Cat Fight Anyone? [Victoria]

[Emmaline]

The Stadium. These words convey an image of a soaring ceiling, seating for hundreds, and masterful acoustics so that even those in the nosebleed section-staring down at the Diglett-sized Ursaring battling an even smaller Salamence-could hear every word spoken by the trainers and judge, every sickening collision between the two masterfully trained Pokemon as they tried their best to tear each other limb from limb. An amazing yet slightly gruesome spectacle, captivating the audience’s attention yet slightly horrifying to the more faint-hearted spectators. Well, if there was any of those with weaker constitutions in the Pravus audience. The battle occurring was the epitome of the ideals of Pravus. Strong, swift, taking down whoever dared stand in their way. Yes, it was a wonderful sight that sent shivers down the higher-ranked Pravus members.

Well, that was last night and three doors over. The stadium that we are concerned with is much smaller, though still large enough to contain the largest Pokemon. There was a pool of water off to one side, speckled with floating platforms for a land to water battle. The ceiling was vaulted, with special platforms that could be raised or lowered if a battle took to the skies. Other than that, the battlefield was unremarkable aside from a few boulders scattered about both halves to create some terrain differences. But still, it was a stadium.

A little girl, dressed in a pretty dark purple dress, stood on one side of the battlefield, facing the door. At first glance, she appeared fairly unremarkable, but upon closer observation it was immediately evident that she wasn’t. Her purple eyes stared out innocently enough, until you noticed the complete lack of human emotion within their indigo depths. Another clue to her differences from other children was the Pokemon that accompanied her. A Murkrow slumbered on her head. Yes, on her head. The claws were buried deep in her hair, although they apparently caused the child no discomfort. A string was tied around on wrist, much like a parent would tie a balloon to their child so the child wouldn’t accidently let the balloon go and loose it. Except this string was tied to another Pokemon, a Magnemite to be exact. The Magnemite was currently drifting towards the metal beams over 50 feet above. Every so often, the child would tug the Magnemite back down, but the Magnemite would just start drifting upwards again, slowly and inexorably.

Yes, this was no ordinary child. This was Pravus Private No. G38, also known as Emmaline the Misdreavus Pokemorph. Emma was of course only 6 physically, but do not doubt that she is a full member of Pravus. She stood completely still, the slightly tattered edge of her dress fluttering slightly with some unknown wind.

Off to the side of the battlefield, a man sat in a folding chair, reading a newspaper. A clipboard and pen sat forgotten by his feet, along with a quickly cooling cup of coffee. He was the judge of course, here to make sure the opponents didn’t kill each other or maim each other permanently. A Pravus judge, used to wild battles and somewhat shady tactics. Completely nonplussed by the creepy little girl who was also waiting in the stadium. The clipboard was for recording his observations, but it got more use as scrap paper so the judge could best calculate the next winning lottery number. This was just a regular training battle after all, no need to devote much attention to a small battle between two grunts. Emmaline versus Victoria, his clipboard read. A Lumineon Pokemorph versus a Misdreavus Pokemorph. An Air Squad Private versus a Water Squad Grunt. Definitely just a regular training battle.

The only sounds that echoed around the stadium were the shuffling of the judge’s newspaper and a few quiet snores from the Murkrow. The girl didn’t move, except to tug the Magnemite down once again as it reached the end of its tether. And they waited.

OOC: 2 Pokemon, 1vs1, Sound good?

[victoria]

Victoria had received the invitation for battle earlier, and, having received it, she was excited for a battle. Unfortunately, Koi was not at the right level (or the right condition) to battle, and was sitting in his fish tank, blubbing at the bubbles now.

So she had brought along her other two Pokemon. Tama was excited for a battle, though for completely different reasons than the elegant Showers, who kept up the pace for both of the more water oriented creatures to follow. Tripping over everything was what Victoria did best, and, even if she tried her hardest to keep up with Showers and not trip over everything, she still found herself attracted to the other members, at least in respects to how easy they were to run into. What a strange bunch she had herself caught up in, Pravus anyways. Some of the members were just… plain… insane.

But then again, you had to be a certain level of insane when in Pravus. It did not work any other way if you were not. Even Victoria had it in her somewhere, or so she was told.

In his trainer’s arms, Tama waggled his small tail happily.

“Are we gonna make friends today?” he asked curiously. Victoria smiled at her Spheal, the pure joy at the thought of making a friend all but glimmering in her eyes.

“We just might,” she said, “It depends on how this battle goes.”

She fully expected it to be a losing battle, if only because her training with her Pokemon was off lately. She had dedicated much of her time to helping Koi with his memory, and thus left Tama and Showers to their own devices. Showers naturally knew what she was doing, and refused to slack off if for nothing more than the sake of her own trainer’s well being. Victoria was well aware of her attacks, and, if the girl hesitated, Showers could always pick up and fight for herself.

Tama was the one who thought everything was a big joke at this point. There was nothing for him to be serious about. They were going in for a training battle, not a full-fledged mission. Not that he had seen much of a mission to begin with, but that was far from the original point.

It took them a full half an hour till they finally made it to the stadium. It was as large as usual, and both Tama and Victoria found themselves staring at the size of it for quite a long while. Showers was waiting for them, having been there for a good fifteen minutes or so already.

“Well?” she asked, a little impatiently.

Victoria gave her Pokemon a few bats of her fishie eyelids before realizing that they were still on a schedule and they were running just a tiny bit late.

“Oh! I am terribly sorry Showers. I almost completely forgot,” Victoria said, her eyes filled with a thousand apologies, each more sincere than the last. The Vaporeon sighed deeply and shook her head. If the girl was any more of a ditz, she would have left to find another trainer by now. Someone would have wanted a beautiful Vaporeon, right?

But, lukily for the both of them, Victoria was just being a scatterbrained fish, and, as fishy as she was, she was still Victoria inside. That was really all that mattered.

The Lumineon morph eyed the field she was assigned to. At one end stood a child, and there was the judge… or whatever they were going to call him, writing on a clipboard. No one ever cared what they were doing, so she highly expected that the … judge… was far from beginning to record things down.

She took her place opposite the girl, and smiled broadly.

“Hello!” she said happily, “Are you my battle partner today?”

Normally she would ask why there was a child as her training opponent, but today she could have cared less who it was. There were all kinds, after all.

Tama waved his paw from where he still sat in Victoria’s arms.

“Hello new friends!”

Showers merely sighed, and stepped forward. Better to get the formalities over with through those two and let her do the fighting. After all, what was the point of being here other than to battle?

[Emmaline]

The Vaporeon showed up before the trainer. Emma took no notice of the new arrival, instead contenting herself with tying pretty bows in the sting Polly was tied to. Poofy peered nearsightedly at the Vaporeon, but soon settled down for a quick nap. But when Victoria showed up, Emma dropped everything and skipped over to the judge, who had also fallen asleep.

A hop skip and a jump, Poofy waking with a squawk to hold on tightly, and the odd little group was there. Emma tugged on the judge’s ratty brown jacket while Poofy did the talking. “Honorable Judge, I believe that Emma would like to notify you that the opponent has arrived” the Murkrow intoned, his voice completely formal, but slightly muddled by sleep.

The girl and her Pokemon returned to their place as the judge stretched and retrieved his clipboard, which was now sporting a rather impressive coffee ring. Emma gave a little twirl as she turned to face her opponent, curtseying gracefully. Her face was still locked in its empty expression.

The Murkrow spoke again “Mistress Emma would like to welcome you to the stadium, and would bid you good luck in the coming battle” at the sound of her name Emma gave a little grin that didn’t reach her eyes and waved back at Tama. Poofy continued “The battle is to be one on one with a total of two Pokemon taking part in the battle. I am Professor-“ Here Poofy was interrupted by Emma’s first words since she had arrived in the arena “Poofy” she said in a resolute voice.

The Murkrow sighed and continued in a resigned voice, much of the formality falling away from his tone “Ok Emma, have it your way. My name is Poofy” the bird visibly winced at the name “And we are Pravus G38 of the Air Squad.”

The judge interrupted any other formalities. “Ok girls, let’s get this over with. One on one, two Pokemon each, anything goes, just try not to cause too much damage or kill each other. Insurance premiums are killer” The judge rambled as he tried to wipe off the coffee stain from the clipboard with little to no success. “Whenever you’re ready ladies” he grumbled, giving up on his clipboard and settling back down to continue his nap.

Emma grinned again, this time with a little more feeling in it, and removed a Pokeball from her skeleton backpack. “Puppy!” She cried, releasing its inhabitant.

The melancholy Cubok settled lightly onto the stadium ground, giving his wings a flap or two to stretch them out. “What is it that the Mistress Emmaline desires?” he intoned with his funeral parlor voice.

Emma’s little grin took on a more menacing look as her purple eyes began glowing slightly in anticipation of the pain to come. “Kill” she cried, giggling and clapping her hands as they waited for Victoria to pick her first victim-Pokemon.

[victoria]

Showers stared at the girl incredulously. She was unsure how to take this, seeing as there was quite a bit of her that was sure this girl was offending Victoria in some way. It did also seem like, however, the Murkrow was doing all the talking. It seemed that when that occurred, Victoria had fallen silent, not entirely sure she had any idea what to say at all. With that deep purple blush, she seemed to be more concerned with the fact that her opponent was little more than a child in her eyes. Whether this ‘child’ was completely there or not was more the question she had in mind. This child… was different than what she had known children to be.

Her head was turned to one side and tilted lightly, as if looking at her with one large, fish-like eye and examining her. It probably did not help that that was exactly what she was doing at that point, but the girl was perplexing.

It must have just been Pravus’s effects on the girl. Victoria was aware that Pravus was… well, a little on the crazy as hell side, but she was not sure how far they went. If they went that far on such a small girl…

Well, it was not something Victoria cared to get into. Since it was absolutely none of her business, she was not going to pry. Prying got her into large amounts of trouble most of the time, anyways.

But, that was another ramble saved for some other time. Right now, she was much more concerned about one thing, and that was the battle.

Her brain just could not wrap itself around that concept yet.

And dear Tama was thinking about how he had just made a friend in the little girl his trainer was having a small problem wrapping her brain around. He was absolutely ecstatic that there was someone out there who waved back. Usually they just ignored him, opting to speak with his much more clumsy trainer. He loved Victoria, really he did, but sometimes she just took all the attention away.

Maybe later he and this girl could play a game of some sort. He would just have to go off and ask her, if things did not get all that rough anyways.

“Victoria,” Showers snapped, causing the girl to snort lightly out of her thoughts and blink a few times, her eyes beginning to dry up, which was, amazingly enough, rather uncommon for her.

She would have to talk to one of the scientists later.

Before she could open her mouth to interrupt with her own name and such, the judge had spoken up, sounding very much like he wanted to get the show on the road. Well, fine then. What a rude judge…

After a moment more of thought, she gave Showers a nod and a smile. The Vaporeon padded forward and took a stance before lowering her head and tail. If she was going to win this one, she would have to keep herself guarded. It did indeed look like the Pokemon in front of her was smart enough to not leave himself open, so she had to give a similar opportunity.

Which was far from an actual opportunity, but that was far from the point.

Her tail twitched lightly, as if waiting for this snake to make the first move, but, if she knew snakes any at all, that might take quite a bit of time.

Oh well, the judge would just have to wait.

[Emmaline]

If Emma was paying any attention at all to Victoria’s somewhat unprofessional demeanor, she didn’t show it. After all, Emma couldn’t really find fault in another girl whose Pokemon happened to do all the talking and keep them on track. Well, at least Emma had an excuse. She was only 5 after all. Victoria just seemed easily distracted. Good thing she had Showers there to keep her on track, just like Emma had Poofy. Well, Poofy tried his best, the poor old bird. He wasn’t strong enough to really control the willful Emma.
So many times he had been in the middle of a sentence when Emma saw something interesting or shiny or cute and bounded away to investigate, dragging the poor Murkrow along for the ride. Maybe Poofy should learn to fly…nah, he’s too lazy for that.

Puppy stared down at the Vaporeon. Children these days, so eager and ready to fight. She didn’t even seem intimidated by his frightening presence. Maybe it was the fact that he was being ordered around by an impertinent little black bird. Mistress Emmaline was so much more interesting than that pompous bird. Puppy suspected that the Murkrow wouldn’t even taste that good. Not that he would eat the annoying bird. Mistress Emmaline wouldn’t like that.

Poofy clicked his beak and cleared his throat in preparation to give the first order. “Puppy! Sludge Bom-MPH!” His command was cut off rather harshly by a small hand clamped over his beak.

“No Sludge Bomb” Emma said to Poofy sternly.

The Murkrow struggled to talk around the hand around his beak. “But Miss Emma! Sludge Bomb is Puppy’s strongest attack! It makes logical and tactical sense with the added chance of inflicting poisoning on the Vaporeon! Since you didn’t take MY advice and use a Pokemon obviously more suited to battle a water type, we must be swift and disable the Vaporeon as quickly as possible!” Of course most of this sounded like just muffled mutterings, but you could tell what he was complaining about.

Emma pouted up at her Murkrow, letting go of his beak. The two were nose to beak by then-Poofy hanging over to glare at Emma and Emma craning her head up to pout at Poofy.

“No Sludge Bomb. Its so dirty. Make the pretty faces Puppy!” This was by far the longest series of words Emma had spoken so far. When she wanted something, she could be quite vocal. And stubborn.

“But-“ Poofy tried one more time. Emma’s purple eyes flared and the Murkrow quieted. He didn’t want to make her angry. He sighed and raised his head to deliver the order. “Mean Look Puppy. Then do an Ominous Wind or something. I don’t care.” The Murkrow actually turned around in his seat on Emma’s head to look backwards and pout.

Emma clapped her hands with excitement, the largely forgotten Magnemite bobbing up and down with the motion. “Thank you Poofy!” She reached up and patted the bird’s wing.

Poofy felt his resolve begin to waver. This was why he put up with Emma…she was so cute sometimes! He almost turned back around but no, he had to be stalwart. She would learn to listen to him. Poofy knew what he was doing!

Ugh…now he’s even referring to himself by that insulting nickname! He was the Professor! Not Poofy! Even if Poofy did sound kind of cute when Emma said it…Ack!

Oblivious to the Murkrow’s inner musings, Puppy solemnly began his attacks. Rearing up to his fully impressive height, he gave the Vaporeon a Very Mean Look, angling it so that Emma could see it as well. He was rewarded by a delighted giggle from his trainer as Emma delighted in the force of the fear. Poor Polly was so frightened that it tried to hide behind Emma, but kept being pulled all over the place as Emma continued laughing and clapping for Puppy’s terrifying performance.

He mulled over his other attacks for a bit before deciding on the correct course of action. Once he settled on an attack, the Cubok flapped his black wings, arching up even further. Then, calling on the abilities of the Ghosts, he dove into his shadow. The dark mass swarmed along the floor, darting towards the Vaporeon. Puppy in the shadow swung around behind Showers before the Water type could do an attack, and reared out of the shadow to deliver a Shadow Sneak attack. Just for good measure, the Cubok whispered a deep, dark “Boo” right in the Vaporeon’s perked ear before he struck. That was his job after all, scaring the pants off of whoever he came by.

Emma held her breath, anxiously awaiting the destruction, pain, and injury that was sure to result from the Cubok’s admittedly overly dramatic attacks. She cold always count on the Cubok to deliver a frightfully good show. The Misdreavus-morph would eat well today.

Off to the side, the judge took no notice of anything happening in the ring. In fact, it looked like the old man had gone back to sleep. Some people could sleep through anything, it seemed.

OOC: I know Shadow Sneak is supposed to hit before the Mean Look...but it worked better like this. I can change it if you want. Mean Look doesn't really do anything in this case, except make it so Showers can't be switched out.

[victoria]

[OOC: I hope I did this right >.>. Also, 630 words *sets up counter*]

It did not take as long as she thought it would for the creature to attack. They must have all been rather impatient or something, seeing as she was perfectly content waiting for the first move before moving herself.

Showers held her ground, rather well if she did say so herself. The strange creature in front of her, which looked as if a Marowak had some strange relations with one of the many snake Pokemon out there, was starting to glare. She knew better than to think a glare was going to take her down a notch or so, and if she wanted to run from battle, she would not have come in to begin with. What a waste of time that would have been!

Victoria, by this time, had begun to get a hold of her bearings, though still not used to a child on the other end of the battlefield, and focused her eyes on the battle at hand. Any formalities could have been decided afterwards, when the battle’s victor was also decided. Of course, there was a good chance that she had just missed half the battle in that few moments she was dazed.

But it did not seem like it. By the time her eyes focused on the battle at hand, there was a missing snake creature, and her small, blue water type was eyeing the battlefield, readying her first attack.

Of course, he was not all that hard to find, but someone had to keep up some form of illusion, or else she would never get anything done.

“Showers!”

The sound of her trainer shot the Vaporeon out of what she was thinking, as her mind went to how Victoria finally decided it was a good time to pay attention. Even though momentarily, her plan was suddenly dashed the moment the Cubok reappeared, whispering a single word into her ear. In a panic, she retaliated to the Shadow Sneak by swiping a paw down onto the ground and, aiming for the creature’s eyes, executed a Sand Attack as the Cubok creature was going to hit her, quite likely right afterwards, creating a larger cascade of sand. At such a close distance, she was sure to hit!

Then again, one could never tell with a Pokemon battle these days.

Skidding backwards from the Shadow Sneak’s impact, she let out an angry noise. How could Victoria break her concentration? The two of them had a solid agreement; stay out of her battles, so that she could properly concentrate. Though Victoria was never really good at keeping to that agreement, the girl usually tended to butt out of it before she could have her concentration broken.

But it seemed that, this time, concentration breaking was the theme today. Showers would just have to scold the girl on it later.

Victoria put a hand to her mouth, aware of what she had just done. How could she do that to her poor Vaporeon? Maybe she should have just stayed quiet for a bit. That seemed to work better than nothing, at least, it did where her Vaporeon was concerned. Showers was always so uppity and touchy when it came to battling other Pokemon.

As the Vaporeon stared down the Cubok, she took the split second between recovering and being angry at her trainer to open her mouth and unleash a Water Gun at the snake beast. She knew this style of fighting, she had seen it so many times before, but he was still slippery, and that did not make this battle any more or less simple.

After unleashing the Water Gun, she began to move around the field. If she was going to be snuck up on, she would have to make it much, much harder for him.

[Emmaline]

This was fun. Fighting a nice little battle against a pretty fishy girl. Emma really wanted to touch the fins, see if they were soft or scaley. She supposed they probably smelled like fish. That would be bad. Fish smell bad. Which was why Poofy isn’t allowed to eat fish. Because they smell stinky and make Poofy smell stinky.

But now Poofy wasn’t stinky, because Emma had made him take a nice bath. Puppy was also nice and clean and pretty and smelled good. Emma had tried some of that nice perfume a nice lady had given her as a present. Emma had also taken the lady’s Bayleaf, but that was cause it was orders. That lady was very nice.

That Vaporeon was pretty. Not when she was growling and everything, but still pretty. But Emma didn’t like that the little Vaporeon wasn’t afraid of Puppy’s pretty-face. Emma was so looking forward to getting a taste of Vaporeon fear. She was getting hungry just thinking about it!

What was Showers doing now? On no! Emma clenched her hands as poor Puppy was sprayed with the Sand Attack. The massive snake reared his boney head, shaking it this way and that in an attempt to get the sand out of his eyes.

“Puppy!” Emma cried. She glared at Victoria, eyes glowing purple “You got Puppy dirty. You need to die.” And then the Vaporeon had to make it all worse! She sprayed Puppy with water! Well, maybe not worse, cause it got a lot of the nasty sand off of Puppy’s pretty black scales, but it made a lot of mud. She was going to have to wash Puppy sooooooo much when this was all over!

Emma pouted, one tiny cute slightly purple lip sticking out. She glared at the mud that was slowly creeping forward. That mud better not reach her! She was not going to get her pretty new shoes all dirty! But luckily it looked like it was going to stop before it reached her. Just in case Emma took a step back before refocusing on the battle.

Oh, it seemed that Puppy was taking the battle into his own hands. Wait, Puppy didn’t have hands. He took it into his coils then. Yeah, that worked.

Puppy glared at the stupid little doggy/kitty/fox-like fish. Stupid little thing kept moving around. Puppy really didn’t want to chase after the young upstart. He glanced at Emma. He needed to put on a show for his little girl as well. Let’s see…win this and make Emma happy. Yep, that’s about it.

How about this. Puppy focused his energy, a small flame appearing near where his mouth should be beneath the skull. He released several of these small flames, each of them zooming a different direction to dance about the edges of the arena. The little Will-o-Wisps swayed too and from, waiting for further instruction.

Emma clapped her hands with joy. This was pretty! She completely forgot about the nasty mud.

Ok, part two. Puppy flapped his wings, once, then twice, sending a wave of ghostly energy about the arena. Emma cheered as the Ominous Wind passed over her. On her head Poofy shivered, still pouting at being overruled by Emma. Poor Polly tried to hide in Emma’s backpack.

The Ominous Wind caught the Will-o-Wisp and took it streaming towards the Vaporeon from several directions at once. It made a lovely spectacle, but the attack was kind of slow. If the Vaporeon wasn’t distracted again, she might be able to dodge.

[victoria]

[536]

Showers was taken aback by the girl’s reaction. What a strange girl she was! Worried about a little dirt on her Pokemon! It looked like the creature could take it too. After all, it was a Cubok she was facing down. They lived in graveyards, where all sorts of strange dirt and dust resided. Who knew what that thing had gotten into.

But it seemed there was much more of a focus on making the young child happy as opposed to defending themselves. Fine, she would play to that advantage. It was not her fault that these Pokemon were too busy babysitting to realize there was a battle at hand!

Victoria, on the other hand, was taken aback. Did that girl just tell her she needed to die… because her Pokemon got a little dirty? What a strange girl! Victoria found herself gaining her confidence back, and slowly began to figure the situation out. Showers was dashing around the field, looking like she was going to begin in on a Quick Attack, but it seemed the cobra… skull… thing had other plans. What was that attack, a Will-o-Wisp? She could tell that there was something going on, but Showers was paying more attention to how she was going to get over to the Pokemon as opposed to how she was going to deflect or dodge the thing coming at her. Wisps of fire that were coming right for her poor Pokemon!

“Showers! Will-o-Wisp!” she shouted, causing the Vaporeon to skid to a halt. A shiver passed over her as the first little bit of Ominous Wind flowed over, causing the Pokemon to hunch down and stare at the Will-o-Wisps. She did not have much time to react, even if the creations were going at a slow rate. Instead of right out dodging them, she opened her mouth as wide as it could go, and stood her ground.

It was as if the sounds of the pure ocean… or a pickling plant, depending on one’s point of view, could be heard from the depths of her mouth, but only momentarily, as the salty, blue water came crashing from her mouth and towards the Cubok. It was not incredibly large, but it got in the way of some of those wisps, hopefully extinguishing them. Of course, since it came from her mouth, she had more wisps to dodge and/or take care of, and she was more than willing to do that. Maybe that Cubok would be distracted with her little pickling solution… well, there was a lot there.

She began to run towards the side, eyes on the creature at the other end, waiting for its next move. It seemed that the Cubok had more up its sleeve than she originally thought…

Her moves dodged the wisps, but that was alright, it seemed the girl was more entertained by how pretty things were than how the outcome turned out…

Apparently Showers had not heard the threat made in her trainer’s direction.

She took a moment, as she knew she was relatively clear of the wisps to pause and shoot off another Water Gun in the creature’s direction. Maybe that would show him not to throw fire at her.

[Emmaline]

Victoria was definitely more concerned with her Pokemon’s battle ability than Emma was. Emma didn’t bother to warn Puppy of the incoming Water Gun attack. The Cubok was watching the previous Water Gun extinguish the pretty Will-o-wisps he had worked so hard on and so the old Pokemon didn’t see the attack until the last minute.

Poofy, on the other hand, was actually paying attention to the battle, roused himself from his funk just in time to shout a warning at his fellow Pokemon “Watch out!” the old bird squawked.

Puppy tried his hardest to escape the incoming deluge, but the Water Gun hit him right between the eyes. The big ghostly snake reared, roaring in pain, before collapsing fainted onto the ground.

Poofy turned to Emma “See what you did young lady? Puppy should have been able to defeat the Vapoereon many moves ago if you had just listened to me!” He gave the girl a hard peck on the ear “Now are you willing to listen to me?”

Emma nodded, her face impassive once again, although a slight tightening around her lips revealed that the girl did feel something for her downed Pokemon. The impassive mask was what she was programmed for, so that’s what she showed, no matter how a normal child would have rushed out to comfort her Pokemon.

Poofy sighed. He hoped Emma would learn a lesson from this battle. He shifted on her head, pecking at the backpack slung over Emma’s shoulder. A Pokeball flashed and Puppy was returned to rest and recover.

The Murkrow thought for a moment, formulating a battle strategy. The next choice would have to fight the Vaporeon as well as whatever else the other Pokemorph chose. “Use Minthalium” he ordered once he had decided on a proper course of action. The Squirrel was annoying, but a Grass type would get the job done.

Emma just nodded slightly and released her Pretty onto the battlefield. The shiny lavender and mint green Squiggular shook his cute little head, rubbing his eyes sleepily. His little mint-green grass sword was grasped in one paw, ready for use as always.

The Squiggular struck an amazingly cute picture…for about ten seconds.

Then the Pokemon caught sight of the Vaporeon and chaos exploded. “ITS-A-BATTLE! THE-MINTHALIUM-AVENGAR-IS-GOING-TO-RIP-TEAR-KILL-THE-ATTACKER!” Pretty’s high squeaky voice (think chipmunk) echoed around the arena as the little squirrel bounced up and down, raring to begin the battle.

Poofy winced at the volume of Pretty’s voice. That by itself should be considered an attack. The Murkrow had tried to explain the concept of an ‘indoor voice’ to the other Pokemon many times before, but with no apparent success.

Sighing, Poofy turned to Emma. “Now what do we do?” He prompted.

Emma said tentatively “Pretty should…use Leaf Blade?”

Poofy nodded “Good girl, you remember you lessons. Pretty, use Leaf Blade!” Poofy commanded.

Minthalium growled cutely at his hated nickname. He was the Mighty Minthalium the Avenger! And he was powerful!

Pretty stabbed his little grass sword into the ground. The fragile-looking grass blade slide deeply into the slightly muddy ground. The Pokemon and sword began to glow slightly, Pretty growling out a “Squiggu-LAR!” as the unordered Swords Dance increased his strength.

The little guy then charged at the Vaporeon, ripping his sword free from the ground and swinging it at the Water Type with a loud war cry “SQUIGGYSQUIGGYSQUIGGYSQUIGGY!”

[victoria]

[Word Count:479]

Now were they bickering? It pretty much sounded like they were bickering, that crow and that girl. Victoria was a little scared of that situation, seeing as the girl looked no older than five, maybe six. She might have gotten into arguments with Tama about it from time to time, but at least she was twenty and had a very good reason for doing so; mainly because Tama was just incredibly stubborn...

And it did not look all that strange compared to these two.

Showers found this to be a rather interesting, but probably short, interlude. At least the Prof.... Poofy had some control over his strange, attention deficit trainer. Then again, his trainer had a reason to have attention issues. Her's, on the other hand, did not...

Unless one waved a shiny object in front of her, but that was not something she could blame her for. She was part fish, after all...

Though, one could argue that Showers was too, and she had a much higher attention span than her trainer, which said something right there...

The Vaporeon's ear twitched when the next Pokemon was released from the Pokeball. What kind of joke was this?! A squirrel?! Did she ever hate squirrels... and boy was this one going to get it, just for the rest of the squirrel population's existence, as if it were all his fault.

She had seen one of these before, one of these Squiggular. They usually came in different colors though, but she knew what to hit him with.

Victoria on the other hand, was just scratching her head. What Pokemon was this? Clearly Tama and Showers had some idea what it was, as Tama, in his trainer's arms, was trying to get a better look at what Showers was doing, as if he was concerned for her.

And Showers looked like she was going to rip that poor creature a new hole. She was standing firm, readying an attack, but she seemed to have a delay, as she stood there, a target for the strange squirrel...

The one with Grass type attacks.

Victoria looked a little bit horrified at the attack. That would surely devastate her Pokemon! Why was Showers just standing there?!

Showers waited for the opposing Pokemon to start heading right towards her. She had an ace up her 'sleeve' that she saved for just such a Pokemon as this...

As he started in on his war cry of doom (what else do we call that?), she opened her large maw, as she did before, with her Water Gun and Brine attacks. This time, however, a small, white sphere appeared just outside her mouth, signifying that there was another attack.

If that Squiggular had any sense, he had just enough time to possibly get out of the way as the Ice Beam came hurtling at him, but who knew, right?

[Emmaline]

Pretty really didn’t have sense. Not when it came to fighting anyways.

Poofy shouted, agitatedly flapping his wings “Jump Pretty, jump you stupid Squirrel!” He knew that Pretty didn’t have any sense when it came to battling. The lavender squirrel was so hot headed, something of a berserker actually. Squiggilar were extremely agile so Pretty should be able to dodge the surprisingly slow Ice Beam. That is, if Pretty wasn’t only thinking of slashing his sword at the Vaporeon. Poofy didn’t have much hope that Pretty could survive the battle, not now that Shower’s Ice Beam was revealed. Maybe Polly would have been the better choice.

The Ice Beam loomed closer. Poofy tried again “Jump Minthalium!”

Even Emma was worried. Her hands worried the cloth of her pretty purple dress as her and Poofy prepared for the impact.

Pretty continued forward, the only indication he was even aware of the Ice Beam was a slight narrowing of his eyes and a shouted “I’M-COMING-TO-GET-YOU!!!”

The Ice Beam hit Pretty square on and the little squirrel was blown backwards by the force of the impact.

Poofy clattered his beak and even Emma looked a little crestfallen at Pretty’s apparently record fast defeat. Imagine their surprise when the dust cleared and there was Pretty!

The pastel Pretty was fuming, hopping up and down and waving his sword wildly. The only indication that he had been hit was a light dusting of ice particles over his fur, making his sparkly as well as lavender and mint green. Poor Pretty looked very Pretty. Undoubtedly he was hurt severely by the attack, but Pretty was way too stubborn to be done in by a single attack. He hadn’t even gotten to hit anything yet!

Pretty chattered angrily, his words (if there were any) becoming lost in a stream of nonsense syllables. Some words could be made out, however, most consisting of language one would be surprised to hear from a Pokemon of a normal child. But Emma was Pravus, so Pretty had plenty of opportunity to learn exactly how to tell that Vaporeon that her mother was an inbreed bitch who mistook an oil slick for a mate and exactly where said Vaporeon could shove her nasty TMs.

This tirade continued on without breaking, only increasing in volume. Then, between one hopping mad leap to the next, Pretty took off, charging once again at Showers. This time his eyes began glowing red, his grass sword bleeding a sort of purple energy afterimage as he swung it.

The Psycho Cut attack was yet another way Pretty like to cut and slash at things. But it was still another close range attack, and Showers had shown herself to be a long range fighter. Poofy could only wait to see if Pretty was fast enough this time around.

[victoria]

[Post Count: 534]

Showers was impressed that this little squirrel managed to survive the attack she shot out at him, despite the fact that he was a stupid little squirrel with absolutely no It was obvious this little squirrel was going to take more than one simple Ice Beam. Maybe another, if she was careful enough, but she had to aim it right, on the off chance he got smart enough and dodged this next one. One could never be too careful of their opponents, no matter how incredibly dumb they seemed to be.

He might have just been young. And with this 'Poofy' pointing out the obvious and directing commands, it was unsure on whether Showers would even get her next attack in, especially if this Pokemon was as incredibly unpredictable as Showers thought he was going to be.

As he began to move towards her general direction, she stood her ground. No, she did not expect to get another Ice Beam in. Even if she could get one in, there was a good chance that she was going to get pummeled by this spastic squirrel thing.

She had to come up with another battle plan, and she had to figure it out rather soon.

The closer the squirrel got, the lower Showers got towards the ground, as if ready to pounce the squirrel in an attempt to get past his Psycho Cut and just knock him into the ground, even though it looked like she was about to go through a Cuisineart...

"What are you doing!?" Victoria shouted, at the pitch of either paranoia of losing her friend, or anger at such a dumb move. Yet again, Showers paid absolutely no heed. She waited until the squirrel was merely inches from turning her into a Vaporeon milkshake before vaulting over the small creature. Though the creature was only a foot shorter than her, it was a task that she managed to pull off with extreme difficulty.

Both she and Victoria thought she was going to make it through clean as well, seeing as there was not enough skill behind Pretty's attack, but Showers must have been tired from such a battle. She could feel her tail fall down towards the deadly blades, and, before she could do anything about it, she let out a yelp, her tail caught in the attack.

Somehow, she had to do something about this, before the rest of her got caught up in the attack. She could have taken it, but somehow, that did not seem like the best idea.

Her momentum, however, had to have her stopping somewhere, and behind the squirrel was where the momentum had her landing. She whirled around, and, hitting her back paws to the ground at an angle, she began to dig into the ground, a gruff Sand Attack in his general direction.

No, she could not see what was going on while she was turned around, but she could not stick around forever. That just would have made him much more angry...

And her tail was beginning to work.

After a few moments of digging into the earth, she dashed off, starting a wide, sweeping circle, in the hopes that he would follow.

[Emmaline]

Now, Pretty could have probably avoided the Sand Attack, but he was too busy celebrating the fact that he had hit the other Pokemon to pay much attention. The shock of the connection of the sword with his opponent’s flesh…so satisfying.

Pretty’s victory dance consisted of much jumping up and down and a lot of victorious shouting. “Mint-thal-i-um! Mint-thal-i-um!” Each sylabyl punctuated by Pretty thwacking his sword against the ground in a show of Manly Defiance (Pretty always tried to be masculine. As masculine as you can be at under 2 feet tall and colored lavender and mint). Poor Pretty, he only succeeded in looking like a cute little chibi squirrel trying to catch an erratically flying butterfly.

Then the Sand Attack hit. Luckily for Pretty, Squiggular have long tails to protect them from many things. As soon as the first grains landed in his sensitive eyes, Pretty’s tail instinctively whipped around, shielding him from further stinging sand.

Pretty scrubbed furiously at his eyes and backpedaled (looking EXTREMELY CUTE at the same time I might add). His face peaked through his little paws, one still holding tight to his mint-colored sword, his large, emerald green eyes bloodshot and filling with tears from the irritation of the sand. In other words, OMGHESSOCUTE!

Even Poofy found himself feeling sorry for the little Squiggy. The Murkrow had half stepped off of Emma’s head before he caught himself. Stupid pastel cute Pokemon and their big chibi eyes to melt event he hardest of hearts.

Emma didn’t react to Pretty’s cute face. In fact, she was maybe a little creeped out by it. Emma didn’t like cute. She liked scary!

But Pretty recovered quickly, as he knew he looked way too cute an unmanly with the tears in his eyes. The Squiggular decided to use his big fluffy tail instead of his sword this time. If he couldn’t see well, use less finesse (did Pretty even know the meaning of the word finesse? Unlikely) and more wide sweeping attacks.

The Squiggy’s big furry tail began sweeping from side to side, slowly, then faster and faster until Pretty was spinning on the spot. Tail Whipping wildly, Pretty began to move around the arena, towards Shower, still spinning rapidly. It was like a crazy ballet gone wrong. Pretty dancing around in circles, bouncing off walls, eyes actually shut tightly against the nausea of spinning quickly, as well as against any further Sand Attacks.

Tail Whip didn’t seem like a very good counter attack, but mixed in with the Tail Whips were Iron Tail attacks. The sheen of the Iron Tail attack was difficult to notice because Pretty was moving and spinning so quickly.

A pretty advanced tactic, coming from Pretty the berserker squirrel. Almost certainly by complete accident, bred of a need to hurt Showers and avoid another annoying Sand Attack, but still a good attack combo. Something Poofy should remember for later battles.

Emma and Poofy waited to see if the attack would hit, Poofy hoping that Pretty wouldn’t accidently go the wrong way and hit him and Emma, Emma wondering why the nasty Vaporeon insisted on getting all of Emma’s pretty Pokemon dirty. First Puppy and now Pretty, all covered in mud and dirt! That Vaporeon better be bleeding by the end of this battle, or Emma might just have to kill showers herself.