OOC: Okay, the txt file just doesn’t seem to look pretty enough I think, so I’m gonna try html this time and see how that goes. This is another semi-disjointed chapter but chapter 3 will start tying it all together into an understandable plot. This chapter will seem like a totally different fic but it’s not, just introducing more and more of the huge cast.

*** Part II: Ambush ***

A certain set of doors within a large complex deep within the primeval and serene Viridian Forest were quickly torn into four separate pieces as a Scizor’s claws tore them up, their hinges jammed with rust caused by some pokemon or other’s acid attack. The Citadel of Albrook was in quite a mess. It had suffered an enormous attack it seemed and one of its primary leaders, Kleym, the man with the Scizor, had apparently returned from training on the Indigo Plateau far too late to salvage the situation. Normally, Albrook was a tightly guarded complex. The walls rivaled Saffron’s in height and breadth and in additional to multitudes of loyal trainers, skilled in the Talamis Rai training doctrine, the training clan had a fair number of especially powerful arch-trainers, many of whom had residence in here.

Talamis Rai of course, was not a popular clan among the many which dotted Johto and Kanto. Their doctrine did not emphasize training but individual happiness and compassion for the pokemon as a primary objective. While these are rightly acknowledged as good things, the TR took them to the extreme. The theft, rape and even murder that occurred regularly within their ranks were crimes that most other clans wanted stopped and complete dismantling of TR was considered necessary. In short, TR was a hated cult that everyone wanted removed. The heavy "protection fee" exacted from non clan members living within their territory was a detail noted against them as well despite it being every other clan’s practice too.

Nevertheless Talamis Rai was a powerful presence, exclusively holding Indigo Plateau, the Mecca of pokemon training, Mount Moon, Pallet Peninsula and most of the Viridian area as well, until now anyway. With Albrook destroyed, TR’s hold on Viridian forest and surrounding district was effectively shattered and the mighty clan cut off into three separate chunks. Now, all that remained to do was to find out why and how. The literally overnight destruction of a major base of any clan didn’t happen everyday. Clearly, some amount of treason was involved. The enemy, apparently forces from a number of different clans put together showed great organization, especially in the time selected when all of the major trainers were not present to help hold the place together.

Kleym cut his way into another room and stopped in shock. Where every other place had scattered corpses of both men and pokemon, this room was stacked thick with the dead. The final battle for survival must have occurred here. He noted with pride that there were far more enemy corpses than those of his own clan. They had fought to the last and to the death.

Blade, his Scizor gave a sound of suspicion. He obviously thought something was not right. The hair on Kleym’s back rose on end. Something was definitely not right. Danger was near, according to the sense honed from being a member of a cult for almost his entire life. There were also too many enemy bodies on the floor to be right. Not enough drying blood to match them. Besides, he knew his clan’s strength, even a desperate situation could not have caused this mismatch…

Without warning, or rather to Kleym and Blade, far too much already, handfuls of the supposedly dead bodies popped up and attacked with their various pokemon. In the half second or so since Blade had sounded suspicion, the two had gotten full and ready for combat and as anyone in the military might say, the best way to deal with a sprung ambush is to run straight into it.

A fraction of a second later, there were far more Kleyms and Blades in the large central chamber of the citadel than there were enemy trainers. Their foes reacted rather confusedly to this startling double team attack which no only produced more copies than any Scizor should even hope to create in a single go but somehow included its master as well, negating the possibility of easily dispatching the trainer half of the team. The would-be assassins launched attacks in every which direction, thunderbolts and ice beams going off and going right through the various images. One ice beam hit dead home but the image didn’t disappear. The cold energy dissipated as it hit colder steel and the providing (and confused) Poliwhirl received a quick attack, knocking it instantly across the chamber and out the window into open air for a long fall. The quick attack continued, the Scizor a red streak leaving behind knocked out pokemon, humans and even redder blood. Kleym drew his sword and whirled through the crowd still fighting the images and hew down several trainers in a single whirling run.

One Heracross using endure stopped the blur into the recognizable form of a Scizor but the Bug/Fighter was quickly beaten at its own game of tossing and chucked out the window along with its trainer. A Pinsir grabbed one of Blade’s claws but the other one came around with crushing force and reduced the offender to two large chunks. Two thunderbolts came from somewhere in the quickly thinning crowd but those were dodged with a simple flight into the air. The pokemon, red from both the coloration of its steel armor and the blood of its victims, spread both claws wide. The room, dark from the relatively few windows glowed with an eerie orange light as glowing particles of energy gathered in the pincers. Blade spun in the air, its trainer standing atop it, holding on as twin hyper beams fired from the arms, wide swaths of blinding light, engulfing trainer, corpses and pokemon alike, reducing them to charred hulks. The room began collapsing as it was suddenly devoid of stables walls or pillars. The red tornado drilled out of the roof and floated above the collapsing central keep of Albrook Citadel. The glittering dust settled down from the massive attack as Blade quickly recharged from the last several seconds worth of energy use.

There was several moments of lull before instinct and honed danger-sense compelled the two into a steep climb. The rubble below them was suddenly and violently lit by an aura of blue flame from two simultaneous and very high leveled dragon breath attacks. The two assailants appeared, two highly skilled dragon trainers from the Cerulean Sphere, another powerful training group among the many at TR’s throat with many powerful dragoners in their upper circle. These two were the real thing in the now obvious plan to assassinate him and remove the strongest master from Talamis Rai. The fact that they were sent despite dragon weakness to steel made it obvious they were no joke.

"Prepare yourself!"

The first one cried mockingly as he flew in atop his Gyarados. Obviously, a Gyarados doesn’t really fly but it had no trouble moving on land and it could jump alright. Blade dodged the body slam, the hard fins of the gyarados causing a screech in passing and a blemish on the red insect’s armor.

"Getting ahead of yourself there." Kleym returned calmly.

As the Gyarados roared back in the air for another pass, Blade countered with Wing Attack. The Gyarados smoothly altered its passage, going under the attack and getting ready to bring its tail up to attack the bug. If that had really been a Wing Attack, it would have been a perfect counter but then, Kleym was famous as well for his mid-attack flexibility. Even without his trainer’s instructions, Blade knew well enough to flip and turn his attack into Razor Wind, sending shards of steel tearing into the water dragon’s scales. Blade came to a hover with Kleym standing atop his wing sheaths high above the smoldering citadel.

"Take this, and more for the many you and your clan have murdered!" The second assailant, a young woman on a Charizard yelled out.

Kleym’s eyebrow rose in amusement. These two were either extremely loyal to their clan or more likely, were in the influence of its propaganda. Blade dodged the flamethrower easily and brought both claws around for a vicious metal claw to the wings, sending the fire dragon into a spiral towards the ground. It recovered remarkably well and fired a fireblast. Blade dodged a hydropump from above as the Gyarados joined the attack and went into an insane stoop dive, spinning in a swords dance and wrapping its butterfly wings around itself as it closed with the ground. Those wings spread right at ground level and flew straight at the low flying Charizard, hitting with a devastating double edge, tossing the Charizard aside.

"Murdered? No no, we don’t murder, here in Talamis Rai, we simply support the growth of trainers through their individual happiness and their and their pokemon’s compassion and understanding for each other. If your clan and their allies would stop trying to murder us back for a while, maybe you’d understand. Perhaps you’ll even see the wisdom of our doctrine and practice it as well." He knew perfectly well they wouldn’t, but keeping the enemy talking can often be an advantage.

Thunder crackled overhead as the enemy Gyarados used that attack in the cloudy sky, missing the ever maneuverable Blade by a little each time. Blade and Kleym came to rest atop an as yet untoppled spire and let lose with multiple blasts of razor wind. Lacking serious special ability, razor wind was essentially, the Scizors main form of ranged assault. The Gyarados bought it hard and slammed into the remains of the central keep, crashing through the ruined rubble. In one smooth motion with the last attack, spun into the air with a swords dance move to avoid a flamethrower which struck the pinnacle of the spire he’d just been standing on. With the central keep and this spire ruined, there were only three other exterior guard spires remaining over the complex as everything below began burning to the earth. A fireblast sped towards him from both above and below, one from the ground bound but still fighting Charizard and another from the Gyarados which had recovered among the keep’s rubble.

The two fireblasts converged and exploded in brilliant flame on top of Blade. As the smoke cleared however, it appeared that the Scizor was still plenty alive enough for fighting. The quick attack it used missed by a few meters as the Charizard struggled and twisted aside. Its one good wing flipped a number of rocks hard at him, an attempt at a last ditch rockslide. Scizor crossed its arms in a protective posture, protecting both it and its master who had landed lightly behind it. The insect was forced back several feet from the impact but was otherwise unhurt.

Turning on the more threatening foe, Blade dashed at the now landed Gyarados and began a blindingly fast melee with it. Kleym had no need to instruct him much now. The Gyarados used body slam, the Scizor used agility, body slam misses, Gyarados gets hit with a countering fury cutter. Another body slam, another miss, more fury cutter. In a final, powerful stroke, mortally wounded the Gyarados. The man, now without his pokemon, ran for it, abandoning his partner. The eerie orange glow came again in the claw of Blade and a powerful hyperbeam engulfed Gyarados and fleeing human, giving both a swift and merciful end.

Distant footsteps could already be heard as the sky darkened with dusk and night, the shade enhanced by an overcast sky. By now, the battle had caused enough ruckus for an army to have taken notice. Extended conflict here would be unwise. The Master and the Pokemon withdrew into the shadows, leaving the woman and her Charizard unconscious in the ashes.