The only consolation of all of this is that, at the very least, in a way he was correct. There was a veritable treasure trove of information, documentation, and intelligence here. A shame that they would only be able to get a fraction of a percent of it. He hoped beyond hope he had picked correctly.

Tristan had been in some tight spots before, sure. But none of them had been this outright dangerous, nor nearly as important. At the same time, it felt like it took all day to move through the base, collect what they could, and leave, and just minutes as they rushed through to not get caught. His heart was racing from the excitement and anxiety of it all.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” he gasped as he witnessed the charging Tauros and glaring Malamar. The last syllable would be heard by Forrest and their Pokemon on the ground as they materialized. “Fuckin’ shit…” he said again out loud before he got his thoughts together. Luckily, the files were already in his bag, though a bit over-filled what with all the medicines already in there.

[i]”Get Oracle back here. Now.”[/i] He was frantic, desperate not to have her add physical injury to the mental ones she was already dealing with. Ether relayed the message to which Oracle reached out to her Trainer directly.

[i]”I will help…”[/i] Her smooth, lilting, echoing mezzo was nearly as captivating as Veritas’. More importantly, though, Oracle spoke with an authority and gravitas that Veritas simply couldn’t possess. With as much time as Oracle spent in various moments in time, when she bothered to speak there was an undeniable weight to it.

Tristan was fuming, but he knew better than to argue. [i]”You’d better keep your Detect up.”[/i] His anger masked his fear and despair. It was a beautiful day - no rain in sight. So, he figured there was no fear that Damselraed would die today. And, also, Pisces wasn’t here, so doubly true.

She didn’t respond - of course she was already doing this, and she saw right through him. Shooting up into the sky at an impressive speed (for a Xatu), she started to form a Reflect Screen in such a manner as to leave enough space to get Antligon behind it when the need inevitably arose. Certainly not a fighter like Flygon, she would do what she could to support him in his endeavor to protect them from this Draco Meteor.

Back on the ground, Tristan knew that Veritas and Ether combined could teleport them out of safety, but neither he nor Forrest were about to leave their Pokemon behind. Not with someone as conceivably powerful as Taurus here. “We need to stall until Oracle and Antligon come back, then Veritas and Ether can get us out of here.” Tristan was decidedly on the verge of panicking. Indeed, he was barely keeping it together. Only the worst scenarios rushed through his head over and over as he considered what they should do.

What [i]could[/i] they do?

Almost on instinct, Tristan released Vertigo from his pokeball. “Do your thing…” Vertigo was only more than happy to comply. It seemed that, even in the most stressful of situations, Tristan possessed the ability to keep things together and enact a decent plan.

At least, he thought it was a decent plan.

Vertigo considered various Nasty Plots as he hovered in the direction of the charging Tauros. Upon entering range he would start with Confuse Rays. If those didn’t work, he’d go straight into Hypnosis. While Vertigo liked to play as much as the next pokemon, he knew this wasn’t the time or place to do so lightly.