Broken Souls

Bugged Out

((It was quarter exam week. Hopefully this break is at least reasonable. Here's your update, expect much more in the days to come.))

"So." A single voice echoes into the silence, accompanied by the inconsistent buzzing of wings. I can feel the breeze they create behind me and know that even the stoic D'spinas is bothered by what's to come.

"Strategy." I say, placing my hand on the doorknob with trepidation. It clicks beneath my hand as I turn it, and yet I keep it held firmly shut.

"Are we really going to talk strategy now? Seems a bit late for that." says Reginae, who has now replaced D'spinas's tapping with the aggravating prodding of his own foot on concrete.

"Well, it's important." I swing the door open, illuminating my Pokemon. The anxious team stands by my side, silhouetted against me in the pale light of the gym. Their anxiety rises like smoke from all of them and I have no way to comfort them except for the knowledge that this was an easy gym last time, but 'last time' doesn't mean very much.

Reginae scoffs as we walk into the gym. "Alright, does anyone have any ideas?"

"I do! I do!" Ten calls. He lifts up a new, sharp stick on high in his beak, brimming with enthusiasm.

"Let me guess, it's a 'sonic screwdriver'." I sigh.

"Actually, no, it's just a stick. It's decently sharp though." He taps it against the ground. The point cracks off like dead pencil lead, but this hardly seems to deter him.

"Can 'a stick' defeat the entire gym? If so, I'm all for this. Let's just sit back and let him work at it." Chiaroscuro says. "I think those bugs are eyeing me funny."

"He's right." D'spinas's antennae twitch. "He's a flying type, so he is our secret weapon. All he needs to do is go in there and defeat the entire gym for us."

"The entire... the entire gym?" Ten asks, suddenly dumbstruck instead of enthusiastic.

"Yes." echo D'spinas and the two grass types. Our team is definitely not keen on doing any work that may get them killed.

Ten twists his whole ball shaped body slightly in what I guess is supposed to be a headshake. "Not without support."

D'spinas lifts a single drill. Chiaroscuro shrinks back, only for D'spinas to knock him forwards with the other drill.

"How hard can it be, anyways?" he asks hesitantly.

"Only one way to find out." I say, stepping forwards. I fall onto an enormous plastic spider the size of an Ursaring, which begins moving across the gym. Beneath me is nothing but rope and webbing. Gritting my teeth, I withdraw my Pokemon and gather myself quickly, standing up only to find myself towering just above an eager bug catcher. He's only about ten years old, the minimum acceptable age for a trainer, but there's already eagerness in his eyes and determination in his patchwork smile full of missing teeth.

"Go, Misty!" he calls, throwing out a Pokeball.

"Go, Chiaroscuro!" I say in unison.

"Nope, nope, nopenopenope-" Chiaroscuro cowers before a Butterfree almost five times his size, the air buzzing with the rise and fall of its wings. The Butterfree's eyes glimmer with purple energy and the Rattata flies through the air and falls against the gym wall, sinking like a stone.

"Chiaroscuro, come back!" I open another Pokeball quickly as I close Chiaroscuro's and Ten jumps forwards. The purple mist shines in the Butterfree's eyes but Ten cuts a full circle around it, moving around to the back and slicing its wing with a peck. Before it falls down, Ten jumps up with a flap of his tiny wings and slams it downwards.