Chapter 26
Mahmoud Schahed/Kahu Kiaʻi
I tackled a guy into a room, smashing through a door behind him. I pushed him back, taking a punch to my shoulder when he missed my neck, and grabbed his hair, pulling hard as he screamed.
Behind me, Gurdurr, Mudkip, and Tyrunt were roaring, growling, and laughing, respectively, while the sounds of screaming and things breaking filled the air.
"Get off of me!" the guy whose hair I was pulling kicked out at me. I let him go as his foot landed on my thigh. He punched at me again. I didn't dodge it in time, getting hit in my forehead. Instinctively I jabbed at him, getting his nose. As he reeled back, I stepped forward, drove a fist into his gut and finished him off with a left cross to his chin.
As he fell down, I panted. Unlike in the movies, fighting people was hard. You couldn't just knock someone out with a couple hits, not consistently anyways. And it was exhausting. The guy currently groaning on the floor was the fourth person I'd fought myself, and I was already tired. I'd protected my fists a bit with a pair of gloves, but my knuckles were still sore.
Still, I was used to it. Fighting Rockets was easier, since they tended to depend on their Pokemon and didn't have as much fighting skill on their own, but I'd always end up tired and a bit bruised after enough fighting. In some weird way, this all felt like home.
Still, I wanted to get to Slugma and Mimikyu… We also had to find as much data as possible.
I turned and walked outside, ducking when Mudkip went flying over me to tackle into a fat man with a shotgun. "Guys! I want two guys conscious when we're done!"
"We'll never talk!" one woman shouted as Gurdurr held her by the collar of her shirt. He looked over at me.
"Break a couple things, then knock her out." I held back a wince at the horror in her eyes, followed by the keening scream she let out when Gurdurr followed my orders. Brutal, but I couldn't let her 'bravery' make the others cocky. Besides, none of these guys were angels (Seriously, an entire fucking room of dead bodies screamed that) and bones heal.
I looked around the room, thinking quickly. What was I going to ask these guys? Well, for any passwords of course, any info that could help me infiltrate these assholes. But then, that kind of info was likely not trusted to a bunch of idiots… Idiots. Huh.
I stared at one of the bodies that was passed out, a guy who had been tossed through a TV. I walked over to him, reaching into his pockets. Wallet, keys… phone. After a quick swipe, I found it was locked. I pocketed it anyways, then moved to the next person. Maybe these guys would talk, maybe they wouldn't. But phones might have some information I could use. Emails, texts, phone numbers, GPS locations, even google searches.
Ah, for the resources of Bruce Wayne. Bet he could hack these things with a look. Alakazam would have to do for now.
Even as I was distracting myself, I was still focusing on the main matter. Slugma and Mimikyu.
Slugma
Slugma sped under the seats of the amphitheater, wincing at the sound of an explosion behind her, some pieces of chair hitting her.
"You're a fast one!" Firefly crowed as he flew over her. "And you leave little fire trails where you go? Can I keep you?"
Slugma decided this person was weird. Experimentally, she poked her head up and blasted a stream of flame, aiming for his wings. The flamethrower that left her mouth was intercepted by a similar gout of flame, the two streams wrapping around each other before snapping to the sides, creating waves of flame on Slugma's left and Firefly's right. The waves ignited more of the seats around them, sending smoke up to pool against the ceiling. Firefly went through the waves to his right with a laugh, the flames and smoke reflecting off his lenses.
That was clearly not going to work. Slugma narrowed her eyes, thinking. She was a fire-type. But she did have other options.
She focused on the ceiling above, stalactites hanging low. With a keening 'Sluuuuuuu' four of those stalactites became enveloped in blue light, before ripping out of the ceiling and flying towards Firefly.
"What the fu-" the four stones surrounded him, briefly entombing the flying man before pressing in on him. "Ah!"
For a moment, as the stones smashed into him, Slugma hoped that would be it. Then the stones exploded, sending chunks of shrapnel outwards.
"You!" a grenade inside Slugma's body, sinking briefly into her magma body before exploding.
"Slugma!" she went flying, smashing into a row of chairs. She gasped in pain, eyes tight, then glared up at Firefly as he shakily flew over. His right wing was crumpled up a bit, the jet engine there whining as it desperately tried to keep him up.
"Hate this magic bullshit," he growled, apparently not understanding her powers. He tossed another grenade.
Slugma sped away from it, moving faster than ever. The grenade had torn through her skin, chunks of the tough magma that made up her body ripped off by shrapnel and sheer explosive force to reveal the lava 'blood' that lay underneath, leaking through her wounds. She winced in pain.
In this case though, it was a blessing to lose her outer layer. The stuff made her tougher, but it was also heavy. Losing some of it was a blessing now. She needed the boost to her speed.
"Quick little bastard, aren't you!" Firefly tossed grenades at the ceiling. For a moment, she didn't understand why, until the stalactites above started falling around her. She desperately ran for the stairs that separated the rows of seats, dodging a falling stalactite, then hopping over another one as it landed in front of her, shrapnel slamming into her form and melting into her body.
"Slugma!" she caught a few of the stones in her power, tossing them at Firefly, who dodged two before one smashed him in the helmet, cracking his eye lens.
"Ah! Son of a-" Firefly let out a gout of flame, apparently just of anger. Slugma got to the section where they had been filling crates with guns. Two gangsters were coughing heavily as she passed, rushing out of the smoke filled room with their assault rifles dangling from their hands. She couldn't blame them. Even some Pokemon couldn't stand up to this much smoke.
She blasted flames at the crates as she passed, aiming more at the desks before reaching the amphitheater beyond, jumping up onto the stage.
"You still running!?" Firefly tossed down a small grenade. Slugma went to blast it with her flames, only for the grenade to explode in a blast of light and sound.
"Ma!" Slugma shouted, agony filling her as the light blinded her. She tried to back away, only for Firefly to drop down and kick her in the face. Slugma flew back with a shout of pain, while Firefly ignored the way his boot briefly ignited at the heat of her body.
"Finally," Firefly took out two grenades, chuckling as he glared at her, the broken lens over his right eye falling to reveal a gleeful look that twisted his burned features. "Gotta say, you're a cute fucking firecracker. Wish I could take you home. But, a job is a jo-"
"Slug!" Slugma blasted the ground. With smoke. Plumes of purple smacked into the wooden floor and flew upwards, obscuring them in violet.
"Cute trick," Firefly said smugly as the smoke rose to cover his face. "But I can still see you-cough-cough!" Firefly began hacking, eye widening under his helmet. Slugma smirked despite the agony in her eyes. He'd been able to handle the smoke before thanks to his helmet. But now one of his lenses was cracked open to allow all that smoke in, and like all humans, he still needed to breathe.
She raised her mouth and hit him with a whole stream of violet smog, sending him reeling back as the smoke blinded and choked him.
"Hauk!" Firefly reflexively tossed his grenades towards Slugma, but she was already moving, the explosions ripping into the stage and sending splinters and stone flying about.
And as her eyes cleared, Slugma could see Firefly's jets ignite. He tried to fly up, only for his damaged right jet to falter, the flier shaking back and forth for a moment. Long enough for Slugma to force her power into the dozens of stones around them.
"SLUGMA!" the stones floated around her, then came down under her, sending her sliding forward and up. Surrounded by the stones, she slid into Firefly's chest with immense speed and force, sending him rocketing backwards to smash into the seats behind him.
"Ohhhh," Firefly groaned, shakily trying to rise despite the amount of hits he'd taken. Slugma landed on his chest. He glared at her for a moment before she reared back, then forward, smashing her head against his helmet. His head snapped back, cracking against the floor. He let out one final groan before he passed out.
Slugma eyed him for a moment, her eyes wide. He didn't move. She'd… she'd won.
"Slugma!" she jumped into the air, wiggling a bit. She'd beaten him! By herself! And he'd been tough, and strong!
She held in her happiness as best as she could while gripping his ankle and beginning to drag him away.
"Slug-u-ma, slug-u-ma, slug-u-ma!" she sang happily as she pulled the unconscious supervillain along.
Master was going to be so proud!
Mimikyu
Mimikyu released a small wave of shadow arms trying to ensnare her opponent. He slid around one, then the next, his back making a strange clicking sound as he moved unnaturally to dodge a third, running around the next before slashing out at Mimikyu. She slid around his claws and punched him in the chest with a single arm. His chitin armor took the attack, the monster bouncing back, before he grabbed one of the bodies off the floor and tossed it at her like a football. Mimikyu ducked it by diving into it's shadow, coming out above him, only for the monster to dodge, letting her smash into the ground before kicking her in the stomach, his whole foot the size of her body.
Mimikyu bounced off the ground, spinning around to clash her shadow claws with the insect man's as she thought furiously. He was somehow always able to sense her attacks. Whenever she slashed, punched, or dived out of the shadows, she would be lucky if she managed to land a hit! She needed to level the playing field.
So she grabbed his shoulders and arms. Before he could do anything about that, she dived into the shadows. And she pulled him in as well.
For a moment, the basement, with those bodies, was quiet. But in the shadows of that room, a battle raged. Claws slashed, punches landed.
From the darkness near the stairs, Mimikyu and the monster leaped out, still clashing in mid-air. "Kyu!" she headbutted him in the face. He wrapped his arms around her, fangs diving forward. She exploded in shadow arms, forcing him off of her before grabbing him for a spinning dive right back into the darkness. The room shook, pieces of concrete falling to the floor.
One particularly large piece of concrete created a long shadow as it came down. The pair of fighters launched from that shadow just before the concrete landed, sending Mimikyu and the monster flying in opposite directions. Mimikyu landed on the floor. Then she stared down at herself. Her body, revealed in its entirety, her wooden tail lying between them.
Her costume! Where was her costume?
She snapped her eyes to gaze at her opponent.
He held her costume in a single clawed hand. His thumb brushed over the bat-symbol on the front. But he wasn't looking at it. And he wasn't reacting to her appearance.
Mimikyu wasn't blind. She knew how people saw her. She knew she was scary, even though she didn't FEEL scary.
So when his response to her costumeless form was a smile, she found herself staring in confusion.
"That world of yours… the Dragons spoke of it. Of the horrors there. You are… Aumakua. One of the spirits that follow the hero," he sighed, a shiver going across his form, fangs clicking as he chuckled. "Ahkahkahkahk… I wish they had told me how exquisite it felt."
His eyes. 6 of them. They were pointed towards her, but… they were covered in a strange sort of tough material. She'd smacked one of them, cracking the material, breaking it in half. But he didn't notice.
Mimikyu realized it then. He was not going to faint from seeing her true form or from being pulled into her world because he COULDN'T see them. He was entirely blind.
"This scrap of cloth..." he said, raising Mimikyu's costume. The Batman ears bounced as he smiled. "Does it mean something to you? Do you hide yourself beneath it? Come child. You are beautiful. I can feel it in the air. The way the world curdles and spoils in your wake. You have no need of it."
His claws closed. And the costume tore. Mimikyu stared as black and yellow cloth fluttered down, swaying in the air, her small body trembling.
"Now, I-"
"CRACK!"
His head snapped back, fangs flying. He fell to his knees. When he felt the pain that followed, blood spilling to the floor and covering some of the tarp covered bodies next to him, the monster screamed. "GAAAAAAAUGH! I- I-"
Mimikyu hefted her wooden tail in her arms, eyes aglow. The tail was surrounded in dark violet energy as she approached her far larger opponent, stepping over the tattered remains of her costume.
"Gah," the monster coughed, smiling around teeth and pale fur covered in his blood. "It seems I've angered you… How interesting."
He grabbed two of the bodies laying on the ground in one hand each, throwing them at her, tarps flying off to reveal the rotting corpses underneath, weakened flesh splitting as they flew towards her.
Mimikyu jumped forward, swinging her wooden tail like a hammer down into one body, sending it bouncing along the ground while she flew higher up, front-flipping through the air, her tail swinging down towards the monster below her. He raised his arms to block.
"Mimikyuuuuu!" dark energy surrounding her, Mimikyu prepared her strongest hit yet-
"Shoot that thing!" a cry said from the stairs.
BrakBrakBrakBrakBrak!
"Kyu!" The sound of submachine fire was followed by Mimikyu getting hit by several small bullets. She was thrown back by the force of the gunfire, sent rolling across the ground until she managed to dive back into the shadows.
"What the hell was that thing!?" the voice that had cried earlier said.
"Something wonderful," the monster shouted.
"Shut up, Kane," another voice barked. "Hey, freak. Was that one of those monsters?"
"Indeed it was," the spider-monster didn't seem offended. "It can move in the shadows. Interesting to watch. To feel."
"Shut up Carl," Mimikyu poked her head out from the shadows to look at the newcomers. Two men and a woman, all holding guns. Strange guns, with a section of them glowing. So that was how the bullets had hit her. They were special somehow. They hadn't hurt a lot, but they still managed to hit a ghost-type somehow. "We need to get out of here! That isn't the only monster. Kahu Kia`i is here."
"Oh…" the monster, Carl apparently, seemed ready to speak, when he froze. Then he brought a finger up to point at Mimikyu. "There!"
Mimikyu quickly put up a Protect, blocking the hail of bullets that came at her. She dived back into the shadows, coming out of the ground from the shadow of the woman of the trio, swinging her tail up.
The spider-monster was there, kicking out at her. She parried the kick, only for the nearest person to scream, firing wildly at her. She dived back into the shadows, frustrated.
"W-W-What the hell! That thing, it was just, it looked-" the man who had fired was shaking, his lips pale.
"Calm down!" Carl hissed. "Control your fear. I can sense her! If you shoot at my command, then-"
Mimikyu felt it then. A familiar mind in the link that connected her to the others. It was coming closer. And suddenly, she came upon a plan. Quickly, she stretched her mind out to the person that was approaching, sharing her idea.
She took a breath, thinking to herself. She didn't like this first part of the plan.
All her life, she had tried to get people to love her. To see her for herself. But they had all been scared away. They ran away. So she took the same path her mother did. She copied Pikachu. She took a Pikachu doll, ripped the stuffing out, and sewed it together into a costume. And people had approached her. Children had hugged her. For a time, she had been happy. She'd even learned to mimic one of Pikachu's moves.
But that feeling inside, of never being good enough, began to grow. The feeling that nobody really loved her. They loved Pikachu.
Until… One day, a trainer found her. He'd had a Slugma and Mudkip. He'd looked at her as she came out of the forest. Then he smiled.
"Oh cool! A Mimikyu!"
He caught her after that. And she didn't mind. Because the first thing he saw when he saw her was her. And the first time he'd seen her without her costume, he'd been scared. She knew he was. But he still hugged her. Still loved her. He didn't have to. He could have traded her away. But he never let her go. Her grumpy master, always pretending he was so mean.
She loved her first costume. It was the one that taught her how much she loved to sew. But she wanted to stop copying Pikachu. Stop doing whatever Pikachu did...
Well. She'd been the one to make the plan. She'd have to follow through.
She set her non-existent shoulders, narrowed her eyes, and brought her hands together. Some of her hands at least. The shadowy arms forced her powers to gather. The shadow world around recoiled as light began to shine from her.
She leapt out of the shadows, right in front of the gunmen. The spider-monster jumped to the ceiling, then down towards her. She raised her hands and closed her eyes.
And a thunderbolt cracked the air.
The bolt of lightning slammed into the monster. He screamed as lightning ran through his body, launching him back.
The gunmen screamed as well. Their eyes, adjusted to the darkness of the basement, were not ready for the sheer brightness that a lightning bolt carried to it.
"Goddamn it!" the man reeled back, rubbing at his eyes like it would stop what had essentially been a flash-bang grenade to the eyes. "I-"
The wall behind him cracked, then shattered apart. Two massive black and white arms reached out of the wall, revealing a dug out pit and a massive figure in the shadows. The figure grabbed him by the shoulders, lifting him up.
"Oh fuck! It's got me, it's got me!" he fired wildly into the air before the figure threw him away. He crashed into a pillar and landed at it's foot with a choked sound of pain, while the figure stomped down on the gun he dropped.
Mimikyu summoned lightning in her shadow hands again, the light from it illuminating the figure. Grace Balin. But snarling, her eyes gone black, muscles bunching under taut skin. Grace stepped forward and clumsily slapped the female shooter in the head, sending her cartwheeling through the air.
Mimikyu fired her thunderbolt at the spider-monster, who dodged it with prenatural speed. Too late however, he realized it was a trap. Mimikyu had sped forward at the same time she had launched the thunderbolt. While his senses, however he was able to follow her movement, were sharp, Mimikyu had guessed he had to have limits on how fast he could react to certain threats. So when she'd fired lightning at him, he'd been entirely focused on the loud and buzzing burst of static.
He didn't notice the quieter and relatively easier to miss Pokemon there to meet him in mid-air as he jumped out of the way of lightning.
"KYUUUUUUUU!" her tail, surrounded in dark energy tinged in green, smashed into his chest with brutal force. His sightless eyes widened. A cracking sound came from his carapace and the bones underneath. He landed on the ground hard. Mimikyu landed in front of him, hefting her tail.
He lay there for a moment, gasping in pain. Mimikyu hefted her tail. After a moment though, he stilled. While he wasn't looking at her, Mimikyu could feel his attention land on her.
He sighed once more, before passing out. Mimikyu stared at him, not understanding why he'd-
"BrakBrakBrak!"
"RAAAUUUGH!" Grace screamed.
Mimikyu spun around to see Grace grabbing at her stomach, a gunman in front of her. He fired again, hitting her shoulder. Grace reached out, grabbing his gun, then leaped forward, jaws wide. For one moment, Mimikyu thought she was about to bite him. But instead, Grace tackled then body slammed him, smashing him into the floor. She pulled his gun from his hand, breaking his thumb. He screamed. Grace roared in his face, voice echoing in the quiet space. Eyes still black, she leaned down. Her teeth flashed. He screamed shrilly as spittle landed on his cheeks.
Mimikyu knocked out the screaming man with a single punch before Grace could bite his throat out, cutting off his screams.
The orca woman blinked at the silence. She stared up at Mimikyu, then froze in shock at the sight of her. Mimikyu quickly grabbed the gunman's shirt and ripped it off of him, wrapping it around herself to hide her form from Grace. By the time she was done, Grace was blinking, her eyes returning to normal.
"I… what happened?" Grace mumbled. Then she let out a whine of pain, reaching for her stomach as she hesitantly rose to her feet. "Ah! What is-" she pulled a hand back, revealing blood on her palm. She winced again. "Oh god! I've been shot?"
Mimikyu handed her some scraps of cloth she'd made from the gunman's pants. "Kyu!"
Grace quickly grabbed the strips, wrapping them around her wounds. "That really hurts!" she moaned quietly, stumbling a bit.
"Mimikyu…" she said quietly.
The orca woman grimaced. "No. It's my fault. Let's just get out of here, okay?"
"Kyu," Mimikyu mumbled. Then, she noticed one of the assault rifles. She lifted it into her arms, looking it over. Alakazam's mind pressed against hers, analyzing it. There was some sort of attachment over the barrel. Maybe it turned normal bullets into something more?
"I suggest we take it with us. If our enemies are creating more ways to counter us, I'd like to know what those are" Alakazam whispered in Grace and Mimikyu's minds. "One moment. I'll be there to help you both."
Mimikyu nodded, while Grace sat down, sighing to herself. "Guess Kahu was right. I really need training if I'm going to help with this stuff…" Grace then looked over at Carl, the spider-monster on the floor. She stared at him, the monstrous creature created using her own research, then down at herself. She let out a huff. "How annoying…"
"Kyu?" Mimikyu mumbled, cocking her head to the side. Grace only chuckled, saying nothing else.
Author's Note: The fights in this chapter were a LOT of fun to write. I think people were expecting Firefly to just default to fire attacks. Hopefully I made it a lot more interesting than that.
In terms of health, Slugma was down to her last legs basically. If Firefly hadn't gotten overconfident, he might have won. Slugma's Weak Armor is a great ability, but it also slowly weakens her defense with each hit, making her easier and easier to damage in trade for that massive speed boost. But Slugma played it smart. She hit a chink in the armor, used techniques she knew would work, and her own superior strength and speed. I'm kinda proud of that fight.
Same with Mimikyu. So to be clear. The guy's attacks were technically 'dark/bug-type' enough to touch her, in combination with his increased strength, speed, senses, and agility to bridge any sort of gap. That said, Mimikyu did come out of it better than Slugma, as next chapter might note. Carl the Spider-Monster is powerful, but he also has less experience than Firefly. He was also kind of charmed by Mimikyu as a whole. For reference, Daredevil would be more terrified of her than those who can actually see her would be.
That said, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Have a good week!