Chapter 9
The Girafarig positioned themselves intentionally. Though weak individually, all the Pokémon together formed an intimidating group. The Pokémon too weak or old to fight stayed in the very back, but every participating Girafarig here knew at least one viable move.
A strange-colored Scream Tail stood at the top of the hill, staring at the grove from its group's exact center. The other Paradox Pokémon around it seemed eager to fight, but it barked out an incomprehensible command, and only three of its Scream Tail started to bound forward.
It was sending the weakest of its group first.
“Ready...” Nick said. He held out a hand to prepare a signal. He waited until the Scream Tail were close. The Iron Valiant could see the whites of the Scream Tail’s eyes, and only then did Nick clench his fist, and with that action, he gave his command.
“Fire.”
The world became defined by whistling beams.
A unified barrage of Psychic-type Psybeams formed a single-colored rainbow that blotted out the growing dusk. None of these moves were anything that would do much individually, but, together, they turned a series of weak blows into a powerful wave.
When the barrage hit, they mostly just broke apart the earth. None of the Scream Tail took that much damage. However, there was something intimidating about such a well-contained and unified strike. The damage dealt was not to their bodies but to their psyche, and as all of the Girafarig glowed to prepare their next attack, the three Scream Tail scrambled back in a panic to escape, needing to never experience anything like that again.
“Good,” Nick said, his eyes not leaving their opponents. “Great job, everyone!”
The Girafarig started to chatter excitedly among themselves, and the Iron Valiant heard a slight whisper come from next to it.
“...Is it wrong that my heart is pounding so hard in my chest?”
The three Scream Tail returned to the others on the hill, and the off-colored one looked ready to snap their heads off. Instead, it just shouted something, and rather than send any further growing number of Pokémon, it had its entire mass of Scream Tail jump down in a charge.
All of the Paradox Pokémon were running toward the grove at once.
“Phase two!” Nick yelled.
The Girafarig held back, but the Farigiraf at the front began to charge. There were only four battle-ready Pokémon between them—the three from before and a fourth that had managed to evolve after figuring out Twin Beam in the past few days. The Iron Valiant joined the charge as well.
The Farigiraf stayed in the front, both pairs of eyes on their heads glowing for a telekinetic defense. The sheer size of their bodies acted as a shield for the Iron Valiant, and a few of the Scream Tail started to scream. That was when the counter-attack began.
Immediately, the Farigiraf shot out spiraling beams, and those smashed into the screaming Scream Tail to get them to stop. Then, behind them, another barrage came out. This one was far less ordered than anything before, but right now, the purpose was not to intimidate but to push the Scream Tail around.
The onslaught of Psybeams was only aimed off to the sides of the running Farigiraf, and any Scream Tail that might have tried to slip around were funneled toward the counter-charge. The lack of order between this group of attackers meant that several of the Paradox Pokémon tried to fall back and hide behind their “allies,” but the important fact of this situation was that it limited just how many could go after the Farigiraf at once.
The hooves trampled the ground and several of the incoming Pokémon, and then the Iron Valiant tore to the front, serving as the surprise piercer that would instill even more chaos. Leaping right into the mass of bouncing Pokémon, it didn’t bother to pull out its blade. Rather, it spun with its two arms and struck with both at once. It maximized the angles in which it attacked, and it became a blender that carved into any Pokémon around it.
Some of the Scream Tail tried to scream at it. With the Iron Valiant’s positioning, doing so meant they caught their allies as well. These aggressive Pokémon were quick to turn on each other, as when an attack went wide, often one of the Scream Tail would go at one another due to the anger that came from being struck from behind.
Others focused more on melee, but that just gave openings to the Farigiraf. The Girafarig’s ongoing onslaught meant the Scream Tail had little room to move around, and the Twin Beams struck much harder and stronger than anything that came from the sides.
Any Pokémon that tried to run forward would be faced with hooves and blades. Any Pokémon that tried to move to the sides would be assaulted by dozens of Psychic-type blasts. The only direction these Pokémon could reasonably go was to the back—and, indeed, many of these Pokémon started to flee.
But then, a shout came from the grove behind the Iron Valiant.
“Watch out!” a yell came. “It’s creeping forward on your left!”
Without even thinking, the Iron Valiant swung its polearm, connecting the blades on its arms to sweep a powerful swipe to the left. The discolored Scream Tail that served as the leader of this group was caught out in the air, but the sudden slash was blocked to send it bouncing away.
The Farigiraf pushed forward. The Girafarig focused on corralling the other Scream Tail with their Psybeams. The Iron Valiant was left behind with this opponent.
It and the leading Scream Tail stood off, facing each other to have a one-on-one fight.
“It’s a Psychic-type!” Nick shouted. “Go for Fury Cutter!”
Except, even with the other Pokémon pushing past it, the Iron Valiant was not alone.
It was surprised by the revelation that these Pokémon carried the Psychic type while it did not, but that did not matter right now. What mattered was needing to strike.
The Iron Valiant jabbed with its polearm, the glowing crystal of its blade flashing with an off-colored yellow for a strike that mimicked a bug bite. The Scream Tail whipped its hair out—and maybe the way its mane moved did mean there was some kind of telekinetic control to it—but it was successfully able to block the Iron Valiant’s strike.
“Again!” Nick shouted.
The Iron Valiant stabbed again, and this move came with a building fury behind it.
The Scream Tail swung its purple mane into its blow, and it had to shake its head back and forth to maintain the whips that deflected blow after blow.
When the Iron Valiant’s assault became too much, it jumped, and Nick switched to calling out a different command.
“Feint!”
The Scream Tail opened its mouth to bite, but the Iron Valiant just leaned back to slip under it, then it swiped its weapon up to catch it from below.
“Psycho Cut!”
After that, an enhanced edge dug into the purple Pokémon’s body. It was completely caught off guard. It was this hit that, to the Iron Valiant, told it all that it needed to know.
The Iron Valiant would be winning this fight.
Here, it didn’t need to think. It might have been tired after the previous mass fight, but it didn’t need to put any conscious thought behind its moves. It was attacking instinctually and reflexively, and the only thing it needed to focus on was dodging and landing its blows.
It could put its trust into the human shouting at it from behind; Nick could see the entire battle from where he was positioned in the back. As someone who had spent the past several days working on strategy, it made sense that he understood what needed to be done.
All strategy was defined by him, and the Iron Valiant served as his blade. Attack after attack was called out, and each time, the Iron Valiant either blocked or landed an attack.
Eventually, the Scream Tail was panting. Desperate, it opened its mouth to prepare a scream, but the Iron Valiant was already charging straight at it. The vibrations of its move practically disintegrated the air, but it ran through that deafening noise regardless, and it reached a point where it could just barely hear the barest sound of Nick’s next command in the air.
“Gleam!”
His shout was a whisper on the wind, but the Iron Valiant was prepared.
The tip of the Iron Valiant’s blade glowed, and fueled by everything it carried in its chest, a flash exploded against the Scream Tail’s side, and the off-color Pokémon was blasted far, far back.
The Pokémon actually bounced when it hit the ground. Grass churned under its body. It managed to swipe its head to have its mane dig into the ground, and that was enough for it to recover its stance.
Barely standing, it brought its gaze up, and despite its injury, there was still a fight in its eyes. However, the world had turned terribly silent, and it looked around.
Four Farigiraf joined the Iron Valiant from behind, and over a dozen Girafarig stared at it from between the trees in the grove.
Expression wavering, the Scream Tail took a cautious step back.
Then another.
And then another.
Soon, it turned around to burst into a full-fledged scramble to escape, jumping and climbing and crawling up the hill to run, unintentionally fleeing in the complete opposite direction that the rest of its allies had fled.
When it vanished, there was no more sound. There was only the soft panting of the Farigiraf and Girafarig, but no screams or attacks filled the air. The Scream Tail had all but vanished, this strategy having worked. The sky had turned into the softest of blacks, and not even a single Psybeam tinted that glow.
A voice spoke up.
“We did it.”
Some of the Girafarig began to mumble.
“It worked. The Scream Tail ran off. And after this failure, they aren’t going to attack anymore.”
The Iron Valiant stabbed its polearm into the dirt and leaned into it to rest. In the back, one of the Girafarig raised its head to let out a celebratory bellow. From there, that was the signal that ended this event. So many others of its kind screamed their victory as well, and even the Farigiraf joined in, their shouts practically shaking the earth.
The defeat of the Scream Tail started a celebration. The constant cheers from all of the Girafarig shook the trees’ leaves, and the four Farigiraf trotted back to the grove like a group of returning heroes.
Berries were pulled down and passed around. Every Pokémon got to eat. With the threat having been defeated, everyone wanted to have what was essentially a party.
But the Iron Valiant left early.
Slowly, it brought itself back to that same cliff from before, back to the same spot it had first witnessed the three Scream Tail attacking. Its body gave the area around it the faintest of pink glows, and as it was so high up, everything looked so small from up here.
Countless cliffs and platforms stretched into the distance. It could see the trend downward that led into the center of this crater. It was an enormous bowl, a sloped pit. In the very middle, the Iron Valiant knew there were openings and caves that’d lead to where it had spent its entire life, underground and unaware.
“So,” a voice said to its side. “Did you really come up here just to brood?”
The Iron Valiant snapped its head up when it heard Nick’s voice. The human was walking up the hill toward it, carrying a berry in his hands, watching the Iron Valiant with a slight curve to his mouth.
“Kinda expected you to celebrate longer,” he said. “Maybe not party or whatever, but to show off in a few celebratory fights?”
He laughed, and then he arrived. He walked up to the Iron Valiant and deposited himself at its side.
With his legs dangling from the cliffside, Nick kept his expression light. His smile was genuine, and his eyes seemed to glimmer. When he looked down at the grove where the Pokémon were celebrating their safety, there was a measure of pride on his face.
“You know, I mentioned this before. When I first came to this world, I was hiking to find a place to camp with some friends.”
He kicked his legs out over nothing. In his hands, he held a deep blue berry freshly plucked from one of the Girafarig’s trees.
“Well, I called them friends, but I didn’t really know them,” he said, his gaze shifting toward nothing in particular. “We hadn’t talked in a few years, and I kinda just bumped into them by chance. We chatted for a bit, and I somehow brought up how I used to camp all the time with my father. One thing led to another, and I found myself invited along to help them on an upcoming camping trip.”
He leaned back, smiling, but as the Iron Valiant watched him, it realized his expression had changed. He maintained his smile, but the glimmer in his eyes was now absent. His smile shifted down ever so slightly, and there was something there the Iron Valiant couldn’t fully understand—it wanted to say the feeling was longing, but the feeling felt closer to something akin to acceptance.
“I know it’s insane to say yes to a camping trip with people you don’t really know, but I did use to know them, so it should have been fine. I just hadn’t kept in touch with anyone because... It was hard. I don’t know.” He let out a long sigh. “Maybe I said yes because I was desperate? It’s hard to want to do things sometimes. Like, you really have to push yourself. I guess I was hoping things would get better if I hung out with those people. I wanted a new start, and, in a way, that really came true.”
He laughed for some reason. The Iron Valiant didn’t know what was so funny. After taking a second to calm down, Nick jabbed his thumbs into the berry, the juice dripping beneath him, and with a yank, he broke the fruit in half.
“Here,” he said, holding one half up, “eat something. You have to get nutrients sometimes.”
The Iron Valiant took it and held it. Nick returned to staring out at nothing at all.
“I’ve never been great at maintaining connections,” he admitted. “It’s just hard to get motivated sometimes. With everything that was going on, I just kinda stopped. I was just one person among so many. As much as it’s nice to have friends, it’s easier to just... not.”
“But I’m here now. In the Pokémon world. And everyone else is back home. I wanted a new start, and I got it. I wouldn’t have said the Pokémon world was my first choice—I would’ve liked to be a wizard or something—but I think, with everything going on...”
He looked up at the Iron Valiant with a genuine smile.
“I’m glad I met you,” Nick said. “We make a good team.”
He took a messy bite of the berry, yelped when it dripped, and then tried to dig through his pack to find something to wipe his mouth with. The Iron Valiant looked away to hide its amusement and then took a small bite of its piece as well, and even more blue juice dripped onto the metal of its chest.
Nick laughed again.
Something about this berry’s flavor was so terribly sweet.
“You know, when we get out of here, I don’t have to leave the crater on my own,” Nick said. “If you really want to—”
His words were cut off.
Above their heads, a crescent shadow blocked out the moon before diving into the grove. Only a second passed before something crashed, and both smoke and screams filled the air.
When the echo of a familiar roar followed all of that, the Iron Valiant knew:
It had escaped the tunnels, and it had followed them.
Even after all this time, the Roaring Moon was back.