Take Two [Mod/Kenna]

[Endre Arthmael]

ENDRE

Oh yeah! Emrik was all fired up now! With little regard for the knick the Anorith left across his chest, he let out another stream of flurrious blows. One-two-three-four-five, ha-ha! His paws were like lightning! (They might have looked a biiit faster to him than everyone else but that wasn't important.)

Meanwhile, Endre managed to pry off the Anorith and smiled in relief. "Ah, good," he sighed. Fighting with it a bit, he tilted the Anorith back so that he was certain it could see him-- or pretty certain. Actually, with eyes like that it wouldn't surprise him if they could see every direction, but he felt that being directly in front of its face was an extra safe bet. At this angle, the claws were pointed straight in the air, safely away from Endre.

"It's not nice to invade people's homes," his low voice rumbled sincerely. "You wouldn't like it if humans started invading the seas." An abnormal darkness seemed to wash over him as he recalled battleships blowing each other apart for the rights to fish in nearly barren waters, wherein what little that could be caught often wasn't fit to eat due to such high levels of contaminants. He had never prior known a time with enough food to give him reason to count how many nights he went hungry, and the seas were more bountiful than the forests or plains by far even then. "Believe me," he nearly hissed.

With that, he turned the arthropod again and brought it down hard against the ground, taking a knee and bearing down on its back with both hands.

[SoJasp]

The Anorith, meanwhile, could not keep up with the much more forceful Arm Thrusts that hit him one after another after another, and before the last Arm Thrust was made- he’d fallen back and fainted. Well then, that was that, it seemed.

Meanwhile, Endre’s tone caught the Anorith- though what he was saying was lost in translation to the Rock Bug type, and instead he was left frowning- well as much as an Anorith could frown, really. Suddenly shoved into the ground, the Anorith found himself squished between a man and a hard place. Asjdaklsdj that hurt! Let go! Stop! Ahh! The Anorith flailed a bit, arms, leg-fins, everything moving or squirming in a ditch effort to get out from under the rock man but to no avail. Worse still the pressure only seemed to escalate causing him to flail that much more as a number of horrendous noises escaped into the air.

---
Emick gets 10EXP.

[Endre Arthmael]

ENDRE

Emrik made sure to hit his foe the extra time or two for good measure, but when he was sure it was out cold he beamed. Hopping around in excited celebration, he inadvertantly used another Work Up.

Endre hadn't noticed his partner's victory, however. All he could hear, in fact, were the ear-splitting screeches coming from the Anorith. Were he the intellectual type, he might wonder if this was actually Screech, or even know that that would be an Egg Move for Anorith and potentially rare on a feral as a result. Endre was not the intellectual type.

Rather, to him, the horrific sounds played into the war flashbacks the awful creature had already stirred up in him. He heard screams of comrades's pains, and of loved ones mourning their dead. He heard projectile weapons screaming across the sky. These played into a sense of primal rage that usually lay dormant deep within him.

The sound also echoed something else- the horrible screeches often made by other more common, weaker Pokemon when they became prey.

As much out of instinct as anger, Endre kept one hand firmly on the Anorith and with the other reached for the sturdy short sword sheathed at his side. In one swift motion, he freed the blade and drove it down upon the Anorith, aiming for the area between two plates.

[SoJasp]

The Anorith had no way of knowing that his very cries were stimulating the eventual intense response from Endre. He scantly knew why he was being attacked to begin with let alone what horrors the man had faced to cause him to make such a decision. These were not things he thought of. However, in the short seconds that the blade flashed before his eyes as he peered up, the Anorith tensed his body Hardening and his eyes shutting tight as if bracing himself for impact. It came but a second later, and the vibrations of the blade off rock hard armor were nearly worse than the actual impact itself upon the hard shell of the Anorith, and the Rock Bug pokemon found himself jarred and shaken more than cut to pieces, thankfully. He squirmed a little, still unable to move but still very much conscious for now at least, but there was little he could do to change the predicament he was in. In a way he had only prolonged the inevitable.

[Endre Arthmael]

ENDRE

The vibrations of the blade were almost enough to snap Endre out of his ironically-feral hunter mode. Almost, but not quite. Instead, it only served to frustrate him, and to cause him to pay just enough attention to more consciously realize that yes, he was aiming to kill. The only response that got in turn, however, was a brief wondering as to whether or not Anorith might taste anything like Clauncher or Corphish. He'd had Corphish once. It was amazing, though not the sort of thing he would be able to eat every day even if it wasn't so much more expensive and harder to come by than the Corka, small birds, and rodents that made up his usual meat menu. He'd tried his hand at fishing here and there, too, but found he fell asleep more often than not, and two or three times waking up just in time to see what must have been quite a catch yanking his rod right into the water. Once he managed to get it back, but it had been in pretty rough shape and he still lost the fish; the other time(s?) he couldn't even find the rod.

Back in the present, Emrik had stopped celebrating long enough to see his trainer fighting wi-- hey that was his job! ..If.. he could get in without hitting his trainer?? "Pan?"

Endre was slowly shifting, bringing his knee to hold the Anorith's tail, then sliding his hand up its back and pushing against its head, trying to keep that jointed area where its head and neck attached exposed. Another stab with the sword, this time going more for precision than power.

[SoJasp]

The Harden had spared the Anorith for now, and as Endre shifted a little, he took to flailing as much as possible throwing finnier legs here and there and shaking his claws as much as the clear restraints would let him. “ANNNNNNORITH!” Whether the call was of defiance or fear it was hard to tell, and even the shaking of the small form could easily argue for either. It probably didn’t matter in the end considering he was still trapped. The second stab managed to slide through the armor junction, and a startled wail of pain escaped as the Anorith. What squirming there had been began to slow.

[Endre Arthmael]

ENDRE

Endre breathed a sigh of relief. Emrik, on the other hand, looked to his trainer rather shocked. Had-.. was-.. "Pa-...?? Pancham!?"

Endre looked to his partner now. "Oh, you're-" He glanced over his shoulder to see the other Anorith lying still. "Knocked out?" he asked Emrik.

"PAN, CHAM," the bear answered indignantly. It almost sounded like an exaggerated 'of course'. "Cham, pan, panCHAM!" he cried, frantically pointing at Endre's Anorith.

"Could you get a PokeBa-.. Hm? ..Oh I'm sorry. You probably could have used the experience of fighting this one, huh.." That was not his concern! A violent fit of flailing and outcries would attest to that much- interrupted by a point in which he toned it down to just verbal complaining as he did in fact retrieve a Pokeball from his trainer's bag and toss at his own Anorith; then quickly followed by an accusatory point at the blade- which Endre still held embedded in the creature- and then the Anorith. It took the trainer another moment, at which point he seemed taken aback. "Oh, what? Are-.. It's an Anorith, not an Arcanine."

But it was a Pokemon! Emrik tried to convey. "Pan chamcham!" This wasn't what he signed up for.

"Don't.. Don't tell me you can't handle death." The trainer's face was entirely deadpan, and suddenly Emrik stopped, wondering what exactly he did sign up for. "..What do you think you eat?" Surely a bear was not an herbivore..

"... Pan.." He thought it over, then began pantomiming. There was a particular plant that was his favorite. It was long.. and leaves like this.. and this.. But it wasn't really common, and the professor was pretty much the only person to grow any since no people and only a few Pokemon could eat it.. And then there were berries. You know. Kind of.. these shapes.. and.. those ones? And uh.. Well he guessed the main thing was Pokemon Food? He now pantomimed a large bag, a bowl on the ground, and just.. pouring the bag into it? He then picked up some invisible pellets from the invisible bowl.

"I thought so.." Endre rumbled. It was what he'd been recommended to keep at least. All the processing and preservatives led the food to stretch much farther and last much longer than anything fresh.. and for a little extra, some people added extra vitamins and such more suited to some Pokemon than others. "How do you think that's made?"

In Emrik's mind, the sound of glass shattering resounded. M..ade? He.. never even thought about where it.. came from. He.. The Pokemon didn't know what to make of this information.

"In the real world, people and Pokemon hunt, Emrik." Yes he.. he was starting to see that.. Noticing a look of fear, Endre forced a slight smile. The Anorith had been still long enough now, he supposed. In the off chance it was alive, it wasn't going anywhere. And, well, if it had been playing dead for so long and ran off, it was probably the smartest of its kind and deserved to go reproduce- and also should be smart enough to get the hell out of his town. He rather doubted that was the case, though. At any rate, he pulled out his sword and got off the Anorith now, turning to pet Emrik. Emrik flinched just slightly, causing Endre's smile to shift to a frown. "Don't worry. You and I are partners. And not much hunts your kind. We're near the top of the food chain, you and I. Under a few of the biggest dragons and dinosaurs, I suppose, but I doubt we'll be seeing an awful lot of them very soon." He gave a light laugh, and Emrik sighed before finally forcing a small smile. He guessed.. it was good knowing they shouldn't go hungry..

[SoJasp]

The pokeball smacked into the fainted Anorith and drew him inwards dinging in capture only a second later and dropping to the ground shortly after.
Name:
Species: Anorith
Gender: Male
Ability: you choose
Lvl: 1
Attacks: Scratch, Harden
Personality: Quick to jump into a battle / fray / what have you, this Anorith lives to battle, though this also tends to cause him to get into many messes in the process. Any form of challenge is met with the same rush into battle even when he happens to be overpowered or outnumbered, and while he may take damage, he at least tries to keep going at all times.
TP: 35


Meanwhile, the second Anorith meanwhile had stilled completely during the talk between Endre and Emrik, and the pull of the blade was the only cause of a small momentary shift in its form. Whether it was the battling or some other circumstance, the area was relatively silent now. Maybe it was time to move on to a different area.

[Endre Arthmael]

ENDRE

"You know.. Back on the old world- You know about the other world, right?" Emrik thought a moment, but nodded. He was born here, and pretty recently in fact, but he'd heard something like that mentioned. It was a place that big portal went to- or, came from? But yeah, he had a general idea. "Once upon a time there, there were all kinds of animals. Not just the little insects and other crawly critters you see around here, but big animals. Terms we still use to refer to Pokemon that share similar traits."

As Endre spoke, he got up and collected his new Pokemon, frowning a little. He didn't really ever want to use it, but it was one-- two-- less on the streets. Well, he was sure he'd figure out a good use for it. If nothing else, it would be food in a pinch-- assuming the first one was any good-- but that seemed a bit cruel to him. He knew how Corka farming could be, but Corka were probably the closest things to native animals Mi-aro had. Certainly they were the weakest and least intelligent Pokemon he knew of, at least that didn't evolve. Anorith didn't seem much smarter, but Armaldo might have been getting there. It seemed cruel to keep something locked away awaiting death; he'd rather it go free until the day it died.

"You and Teddiursa would be bears. Actually, the biggest plain bears weren't much less formidable than your friend, from the stories I've heard.." He hadn't had the pleasure of meeting a lot of animals that weren't food given the circumstances. Emrik was growing fascinated by this story. Endre sat down now and retrieved his First Aid Kit, taking a moment to bandage up his hand. He'd treat it better when they settled down for the evening.

"There were cows, like Taurus and Milktank." (He'd heard names much more than he'd read them, so little errors were to be expected.) "Fish, like Goldeen and Magikarp and Basculin and.. those.. The long ones. Bah-something, Bar-something. Actually, long ago, there were a lot more types of plain fish than Pokemon fish. Thousands even." Emrik gasped. "There were lots of animals. And while some of them looked a lot like Pokemon, they weren't. They didn't have powers like you do. Only a handful were really intelligent or strong- and people didn't even eat too many of those. But we ate animals. Few cultures dared to think of Pokemon as food. Tools, perhaps, and weapons... Well, that was most of what saved you guys in the end..." His eyes went distant here, and Emrik felt a chill at his tone.

As he continued to talk, Endre gathered the corpse of the other Anorith, trying to imagine how he would go about preparing it and wondering if the meat could be dried. In the same light, he kept telling himself that as an aquatic arthropod it was similar to Corphish. It wasn't reeaally a bug. It just looked like a bug. Actually, he'd eaten bugs plenty in his youth. And he'd do so again if he had to. They weren't even that terrible. It was just.. keeping them down, with the knowledge of how awful they were when alive. So he had to keep trying to think of it as seafood.

"We tried to bring animals with us to Mi-aro, you know.. There weren't many left- not that we could obtain." On the note of the sea, he remembered being told that life came from there, in the beginning. He'd always wondered as a kid when the boats came back empty if there was still more life out there, farther, deeper down. In the depths mankind didn't dare to dream of. And sometimes since coming to Mi-aro and leaving that husk of a planet behind, he would wonder if maybe someday life would return to that planet, coming once more from the sea... "But most.. well, I'm sure you're aware of how many you've seen. The tiniest number of survivors are generally kept under lock and key. This vegetation didn't agree with a lot of them. Most fell prey to Ferals before we really understood what Ferals were. It's hard to keep them alive, let alone increase their populations quickly. This place is a Pokemon's world, and our poor pets were never meant to be here. Sometimes I wonder if we aren't just stalling the same fate.."

Emrik was just sort of stunned. This guy was usually pretty quiet, but when he got going... Just... wow.

By this point, they'd begun walking again, the Pokeball and corpse both stowed away in Endre's bag- though the claws of the larger thing poked out a little.

[SoJasp]

As Endre told his not-quite-a-story-but-more-of-an-explanation, time ticked on, and the not-so-proverbial dice roller waited patiently for something interesting to appear or not, though it seemed after six rolls, the proverbial god of dice that stood higher still saw fit to leave things as they were. Of course a few people trekked the streets and a few voices were heard in the distance, but at the moment it seemed to be a human's area.