Pokémon Umbral ~ Ruinous Origins Mission 2, Chapter 1

[DanteFalcon]

Matthias looked at the opposing group. He somewhat wanted to switch back to Venomoth but with the Gardevoir in easy reach he didn't want to make himself an appealing target. And there was little point in unleashing one of his stronger moves unless it was at full potential. It seemed to be time to change the weather.

Pierce. Keep an eye on your Tyrannitar. It may not like this. Rain Dance.

He stepped in a slow circle, legs sweeping back and forth in an odd ritualistic dance, the clouds drifting off his head forming into a raincloud above them and starting to rain. His body shifted to it's water form.

[Astral Harmony]

Team One Synopsis (Impact/Pierce/Matthias/Rachel/Chizuru): Both enemy Machokes and one Toxicroak are downed. Gengar has fled due to Roar. Two trainer Hariyamas, one wild Mothim, and one wild Honarmor deploy. Tyranitar is seriously damaged. Metagross is now asleep. Quiksilver is badly poisoned. Sandstorm strikes everyone except those with defenses against sand storm. Hariyamas decreased their health by half but maximized attack with Belly Dance. Sandstorm and Rainy day are in effect.

As soon as Tyranitar was out, a wicked sandstorm kicked up. Toxicroak was slammed hard against the wall by the Zen Headbutt. It looked badly injured, but it pulled itself away from the wall. Gengar vanished, frightened by Tyranitar's Roar. But nobody else fled. And another Pokémon stepped up to fill in the gap.
This was a new type. "Hey, an Honarmor, the evolved form of Mantloat!" Rachel said (the H was silent), indicating the Pokémon that looked like a possessed suit of platemail armor complete with greatsword. The Ghost/Steel type Pokémon wasn't seen in many other places.
The dance instructor's Machoke were engaged by Impact and Chizuru. The first one froze temporarily because of Impact's attack, and it looked like a successful confusion affliction as well. Chizuru gave her Machoke the first swing, but when it swung and missed, Chizuru let him have it. The tonfa strikes were blazing fast and she must have hit her opponent hundreds of times, leaving numerous bruises on the Machoke as she backed off. She had struck many important parts of the body, causing the Machoke to flinch.
And then the rain started. Immediately, Matthias discovered something quite erotic. Mix water with sand and you got some mud, prefer as the kind of material with which Chizuru was already getting covered with because of her hands-on approach to beating down her enemies.
Rachel deployed Metaleon and Bronzong "Quiksilver, Iron Tail on Impact's Machoke! Bronzong, Extrasensory on that Toxicroak! As for me, Thunder!"
Two Machokes and the Toxicroak all crumpled under the assaults. "Clear 'em out fast. They don't have all the Pokémon in the world on their side."
The dance instructor deployed two Hariyamas. A Mothim flew in to cover for the Toxicroak. "They're still going strong, I see," Rachel said.

Hariyama (Fighting) [Both Males]
Moves: Belly Drum / Close Combat / Reversal / Focus Punch
Ability: Thick Fat

Mothim (Bug/Flying) [Male]
Moves: Bug Buzz / Psychic / Air Slash / Protect
Ability: Swarm

Honarmor (Ghost/Steel) [Female]
Moves: Iron Head / Shadow Ball / Confuse Ray / Honor Guard
Ability: Sniper

Both Hariyamas used Belly Drum to reduce their health by half and maximize their attack. Gardevoir used Hypnosis to put Metagross to sleep. Mothim hit Tyranitar solidly with Bug Buzz. Honarmor followed that up by hitting Tyranitar with Iron Head. Skuntank struck Quiksilver with Toxic. The sandstorm struck everyone who didn't have the necessary defenses against it.

-----

Team Two Synopsis (Renny/Charlotte/Shannon/Lola): Drapion is downed. A Feuerant deploys. Shannon's Florescence is wounded badly. Lola is badly poisoned. Sunny day is in effect.

"Miss Mordhaus!"
"Right, switching. Take care of yourself, Charlo."
The grass trainer and nurse switched places without any trouble. Take care of yourself, Charlo? Apparently Shannon got over things way too quickly. Must be the battling.
Drapion took an assload of damage from that destructive earthquake that made the lighting falter and shattered a few more of the windows. The bug came out standing, a testimate to the real power of bug types.
"Leave this to me!" Shannon said, patting Florescence gently on the head. "Florescence, polish off that Drapion with Leaf Blade!"
Drapion reared back onto its hind legs and tumbled over onto its back. Then it rapidly got back up and fled. "Fuckin' hate bugs," Shannon growled.
Charlotte's dog Spitz had Dug. "I'll ready him to hit the enemy hard on the next turn," Lola promised. "But for now, Paradigm Shift!"
Now a large Lopunny, Lola bounded towards the Houndoom. "Eat this! Dizzy Punch!" Lola yelled, and slugged that motherfucker with a solid right hook that sent it spiraling across the floor.
A new Pokémon had shown up on Renny/Shannon's side, crawling in through a nearby broken window. It looked like a large ant, but small smoking craters indicated it to be gifted in the talents of fire. "Feuerant," Shannon identified it. "The evolved form of Armadant. It's a pretty tough Fire/Bug type. I think I'm in deep shit here."

Feuerant (Fire/Bug) [Male]
Moves: Flamethrower / X-Scissor / Crunch / Dig
Ability: Flash Fire

Feuerant took one look at Florescence, then charbroiled it with Flamethrower. "Florescence, hold it together!"
Sableye gave Florescence a solid Zen Headbutt. Florescence looked exhausted, but held strong.
With no one to attack, Charlotte and Lola's opponents did their best to amuse themselves. Houndoom amplified its fire power with Sunny Day while Dustox hit Lola with Toxic. "Ugh...what a dirty trick."

[Geminex]

Impact winced as he surveyed his squad's casualties. Nothing utterly horrendous, but still, not nice. Pierce'd have his hands full helping his team recover. He turned to his squad. "Right, priorities: The Hariyama are now glass cannons, let's break them before they kill us. I can take one, we could do with another psychic attack on the other. Perhaps Bronzong. Not much to say otherwise. If any of you have rock attacks, you could probably OHKO the Mothim, stop it from buzzing Tyranitar again, if not, leave it for next round, I'll kill it then. Other than that, targets of opportunity. Pierce might want to be healing, Rachel can support him. If Matt teams up with Quicksilver you could probably take out that Gardevoir, but it's up to you. And everyone, watch out for that Hornarmor. I don't know anything about its "honor guard" attack, but I fear the worst. It may start taking hits meant for one of the Hariyamas, which would not be nice. Maybe make it a priority target as well. One or two ground attacks should do it, maybe a focused earthquake from Tyranitar. Let's do this." He had toyed with the idea of using his stamina boost and taking out both Hariyamas by himself, but it wasn't necessary yet. He wanted to see what the future held, and what "Honor Guard" would do. So, he did the usual, raising his Psychic rifle to his shoulder and watching it emit a blast of what he assumed to be psychic energy. It didn't have any recoil, but the beam did seem to veer off course if he wasn't concentrating hard on its target. Very interesting weapon. He'd have to talk to a psychic pokebrid about it, though if he had his way, this conversation would take place when one party was behind bars, and he didn't mean himself.
Idle musings aside (the beam had been threatening to glide to the right) he blasted his targeted Hariyama in the head. It didn't have high special defense, and its HP were decreased by half, but he still didn't trust that they'd kill both this round. Perhaps paranoia, perhaps wise foresight, but he wished that he had worn fighting armor, hope that their steel pokemon, along with tyranitar, would keep a very careful eye on those killing machines.

[Dracorion]

"We can do without Metagross for now. Rachel can use her turn to attack." Pierce told Impact. He returned Metagross to its pokeball and released Skarmory. Tyranitar was hanging on through sheer willpower after the assault, and the rain wasn't helping. Pierce took a Full Restore and applied it to Tyranitar, who roared with renewed strenght, though not ear-splittingly like before. "Tyranitar, Earthquake on that Hornarmor. Skarmory, Night Slash that Gardevoir." He called. Tyranitar stomped the ground, the focused tremor cracking the floor at it stuck Hornarmor. "Someone's going to have to finish it." Meanwhile, Skarmory flew straight at Gardevoir, slashing it with her wings.

[Menarker]

Renny felt ever so slightly relieved that Shannon could be civil with Charlotte when they fought on the same team. Then again, bad times do make strange bed-fellows.
Swampert grimanced slightly as it looked toward the large fire ant. The Sunny Day weakened the power of his water moves, but fortunately, it still did nothing to influence his power over ground elements. Renny was ready to order another Earthquake, but he remembered Charlotte's pokemon were busy digging, and ordering an earthquake would be foolish and shortly suicidal as Charlotte would likely "punish" Renny for his oversight.

"Swampert, good job! Return!"
The capture beam snagged Swampert as Renny pulled out another pokeball.

"Togekiss, we need your help! Air Slash that fire type!"

TOGEEEE! The soft looking pokemon flapped its wings powerfully as a compressed pile of aura gathered strength aimed toward the Feuerant. The compressed energy instantly burst loose as a single blade of air that sliced cleanly along the floor dead set on the trajectory with the bug type.

"Hang on everyone! Shannon, Sunny Day may improve the power of fire moves, but they also empower certain grass type techniques! Do you have anything like that?"

-----------------------
Togekiss uses Air Slash for STABed super effective damage on Feuerant (Togekiss has highest special attack of any nonlegendary flying type so its still pretty powerful even if the move's power isn't on the same level as the previous Earthquake). The attack has 60% of flinching the bug and thus making it skip its turn.

Hinted to Shannon about using Synthesis, Solarbeam, or anything that could use the other effects of sunny day. If Synthesis is used, it regains 2/3 of its health back. If it uses Solarbeam, it needs no charging time.

[DanteFalcon]

This was an interesting circumstance. A new pokemon that was rather resilient to most elements, unfortunately resilient to his poisons. Not to mention the still fairly large swarm of wild pokemon working with the trainer. It was still dangerous but it was starting to ease up. They just needed to keep the pressure up. And with the rain a lot of his moves were augmented. Especially thunder and weather ball. Now however wasn't the time for either. There was a Gardevoir to take down.

Matthias held out his hand, a ball of dark energy forming in his palm and preparing to throw it like a fast ball at the Gardevoir.

Shadow Ball He threw the ball of ghost energy as hard as he could.

[Astral Harmony]

Team One Synopsis (Impact/Pierce/Matthias/Rachel/Chizuru): Both trainer Hariyamas are downed. A wild Gardevoir is downed. Two trainer Medichams are deployed. A wild Arbok has deployed. Pierce's Tyranitar is wounded. Impact is injured and poisoned. Sandstorm and Rain are still in effect.

Impact's targeted Hariyama clasped at its head in agony, and then suddenly its arms dropped at its side. Then Hariyama fell forward, creating a small tremor. That Pokémon was just too damn big.
Honarmor stuck its sword into the floor to steady itself as it weathered the destructive Earthquake. The Gardevoir held strong against Skarmory's Night Slash.
But not against Matthias's Shadow Ball. She was looking really weak, but was still in the fight. One more little push, though...
"Bronzong, Extrasensory on Hariyama! Quiksilver, Crunch on Gardevoir! And here comes the Thunder!"
Rachel did what she did best: removing enemy targets near death. Honarmor held out through the Earthquake and Thunder.
An Arbok slithered out of a large hole against the wall. "Heads up, here they come!"

The trainer, now on his last two Pokémon, deployed them both. This time it was a couple of Medichams. "His last two. This battle won't last much longer, I'm hoping."
Quiksilver is downed with two mighty attacks from the Medichams. Rachel switched Quiksilver out with Registeel. "I think Rayleen's going to have some choice words for me when she awakens to find out how badly Quiksilver's taken a beating under my care."
Honarmor slammed its blade into the ground and a large explosion of violet light erupted from the hole. The light engulfed the other Pokémon. "Honor Guard," Rachel reported. "All of those Pokémon are gonna be a wee bit harder to take down."
Arbok kicked things by soaking Impact in his Gunk Shot. Gross! Fortunately, it doesn't seem like the poison got inside, but Gunk Shot was still really painful.
Skuntank, sensing the failure of Arbok's poison to have a lasting effect, set up Impact with Toxic. Things weren't looking very good for the slayer.
Mothim dove forward bravely and cut Tyranitar, but with a Full Restore it was going to take more than an Air Slash to bring down that monster.
The sandstorm and rainshower raged against each other, a vicious dance of imclement weather.

Medicham (Fighting/Psychic) [Both Male] x2
Moves: Recover / Reversal / Hi Jump Kick / Psychic
Ability: Pure Power

Arbok (Poison) [Male]
Moves: Gunk Shot / Gastro Acid / Mud Bomb / Crunch
Ability: Intimidate

-----

Team Two Synopsis (Renny/Charlotte/Shannon/Lola): Wild Houndoom is downed. Allied Florescence is downed. Sableye and Feuerant are hurt. A wild Starmie appeared. Spitz is seriously hurt. Lola healed her poison. Sunny day is in effect.

Feuerant bounced back from being ripped good by the Air Slash, but didn't look that hurt.
Charlotte's dog Spitz ripped up out of the floor and smashed into Houndoom from below, sending it sprawling. It did not get back up. Then something smashed through the nearby wall. A Starmie. Didn't see those everyday.
Shannon decided to press on regardless. "Well, I can't exactly play it safe. Charlo'd never let me hear the end of it. Florescence, Solar Beam on the Sableye."
Probably the best move. Feuerant was so resistant to grass type moves that it wasn't funny, and Sableye had been left unmolested for too long.
Lola, still Paradigm Shifted, healed herself from the poison.
Feuerant finished off Florescence. Shannon deployed Roserade. "Maybe Bretton would've been a better choice for this mission," she said as the enemy Pokémon continued their assault.

On Renny's side, Sableye struck Togekiss with Zen Headbutt, disrupting its flight path but not taking it out of the air. On Charlotte's side, Spitz took a serious blow from Dustox's Bug Buzz, then was slammed against a wall by Starmie's Hydro Pump.

Starmie (Water/Psychic) [Female]
Moves: Ice Beam / Psychic / Hydro Pump / Power Gem
Ability: Illuminate

[Menarker]

"Maybe Bretton would've been a better choice for this mission."

"We got no choice in the matter now! Shannon, switch up with Charlotte! Fighting water types should be your speciality, but watch out for its Ice Beam! Lola, use Fire Punch on that Dustox while we still got that Sunny Day in effect! Togekiss, keep going. I know you can do it!"

Togekiss's divine wind tremored with the power to cut even the sky itself. If Togekiss and Renny come across Arceus itself during their journey, Arceus will be cut! But for now, Feuerant would be good practice as the wind unleashed in a single slash.

-------------------------

Again: Togekiss uses Air Slash for STABed super effective damage on Feuerant (Togekiss has highest special attack of any nonlegendary flying type so its still pretty powerful even if the move's power isn't on the same level as the previous Earthquake). The attack has 60% of flinching the bug and thus making it skip its turn.
(Totally cribbed Kill Bill up there. :3)

Asked Shannon to switch with Charlotte, since she would have a certain degree of effectiveness on Starmie. Plus, Abomasnow might come in handy. :3 Grass types moves used on it should gain STAB and super effective damage.

Asked Lola to use Fire Punch on Dustox which should be boosted 50% by Sunny Day as well as being Super Effective against the bug type.

[Geminex]

((I like it that your synopsis is longer than your post. Why do you write them anyway?))

Impact felt nauseous. The poison wasn't too bad, yet, but the gunk shot was absolutely horrible. And his team had taken a beating in general. He tried to shake off the worst of Arbok's attack, then checked the battlefield again. It was going to be over soon enough, hopefully. He considered healing himself already, but decided he'd have to tough it out. Worst case scenario, Rachel would have to use a revive on him. As for targets and priorities...

"Right! It's almost over, we can finish soon enough. I'll attack Mothim and Arbok, for quadruple and double damage respectively. About time I used my Stamina boost. Try to finish off my targets, if they're still alive when I'm done, another psychic move, bronzong, perhaps, should finish Arbok and any move should be enough to eliminate Mothim, if my attack's not enough. If one of us has an earth attack at the ready, they should try to finish off Honamor... Other than that, select your own targets. Attack whatever you're super-effective against, try to focus fire. My impulse would be to finish off Skuntank before hitting the trainer, but do what you're best at."

His advice given, he reached down to his belt, pulled out the shot containing the Stamina boost, administered it. Felt power, again. Much more power than usual. He saw where he'd have to attack, what he'd have to do. And do he did. Moving fluidly, he shook off the rest of the gunk, then took two steps towards the Arbok, raising the rifle to his shoulder, sighted along it, stopped dead and fired. The beam again sprouted from its futuristic tip, but instead of hitting only the head this time, he let it travel along the monster's length, focusing on hitting the spine, before ending up with another quick burst to the head. It wouldn't be enough to kill it, but he had other priorities, for now. Like that Mothim. Quite annoying, really, harassing, poisoning them. Time to finish it. He slung the psychic rifle over his shoulder again, pulled out the Siege Boomerang. It was heavy, weighed him down quite a bit and he knew his back'd ache from carrying it, but now it was about to become worth it. Holding it with both hands, he drew it back over his shoulder, then threw it, spinning by 90 degrees to give it some extra momentum. It actually spun the way boomerangs were supposed to, he realized, though usually boomerangs didn't seem to track their targets, accelerate while in the air, or carry enough momentum to break down a steel door. He watched his weapon, waiting for it to strike, mesmerized.

[Dracorion]

"Tyranitar, hang in there, we're almost done!"

Pierce considered his options. Most of the enemy pokemon were weak to Ground attack, so a widespread Earthquake would probably do some good damage and down that Honarmor. Unfortunately, it would also wreak havoc on Rachel and Rayleen's pokemon. "Tyranitar, hit that Honarmor with Earthquake again! Skarmory, Air Slash!"

Tyranitar stomped the ground, once again sending a powerful tremor at Honarmor. Skarmory launched the blade of air at one of the Medichams.