Morrigan inched quietly along the deck of the pirate ship Falconslut. She was just happy she had her gloves on as she noted several spots where the paint had flaked away allowing the salt in the water to start deteriorating the ship’s railings. Still even despite the patches of rust it would probably fetch something on the black market. She pressed herself to against the wall as the guard’s flashlight swept the area she had just been crawling through. She quickly ran through her check list of active defense techs before leaning around the corner and dropping him with a sleep spell. She slipped forward to lower him to the ground as to avoid any noise. She smiled slightly as she zip tied his hands behind him and stuffed a gag in his mouth before using a couple of pieces of duct tap to make sure it was secured. She quickly retrieved his pokeballs before pulling him out of the walkway and leaving him for the clean up crew. She slipped the pokeballs in her bag with a smile. She headed toward the lower deck after noticing Sarah’s wave acknowledging that she had taken out her lookout. She faded from view as she creeped down the stairs. She carefully slipped through the wall into the crew quarters. She smiled as she noticed several sleeping pirates. She unphased long enough to smack each of them with a pokeball. Hopefully Helen was having as good of a time as she was.
Helen crouched down then vanished from view as she phased through the deck. She was just hoping that the Buttaneer they had bribed for the dirt on this particular pirate ship hadn’t been lying. She quickly looked around for anyone that might have heard her landing inside the room. Luckily the room was empty of any guards though judging by some of the expensive jewelry and evolution stones she could see in the various boxes laying around they really should have placed someone on the inside. ‘Still better for me they didn’t.’ She happily started stuffing stuff in her pack.
Sarah frowned as she made her way toward the captain’s quarters. She knew that Morrigan was dealing with the crew and Helen the loot it was her job to deal with the people in charge. She shuffled her deck of cards as she made her way quietly.
Captain Berta was having a good old time riding the bound and gagged human for all he was worth, so she was less than amused to be interrupted by her door crashing open and a young girl stepping in like she owned the place. She briefly wondered where her guards were but the fact that she was interrupted in the middle of her fun caused her to care less than she normally would. “I’ll cut you.” She grinned as she manifested her weapons. After a second of the other girl just staring at her she called on her water magic to use hydro pump on the annoying girl.
Sarah smiled as she finished sketching the captain’s weapon summoning attack. She quickly used reflect to bleed off some of the damage then allowed her Aura Barrier to drink in the rest of it. “Ah you know you could do better.” She flipped her water card up and shot a stream of water at the captain that forced her to dodge out of the way. You aren’t going to be able to beat me with such a crappy technique. But hey I‘m feeling forgiving so how about you surrender and I‘ll let you live.”
Berta jumped at the girl intent on cutting her in half with her sword.
Sarah sighed before conjuring a sword of dark roses to block the girl’s strikes, “Your funeral.”
Morrigan smiled as she headed back up the stairs with a bound naked girl slung over her back. The rest of the girls were safely in pokeballs. She stopped in front of the captain’s quarters where Helen was just finishing tying several males up. So how did Sarah do with the captain?”
A soaked but smiling Sarah walked out, “Wet and not the good type. I have to say that the armor works nicely. Though we should probably have added a water repealing charm.”
Helen snickered, “We should be back on the airship soon. So who’s the girl?”
Morrigan shrugged, “She was cute, figured we could keep her. Besides we need a pilot for the airship.”
Helen frowned, “We should probably call the authorities now.”
Sarah sighed, “Just annoys me that they are going to steal the boat.”
Helen shrugged, “Yeah, but come on we have an airship we don’t need a sea boat. Besides we are keeping their stash of stones and rum, not to mention several other interesting items.”
Sarah chuckled, “You’re just happy because you get to add to your gun collection.”
Helen grinned, “Double barreled heavy elemental shotgun.”
“We just going to leave the humans until what passes for the coast guard get here?”
Morrigan grinned as she called on her magic and lifted off into the sky, “I sure as hell don’t plan to be here when they get here.”
~
Captain Montgomery had seen many strange things in his years with the Azure coastguard but these last two weeks had been stranger than most. He leaned back in his office chair and let his thoughts drift. Over a dozen known pirate ships had mysteriously turned up near the docks, some of them completely sans crew, others with their human crew tied up and still others with just a box of pokeballs. The strange part was that often times the loot was left in the boat when it was returned though never evolution stones. He sighed as he reached for another blank form, whoever was responsible for the rash of pirate hunting was certainly making some waves. Most of the criminals reported only that they woke up bound hand and foot, several of the pokegirls had testified that the girl’s who had attacked them had worn masks and dark clothes. He was just glad it didn’t fall to him to track down whichever group had the firepower to take out that many pirates. Officially whoever had taken out the pirates was wanted for questioning, unofficially he was more than happy to have that many pirates off the seas. He smiled as he poured himself a glass and offered a toast to whoever was cleaning up the waters.
~
Reane groaned as she woke. She glanced around and sighed as she realized that she was chained to a wall naked, it looked like the inside of a ship though it didn‘t quite have the same rolling feel as a sea boat. Next time she signed up with a crew she was going to check to see if they had a history of getting attacked in the middle of the night, because she had only signed up with them three days ago. That’s got to be one of the worst averages ever, if she ever got out of this her older sister would never let her live it down. Next time, she was going to make damn sure whichever crew she signed up with didn’t have a history of being captured. She sighed as she reached into her hair and found to her annoyance that her lock picks were gone. “Damn it.”
Dawn chuckled as she opened the cell door and looked at their prisoner, “Hey you’re awake. Can I get you something good to eat or do you want to go with the traditional gruel?”
“You have gruel?”
“Well I’m sure we could cook some up if you really wanted us to… but no we don’t have any on hand.”
“I guess I’ll take what I can get.”
Dawn smiled as she walked over with a plate of spaghetti. “There you go.”
Reane rattled the chains keeping her arms above her head, “I don’t suppose you could release these so I can eat?”
“Ah well if I did that then you might attack me, and then well Gabrielle would do bad things to you. Like toss you off the airship. And well see I would be dead so I wouldn’t care. So how about if I just feed you?”
Reane sighed, “I guess.”
Dawn grinned as she used the fork to get a nice amount of food into the girl’s mouth. “So how did you get stuck with the pirates?”
Reane quickly chewed her spaghetti, it was much better than the food on the pirate ship. “Well I wanted to see what the life of a pirate was like, the wind in my face, the sails at full, the ship moving beneath my feet, well it didn’t turn out like I would have liked. They weren’t very nice, and I had to scrub the deck a lot. And they looked at me funny when they thought I wasn’t looking. More please.”
Dawn smiled as she give the girl another bite. “I don’t suppose you know how to pilot an airship?”
Reane nodded then swallowed her food, “Sort of, I mean that’s what my sister works on. She’s always telling me stories about it. Plus I st… borrowed a few of her old manuals so I could learn last summer.
Dawn nodded, “Well if you wanted to sign up, I’m sure the captain would have a place for a pilot.”
Reane smiled, “Would I get nice food and a room to myself?”
Dawn chuckled, “You’re sort of picky aren’t you?”
“Hey, just trying to get a good deal out of it.”
Dawn smiled as she fed the girl. ‘Nice eye candy, might be worth keeping, besides we need pilots for our ships.’
~
Gabrielle glanced up from her book as Helen flopped down on their bed, “How’s it going?”
“Good. We should probably lay off the pirate attacks for a while though, they’re doubling guards and getting way more paranoid. I’d hate to get cocky and run into something we couldn’t handle.”
Gabrielle nodded, “Still it was fun while it lasted.”
“Oh please, you weren’t the one jumping out of the ship and free falling for a thousand feet before activating flight and sneaking onto the ships.”
“Don’t give me that, you were having a blast. You’re just bitter that you only got to shoot a couple of pirates.”
“If Morrigan wasn’t so scary effective than maybe I would have gotten to shoot more.”
“Oh please, you like it that way. So what do you think of the armor?”
“I’m impressed, between it and aura barrier most of the stuff they threw at us did nothing. Plus well sneaking up on them while invisible helps a lot.”
Gabrielle nodded, “So thoughts or suggestions on what to do next?”
“Sarah’s busy getting the other half of the She Captain’s sword summoning tech. I figure maybe it’s time to go back to Blue and do some weapon forging. I mean we have our armor and a number of defensive techniques we might as well enchant some weapons.”
Gabrielle nodded, “How’s Natasha doing at target practice?”
“Pretty soon she’s going to be better than I am. She’s been helping me out fending off ferals.”
“What about the rest of the munchkins?”
“Morrigan seems to be having fun making an elf army, so I guess we’ll see how that goes.”
“Hey they are sort of cute. Speaking of cute, get over here so we can cuddle.”
Helen smiled as she crawled over and rested her head in her tamer’s lap.
Gabrielle smiled as she carefully played with her girl’s horns. “Any regrets on evolving?”
“Only sometimes, when I think of how much fun it was to switch the pasteurized milk for fresh for some of the slayers back home. Most of the time I’m just glad to be making a lot less milk. Besides psychic abilities? Totally worth it. What brought that on?”
“We’ve gotten more than our fair share of evolution stones lately. Anyways Melody was asking about having an evolution stone. I think she’s feeling outclassed in magic with all of the other magic types around.”
“Oh which?”
“She’s sort of looking at time magic. It’s not exactly something we have. Plus it would sort of be helpful but I don’t really want to pressure her into anything though.”
Helen nodded, “I’m glad you’re as good about letting us pick as you are.”
Gabrielle reached over and tapped Helen’s nose, “Your body, your choice. Same thing goes for the rest.”
“Though, isn’t she sort of limited if she picks that form?”
“Only by the amount of effort she puts in. She can still learn other spells it’s just not as easy. She might never be an archmage but if she puts enough time into it she could be a master of time magic. But again the choice is up to her.”
~
Melody frowned down at the blue stone with a cloud lazily swirling in it. Gabrielle had said she could pick out any stone she wanted. She couldn’t help but glance back at the moonstone, the ability to enchant things with hardly any effort was sort of appealing but the idea of being able to do things that no one else in the group could was even more interesting. She knew that if she picked up the dream stone then she would be cutting herself off from the power a sorcerer could obtain by evolving into an archmage. She couldn’t help but want that power, but at the same time she wanted to be able to stop time, to make time itself dance. Before she could talk herself out of it, she reached out and grabbed the dream stone. She felt a brief moment of dizziness as the stone in her hand vanished.
~
Gabrielle winced as she paid the bill for her group, apparently this particular establishment tacked on an extra fee for allowing pokegirls to eat here. Still she tried not to grumble too much as it was just across the way from the tattoo parlor where a couple of tats were gleefully showing Rain everything they could do. Of course the fact that they were earning half a million credits for their trouble probably wasn’t hurting their happiness either. While Rain was working on mastering some new skills she figured it would be a good time to challenge the Limerick gym for a badge. Not that she really wanted to challenge the gym but for some reason badges gave a tamer a certain amount of credit, credit that she was going to need if her plans for starting a ranch were to be successful.
She sighed as she spotted a young man with a tamer’s belt around his waist approaching as they were getting ready to leave. She paid little attention to his leather clothes or even his looks though there was nothing wrong with either. She finally glanced up when she noticed that he hadn’t interrupted her conversation and that he was actually waiting patiently for a break in the conversation she was having with Sarah while Abby finished her roll. Her smile brightened as she turned to look at the young man as he spoke. “I’m sorry to bother you but I couldn’t help notice that you have some really rare girls.” He quickly rushed on with his next sentence so she couldn’t think he wanted a challenge, “I don’t suppose maybe after lunch you could do a practice battle with me? Maybe offer some tips?” He blushed slightly from embarrassment at asking a perfect stranger for battling advice. But if all it cost was some embarrassment then he would gladly suffer some if that’s what it took to keep his girl safe.
Gabrielle was pleasantly surprised that someone was asking her for a practice battle and not just walking up and demanding a salvage battle. It was a nice change. She held her hand out, “I’m Gabrielle.”
He smiled as he clasped her wrist in greeting. “Nathan.”
She chuckled, “Well Nathan as soon as Abby finishes stuffing her roll down that hollow leg of hers we can go see if the gym has some extra practice rooms.”
He smiled, “Thank you, it’s sort of rare to meet any decent tamer’s around.”
She chuckled, “I know the feeling.”
~
They had almost made it through the crowd of tamers at the gym when a heavy set guy with greased back hair stepped in front of her, “Hey baby how about you and me battle.”
Gabrielle sighed as she glanced down at the pokedex he was holding, he had probably scanned Sarah or Abby, “I was trying to have a nice peaceful day, besides I already have a battle scheduled.”
He smiled, “Well what about you and me later than.”
She tried hard to resist the urge to gag, as she turned to Nathan, “You wouldn’t mind if I kicked this guys ass first would you?”
Nathan shook his head, hell he would have gladly offered to do it but with only a starter he was fairly sure he would lose. “No that’s fine.”
Gabrielle flipped the record function on her dex on. “So big dumb and ugly challenged me to a fight. What type of battle did you want again?”
He snarled, “Salvage.”
“One on one random pick, no substitutions. Winner picks whichever pokegirl they want of the losers?” She watched with some amusement as the guy winced. So apparently there was at least one weak pick in the guy’s harem.
“Fine, agreed.”
Gabrielle smiled as she waved one of the gym’s trainees over with a gesture. She flashed a grin at the guy, “I don’t suppose you could ref for us? Please.”
Gregory nodded, “Sure thing, rules?”
“One on one random battle no substitution. If you could pick the girls.”
Gregory nodded, and pointed at one of the balls on each tamer’s belts.
She sighed as the man let out a chuckle as he released a fern haired bat winged girl with reptilian features, “What the hell is that?”
He chuckled, “It’s my Wifern.”
Gabrielle quickly scanned the creature, “Wifern, the flying lizard pokegirl. Okay that’s just creepy.” She took the pokeball the guy pointed to and released Melody.
The guy frowned at the witch in front of him, she was wearing black robes with a touch of red silk and a black witch’s hat with dozens of small clocks drawn on it. All in all she looked rather silly as far as he was concerned, still he was more worried that she was a magic type as his Wifern was weak against magic. He just hoped that she was powerful enough to make up the difference.
Gabrielle stuffed her annoyance at drawing her weakest girl away, it was her own damn fault. Just because you had four dynamite pokegirls didn’t mean that a little bad luck wouldn’t screw you over. She tossed a thought to Melody, ‘Alright girl, this is going to suck but we don’t have much of an option here, haste then slow her then light her up with electric, ice, or fire magic. Try not to get hit because it’s going to hurt a lot, she’s powerful.’
Gregory held up his hand, “Ready. Set. Start.” He brought his arm down.
Melody quickly cast haste on herself, as the Wifern shot off a seed bomb.
Gabrielle held her breath as Melody barely dodged the attack. She watched the two of them lurch into over drive as the Wifern used Speed storm to try to zip around the battle field.
The Wifern stumbled as everything lurched into slow motion, even with her technique it wasn’t quite enough. She smiled as she used solar beam on the girl.
Melody winced as the beam clipped her and tossed her against the wall. She raised her hand and tossed a thunder attack at the girl.
The Wifern staggered back from the thunder attack, it might have been something she was weak against but it still wasn’t enough to drop her. She gleefully blasted the girl with her seed bomb attack a few more times to keep the girl on the defensive. She used her wood tower to create a wall of spikes to stab the witch and pin her in place. She could sense the girls strength almost ready to give out. She watched with some amusement as the girl tossed a feeble blast of thunder at her. She raised her hands to finish the girl off.
The ref was just about to raise his hand to call the match when the Tick Tock in what he figured was going to be a fruitless last stand raised her hand one last time and shot a bolt of black flame out of her hand that slammed into the Wifern and tossed her like a rag doll across the field. He glanced at the Wifern’s smoking body for a second before declaring the Tick Tock the winner.
Gabrielle sighed as she recalled Melody, she was going to have to do some major training with the girl’s new time powers before she used her again.
Sarah had to work to keep a frown off her face, she knew for a fact that there was no way Melody had the power for an attack like the bolt of fiery darkness that had tossed the powerful pokegirl across the room. As Morrigan and Wendy their two darkness users weren’t around her gaze traveled to her tamer as the only possible suspect. She hadn’t even known it was possible to use another person as a point of origin for a magical attack, she was going to have to get Gabrielle to teach her that trick.
Gabrielle couldn’t really blame the other tamer for being a bad sport about his loss, but she still took a look through his girls. Sadly while he had a couple of powerful pokegirls she wasn’t all that interested in any of them until she got to the last one. “Hey I’ll take the gloomy.”
He shook his head, of all of the girls that was probably the least expensive not to mention the most annoying. “Well rid of her.”
Gabrielle sighed, “So now that you’re done can you leave please.”
He glared, “Watch your mouth, or some day you’re going to regret it.”
She shrugged as she pocketed the Gloomy, “Well don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” She handed Melody’s ball to Abby, “Can you make sure she gets healed?”
Abby nodded, “On it.”
Nathan was amazed with the skill of the two combatants, “Nice battle, your Tick Tock didn’t do badly to start with.”
“Yeah, just a bit outclassed power wise, I guess I’ll have to work harder to bring her up to speed with the other girls. So what type do you have?”
He blinked, if she was the weak link than he was especially glad he had only challenged her to a practice match. “I’ve got a Amazonkapoeraa.”
“Well bring her out and when Abby get’s out she can have her duel.”
He nodded, as he released his girl. “Say hi Sam.”
Sam blinked, “Hi Sam.” She smiled.
Gabrielle smiled, “Hi Sam. So Nathan here asked about some light sparing practice are you up for giving my cat girl a work out?”
The dark skinned girl was bouncing on the balls of her feet, “Sounds like fun. So just martial arts?”
“Sure, she’s been stuck on a ship lately and hasn’t had enough time to practice as much as she should.”
Abby came back in and spotted the Amazonkapoeraa, “Oh cute.”
“You want to spar with her?”
Abby grinned, “Sounds good to me.”
Gabrielle grinned as she and Nathan watched the two dance around. “Sam isn’t doing to badly.”
“You know catgirls aren’t supposed to be that fast right?”
Gabrielle chuckled, “Yeah but what can you do. Best part is you haven’t even seen her on a sugar high. She’s a speed demon.”
Nathan chuckled, “So do you normally shout orders?”
“Only if it’s worth while, like calling out weaknesses and such things. Mostly I just rely on my girls to fight how they want. For training we work on plans and strategies before hand. Basically that’s one of the things that makes a good trainer is to know how much instruction to shout out in a battle.”
Nathan nodded along as she explained a few other things as the fight progressed.
~
Sarah couldn’t help but chuckle as the two girls had a great time dancing around. Really did make her wonder what exactly her sister was though, as she was fairly sure Mistoffeles weren’t supposed to be that fast. For that mater she was fairly sure she wasn’t supposed to be as fast as she was either. Maybe it was time to do more scans with some of Lexie’s high tech scanners. She chuckled as Abby conjured a banana under Sam’s foot.
Abby offered a hand to help Sam up, “Nice duel.”
Sam nodded, “Thanks.”
Nathan chuckled, “So did you learn anything?”
“Yeah, bananas are good but banana peels are bad. Plus don’t rely on your opponents being average members of their race. Also watch out for her damn tail.”
Gabrielle chuckled, “Yeah. Looks like you‘ve made a good start though. Maybe I‘ll see you around some time.”
Nathan grinned, “Maybe so.”
~