Chapter no.275 New Move Combos

Out behind the Silph Co building and in the middle of the testfire range Silph created for demos just like this one, Austin's impatiently fingered Bulbasaur's pokeball. At his side, Bulbasaur smiled at his trainer.
The testfire range looked much like a gun range back on earth. A long stretch of barren land roughly one hundred yards leads back into a tall dirt berm to act as a backstop. The range is pockmarked with craters and burns, likely from other tests. Off to the side and leaning over the range from high above, a structure of metal beams like a leaning power pylon looms over the range. On the point of the pylon, a camera-like dome shines in the sunlight.
Behind Austin and Bulbasaur, Aaron, Pikachu and several Silph techs holding tablet computers stood behind a screen of ballistic glass.
Aarons turns his eyes to the techs. "Gents, are we ready?"
One of the three men, a tall, gangly man with limp brown hair nods his head. "Beginning sim. Standby."
'Sim?'
Above Austin and Bulbasaur, the dome-like apparatus on the point of the leaning pylon glows a dull blue, and down on the ground, a hazy shape standing a head taller than a man and thrice as wide begins to take form.
Startled, Austin took a step back as Bulbasaur narrowed his eyes and took up a defensive stance before his trainer.
The mass crackles like TV static and coalesces into a shape with two thick legs, equally thick arms ending in claws, a long muscular tail, and a wide head with a shovel-like plate along its skull.
'A Kangaskhan?' Austin wondered as the pixel-like details filled in on the pokemon like a loading video game. In just a second, the details sharpen to a life-like level, and there stands a Kangaskhan minus a youngling in its pouch. 'Some kind of hologram?'
The fake Kangaskhan grunts and slammed its tail into the ground, making a tremor run under the feet of everyone in the field. Its eyes are flat and lusterless, but they focus on Bulbasaur with a disturbingly life-like gaze.
'Not a hologram.'
"Whenever you're ready, Mister Henson!" One of the Silph techs call. "Have your Bulbasaur attack the Kangaskhan construct with a combo move!"
Bulbasaur growled, the bulb on his back glowed as the miracle seed inside it manifested pure Grass energy that traveled up to Bulbasaur's mouth. He trained his eyes on the Kangaskhan's center mass and worked his jaw. Then with a flourish, he threw his head forward and spat a shotgun blast of seeds with an ear-ringing bang!
The seeds fly in a tight cone trailing with yellow light, spreading only to the size of a volleyball in the twenty yards they fly. Then Seed Blast crashed into the Kangaskhan's thick hide with a series of loud cracks, throwing bits of the Kangaskhan's rock-like armor that dissolve into static before they hit the ground. Several seeds stay lodged in the armor, sizzling with unburnt Grass energy.
The Kangaskhan reels back with a realistic gasp, holding its cracked stomach armor with a paw. It retreats with several lumbering steps, watching Bulbasaur warily. Above the Kangaskhan, a green HP bar of all things appears and drops to roughly 70%.
"Not bad at all…" One of the Silph techs murmurs as he taps away at his tablet. "One direct hit dealt considerable damage to a mid-level construct." He taps a button on his tablet and the damage on the fake Kangaskhan vanishes as its lifebar refills to 100. "Again, please."
Bulbasaur looked up towards Austin, who nodded back. "Give her another one. Everything you've got. We don't need to worry about pacing ourselves here."
The Grass-type turns to the Kangaskhan and charged Seed Blast, a combo of bullet seed and seed bomb, drawing up even more seeds than before. The muscles of his jaws quivered as he struggled to keep the attack contained, and once he could hold it no more, he snapped his mouth open and fired a wide-spanning blast with a bang like thunder.
This time, the seeds spread out rapidly, but since there was a veritable storm of them, the Kangaskhan was struck over nearly its whole chest and head. The fake pokemon cries out and stumbled back, a number of seeds buried in its flesh. It covered its head and ducked, avoiding several botanical bullets that whizz by. The wounds on the fake pokemon didn't bleed, instead leaving behind simple holes that glow a faint blue. The HP bar above Kangaskhan's head jumped down to 45%, the green color changing to yellow.
" O-Oh wow…" Austin looked back when he heard one of the techs gulp. The middle tech glanced down at his tablet and cleared his throat. "Well, I uh, think we have enough data to work with on that one. Let's move on, shall we? I believe the next one is called Seed Sniper?"
Once again, the Kangaskhan stood straight, its wounds vanishing and its expression returning to uncanny neutrality.
This time, Bulbasaur needed no prompting, taking a deep, lung filling breath while grash type energy was fueled by the miracle seed.Like with Seed Blast, he stood still for several seconds, letting the power behind the attack build before spitting a single hyper-sonic seed the size of a marble. The air cracked sharply as the seed broke the sound barrier and crosses the distance as little more than a streak of light.
Bulbasaur's aim was off even at the short distance, as rather than the center of Kangaskhan's chest, it hits her left shoulder, pushing in deep enough that the bones of a normal pokemon would be pulverized by the impact. The seed then explodes into shrapnel, shards digging into skin and making a ghastly wound. The fake Kangaskhan went pale and grasps the hole with its opposite paw. Above its head, its HP dropped all the way to 30%, which flashes red in warning.
Austin turned back to the spectators, taking in their reactions.
Pikachu smiled slightly.
The Silph techs look between their tablets and the hard-light Kangaskhan with dropped jaws.
Aarons?
Aaron just smiled. "Mister Ketchum?" He calls over the ballistic barrier. "Fantastic showing. I believe you have one more?"
"We do," Austin nodded. Then an idea hits him, one that he pauses and mulls over. "Say, Alec? Is there any wiggle room on that royalty percent if we show something really impressive?"
A look crosses Aarons' face, one that stands at the midpoint of predatory and hungry, then it vanishes and is replaced with his pleasant resting smile a split-second later. "I… could be convinced to argue such a case to upper management for a better payout. What do you have in mind?"
" While we're not going to let this move be released for copying, it's proof that we have a lot to bring to the table." As Austin spook, Pikachu was already briskly trotting around the ballistic glass.
Aarons rubbed his chin folded his arms behind his back and gave Pikachu a searching look as he and Bulbasaur trade places.
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KRABOOM!
Austin calmly watch as he felt the explosion wash over him and nearly take him off his feet.
The explosion was deafening. Even with his ears covered, Austin felt them nearly pop, and the shockwave is like a kick to the chest. Dust rushes past, dirtying his clothes and forcing him to close his eyes. The sheer, burning heat was present only for a moment, but it warms his skin to an uncomfortable level. Through the trees and off the building behind them, the echoes of the explosion roll through Saffron, rousing countless frightened bird pokemon from their perches and into the air.
As the dust settles, Austin rubbed the dirt from his eyes and opened them to take in the destruction.
Where the Kangaskhan was, there is now just a limp green wireframe in the vague shape of a pokemon, as if the fake pokemon had its hide blown clean off. Under it is a smoldering crater nearly a foot deep and fifteen feet wide, and the dirt within hisses as it cools from red-hot back to a burnt black.
Above the crater is Kangaskhan's HP bar. There is no number, just a flashing warning saying "ERROR".
Austin smiled and bends down, taking Pikachu into his arms without a fight and rising again. He wrapped his arms around him middle with his back to his chest, letting his hindpaws and tails dangle. When he leanes down just enough to kiss his scalp, the electric mouse's ire cools considerably. "How about that?" He turns on his heel to the spectators.
The trio of Silph Co techs are struck dumb, all three of them glued to the tablets in their hands, all of them emiting a warning chime.
Aarons works his jaw, seemingly speechless. His eyes look between the crater, then to Pikachu, then up to Austin. After a long moment, he smiled and combed his hands through his hair, brushing away debris that flew over the ballistic glass screen. "Oooh yes," he purrs. "We can work with this but what do you call this move."
" I call it, Railgun."
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[ Omake Paragraph ]
The references so often made in newspapers to Exeggutor as a walking tropical rainforest appear to be nothing more than a case of an overly colorful nickname. To be sure, it is a type of tree found in the tropics, but it is not one of the towering ones which form leafy canopies and trap the clouds which make the forests rain. This nickname, however, is better understood in the context of a group of Exeggutor; its application to an individual is a wholly modern phenomenon.
Exeggutor are a highly mobile and social pokemon, and when they travel they do so in vast packs which wander great distances in search of the mixture of food and sunlight on which they thrive. They seldom stay in a single place for long, and at times their searches take them into temperate climates, although it is rare for them to survive for a prolonged period. (Their children, Exeggcute, are better at thriving in these conditions.)
A strange thing happens when they do find a place to settle. The combination of leaves and fertilizer and a strange gas they exhale which is less deadly but with a stronger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide soon creates highly localized tropical (if not forested) climate zones, where rare or absent pokemon from the surrounding areas can thrive. It is said that a single colony of Exeggutor created the Safari Zones in Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn, all of which continue to draw large crowds to this day.