C-Sealed in Another Body Chap. 4

Chapter 4: A Possible Recruit

         The Bayleef and Ekans took their respective positions on the ends of one of the gym's battle fields.

"Archie, are you ready?" Monica asked. The Dragonair had volunteered to act as a judge and overlook the match.

"Sssure am." The Ekans nodded

"Cecil, are you ready?"

I shook my head yes; I was too excited to battle for my mouth to  even begin to form any words.

"And… Begin!" She cried.

I charged forward, preparing for a Body Slam. It crossed my mind that Archie was merely standing there, not attempting to counter attack or dodge, but in the excitement of my first battle, I quickly brushed it aside.

It soon became very apparent that I should have thought things through. As the slam came crashing down, Archie used his Coil to tighten into a spring and ricocheted me against a wall.

I slid down the wall and crumpled on the ground. I saw him use that same tactic against Monica, why hadn't I remembered it?

I picked myself up, only to see Archie edging me on with a taunting tail wag.

I gritted my teeth and shot a Vine Whip right at him, at top speed. It hit him square in the chest; he tumbled back onto the floor.

I started slamming the vines against the floor, attempting to hit Archie again. He skillfully weaved in and out of the barrage until his chance came, and he jumped on the vine and started slithering up it.

The maneuver caught me off guard, and with logic clouded out by surprise, I retracted the vine in an attempt to shake him from it. Big mistake.

Retracting just brought him in that much faster. Before I could have time to think, he was right on top of me, mouth ablaze in raging flames. He sunk his fangs into my shoulder.

"It burns!" I stupidly shouted.

I wrapped a Vine Whip around him, and after prying him off, flung him across the entire field.

I grimaced at  the spot he had bit. Around the puncture marks was a large singed area from the Fire Fang.

I tried to run at Archie, but suddenly even moving was a challenge; my shoulder was in serious pain whenever I tried to move.

Archie had gotten up and was already zooming towards me again. I wasn't going to be able to  outrun him, PoisonPowder wasn't going to faze him, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to pull of any kind of physical stunts with a burn.

Thinking on my toes, I concentrated on a rocky part of the battlefield, just like Dante had tutored me, and it started glowing a faint green. When Archie stepped -er, slithered- onto the glowing spot, I yanked the Ancientpower out of the ground, effectively catapulting him away from me. I then sent the aura-coated rock smashing into him.

A smile crossed my face from the accomplishment, but it quickly faded as Archie got back up and launched himself at me.

Once again, his maw was on my shoulder, but this time it was an Ice Fang. At first it was painful, but as the small ice crystals spread across the shoulder, I could feel the burn's pain subsiding.

"Thanks for the help!" I mocked him before using Body Slam to squish his head between my side and the field's surface.

I leaped away from Archie, and he got up and shook his head. He glared at me before coiling up.

"What is he..." I muttered.

Suddenly, once again using his coiled up serpentine body as a spring, he launched himself at high velocity directly towards me. I made an attempt to jump out of the way, but such a maneuver wasn't possible with his oncoming speed, and he bit into my back anyway.

The force of the impact threw the two of us backwards, sprawling across the field.

The attack actually didn't hurt a whole lot, but I could feel random muscles throughout my body having little spasms from the electrical current the Thunder Fang produced.

My body shivered from the charge as I pulled the snake off again. All the biting and removing this serpent was getting to be a pain. I needed to get this thing over with.

I wrapped a Vine Whip around Archie's tail, pulled him off the ground, and flung him straight into the air.

He soared up to the roof, collided with one of the steel support beams, and began to plummet back to the ground.

I watched him fall down. With a well-timed attack, I hit him with a mid-air Body Slam. He rolled across the field, only stopping when an Ancientpower crashed on top of him.

Archie pulled himself from the rubble with a groan, only to collapse immediately back on top of it.

Monica inched onto the battlefield a little, just enough to check on the downed Ekans.

"Archie's unable to battle; Cecil's the victor!" She cried out.

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        The achievement was short-lived and bittersweet. I couldn't really be happy about knocking out my friend.

I rushed to his collapsed side. Faith and Monica, both apparently sensing my anxiety, came over as well.

"It's ok , remember Cecil? Pokeumans only stay fainted for a minute or so." Faith gently grasped the shoulder Archie hadn't chewed on during the fight.

We all sat until Archie began to stir once more.

"How you doin' buddy?" I asked.

Archie glanced up at me, but was obviously too disoriented to give a valid response, and as such, made no attempt to for a moment. But he finally came around to the point where he could.

"Uh... Sssore. Definitely feeling the aftereffectsss of that match. You pack quite a punch, especially consssidering that this was your first battle."

That remark rang true. I seemed to be a natural at this, which was even odder than he realized. Even before this, when I was a normal guy, I never got into a fight. I never even worked out, trained, or anything. Maybe this whole transformation really did alter something more, just as I had suspected.

"I've had a little bit of tutoring..." I trailed off.

"You know, seeing that battle and all... It's got me feeling an itch that I've not felt in a long time. Cecil, I don't suppose I could battle you too?" Faith asked in her usual over-excited tone.

Archie shook his head.

"You are joking, right? If I lost to him, then he'd mop the floor with you."

"I know, but... I really want to give it a try. What do you say?"

I first looked at her, then glanced at my shoulder. I rotated it around in it's socket.

"Er... I don't really think I'm in a good position to have another battle right now, Faith. My shoulders' kinda jacked up in case you forgot."

Faith disregarded my remark with a wave of her hand.

"We've got a solution to that."

I helped Archie walk, while Faith lead us over to a row of wooden cabinets attached to the battlefield side of the gym. She opened one up and pulled out one of literally hundreds of small, yellow, circular containers. She pried it open to reveal a pale, blueish-cream colored paste inside.

"Hold still." She instructed before applying it on both Archie and my injuries. The paste stung and burned when she first rubbed it in, but within a moment that was replaced by a soothing cold sensation.

"This is a special medicine developed by our own base's medical staff. It's made from a combination of Sitrus, Lum, and Aspear berries, along with... Well, after that I forget, but the important thing is that it'll get those minor injuries repaired -as long as you keep outta fights and such." Faith explained.

"Good timing for a break anyway, it's nearly lunch time." Archie stated.

"You always know when it's lunch time." I chuckled.

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        As our group of four munched on our lunch, I made sure to periodically glance over at my shoulder to track any amount of healing as Faith had described.

If I hadn't had watched it occur, I wouldn't have believed it. I watched in awe as the the charcoal-black burn marks melted away, and the punctures filled in with new flesh. I was dumbstruck.

"Wow, this stuff really works..." I muttered.

Faith nodded in agreement. "We're really fortunate to have our base be the inventor of it. It saves the everyone time, and the nurses the trouble of dealing with every little accident."

"Say, you said this stuff doesn't work under certain conditions, right?"

"Right. You have to stay out of battles in order for this stuff to work correctly." She paused for a moment and contemplated something. "Well, actually, that's not entirely correct. It's actually more about stress levels. If you're under a lot of stress, it still won't work, battle or not."

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        After lunch, positions were reset, with the obvious exception of replacing one purple snake man with a pink sheep lady.

Monica signaled for the match to begin. If my first battle had taught me anything, it was that making the first move, especially a blind, unthoughtful one, was a bad idea.

So I stood firmly in place, allowing Faith to make the first attack. But it didn't come. She stood in her starting position as well. However, unlike me, her face bore an expression of nervousness, mixed with a hint of confusion.

Archie had said that Faith didn't battle but once in a blue moon, and it was showing. It seemed like she wasn't sure what to do.

"Uh, guys? The battle...?" Monica waved her tail, as if to snap the two of us out of trance.

I grunted at her, although no one but me would ever hear the near-silent noise of discontent. It was obvious that she wasn't going to start. I was gonna have to kick-start the battle.

I uncoiled a bud around my neck, and fired a Vine Whip at her. This got her attention drawn into the battle. At first she looked shocked that I'd started, but then she started quivering violently in place. It didn't make a lot of sense at first, but it soon did as her wool started sparking from the static of the wool rubbing together. The static built up,and the wool started standing on end, until all of her wool suddenly poofed out, covering her in a large ball of fuzz.

The vine struck its target violently, but it was no match for the wall of fluff surrounding Faith. It was a relatively rare maneuver, but because of how big a Pokemon fan I was, I recognized it as Cotton Guard.

The wool de-fluffed as the static coursed out of it and into the orb on her tail. The ball shone bright as she swung it forward, and fired a powerful Charge Beam.

The laser blasted into my chest. The electricity coursed throughout my body, but it  strangely didn't hurt that bad. I shrugged the blow off, and retaliated with a Body Slam.

The blow was strong enough to knock her to the ground, and the momentum forced me on top. Faith struggled desperately to remove herself from the attack, but I held her down like a vice. If I could get her paralyzed, it would be checkmate.

Faith wasn't about to let me win, however. Suddenly the will to battle flooded her body, and with strength renewed, she wiggled her tail from underneath the two of us and positioned the orb directly between us. Her eyes shot close as the orb loosed a blinding Flash, nearly searing my corneas.

The light startled me, and I could feel the Flaaffy slip out as I jumped from astonishment.

Before I could manage to recover my vision, I felt the blast of another Charge Beam make contact with my side. I needed to see her, both to retaliate and dodge, but the gruesome pain in my eyes were making it hard to even open them.

I forced myself to pry them open, but wasn't exactly a big improvement. Everything looked white, with black silhouettes dancing about, and a series of ever changing, multicolored aura spots scattered about.

I did notice that one of the specks was oddly sheep-like and moving rather fast. Which I of course realized was Faith.

I launched an Ancientpower at the shape. I could barely make out Faith getting hit directly in the chest by the rock, and toppled backwards. I took advantage of the momentary lapse of battle to blink furiously in an attempt to return my vision to normal.

Basic sight returned first, quickly followed by depth perception and details. Everything was in muted color, but at least I could see by the time Faith bounced back.

And good thing too, because the second she was on her feet, a spiraling beam of red, green, and blue whizzed by my head. "Gah, Signal Beam., that's not good. Better not get hit by that..."

Faith grinned and swung her tail forward once again. Electricity arched across the field, and the orb turned into a kaleidoscope of yellows, greens, and reds.

I didn't know what she was trying, but I could certainly tell that I didn't want to be the target.

I wrapped a Vine Whip around her leg and attempted to chuck her across the room. Unfortunately, she managed to straighten out in mid-air and aim her tail again.

"Take this! Lighthouse Beam!"

A Charge Beam coated by a Signal Beam jolted from the orb. The laser felt like a truck hit me square in the chest when it zapped me. The oxygen flew out of my lungs and I toppled over like a house of cards.

As I gasped for air, my sight slowly split into a duel vision perspective. The two disks of my sight spun in a counter-clockwise fashion, edging to and fro from the center. Was this... Confusion?

I struggled to stand against my now jelly-like legs. I lashed at Faith with a Vine Whip just to keep her away, but just moments after the swing, I felt a sharp sting across my face. In my confusion I hadn't noticed the vine had swung back and whipped me.

I had to do something to keep her distracted, if only momentarily, so I could try to shake the status condition.

"Wait... Status condition!" I thought.

I expelled a thick purple haze of PoisonPowder from the buds on my neck. Faith hacked and tried to wave away the mist with her stubby Flaaffy arms.

I shook my head violently, trying to jar my mind back into place. Apparently it worked, because the two disks fused back into one, and I could see Faith chocking on the powder clear as day.

"Time to finish this!" I boldly exclaimed.

An Ancientpower erupted from the ground as par my command. I wrapped a Vine Whip around it, and using it like a medieval mace, I swiped  it into Faith.

The bash sent her flying twenty yards, and then rolling another thirty. She groaned slightly while holding her side before a raising a quivering hand. "I... give up. I can't go on." She sighed.

"Then Cecil is the victor! Again!" Monica announced.

The three of us walked over to Faith, and with a smile on both our faces, I pulled her up. We all walked her over to a bench where she could take a second to recover.

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         Meanwhile, high in the bleachers out of sight of everyone, a Sigilyph sat with a ghostly white Ninetales.

"See? I told you this kid's got some natural talent. With some grooming, he could make it to the top." Sammy said.

The Ninetales smiled gently and twirled one of her tails. "Hm... It could be. You're instincts haven't lead us asunder so far."

The Ninetales closed her eyes as if deeply contemplating something.

Sammy starred at her. "Uh... Miss Vivian?"

Vivian slowly opened her eyes just a crack. "I want you to battle him. As soon as you can do it with out tipping him off to what's going on."

Sammy jumped at the sudden order. "W-what? But he's new, I could obliterate him if he isn't ready!"

"Precisely my point. If he can survive a round with you, we can be sure he's ready for more." Vivian smirked.

Sammy looked at her with an air of disgust at her plan, but he nodded his head anyway.