[x] Look for more Pokeballs around Alpha PokeCenter
You look and you look, but the only thing you find that is even vaguely of interest is a Pidgey going after a Zigzagoon over the contents of the Pokecenter's outside giant trash container as a Bidoof loots it behind the both of them. And a several month old half eaten sandwich in a coldbox in one of the back rooms. The asthma attack you got from a faceful of old dust and Paras spores isn't actually interesting, either to tell about or go through, but you did find that too. And get it. At this point, you think the Pokecenter itself has probably been looted dry, baring an unlikely stroke of luck or a new finding, and any more pokeballs will have to be found somewhere else.
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 3
[x] Protect Alpha PokeCenter
Once again you run into the simple fact that your pokemon just aren't really suited for punching it out with steel/electric types. Oh, you manage, your pokemon are stronger then they used to be, Sonic Boom still works just fine, and you do have easy access to help and reinforcements if things get too much for Yen and Mystery... but it's really not the funnest experience. You kinda think it might be wise to look into getting a new pokemon, maybe one of those fire types or a fighting type or maybe even visit that graveyard and see if you can find a friendly ghost if you're going to keep doing this instead of finding someone else to hand the problem off too.
On the other hand, Mystery is doing pretty good job when you consider the complete lack of any effective attack. You think the bug has made some real breakthroughs lately!
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 19
[X] Recruit and train the Junior Rangers, they are to be assigned 1 Houndour, 1 Growlithe, 2 Poliwags and the Bellsprout as their pokemon. The primary goal is to get them combat ready before teaching them the more specialized Ranger tricks like tracking and calming wild pokemon.
You have to say, your new minions seem to be above the average when it comes to hitting the ground running as a pokemon trainer in a post-apocalyptic world. Not that there are much published statistics on that, but even so, they're doing unusually well as they get used to their new pokemon and their new pokemon make friends with their new humans. Oh, they aren't like Red (if he ever truly existed) who was crushing whole tournaments in the early teens, but they're having a suprisingly easy experience with everything. Well, there are worse surprises to find about new students, you guess.
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 95 - Team gains one free experience point.
[X] Attempt to go on a scavenging run again this month, with the same focus of acquiring an inflatable boat. The search is to start at the Sports centre and expand out from there with a focus on shopping areas and storage units. The primary items of interest are Pokeballs, survival equipment and of course the inflatable boat. Finally if any of the Junior Rangers are deemed skilled enough they are to accompany him as support and for some on the job training.
It is a boat. It is pink, but it is a boat. And light pink is less visable then bright emergency orange, which was the color of the other inflatable raft you found in the store that didn't have a rattata sourced hole chewed through it. You also found three sets of ores that were still good, and took them on the grounds that spares are never bad to have. The set of climbing ropes, five heavy duty flashlights, helmet flashlights, extra batteries, solar powered battery charger that still seemed to work, and miscellanies electronic bits that aren't useful to you personally but will make the local technicians extra appreciative to. It was a good thing you took your new minions, otherwise you wouldn't have had enough arms to carry it all! Maybe you should get a wheelbarrow or something? You also found a set of four Luxury Balls in the sport centers back room for some reason, and one Quick Ball. (You also took the other boat so if the pink one got ripped you'd still have a boat.)
Most importantly, you also took an entire backpack full of notepads, notebooks, pens, pencils, and erasers back as well, so now the HQ is no longer running low on loose paper and writing utensils.
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 53
[x] Join with others to battle the Onix. Aim for a capture if possible. Gotta secure access to this quadrant's skydome controls. Dewey the Smeargle uses Detect to stay safe and Nature Power to attack. Oracle the Fennekin mostly uses Hypnosis. And Nawaf applies whatever Pokemon knowledge he has gleaned.
-[x] Bring along the crude Poke-scanner, the great balls, 5 Oran berries, and an herbal remedy.
It is not a dark and stormy night when Nawaf and Anties proceed into the tunnels on a quest for the sun, but it is pretty dark in the tunnels with most of the lights broken. For the original tunnels that is, the new tunnels didn't have lights in the first place. Luckily, the two of them both know where they are going and have the magical device known as a flashlight to guide them on their way. The two of you notice that the tunnels are growing colder and colder... colder then it was when you first found the Onix. Either it's growing stronger... or more Ice types are living in this area now. Potentially unfortunate, but given that ice types tend to be rare, perhaps a blessing in disguise? Either way, those are thoughts for the future. For now, as you enter the Crystal Onix's lair, it is
time to battle.
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 62
[x] Help guard the pokecenter. Though, the focus will be on training & prepping for the Onix battle. Dewey works on Nature Power, Oracle trains in general.
You know Dewey has made a breakthrough when, instead of taking shape as a Tri-Attack, his nature power becomes a Swift. Later practice in the tunnels shows he also can twist it from a Power Gem there into either an Earth Power or a Shadow Ball. Oracle to is making great strides forth under your guidance, and you think he's showing signs of evolution. Not yet, but... soon. Very soon. Hopefully at least. Oh, and between the two of them you traumatize a heck of a lot of Magnemite and even a Magneton or three.
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 77
[X] Take a shift guarding Pokecenter Alpha. Melly in front, Polly continues with Protect, while Bones tries to learn Rock Slide outside.
Melly continues to be adorable as she sets all the Magnemite on fire while Boney continues to try to figure out Rock Slide. Polly, on the other hand, has a bad experience with a Magnetron and needs to take a day off for her own good, which interferes with her progress. Still better then her twitching like that though, right? Either way, with three people taking turns at the pokecenter the shifts aren't too long and with Melly you've got a threat that the Steel types respect and avoid, so guard duty isn't very tedious or difficult this week. You take the chance and catch up on some reading while things are calm.
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 44
[x] Join with others to battle the Onix. Aim for a capture if possible. Polly tries to open the battle by using Gust to filter Stun Spores into the chamber with the Onix, then hanging as far back as possible to use Confusion and Protect. Bones tries to intercept the Onix as much as possible with Counter. Melly just tries not to get hit and spam Heat Wave.
This time, the Onix wasn't somewhere else, rushing back to defend its home against some intruding humans. This time, you see, it was resting until two impudent insects came to awake it. As it coils upwards, looming over the two of you, for a second you wonder if this was a good idea after all. And then you and Nawaf release your pokemon and
the time for second thoughts is over.
Luck Roll - 1d100 : 51
For a second, as the Onix sees the forces arrayed against it the two of you think it might just flee entirely. And then a deep
mist begins to arise from the Onix, shrouding from sight (and causing the prototype pokemon scanner to emit a complaining buzz) as it flexes and unleashes a
frozen wave of wind with a deep grinding noise. Dewey immediately strikes back, a Nature Power sourced Power Gem catching the Onix in the chin just as it prepares for its next assault as Oracle and Melly split to both sides. A second after the wind of ice strikes, Polly begins blowing it back in great gusts of wind, the air shimmering with stun spores as Bones sidles to the left in search of a path to melee range it can take that doesn't involve running through said stun spores. Melly too strikes, a wave of heat rising from her form that temporarily drives the deep cold of the cavern away and causes the Onix to emit a deep grumbling howl and lash away from her as Oracle tries to gain a mental purchase with his Hypnotize.
For a second the beast seems to have gone insane as it batters the walls of its cavern, flailing away... and the the ice broken and shattered from the walls and ceiling arise, whipped up by its lashing, and an indoors hailstorm erupts over the room. For a second, Melly's second heat wave seems to drive back the howling hail, melting it away as the Onix smoothly dives underneath Dewey's second Power Gem, but then the cold rises once more and the two of you can no longer see Melly in the snow... or Oracle for that matter as the Onix slides towards the two of you and Dewey with devastating intent.
Just as it rises into the air to
crush the two of you however, Bones leaps to counter it, redirecting it into the nearest wall as green tendrils lash out from Polly, her Mega Drain striking deep and causing the Onix to scream in rage, a rage that only grows deeper as Dewey strikes it once again with a Power Gem. Still, as much as the Nature Power fueled attacks seem to be causing it pain, Dewey is not truly trained for direct combat and for a second it seems like he will be crushed beneath the beast's
wrathful tail before Boney once more leaps to intercept the beast, a third Heatwave flashing out from the right to melt away the hail once more even if it strikes cleanly over the Onix's head as Oracle moves in from the left with a wave of Embers.
But the foe is more cunning then you all had thought, for while Boney once more flings it, this time even through the depth of its rage it moves with the counter, and Polly takes a wall shattering impact as she is driven into the cavern's... well, wall,
by the Onix's head. If not for her unusual, for a Butterfree, training in stamina she'd be well out for the count, but as it is she pries herself out of the wall to hover raggedly as Boney gives out a ragefilled war cry and Seismic Tosses the Onix farther back into the cavern. For a second, as Polly works up for another Mega Drain and Oracle and Melly harry the frozen snake with heat and another hypnotism attempt that slows the beast until the Heat Wave knocks it from its trance, Polly seems like she'll be ok to battle on. And then another frozen gust of hail strikes and she falls from the sky, plucked a mere foot from the ground by a pokeball's recall beam.
Seconds later, Dewey too staggers to his knees, half frozen by the freezing conditions, as Oracle staggers back to his trainer in a similar condition. A quick berry keeps them in the fight for now, but Dewey's focus on status moves, while making him direly effective in that area, is showing its costs in this battle. And Oracle might be more well rounded, but he too has little stamina training for longer fights. Still, while Melly distracts the Onix deeper in the cavern, more heat waves and then a flame charge clearing the hail in short bursts, Dewey takes the time to Acupressure Bones up as the Machoke focuses his energy in anticipation of more fierce fighting ahead even as Oracle fills the cavern with the sound of a long and terrible
Howl.
The three of them re-enter the battle just as crude pokescanner Nawaf is holding finishes its preliminary scans. A Rock/Ice type, and... two abilities? Nawaf and Anties exchange pale glances as the machine reads off the abilities it detects, both Snow Cloak and Ice Body. Both shrouded and healed by the hailstorm it is fighting in, this is not a good situation to be caught in. Or more precisely, the lack of weather clearing moves their teams have prevent them from breaking the Hailstorm and shutting down this dire combo.
Still, Bones renters the fight with a crash, catching the raging Onix's tail as it continues to attempt to
smash the Fennekin in its rage and executing a picture perfect Vital Throw, smashing it into first the roof, then the ground as Melly and Oracle take advantage of the temporarily immobilized target to cover it in flames. Still, the Onix does not give up, and a moment later it returns the favor to Bones, smashing the Machoke once and then twice, head and then flame wreathed tail as it ignores Melly's painful Heat Waves in favor for a foe it can hit, only stopping when Bones meets the third rage filled strike with a
counterstrike, tossing the Onix away from him with raw brute force. Still, he was smashed good and hard, and combined with the continuing damage from the hailstorm seconds later he falls to his knees.
Things aren't looking good for the heroes, down to three pokemon as Dewey finishes using Acupressure on Melly, and of those three both Dewey and Oracle are looking none to steady themselves, the two of them not trained for long battles, and even Melly herself isn't her best though her constant heat waves have warded the worst of the storm away.
The Onix seems to look down with the intruders that have invaded its lair with some dark amusement, abandoning its rage here at the end of the fight. Now, with two foes fallen, it starts building up a Sand Tomb to bury the invaders forever... when twin lights pierce the storm. Even as the Onix unleashes the flesh stripping wave of frozen sand it has built up upon the two Braixen who now stand before it, twin firespins shatter the hailstorm as they fly in the other direction, and the Onix screams as the healing hail is stripped from it by its new coat of fire. It likes it even less when Dewey buries it in a mimicked Sand Tomb of his own, seizing the oncoming sand and reversing its course to cover its own once master in a sandy grave.
For a second the beast seems to want to fight on, even as another Heat Wave, a Psyshock, and then a belatedly copied Heatwave strike it through the sandy tomb as the two trainers take the chance to pass out the last of their berries to their pokemon. The Onix rises, rises, and for a second its angry eyes stare down upon its foes from the ice type's greatest extension... and then with a thundering slam, the beast falls and ends this fight once and for all.
After that, entering the control room and forcing the blue screen of death to restart by way of hitting control-alt-delete until it turns off and then hitting the power button is downright anti-climatic, and so is the ease of following the instructions scribbled onto a notebook for how to restart the sky.
But the cheers as the sky dome once more shows the sky instead of darkness and static... those aren't anti-climatic at all. Those are what reminds you why this job is worth doing in the first place, angry death snakes or no angry death snakes.
...Still, given how angry the Onix was, and how you had to gang up on it to beat it... perhaps it would be best to wait a while before letting it out of its great ball, yes?
Patrol Team 1 Report
All is quiet on the fenceward front.
SCIENCE! Team 1 Report
The Science Team has now finished charting the Rattata's potential moves, or at least as much as they can do without having a champion tier on one hand or the actual blueprints of its genetic engineering to study. It's mostly guesses for the high levels, but they'll need a higher level rattata, or just a lot more time, to do better. They're ready and able to start a new project whenever someone has one for them though, like maybe if you caught a new variant pokemon? (There's a firm agreement among all the trainers they aren't to be let at the Onix, because you're all pretty sure they'd let it out to study it and it was enough of a pain to catch the first time. Nawaf and Anties really don't want a round two in the middle of the city.)
In Other News
In other news, THE SKY IS BACK ON. This basically drowns out everything else happening this week, and causes a considerable rise in public opinion towards the group when the public finds out who fixed things.
Oracle (Oh I Am Slain's Braixen), Melly (Wootius's Braixen), and Mystery (AnimalKrazed's Dustox) have all Tiered up to Tier 3. Please remember to spend your new stat points.
