AtraAtra skidded to a stop in front of the bulletin board, eager for his first official mission. Oh boy, an actual mission! He had only just joined Team Polaris yesterday, but he was eager to prove himself. The eevee stood up on his hind legs, front legs against the board so he could read some of the missions posted higher up.
A reward statement caught his eye, and Atra tore the sheet of paper off. He smoothed it out along the ground and read it over again. A Porygon2 wanted an escort to a computer in some old factory. And the reward? He'll make a TM.
Awesome. Atra rolled up the piece of paper and carried it in his mouth as he contently trotted off. Time to find this Porygon2, get him to his stupid computer, and get an awesome TM.
---
"Bzzzz, zzzzttt HELLO zzztt-" The Porygon2 greeted Atra as he met with the client at a laboratory at the edge of town. Atra stared at the thing as it bobbed up and down in midair, two feet spinning randomly, static sounds coming from it. It looked like a plastic flying duck.
"Er...hi. Hey, you the one who put up the mission?" Atra asked, dropping the mission sheet in front of him. The Porygon flew forward to read the paper, spinning around several times and struggled to align himself correctly.
"Bzzttt- YES, ARE YOU -zzzz- A RESCUE TEAM MEMBER-zzzzt?"Atra nodded cautiously, trying to figure out if he really wanted anything to do with this client. But the rewards...
"Yeah, I am. I'll get you to your computer in no time." Atra told him. This'll be worth it, this'll be worth it...
"THANK YOU -bzzztt- MAY YOU PLEASE SPEAK YOUR NAME AFTER THE BEEP?" It asked, and then a sharp beeping sound came out of it. Atra stared at it, confused.
"Er...Atra?"It beeped again.
"NAME RECORDED. HELLO-" The Porygon2's voice suddenly cut off into a recording of Atra's own.
"Er...Atra?""So, what can I address you as?" He was starting to get a bit weirded out by his client.
"I AM PGU.1.6180339-" He started to drone on, but Atra interrupted him.
"Anything shorter by any chance?" The Eevee was starting to get irritated at his client. Why can't the duck act normal?
"Bzzt- YOU MAY CALL ME-" His robotic even tones dropped into a staticky human voice.
"Phi."Oh great, so his client's name was feet.
Let's get this over with.
---
Atra and his client took a long while to reach the factory, since Phi's flight was anything but smooth and easy. The eevee by this point was thoroughly irritated with the Porygon2, and constantly snapped at the duck to hurry up. Eventually, he settled with the nickname "Duck Feet" for the annoying little thing.
Phi never seemed to mind being yelled at, so all was fine. Atra kept going only because of the images in his mind, of himself using some powerful move or another. Flamethrower, Ice beam, Aura Sphere...oh the endless possibilities!
During the entire trip the Eevee often glanced over at the small bag around Phi's body, which contained a CD. The duck had said he could download the information of nearly every move ever into that CD once they reached their computer.
"Bzzzt bzzzt- DANGER DETECTED. DANGER DETECTED. PROCEED TO ANALYZE THREAT" Phi suddenly droned, a low whining siren screeching out of his body as the factory came within sight. Atra turned to stare at Phi as he swung randomly from side to side in midair. A different voice suddenly came out of him, the robotic voice of a male human:
"Skarmory, National Dex Number 227, the armour bird Pokemon. After nesting in bramble bushes, the wings of its chicks grow hard from scratches by thorns. It has a body and wings of steel. People in the past used feathers fallen from Skarmory to make swords and knives."Atra whipped around, staring up at the sky. Oh Arceus, Skarmories. Atra was well-educated enough to know the threat they pose.
"THEY ARE WEAK TO -bzzzt- FIRE AND -bzzt- ELECTRIC." The porygon continued to drone out, and started listing a VERY long list of what Skarmories resist. Oh great. Atra could see about four of them gliding down towards them from the sky at top speed. They were nearly invisible in the sunlight except for the glare off of their razor-sharp wings.
Atra crouched, bringing forward energy. This energy gathered around him and his fur began to glow. When he decided he had brought forth enough, the glow lifted off of him and shot towards the Skarmories in the sky, gathering together to form stars on their way there.
The four Skarmories veered off to the side to avoid the swift attack, and Atra felt his insides do a back flip when he saw how easily they dodged his attack.
Oh hell Arceus, he couldn't fight all of them off at once.
The four of them were close now, and they flew down near the ground, rushing towards the Eevee and the Porygon2.
"DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!" Phi's siren sounds got louder, grating on Atra's nerves. Quick as lightning, the Eevee shot off to the side, tackling Phi. Both of them were sufficiently knocked to the side so that the Skarmories flew harmlessly by. Atra gulped when he saw the killing edge on their wings.
He struggled to his feet as Phi floated back up to his usual height. Behind them the armoured birds were banking sharply to the side in order to turn around and attack once more. Two of them flew towards them from the left- the other two from the right.
"Aw damn." Atra swore, trying to resist the urge to tuck his tail under his legs. The shame of it all!
Instead, he braced himself for the attack, throwing another set of stars at the ones coming at them from the left, and turning around to focus magic of another kind. He could feel the air around himself grow warmer as he expelled the heat from his own body.
Ignoring the feeling of slowly being frozen, Atra shot all of this energy at the two Skarmories heading towards them on Phi's side. This time the magic wasn't visible on its way there, and by the time the Skarmony realized it was being targeted by an attack, its wings were already hopelessly covered with a thick layer of ice.
With a shrill cry, the Skarmony dropped to the ground and went through a very long landing that involved plowing through a lot of soil and grass. Beside Atra Phi seemed to be glitching, because he was shaking violently from side to side and his siren was a whirring screech, and he's been going "CALCULATING" over and over again for a very long time.
"CALCULATIONS -zzz- COMPLETE. DISCHARGE -zzzz- AUTHORIZED." The siren suddenly stopped just as all three Skarmonies were within meters of their position. Electricity cackled and shot out from Phi, three of them perfectly hitting all three of the steel types. Pained cries pierced the air as all three of them had who-knows-how-many-volts of electricity coursed through their bodies.
Atra jumped to grab Phi and pulled him down to the ground, trying to lie low as all three of the birds zoomed past above them. One of them crashed straight into another and crashed into the ground near them, spraying both Atra and Phi with dirt.
When all of them had all passed by harmlessly, Atra jumped to his feet and bolted towards the Metal Works factory.
"Hurry up Duck Feet!" Atra yelled at Phi, and the Porygon2 seemed to call upon some inner reserve of energy, because it flew straight and true after the Eevee, and he even managed to overtake Atra.
The two of them reached the open door of the abandoned factory, and Atra struggled to close it behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief as the heavy metal doors finally clicked shut.
"DANGER DETECTED. DANGER DETECTED. PROCEED TO -zzzzz- ANALYZE THREAT" Phi once again sounded, that annoying siren coming on again. Atra groaned as he picked himself up, looking around hard for any source of danger. Breathing hard, he picked out rows upon rows of odd machines, some still on with flashing lights and beeping.
As he looked harder, he could see dark shapes darting from machine to machine. There were a lot of them, whatever they are. Every once in a while he would see a flash of glowing eyes- the eyes of creatures that can see in the dark.
"Zigzagoon, National Dex Number 263, the Tiny Raccoon Pokemon. The hair on Zigzagoon's back is bristly and it tends to walk in a zigzag pattern to fool predators." Phi droned on in the same human voice he had used earlier to identify the Skarmonies.
Atra relaxed. They were only stupid weak little Zigzagoons. He could deal with them. As Phi quickly listed off the weakness of Zigzagoons -fighting- and its one immunity -ghost- Atra strode forward.
"Duck feet, where is your computer?" Atra asked, scanning the room.
"FLOOR ZERO-TWO SITUATED 6.54 -bzzzzz- METERS RIGHT OF STAIRS, 1.56 METERS ABOVE -bzzzzzt- FLOOR-" Atra ignored the rest of the Porygon2's extremely detailed directions.
"That's good enough Duck Feet, let's go." Atra strode forward confidently, and Phi followed behind her hesitantly. He didn't seem to like the idea of striding right through all of the Zizagoons that are probably hiding within all the machinery. His siren was still on.
"What are you doing here?" A voice hissed from behind a conveyor belt that led off into a machine nearby. Atra turned to face the direction of the voice, his posture cocky and confident. He had been humiliated by the Skarmories, and he wasn't about to let mere Zizagoons scare him.
"And why does it concern you?" Atra scoffed as Phi struggled to stop behind him. His siren was starting to taper off into silence, thank Arceus. The voice in the shadows growled. It was obviously (to everyone except Atra) irritated at the eevee's cockiness.
Atra stumbled backwards as a shadow leapt out of the shadows and ran into him. He tumbled back onto the cold concrete floor as the shadow attacked him with razor sharp claws. Its fur was bristled and hard. Arceus, he was getting mauled by a goddamned Zigzagoon!
"DANGER DANGER -zzzzt" He heard Phi whine above him, his siren once again whining at a high volume. Atra sank his teeth into his attacker, and a glow covered his fur. It shot at the Zigzagoon on top of him, and entered its body before they could even form into the star-shape typical of a swift attack.
With a yelp, the Zigzagoon was thrown off of Atra with the force of the attack. Atra still had his teeth firmly griped around a chunk of its fur and flesh, and it stayed in his mouth while the rest of the Zigzagoon flew off.
Atra spat out the chunk of fur and meat in his mouth, feeling more than just a little disgusted -raw meat is
terrible- and gathered his senses to the area around him, just in time to see a Zigzagoon being picked up by a psychic attack and being chucked across the room to crash into a large machine that had long ago stopped functioning. The machine toppled over and there were several squeals as the heavy machinery must have dropped on top of some poor pokemon.
Atra spun around, whipping his tail across the face of the Zigzagoon that had tried to sneak up behind him. It was stunned, and Atra took the opportunity to run at the pokemon, slamming him back. The back of his head smacked hard against the bottom of the conveyor belt and the Zigzagoon fell unconscious.
Behind her a Zigzagoon had leapt and latched onto Phi. His already erratic flying wasn't able to support him and the extra weight brought the both of them crashing down into the machine the conveyer belt fed into. Electricity crackled as the two pokemon struggled inside the machine, breaking apart the circuit. The siren sound suddenly stopped.
Atra slammed into another Zigzagoon as he ran towards the machine. Phi popped out of the hole he and the Zigzagoon made, spinning out of control as electricity crackled over his body.
"ERROR DETECTED, ERROR -bzzzzt- DETECTED. RUNNING VIRUS SCAN...zzzzz...SCANNING...SCANNING..."Atra watched as his client pretty much stayed (more or less) stationary in midair except for an erratic spinning, not doing a thing. Atra stood protectively underneath his client as several angry Zigzagoons moved in to surround them.
Growling, Atra brought forth more magic in his body. Closing his eyes, he concentrated, gathering the energy. Atra had always been fascinated with magic, and it showed in the way he fought.
One Zigzagoon panicked and leapt forward, trying to disrupt the spell. Unfortunately for it, Atra finished his spell and released a flurry of glowing magical leaves at it and the other pokemon behind it. The magical leaves were sharp and easily dug through flesh. The Zigzagoon that had jumped at Atra dropped to the floor right in front of the Eevee, severely wounded and bleeding.
Behind him there were several yelps as the rest of the attack hit two or three other Zigzagoons.
Growling, Atra's fur stood on its end, making him look a lot bigger than he actually was and rather menacing.
"Leave now, or I swear to Arceus I'll kill every last one of you." He growled threateningly. The bloody Zigzagoon at his feet's laboured breath probably convinced most of them that he's serious.
Most of them.
Howling hysterically, one of the Zigzagoons leapt at him from behind. A Psybeam rammed into it and drove it back, crashing into the crowd.
"SCAN FINISHED. NO VIRUSES -zzzzz- DETECTED. CONFIGURATION FIXED." Phi announced, no longer spinning randomly and electricity was no longer running up and down his body.
The Zigzagoons all backed off, eyes wide. Atra glared at them all, daring any of them to just try and attack him again. A part of him was amazed that he had been able to fight off so many pokemon without getting barely a scratch- the rest of him simply just reasoned that he's just that good.
"Now, would you please let us through?" Atra asked, and the Zigzagoons all parted slowly out of fear. Looking up, Atra saw that Phi was already slowly bobbing forward. Atra strutted, head held high as he walked between the rows of Zigzagoons.
The two of them reached the stairs without any further incident. One small Zigzagoon had seemed on the verge of attacking them as they headed up the stairs, but Atra absently flicked a glowing magical star at the kid, and it yelped in fear, scurrying away. Pathetic.
Phi floated up the stairs slowly, a content buzzing sound emanating from it.
"WE ARE ALMOST -bzzzt- AT THE DESTINATION." He stated, and if his flat robotic voice could show emotion, Atra would guess that he'd sound pretty happy. Phi really didn't like the real world much huh?
The moment they stepped onto the second floor Phi started his siren again. Atra sighed inwardly as his eyes checked for threats, ignoring Phi's usual staticky
"DANGER DETECTED. DANGER DETECTED. PROCEED TO ANALYZE THREAT".This time, Atra spotted the "threat" before Phi did. The thing was big, as tall as a Skarmory but many times as wide. It was a blue colour, with a silver X runing across in front of its face. It had four feet-like appendages. As it took a step towards them, the entire building shook.
"Metagross, National Dex Number 376, the Iron Leg pokemon. With its four brains, it has an intelligence rivalling a supercomputer. EMERGENCY INFORMATION FILES ACCESSED. AVERAGE WEIGHT IS 5,390 NEWTONS ON THE SURFACE OF EARTH. SAID TO BE THE MOST MASSIVE NON-LEGENDARY POKEMON."Atra stared at the massive pokemon and ignored Phi as he started to list its weaknesses -ground and fire- and then the very large list of what it resisted or is immune to. Which was pretty much everything both he and Phi could throw at it.
"CALCULATING NEXT ATTACK" Phi buzzed as the Metagross took another earth-shaking step towards them. It swung one arm at Atra, but the smaller and more agile pokemon dodged.
Atra had an idea.
"Oi Duck Feet! Follow my lead!" Atra yelled, and took several steps back before falling into spellcasting. He once again summoned magical leaves, but instead of directing them at the Metagross, he aimed at the ground beneath the extremely heavy pokemon.
Phi seemed to catch on, and right after the magical leaves dissipated, the floor under the Metagross glowed a pink as a psychic attack struggled to break it apart.
The metagross roared as it realized what the two were trying to do it and took a step forward to try and get to one of them. His leading leg slipped as instead of finding the floor, met the section of ground that Atra had only just managed to cover with ice.
The Metagross tripped, his entire 1,200 or so pounds of body slamming to the ground. Having just taken two attacks, it finally gave way, cracking and splitting apart. The Metagross fell down along with a good section of the floor. Atra had to leap back to avoid tumbling down himself.
"THREAT ELIMINATED." Phi declared, his siren trailing off, and he floated across the chasm in the floor over to a computer resting against the wall. It was sitting on a wooden desk, various equipment connected to it.
"OBJECTIVE REACHED. THANK YOU-" the voice changed into a recording of Atra's-
"Er...Atra?" -and then back.
"FOR HELPING ME."
