Pokemon Max

Ch. 39 Decked By the Halls

Ch. 39 Decked by the Halls

We walked into Doc's house. When we found Doc and my mom, the room was in shambles.

"Wow. That bad, huh?"

Doc spoke up. "Now that the cure is finished, we need to begin distributing it."

"But all those people are all over the place." Harper commented, "How are we gonna get it to them?"

"We bring them here."

I just about spewed my crackers (heh, that brings back memories). "What?"

"We take all the people you've helped already and anyone we can find, and bring them here. They'll be safe, and we can properly administer the cure."

"Sounds good." Adrian replied, and so we began work again. After a while, Mom volunteered to go get people for us.

"We need you to investigate our old friends." Doc explained, with a grim look on her face. "I fear things may get worse if we don't."

"All right, we'll get right on it."

"Take Taylor with you too, in case there are problems there too."

"'Kay. Let's go."

-Later-

"Man, I think we should have been here first. What with the parts of the building that are you know, not on the building." I commented.

We entered quietly. A lot of stuff was broken, and things were strewn all over the floor. We started heading up floors. Suddenly, I thought I heard something. I began to rush.

"Todd, wait!" Taylor called, but I wasn't gonna stop.

I opened a door at one floor after listening again. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. I heard small creaks, which abruptly stopped. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me. "Boo."

I spun around, getting ready to attack, when I found a large set of claws against my throat. "Hey Todd. You aren't real stupid. I learned that a while ago. So I think you don't wanna tempt me to move these babies."

"No...way. You...you were gone."

"Well, rumors of my death have been...greatly exaggerated."

"Don't make another dumb movie reference and maybe I won't make them truth."

"Ooh, tough words from a guy in your situation."

"Believe me, being this close to your breath, I gotta be pretty tough."

"Dude, you realize I'm your clone, right?"

"Nothing's perfect." I smiled. I ducked and tossed him over my head. He landed and slid a little. He groaned and charged me.

I sidestepped, but he struck me with the back of a claw. I slid back, and he quickly followed up with quick strikes to my side, and I only barely brought a claw up to block another one. We strained as we tried to gain the upper hand on each other. He grinned, and his claws grew longer. He thrust me backwards.

"You like it? Sandslash is old, Todd. The new me uses something a bit more impressive. It's called Zangoose, and it packs a heck of a punch."

I landed a few claw strikes to his chest, which he retaliated by uppercutting me. I flew backwards. As I strained to get up, he continued. "Ah, I love these babies. Perfect for gutting someone. I wonder who. Maybe that mother of yours."

"No..." I glared, and began attacking quicker. He still dodged, and struck lightning fast blows to my stomach. He flung me backwards.

"You're getting angry Todd. Nice. You have a pretty strong temper. Very dangerous." He continued to attack quickly, as I did all I could to endure his relentless barrage. "You get angry too easily. You get blindsided. Make mistakes. You need to not get angry so much."

His words clicked something in me. I wasn't about to lose because I didn't know what I was doing.

"No." I stopped an attack. "I am better than that. I can get angry. I just need to use that anger to do the right thing." I began striking carefully, landing blows in safe places, slowly picking up the pace. I lunched into a jumping uppercut, launching off his head into the sky. He spun to find me. I smiled.

"Guess what the right thing to do is right now?" I shot myself towards the ground, readying a claw.

"EARTHQUAKE!!!!"

When I reached the floor, I slammed the claw forcefully into the polished floor. The building vibrated violently. Dark Todd was thrown into the air, and began smashing into things. I leaped up to him, slashing quickly in the air, before thrusting him towards the ground. He smashed through part of the floor, leaving a crater, where he lay groaning.

I walked softly over to where he lay. I glared down at him.

"You leave my mom out of this. Or I will make the score 3-0, Todd."

He said nothing, but his glaring eyes rolled over in my direction.

I jogged to the stairs and began climbing again.

---

I finally reached the floor where the others were. They seemed to be working on some sort of machine.

"What's up?" I asked.

"What happened down there?"

"Let's just say someone got his butt handed to him, and it wasn't me."

"This device must have malfunctioned, outputting the virus across the entire city. It's a little busted, but we could use this to send the cure across the city." Adrian stated. "We need to power it."

"With what? Nothing here works." Nelly added.

I noticed something curious. "What's that?" I asked.

I went over and turned over a few pieces of rubble. I couldn't believe it.

"Lucario." Harper rushed over. "No, he's unconscious."

To be continued...