From: Continue (continue2@mindspring.com) Subject: Re: [PW!] Viridian at last Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Date: 2000-12-18 20:30:04 PST Jon wrote: >Jon felt an urge he was sure the others felt too, an urge to throw every >last Pokeball and Pokemon they owned at the obvious culprit and her >Pokemon. But something within each one of them kept their hands at >their sides, leaving the next move to the two combatants out of respect. One pokeball was removed from Damian?s backpack. The pokemon contained within was put there because of his last gym battle, not less than a half-hour ago. After what he had just gone through, he didn?t feel too sure about getting out of the tree on his own, and after what he had just felt and now saw, he knew he had to get out of the tree. "Bulletproof, I need your help." with that he opened the ball and a blob of white energy issued from it. The energy coalesced into a Magnemite, which asked out of its disorientation "Mag?" "Teleport me down to the ground there." Damian ordered while pointing to some unbroken ground not too far from the tree he was perched in like a helpless Meowth. The Magnemite?s eye looked from its trainer to the area pointed to and then it inclined its body, acknowledging the command. It floated over to the young trainer and glowed as it made contact, causing both to disappear. Appearing on the ground, Damian looked at the others. He had some trouble focusing through his somewhat addled thoughts, but from what he saw everyone aside from Sarah Jane, Nori, and their pokemon was tensed, awaiting a confrontation. He almost didn?t notice when someone put a hand on his shoulder from behind. "This could end far worse than it is now, if there is any sort of battle. If no one steps in-between them, giving them the time to think about what they really want, they could end doing something that they will later regret. Someone has to do that." Damian turned and saw the partially-gloved hand quickly withdraw. The man that who the hand belonged to turned before Damian could catch sight of his face, escaping quickly and quietly. The young trainer again looked around and saw that everyone else?s attention hadn?t drifted to him, so it appeared that had not noticed the temporary intrusion, and he was the only one that could act on what had been said. He caught one more thing that the others seemed to miss in their focus. After being incapacitated just as much as everyone else had, the Dodrio had begun to stir. Cerberus had felt pain this strong before. It had almost died from the injuries that had been inflicted when this happened. It wasn?t long ago, so recalling it wasn?t hard. This pain was different, it wasn?t born of injuries to its flesh. The fact that it was not connected to a part of its body was even more maddening. All it could find when it searched was an image in its head. The image closely resembled the human in front of it, the one cradling the body of the opponent it had just killed. With a target again, Cerberus? aggression kicked in again. Maybe if it had gotten a few moments more, it would have remembered feeling a pain almost exactly like this a long time ago. If it had remembered the pain that it felt without its parents to care for it, maybe it would have reacted differently. "Oh, no," Damian saw the one conscious Dodrio head lock onto Sarah Jane "Bulletproof, teleport us over there!" The young trainer pointed to a spot a few feet from Sarah Jane and grabbed a pokeball from his backpack. Once again, the pair disappeared from one part of the tableau and reappeared in another. Seeing the large bird pokemon about to pounce, Damian let fly the pokeball he was holding, trusting it would find its mark as well as it had anytime that a trainer threw a ball to catch a pokemon. The pokeball hit the one unfainted head directly in the center of its side, bouncing up from the impact. The sharp pain caused the angered bird to turn its head and give a shriek of warning to the one who had struck it, a message to that human that it was next after it finished its current prey. Damian couldn?t really make out the Dodrio?s shriek over his own shout of "Go, Remy!". After this verbal command, the pokeball he had just thrown popped open. Cerberus prepared to pounce again when it noticed the shadow that had just appeared. Survival instinct kicked in and it looked up, just in time to see a massive rotund body about to fall on top of it. It was fast enough to move, but not fast enough. The Snorlax fell with a thunderous impact, trapping all but Cerberus? one conscious head. The one head soon squawked in frustration, not being able to move anything but itself. Even that couldn?t move very much as most of its spindly neck was also trapped beneath the sleeping Snorlax. Still in as much shock as he had been previously, Rubix nonetheless reacted to what had just happened and reflexively commented "Where can I get me one of those? That people-squishing feature could come in handy." With Cerberus? squawking intruding, Sarah Jane was pulled out of her memories of Shields. She looked up and saw Damian standing in front of her, blocking out Nori. With sympathy evident in his voice, he told her "I know nothing I say or do can bring back Shields. I also can?t imagine what I?m saying will be any comfort, but I hope it will. Shields died protecting you from harm. It?s hard to think of anything but striking back at what killed him, but I think you?ve got to try. I don?t think he would?ve wanted you to be harmed by your own regret over what you do here now." Sarah Jane?s other pokemon, Cuddles, Spunky, and Pteryx approached her cautiously, eyes wide with what they had just experienced. "Sheesh," Rubix muttered "If the kid were any more sappy, we?d be fending off bug pokemon right now." Nori shot him a deadly glare, effectively communicating that expressing anything but genuine concern right now was a very bad idea, no matter what impulse struck him. <TBC?> Jeff Hauser* *Sig Sold Seperately