Kymera — Roleplayer Guild

Mauville City

Rai managed to wait until Haven was out of sight before stuffing half of a pillaged sandwich into his mouth and handing the other half to Kye. In all the excitement, he’d managed to forget just how hungry he was, but now his stomach was roaring with a vengeance. He was already biting huge chunks out of a second day-old sandwich, when the air suddenly became deathly still for a moment. Every hair on Rai’s body bristled and stood on end as the sensation raced up his spine. Instinct reacted before he even had time to process what was happening, and he’d scooped Kye up in both arms and ducked for cover when the explosion rocked the city.

The ground felt like it was rolling under his feet, and the way the buildings swayed in the wake of the aftershocks wasn’t helping either. Alarms from cars, shops, even the city’s grid were blaring in a deafening cacophony of sound that made Rai’s head buzz. People in the streets were screaming and running for their lives, while more were starting to stream out of buildings to run for safer shelter. Rai could still see the burning glow to the west of them, like the sun had suddenly decided to make a reappearance on the horizon, uncomfortably close to where they stood. He swore he could almost feel the heat rolling in from the initial blast, which only made the urge to turn and run all the stronger.

Rai got his feet back under him, and started to tug Kye along with him into the crowds of fleeing people. They needed to get out of here before the place was swarmed by Rangers. With any luck, this chaos would make his own task easier with their attentions directed elsewhere in the city. Hell, he’d barely been in the city for more than a few hours, and already he would have been content to turn and leave without a backwards glance.

 ”Mom would be ashamed of you.”

The fear and chaos around him was all but silenced as that single thought ran through his mind.

 ”You know damn well she would have been the first one on the scene with the rest of the Rangers trailing behind her, screaming that it wasn’t safe. She would have helped, not run to protect herself.”

“And look what that got her.” Rai argued back bitterly.

 ”You think she regretted any of it? She did it to make sure you and Sam had a world that was safe to grow up in.”

 “And now Sam’s gone! Now here I am trying to fix everything because she didn’t know when to let others handle it!”

 ”Is that going to be good enough? When you find Sam, will you be able to tell her that you found her because others were hurt? Will you be able to face Mary in the end and justify leaving them behind-”

 “Will you just SHUT UP?!” Rai snarled whipping around on the ball of his foot and charging against the crowd,  “Kye! Stick with me until we know what’s going on!”

 “Char!” Came the affirmative from alongside him, as they weaved through the throngs of people.

Arceus above, this was stupid, Rai scolded himself as he finally broke through into a smaller alley that headed in the direction he needed. What was he even going to do when he caught up to whatever had caused the explosion in the first place? He wasn’t exactly a calming presence, and the most he could help was some first aid and helping people evacuate when it came down to it. Still, it kept his irritating conscience from pestering him, and he did have to agree that it was marginally better than running away like a coward at any rate. Even so, it still felt as if he were running through molasses, and the buildings were stubbornly crawling past him as he forced himself to run faster toward the explosion, and the maze-like structure of the city sure wasn’t helping matters much.

More than once, Rai would start to duck down a street, only to have Kye call for him to run down a different path that reconnected with the main roads. The closer they got, the more Kye seemed to bristle, the flame on his tail glowing brighter with every step closer they took, until Rai could clearly hear the sounds of a fight happening over the sounds of crackling electricity. They were certainly in the right place, just judging by the damage done to the nearby buildings. Windows were blown out, and even the emergency lighting was nearly nonexistent. More than once the distinct smell of ozone and burning plastic was so thick in the air that it was hard to breathe.

It wasn’t hard to pick out where the chaos was coming from after that, and he almost had to yank Kye back from darting around the corner and launching straight into the fray himself, before they could even get a sense of what on earth was even going on. They didn’t know who was responsible for all the chaos, but it sure sounded like someone did. Rai put a finger to his lips as he glanced down at Kye, before peering around the corner to see the all-out brawl taking place. There were no less than a half dozen people and more pokemon than Rai could count as they threaded through one another on the urban battlefield. The focus seemed to be a massive piece of machinery that was throwing out sparks like mad, while the larger part of the group was attempting to overwhelm a mountain of a man in the middle of it all.

Right away, it was obvious that the numbers against them were too great for just two to take on, no matter how big or half-mad they must have been. Especially when one screamed for two of his pokemon to go and help others and not himself. It wasn't hard to see the larger group was working furiously to split the two off from one another and pick them off. Rai ducked back around the corner and dropped his bag off his shoulder and dug around frantically, until his hand closed around the cool metal cylinder he was looking for. It only took him another second to pull the can of spray-on deodorant free, and show what he had in mind to his partner. They needed to make an opening and clear the mob off the big guy or else he was going to get overwhelmed. Rai darted out from his cover and pitched to roll right into the middle of the fray, and started to rush the crowd.

 “KYE! MAKE IT HOT!”

Rai didn’t even have to look back to feel the streak of fire that tore past his right side, and hit the can dead on, turning it bright red in a matter of seconds. It certainly wasn’t the explosion that rocked the city, but the sudden plume of rapidly igniting gasses made an impressive fireball that tossed most of the throng off one another, while others tried to put out the fire clinging to their clothes.

Rai dove to avoid the worst of the blast, and grabbed hold of the bigger guy he’d seen earlier in the fighting to drag him a little ways off. He cursed himself for not being more careful, seeing the man dazed as he was, but the quite literal heat of the moment wasn’t an ideal time for planning. He’d just have to hope the guy came back to his senses quick enough to help.

“Char!”

Rai whirled around at the sound of Kye’s sudden warning to see someone who’d managed to get back on his feet and charged him full bore while he was distracted with hauling a couple hundred pounds of dazed man-beast. Rai had barely enough time to duck under the wild swing meant for his head and rammed his own fist twice into the hollow of the thug’s neck. There was something immensely satisfying about the gagging, choking sounds that he made almost immediately while dropping to the ground, followed by the gurgling scream as Rai brought his heel down hard right into the poor bastard’s collarbone. The snap of the bone reverberated once, then twice up Rai’s leg as he repeated the process to make doubly sure that man wouldn’t be able to throw a punch at him in the near future, before a quick snap of his foot to the man’s temple had his whole body falling limp.

He glanced up in time to scour the damages, when something from above dropped out of the skies and barreled him over in a shrieking mass of razor sharp wings and talons. White hot lines raked down his back, even as a great beak clacked and snapped just in front of his face. Even the flurry of “feathers” that danced around him tore and shredded at his clothing, leaving a hatching of bright red lines opening up across every bit of skin left exposed. It was only a jet of flame that caught the steel-type broadsided that knocked its weight off him. Rai felt like every bit of him was on fire, and his temper at the situation wasn’t abating at all as Kye stepped out of the darkness and stuck to his side.

He only got as far as his knees, before he saw the flash of silver start to gather itself and screech loud enough to make Rai's eardrums ring. It had to be a Skarmory, those damn things were like flying cutlery drawers with permanent bad attitudes and they were a bitch to knock out of the air-

A jolt of electricity shot from Rai's left and he could have sworn the steel bird lit up the surrounding city for several blocks, until it crashed back to Earth in a sparking, unmoving heap. Rai grimaced at the loss of his night vision, thanks to the sudden flash, and only made out the vague form of his rescuer stopping to check on his half-conscious companion.

"Can you worry about him later?!" Rai snapped over his shoulder as the other, less hospitable looking group started to recollect themselves in the midst of their warring pokemon.

"That depends! Can you keep them away from the generator? Or are you going to blow us to kingdom come again?!"

"Lose the attitude old man! They were trying to separate you! I bought you some time to regroup!"

"Well Forrest is going to need more time now than you bought! Keep them off that generator!"

"I'll do you one better..." Rai growled under his breath.

Rai scowled at the utter mess his clothes were in, his jacket and shirt were in tatters, and he was bleeding now from a dozen different cuts so that he was practically shining crimson in the unnatural light of the sparking machinery. He was fairly certain that he’d even received an impromptu haircut, thanks to the cool breeze that brushed against his head. Bad thing was, the group still outnumbered him, and he could really only hope that the big guy behind him would be on his side when he came around. He just needed to buy a bit of time, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to make each and every one of them pay for every last second.

 “Alright, so which one of you fuckwads wants to end up like your buddy here?” Rai spat,  “I also customize my beatings, so if you’d rather lose the use of your legs, all you need to do is speak up.”
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Genetic experiment gone wrong

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