Forward Unto Johto Chapter 2

Despite the destruction of all their ordinance, the rest of the mission’s supplies were untouched, and Titus loaded up a backpack with various survival gear. The hatchets in their survival kits were apparently fine, as were a flare gun and all their comms gear.

“How long do you expect us to be on our own?” Titus asked Jack, adjusting his pack. To his surprise, Mel came over and double checked his straps for him.

She had an even larger sack, though from what Titus had seen, most of it was food. He supposed a Spartan’s metabolism was absolutely bonkers, and recalled just how much food Stripes had needed. Still, they could probably forage, as if people lived here there was no reason to think there weren't plenty of things a human could eat even in the wild.

“We’ve got a resupply mission in two weeks, and I expect they’ll send down other teams. We’ve got a comms buoy I can contact, but it’s 30 light minutes out, and who knows how long it will be between messenger ships with that monster out there?” Jack said with a shrug.

“Damn it, Ray-Ray,” Titus muttered, shaking his head.

“What was that?” Jack asked, frowning and looking up at him from his data pad.

“Uh, nothing. How do you want us to check in?” Titus asked.

“Just by comms is fine. If you need a pick up, call, but I won’t be hanging out here long. I’ve got some intel gathering of my own to do.”

“So, we’re on our own,” Titus sighed, shaking his head. He glanced at Mel, who was standing at the end of the Pelican’s ramp, examining the valley below them. “Super. Well, it could be worse. At least I get the Spartan.”

“You can stay together if you need to, but if splitting up will cover more ground, do it. If you can make it to civilization I don’t suppose this place will be overly hostile. People survive here, after all,” Jack said with a shrug.

“Super. Well, we’ll check in via comms if we run into anything,” Titus sighed. He walked down the ramp, and saluted Mel. “After you, chief.”

“I’m not the Chief,” Mel said, blushing like a fangirl and looking away. “He is the model we all aspire to.”

“Uh, yeah. I don’t think we need to worry about rank so much, but any marine with a lick of sense assumes that a Spartan outranks them automatically, just on the basis of sheer awesomeness,” Titus said, giving Mel an awkward grin. “So…after you?”

Mel schooled her expression back to one of stoic neutrality, and together they set off down the mountainside, making their way along the stream as they went. To Titus’ surprise, they saw more fish in the stream, but these looked like normal Earth fish, a trout of some sort. When he remarked on that to Mel, she scooped two up out of the water.

“Masou trout. Endemic to Earth, and often found on worlds terraformed by colonists of Japanese origin,” Mel said after examining the fish. She expertly fileted both of them with her knife, then stuck the carcasses on sticks, which she lashed to the top of her backpack. “Good to eat.”

“Hold on, catch one more,” Titus urged, eyeing the waters again. “I want to try something.”

Mel shrugged, but scooped another out of the waters after a few minutes of patiently observing them. Titus wasn’t really sure how she was doing that, but the Spartan’s motions were so deft and swift he couldn’t really see them, forget about some fish.

“Put it on the ground,” Titus said, and after Mel set the fish down, he took out a Pokeball. He tossed it at the fish, and the same red beam shot out, enveloping the trout. However, instead of vanishing into the ball, the fish kept flopping on the ground, while the ball let out an angry electronic warble. The ball flopped open, and lay there until Titus picked it up.

“Interesting,” Mel said, frowning and rubbing her chin with her left hand. “So, only pokemon can be caught in those?”

“Yeah, weird, huh?” Titus bent over the fish, and after a moment’s consideration, took out the pokeball and let out Floppy.

“Mgggkkrrrppp!” Floppy lived up to its name, weakly flailing about on the grass.

“Hey there uh…huh. I have no idea how to sex you,” Titus mused.

“Krrrrppp?” the pokemon looked up at him, but didn’t really seem to understand. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Mel blush, but that had to be a figment of his imagination.

Titus wasn’t sure how intelligent it was, though it had seemed to understand him earlier. He picked up the Masou trout, and offered it to his pokemon. “Hungry?”

The Magikarp just opened and shut its mouth, apparently uncertain of what to do.

“Guess it doesn’t eat other fish. Don’t carp do that?” Titus asked Mel. While he’d learned a lot about birds and reptiles, and even some mammals as a part of Project Jurassic, fish hadn’t come up much.

The Spartan furrowed her brow, obviously thinking. “I don’t know. Possibly.”

“Huh. Well, this one’s mine then, thanks! Alright, Floppy, take a break.” The pokemon went back into the ball, and Titus cleaned his own fish and hung it to dry like Mel had. He wouldn’t say no to some fresh trout.

They spied other animals that could have been pokemon, from an odd three headed bird that they saw running along the opposite side of the streambank, but gone before even Mel could easily cross, to a tadpole like creature that they saw swimming in a deeper part of the stream, but vanished before they could investigate. It was hard to know, as the glimpses were fleeting, but still, they saw plenty of normal insects and other small creatures. All in all, it seemed a normal enough woodland that you could have found on any number of human colonies, before the war anyway.

They had walked for nearly an hour, with Titus only slightly winded in trying to keep up with the Spartan. He felt rather proud of himself for this fact, though he had noticed that Mel was moderating her stride to allow him to follow along behind her. Still, he’d had the same training any ODST had, and though he didn’t feel quite the same interservice rivalry with the Spartans that some more senior ODSTs did, he still wanted to prove himself as capable as any of his brotherhood.

They were just descending a steep rocky crevasse when Mel held up a clenched fist, going down to one knee. Titus was instantly on alert, his knife in his left hand in an instant, hatchet in his right as he looked around for danger.

“Up, and to the left,” Mel said quietly, and Titus’ eyes shot to the indicated direction. Up above them at the top of a sharp incline was a cleft in the rock. “I hear something. Sounds like fighting.”

“I see it,” Titus said, feeling his pulse pound in his ears. “Plan?”

“Could be hostiles, could be wildlife. Could be pokemon. We should get eyes on it,” Mel stated, holding hatchets in her own hands. They looked comically undersized in her hands, but they would have to do. Taking off their packs, the two of them carefully approached the cave, where now Titus could hear sounds of a fierce struggle. They exchanged a glance outside, and Titus nodded to Mel.

“CURRAHEE!” Mel bellowed, and stormed into the cave, axes at the ready.

Titus followed, though it took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust. When he did, he saw Mel taking on several dark figures that darted about the cave, claws flashing, fangs biting. Even in the few moments it took for his eyes to adjust, the Spartan sported shallow gashes on her arms, another on her forehead, and a rip in her heavy fatigues.

Titus joined in the fight, axe and knife flashing. He didn’t manage to hit his target, which hissed at him and leapt back, but not before giving him a long gash on his left forearm.

“Snnnnneee!”

Before Titus could attack again, Mel managed to strike home. Blood spattered, and the creature was flung against the wall of the cave.

To Titus’ shock, the creature Mel had hit got up, hissing but apparently mostly fine. It had large eyes, and what looked like red tail feathers, with another large feather poking up over its left ear. The creature that had scratched Titus had a smaller red feather, but both of them seemed no longer interested in the fight. They scrambled to a pile of leaves and grass, taking up roundish objects that Titus thought had to be eggs. As they did so, something weakly snapped at them, but they were far too fast. Both disappeared towards the rear of the cave, popping into a crevice too narrow for Mel or even Titus to squeeze into.

“You good?” Titus gasped, lowering his weapons, and slowly approaching what had to be a nest.

“I’ll be fine. They were fast. You good, marine?”

“Copasetic,” Titus said absently, holstering his knife and axe, and reaching into his back pocket. He pulled out a ration bar, kneeling by the next. “Hey there, little guy. You OK?”

From the corner of the nest, an odd creature glared at Titus. It was just over a foot tall, though it had a horn of some sort that was another six inches poking up out of its head. In the dim light of the cave, Titus couldn’t quite tell the color, though it had a reddish patch on its chest that was diamond shaped, and an odd flaring tail. It was clearly injured, with deep scratches on its body that were slowly leaking dark fluid.

“Rrrrrrr,” the creature growled, baring fangs at Titus and inching back to the edge of the nest. Broken eggshells were around the creature, along with several other slaughtered nestmates. Some appeared to have just hatched, while others had been ripped from the shell and partially devoured. This little one appeared to be the only survivor of the nest, though for how much longer was in doubt.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK. I’m a friend. I can help,” Titus said, unwrapping the ration bar and holding it out. He didn’t know what the creature ate, but most things hatched hungry.

The little beast stopped growling and sniffed the ration bar, then tried to bite at Titus’ injured arm. He jerked back, making a note that ration bars weren’t preferred. “Hey Mel, you got any of that fish?”

He jumped a little when the Spartan spoke, her head just above his shoulder. He hadn’t even heard or sensed her coming closer. “I can go get it. You want to tame this thing?”

“Worth a shot,” Titus told her.

Mel disappeared, then came back a minute later, handing Titus the fish they’d caught earlier. He extended some to the creature. It sniffed at the fish, and this time, took it and ate it, still glaring at Titus.

“I want to help you,” Titus said, his tone soothing. The creature probably couldn’t understand him, but he wanted to use a soothing tone. Animals responded more to that than words, though it helped to talk. “I can treat your wounds, OK?”

He extended more fish, and this time, the creature took it from his hand. Titus inched closer, examining the wounds. They looked pretty bad, but he didn’t know this creature’s biology. Still, he got out some med spray from the first aid kit in his side pouch, spraying it on his arm. It stung, but it would help the wound heal.

“See? Medicine. Make you better,” Titus said, extending the arm to the little creature. It sniffed at it and growled, but kept munching on its fish.

Titus gingerly picked it up, and the beast let him, though it did growl a little. He sprayed the wounds, which made the thing thrash a bit, and he had to set it down, then back away. He absently took out a bandage and wrapped his own wounds, and watched the creature eating. It finished the fish, then sagged down, obviously in pain and weary.

“I can help,” Titus said soothingly, taking out a pokeball. “We’ll put you in this, then find someone who can help treat you. Here, it’s OK.”

He held out the ball, and the creature recoiled, growling slightly. Then it sagged, obviously exhausted.

“Vvvttt….vtttt…” it panted.

Carefully Titus tossed the ball at it. The red light engulfed the baby creature, and the ball dropped to the ground. It rocked once, twice, three times, and there was a click.

“Well, got another one,” Titus said, picking up the ball. He shook his head. “We'll have to find civilization to get it treated. It’s clearly badly injured. Hopefully the medi-spray helps.”

“Nice work,” Mel told him. She frowned down at the slaughtered infants in the nest, and shook her head. “We should leave, quickly. If there is a mother…”

“Oof, good point,” Titus agreed. They hastily exited the cave and picked up their packs, jogging quickly down the mountain.

They had another run in with what had to be a pokemon half an hour later, when they rounded a bend in the stream. At first, Titus thought there was a wild fire of some sort, before he blinked and realized it was a horse, drinking at the river, only the horse was on fire. It lifted its head and snorted at Titus and Mel, before turning and running off into the forest, leaving only the smell of burned gas behind it.

“A unicorn?” Mel whispered. She blinked, shaking her head. “That was…a unicorn?”

“A flaming unicorn,” Titus agreed, feeling rather incredulous. “You…you saw it was on fire too, right?”

“Yes, I…” Mel shook her head. “I…we should be cautious, but perhaps we should investigate further.”

Titus eyed Mel sidelong. “You want to go after the flaming unicorn? I half don’t even believe that thing was real.” When she looked at him with her typical stoic expression, he held up his hands. “Hey, hey, you’re the Spartan! It’s just…it looks like something out of a fairytale, you know?”

“Yes,” Mel said, sounding wistful. “And it’s part of the mission.”

They made their way through a small grove of juniper to a wide mountain meadow on the other side. To Titus’ shock, there was an entire herd of the creatures. The adults were somewhere around a meter and a half at the shoulders, though some were nearly two meters. Male and female had large horns, and Titus was grateful that these appeared to be mammals based on his cursory observation, though that did raise some odd questions about their biology.

The young on the other hand lacked the horn, but adults and young alike had fiery mains and tails, with coats that ranged from a darker khaki color to a light cream. They were all grazing in the meadow, a herd of about a dozen individuals, four young and eight adults. The young were prancing about and playing with one another, dashing through the flowers and grass and leaving browned or burning wakes behind them.

Both Titus and Mel just watched from the treeline for half a minute, the beauty of the scene catching both of them off their guard. Then the largest female raised her head and snorted, looking in the direction of their watchers. The entire herd went on alert, with the young scampering towards the center of the group.

“Hold this,” Mel said, taking off her backpack. She took out one pokeball, and advanced into the meadow.

For a moment the herd watched, then the matriarch let out a whinny, and started to race around the field, leaving fiery footsteps behind her. The Spartan took off, and it was at that moment Titus realized that Mel had DEFINITELY been taking it easy on him.

She moved faster than Titus thought something as big as her should be able to move, as fast as, well, a horse. For a brief moment, she caught up to the fiery unicorn, but then the thing began to MOVE. Titus had seen things move faster than the creature, but only cars going flat out or aircraft. It seemed to blur as it ran, outdistancing the Spartan easily as it ran laps around the meadow, easily three times before Mel finished a single circuit. The unicorn came to a stop where she had started, Mel slowing down to walk up to the creature.

The unicorn snorted, and Mel slowly held up the pokeball. That made the creature rear and neigh, and Mel backed off slightly.

Then the uniform whinnied, and stepped back into the circle. The adults were all facing outwards with their horns pointed towards Mel, and she watched them warily. Titus held his breath for a moment, then there was another whinny.

Two of the young pokemon squeezed out past the adults, then the other two. They lined up next to the Spartan, prancing and kicking as if they were getting ready for a race. Mel seemed to understand this, and tucked the pokeball away. She got into the ready position, head down, legs flexed, seemingly utterly relaxed.

Then the matriarch reared and neighed, and the racers exploded into motion. This time, the Spartan was not only able to keep up, but to slowly creep her way forward, outpacing the young unicorns slightly.

They were about halfway around the meadow when two of the burning horses began to fall behind. Two others managed to keep up with Mel, who was sprinting along at speeds a cheetah would have envied. They blitzed past Titus, three of them neck and neck, though the two slower ones slowed, stamping and looking upset. The kicked a few times, before being called back to the herd by the matriarch.

The Spartan completed another lap, still neck and neck with the two young unicorns. By the third lap however, one of the creatures was flagging. It slowed, then trotted, and came to a stop, pausing to nibble some half burned grass as if to say “I’m letting you win,” before prancing back into the circle.

Titus held his breath as Mel and the pony rounded the bend for the fourth time. The matriarch stepped forward, as if declaring this was the finish line. Both racers put their all into it, but Mel was able to draw forth just that much more speed, and finished half a meter ahead of the pokemon.

Mel overshot by several meters, slowly down with heavy footfalls. She was sweating, but didn’t look overly exerted. To Titus’ surprise, she had an enormous grin on her face, and was laughing. It was a joyful sound, and for a moment, she really did look like a young teenager after a sporting event, instead of a hardened veteran.

Titus stood slowly, carrying both packs to the edge of the meadow. He watched as Mel paused, smoothing back some of her windblown hair. The young pony had walked back to the circle, where it butted heads with each of the other young horses, then the adults. The matriarch watched the whole thing, standing apart from the herd. Then she walked over to Mel, her red eyes seeming more intelligent than a simple beast. The unicorn dipped its horn to Mel, just as the little unicorn trotted up to them. The matriarch butted heads with the young unicorn, which whinnied, rearing up as his hooves struck the air.

Then the matriarch turned, trotting off. The rest of the herd fell in, racing off up the slope, and vanishing into the treeline at the far side.

Mel knelt by the pony, petting its muzzle despite the flickering flames.

“You’re warm,” she commented. Then she let out a giggle that sounded very odd coming from a Spartan. “I should say I always wanted a pony, but honestly when I was very young I just wanted food and a family. I don’t really remember that time though. Once I joined Delta…well. I suppose you’ll do for a pet.” She held out a handful of berries she’d picked earlier, having recognized them as blackberries. The pony eagerly ate them off her palm, causing Mel to laugh again.

“What’ll you name him?” Titus asked, coming up beside Mel.

“Hmm. I’m tempted to say Bucephalus, but that’s a bit of a mouthful,” Mel laughed.

Titus nodded, not getting the reference, but assuming it was a Spartan thing. “I’d probably come up with something lame, like Burny. Never was good at names.”

“Well, I think I have something better. How about Alex? He was the one riding Bucephalus after all,” Mel suggested.

The little horse wickered, apparently liking the name. Mel pulled out the pokeball, and pressed the button. The red beam shot out, and the pony vanished. Again, the ball rocked three times, then let out the soft ping in Mel’s hand.

“Well, that was something,” Titus commented as Mel shouldered her pack again. “Never thought I’d see someone get into a foot race with a horse and win.”

“Do you want to know a secret?” Mel asked, the same grin breaking through her increasingly cracked mask. Her eyes sparkled, and she leaned over to whisper,” I’ve wanted to race a horse for years.”

“Well, you didn’t just race a horse, you raced a damn unicorn!” Titus laughed as they set off down the slope again. He paused, then added. “You uh, you see how that adult moved? I don’t think I’ve seen cars go that fast.”

“That was…odd. And the flames…how do they make them? I can see why the REMFs in ONI would want to get their hands on these,” Mel mused.

“So they saddle us with the task of surviving amongst the insane wildlife,” Titus groused. “The hell were those little weasel things anyway?”

“Fast, and strong,” Mel grunted. “I could barely track them.”

That made Titus shiver. If a Spartan couldn’t tussle with these things…no way in hell he could.

After walking back along the stream, which was growing larger as it was fed by more and more tributaries, they came upon another clump of Blackberry bushes. Titus and Mel both stopped to fill their packs with the fruit, keeping an eye out for further pokemon. After a few minutes of gathering, Titus saw some rustling in the bushes, and whistled to Mel, who paused in her picking and came over.

“Something’s in there, relatively large,” Titus whispered, pointing to the bushes. He could see something about the size of a toddler moving around inside of the thorny thicket. He got out a pokeball, readying it to try to catch something. “On three. One, two-”

Mel leapt forward, striking like a pouncing leopard. There was a high pitched growl, and a small, furry creature with nut brown fur raced out of the bush towards Titus. He threw the pokeball at it, and the creature was instantly sucked in.

“Nice!” Titus said, giving Mel a thumbs up.

“Urrrrrraaaa!”

This time, the growl was deep, rumbling, and followed by heavy panting.

“Oh shit,” Titus gasped, his eyes going wide. That was a call he DID recognize.

Mel turned as the bushes behind them shook violently, and Titus’ eyes shot to the pokeball. It rocked only one time, before there was a cracking sound, and the creature popped back out, the ball broken in half.

And after one good look, Titus knew what it was. A bear cub. He didn’t recognize the species, with an odd crescent moon marking on the young female’s forehead, but she was clearly a young  ursine.

“Urrrrrrr!” the little bear cried. “Urrrr! Urrrr!”

“URRRRAAAAAAAA!” out of the bushes sprang an adult bear, spittle flying, eyes filled with rage. The beast wasn’t as large as a full grown grizzly bear, being closer in size to a black bear. It reared up as it approached the Spartan, standing about 1.8 meters tall, or a good 20cm shorter than Mel was. Mel struck first, lashing out with her knife, which cut into the bear’s chest.

Mama didn’t even notice, though there was a small bit of blood that showed. Her backhanded blow to the Spartan knocked Mel off her feet and sent her crashing through the thorn bushes. Dashed over, grabbing Mel and trying to drag her away from the still crying cub.

“RUN!” Titus screamed. Mel started to rise, a bit dizzy, even as the bear let out another deafening roar that sent icicles of fear stabbing into Titus’ gut. He’d taken on charging Brutes, and he felt no shame in the fear that gripped him now, just as it had then. Back then, he’d had a full squad of ODST’s and an MA5C in his hands, but he’d still pissed himself.

To Titus’ immense disappointment, Mel got back to her feet, but instead of doing the sensible thing and running the hell away, she grabbed Titus’ knife, then attacked mama bear again. It dissolved into a melee of fur and fang against steel and speed. For a few seconds, Titus could only watch as both combatants drew blood. Mel was bigger, and faster it seemed, but the bear was completely unphased by the superficial wounds on its forelegs and chest Mel inflicted, while the one swipe Mel didn’t dodge ripped half her shirt off and left blood oozing from deep gashes in her side.

Thinking quickly, Titus grabbed the baby bear. It howled and scratched at him, but he ignored it. With a heave, Titus pitched the baby as far into the bushes behind her mother as he could.

That distracted the mother, who snarled and backed away from Mel. She was bleeding from half a dozen cuts, but in the time Titus had looked away, she’d mauled Mel’s arm, to the point that Mel couldn’t hold the knife anymore, with the arm hanging limply at her side. One of the bear’s eyes was cut, but the mother seemed undeterred, snarling and snapping her jaws.

“Mel, you’re strong, but that’s a goddamn bear. We need to-”

The bear vanished. One second it was there, the other it faded into shadows.

“What the fu-” Mel began, and then the bear reappeared, emerging from the shadows at her side. The bear’s fangs sang into her injured right arm, and Mel screamed. Her left arm shot up, burying the knife in the bear’s neck. The bear roared and let go, backing away, but Mel was too, panting hard and bleeding. She staggered down to one leg, gasping for breath, and clapping a hand to her shredded arm.

Totally lost at what else to do, Titus grabbed the pokeball at his belt and threw it at the bear. It hit the muzzle, then out popped Floppy.

“Mmmmggkrrrp!” the fish gasped, flopping there on the ground.

“Well, that’s dinner for it,” Titus muttered, then hurried forward to try to pull Mel away. “We have to go, now!”

“URRRRRSSSAAAA!” the bear roared, and snapped at Floppy. To Titus’ shock, the fish flipped up, its tail smacking the bear in the snout.

“Rinnnnnnnnggggg!” the cub squalled from the bushes.

“Urrr. Urrr. Urrr,” the mother snorted, backing away, and vanishing into the bushes with her cub.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Titus muttered. He grabbed Floppy’s ball, and the pokemon went back inside, even as Titus helped Mel to her feet.

“You might be able to race a horse, but bears are just bad news!” Titus told her, and dragged the bleeding Spartan away.

“I can stand,” Mel groaned, and managed to get to her feet.

“Bear’s can’t run downhill!” Titus cried, and the two of them sprinted down the mountain. Well, Titus sprinted. Mel just sort of stumbled along, keeping up with him anyway. They crashed down the slope, through the last few dozen meters of trees. They stumbled out onto a pebbled beach, where the stream flowed into a larger river.

“Oh my gods!”

They looked up in surprise to see a young woman gaping at them, fishing rod in hand as she sat on a mossy rock along the riverbank. She had on a large white hat with a short brim and red ribbon, and was wearing normal enough looking overalls. For a moment, the three of them just stared at one another, then a roar came from upslope.

“I thought you said bears couldn’t run downhill,” Mel panted, staggering along the shoreline. “Miss, you’ll want to get the hell out of here. There’s a pissed off bear behind us.”

“RAAAAAA!”

“I can hear that,” the woman said, picking up her fishing poke and hurrying over. “What did you two do, try to kidnap a tediursa when its mother was there?”

“Less talking, more running,” Titus gasped, pointing down the beach. A dirt path could be seen nearby, along with a wooden raft half drug onto the shore. “We’ve gotta get out of here!”

“Yeah, let’s just go, I wasn’t catching anything anyway. I was just-” there was another roar, and the girl squeaked. “Running!”

The three of them scrambled over to the wooden raft, which had some sort of harness hanging into the water. Titus heaved it out into the river, and all three of them scrambled on.

“Go, Kotone!” the girl cried, and tossed down a pokeball.

“Mrrr!” a blue mouse thing popped out of the pokeball, smiling up at the girl.

“Uh, sorry, this is a bit heavier, but can you tow all three of us? Please?” the girl asked, kneeling on the raft next to the mouse.

The little creature saluted, and hopped into the water, shrugging into the harness.

“Hang on!” the girl cried, and to Titus’ amazement, the raft surged forward as the mouse swam. He and Mel crouched down, watching the treeline as they were dragged out into the river.

Not ten seconds after the raft began to move, a giant shape charged out of the trees. Titus’ jaw dropped, and Mel gasped. It wasn’t a bear.

An enormous two legged green dinosaur bellowed in rage, the ground quaking as it charged forward, pebbles flying.

“That’s not an ursaring!” the girl squealed. “Kotone!!!”

“Rillllll!” the mouse screamed, and the raft somehow moved faster, even as the dinosaur surged for the water’s edge, roaring its fury.

“Holy shit, that’s a t-rex,” Titus breathed, blinking rapidly. It wasn’t, of course, the creature didn’t have the lines of a therapod at all, with green spikes growing from its head, back, and shoulders, and a tail that ended in a spiked club that combined with the stony green hide made it resemble an upright Ankylosaur.

By now, the raft was several feet out into the deep and rapidly flowing river. The dinosaur waded into the bank, but seemed to hesitate. It was over two meters tall, with a bluish diamond section on its chest, and black markings on its shoulders and legs. It bellowed again, and something black formed in its mouth.

“Duck!” screamed the girl, and all three of them hit the deck as a black orb shot through the air above them, crackling with power.

“Why’d you have to go and tick off a tyranitar?!” the girl wailed. “Don’t you have any pokemon to fight it off?!”

“What?” Titus gasped, then coughed. The air was thickening with sand as the tyranitar roared again. Impossibly, a sand storm whipped up around them, the grit biting into flesh and stinging eyes. Hastily, Titus wrapped his arms around his head and went face down, gasping in pain as the sand scoured him. There was another roar, but slowly the sandstorm faded. He cracked open one eye to see they were now a dozen meters out into the river. The tyranitar stood on the far bank, a sandstorm raging around it as it bellowed fury at them. More dark orbs fired towards them, but they splashed into the water several meters back as the mouse continued to gamely fight on. Now the current had them though, and they were being swept downriver away from the raging beast.

“What the fuck,” Titus groaned, slowly rising to a crouching position. Something smacked the back of his head, and he winced.

“Language!” the girl huffed, glaring at him. “On my ship, we have a clean mouth.”

“Uh, sorry,” Titus said, glancing at Mel, who was silently bandaging her wounds. He shifted to help her, but the other girl grabbed his arm and yanked him back to face her.

“So, I have something to ask you,” she panted.

Titus nodded, feeling a bit dazed, and she gave him a pained smile.

Closing her eyes and sucking in a deep breath, the girl screamed, “WHAT THE FUCK!?”

“Honestly?” Titus gasped, the bellows of the raging beast still echoing behind them. “Same.”

He was going to kill Jack when they met again.