Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: The Search of a Soul

Chapter 11

 "You're quite strong!" the Luxray shouted, "But you won't beat me!"

 I said nothing; I couldn't if I wanted to. A mix of bitter rage and absolute glee had glued my mouth shut. There were so many emotions flowing through my brain that I would have felt overwhelmed if I wasn't so battle focused. I knew Thunder Punch wasn't going to do as much to a fellow Electric-type, but I readied one anyway. The Luxray noticed this and quickly took an odd looking syringe out of her bag. There was a strange bluish-purple liquid sloshing around inside and I instantly knew it was bad news. I didn't know what it did or how it could effect this battle or what its origin was; all I knew was that I couldn't let her use it. As she moved to inject herself I leaped forward in a burst of speed.

 Suddenly I saw my reflection, as if a pane of glass had materialized before me. She was using Protect, so my Thunder Punch was going to do no damage whatsoever. I wasn't entirely sure how Protect worked in this world, but I knew that much. I was suddenly keenly aware of the status window over my reflection. My eyes wandered until they found the little area that said "Ability". In the space beside it were not the words "Lightning Rod" nor the word "Static" which were Pikachu's normal abilities. It said "Maximum Overdrive". I only saw it for a split second before my fist connected with the barrier.

 There was so much force behind my punch that a crater formed underneath the spherical barrier that protected the Luxray. As I struck it she injected herself with the strange liquid. Her muscles bulged as well as her eyes in surprise. Whether it was due to the sheer power behind my punch or the liquid changing her body I did not know. Lightning sparked along the ground from my fist and her. I had the foresight to look at her status window and noticed that her level had rocketed up to the max at 100. She had also received some significant stat buffs, and some stat debuffs. Her offense had risen while her defenses had receded quite a bit. I threw another punch at the sphere, thinking I would break the Protect since that's how it was supposed to work in the games, but I was surprised to discover that it held fast without even budging. My surprise continued as the Luxray retreated back a good distance still inside it. I leaped back to get a better grip on the situation. My mind was still racing, but I had started to get a hold of them; my thoughts and emotions. She could probably put that barrier up whenever she wanted to, which meant that this battle was going to have more mind games than I had originally expected. An idea sprung to mind which made my body instantly copy it. It seemed like she wasn't entirely sure what that serum had done to her and was therefore on the defensive. I decided to take advantage of that.

 She spotted me approaching again and again put up the reflective barrier. Instead of a direct frontal assault, I darted around to her side and threw another Thunder Punch at that part of the sphere. Her eyes had not followed me and when I struck the barrier I felt slightly more give than before. I decided to continue to test the waters while she was still wary. I used Agility to boost my speed further and ran in a circle around the Protect. She tried to keep track of my movements, but wasn't fast enough. I threw a couple of weak jabs of Thunder Punch, first back at the front, then the back, then a side, and continued to alternate. Through this flurry I learned that the barrier was strongest where her eyes were. She had to focus in order to keep the Protect up and at its strongest. This couldn't be done throughout the entire sphere at all times. It was time to switch things up.

 "Not sure what you hope to gain," the Luxray exclaimed as she spun around in an attempt to track me better, "there's not way you can break through! No one has ever broken through my Protect!"

"First time for everything," I muttered to myself.

 This time, instead of readying a Thunder Punch, I readied a Brick Break. Brick Break in the games was capable of breaking moves like Light Screen and Reflect to make them ineffective. I was curious if it would work in a similar way here, though my hopes were not high due to the nature of the Luxray's Protect. I stopped directly behind her and threw a punch at the barrier as hard as I could. Lightning still flew off my body and my fist as it connected with the barrier. She had started to turn around, but it was too late. I managed to hit the Protect at its weakest point and successfully broke through. I only just grazed her though due to the space in between her and the sphere and most of my energy going into breaking it. She leaped away from me, retreating quite a distance away. When she looked back at me all I could see was pure shock on her face.