half a minute. It forced Mothra and the others to tone down the intensity a bit to ensure they could beat it for longer. I had actually felt a twinge of pity while watching that, but the fact that Utopia had still been mending the hole in my chest at the time had made it very easy to extinguish any pity that arose.
Anyway, I reappeared outside and moved up to the twitching but otherwise motionless Jellicent while ignoring Hades who grumbled about being unable to rejoin the beatdown as he reentered my shadow. I could feel Jellicent teetering on the verge of unconsciousness, and I was pretty sure that it had already been forced into that state and then forced back out more than once during the beatdown.
I was honestly glad that it was not in a coma since I had considered that to be a real possibility given the severity of its situation, but as expected of a ghost, it was much more resilient to brutal beatings than other Pokémon. Furthermore, its current semi-incoherent state, swerving at the edge of consciousness, was to my advantage since it made Jellicent much more susceptible to psionic intrusions/manipulation.
To ensure that there were no mistakes, I told Horus/Xatu, Tatsumaki/Alakazam, Ali/Gallade, and Gwen/Gardevoir to take a deep breath before I brought them out to assist with the next part. All of them ignored everything else and immediately crowded around me expressing worry and inquiring into my health/situation as soon as they appeared. They were naturally not the only ones with Kun as well as BossBro closing in, and Mothra, back in her chibi form, reclaiming her place on top of my head. She worriedly patted my head and joined the others, wanting to know how I was.
Knowing that it was not the moment to "waste" too much time just in case there was more to the ambush, I hurriedly placated everyone, assuring them that Utopia had taken care of everything. I pointed to the hole in my shirt, showing perfectly healed/unblemished skin when I said the last bit. It was clear that they wanted to hear more, but they understood that I was distracted, so we collectively turned to Jellicent, who had not attempted to escape, or moved for that matter, during the half or so minute that we were busy/distracted.
We used various methods to get a picture of the situation ranging from memory probes to straight-up interrogation, though the latter was much harder due to Jellicent's state. We actually had to heal it a bit before we could proceed with the interrogation; Not much, just enough that it was capable of answering our questions. The result was simultaneously relieving and frustrating.
Jellicent was not part of a trainer's team, underworld or otherwise, so this was not an attempt at my life by another human or the underworld. Jellicent was a wild Pokémon; It had chosen to attack me, not at the urging of others but simply because it was on the hunt for food and it had deemed me premium prey. Apparently, the vital/aura and psionic/psychic energy Jellicent had felt in me made me look like the most succulent meal it had ever seen.
Sure of its capability in taking me down and vanishing with my body before my Pokémon could react/attack it in retaliation, Jellicent chose to wait for the perfect opportunity to ambush me/us, which happened to be when it attacked. That told us why Jellicent attacked me, but not how it managed to come close as it had without any of us noticing.
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