Chương 86: 49-S&R

Trotting down the hill as fast as possible without turning the decent into a tumble, Tanya's more rounded shape is forcing her to keep near total focus on the task while listening to Amelia get details from Taillow with half an ear.

"So you didn't see the 'mon?" The trainer conforms.

"No." Taillow responds, gently gliding in the air next to them.

"There's a bunch of magnemite floating around, I overheard that someone was stuck before they noticed me and I–" He cuts himself off, pumping his wings a few times.

"... I went to get you." Amelia grunts in confirmation as they get to the bottom of the hill and continue down the trail until Taillow flutters higher and peels off the path to the right. Seeing this, the trainer pauses and drops her backpack before reaching into her pocket, pulls out an emergency beacon and presses the test button to ensure it's still working, before pocketing it again and steps off the trail.

Tanya drops her own bag and follows, trailing behind slightly against her partner's larger stride on long flat sections but making up that lost distance by using her proportionally lighter body and greater strength to leap over obstacles while the human is forced to climb.

Getting closer to the site of the landslide, the 'mon is thankful to confirm what she'd seen at a distance to be the cause of the landslide, that being a large deposit of stones stacked up on the side of the nearby hill, almost all of which fell into the valley. Which means the chance of them getting caught in a secondary slide has gone down significantly.

Ahead, Tanya sees Taillow sitting just beneath the ridge of a large rock with loose stones surrounding it in a thin carpet that only gets thicker as it goes forward. The dusty air coats her tongue as she comes to a stop at the beginning of the landslide, Amelia sliding down the rock she'd had to climb over and coming alongside a second later.

"Ahead?" Tanya asks, gesturing forward and frowning at Taillow's nod. These rocks…

"This isn't safe to walk on if it gets any thicker." Amelia muses, mirroring her partner's thoughts before looking over at her.

"Do we…" Tanya narrows her eyes, staring at the thin pile of stones. It's unstable, if they put their weight in the wrong spot they could cause a void to collapse and swallow them up. Attempting to simply move the rocks only magnifies the risk unless she wants to remove all the stones within a wide area. Which would slow them down so much to be almost useless, not only that, but the stones don't just disappear.

What would she do after picking the rocks up that wouldn't make her cleared channel another miniature landslide waiting to happen? No, it's obvious, moving the stones is out of the question. But if… Her eyes flare purple, and every rock in a wide radius glows faintly in a matching shade. She does get a small amount of feedback on the objects she's grabbing with telekinesis, most likely enough to determine where voids are and prevent any shifts from harming them.

The purple glow brightens slightly as the 'mon takes her first step onto the still dusty stones.

"Follow me." Moving slowly, Tanya carefully investigates every stone with this strange version of proprioception and pushes down the slowly developing headache that using her psychic energy as a new sense seems to cause. But slow movement is still movement, and only a few minutes later she catches sight of a group of over twenty magnemite buzzing agitatedly around a seemingly random patch of rocks, clearly attempting to dig a hole, but unable as the rocks slide back down every time they remove one.

However, as soon as the 'mon catch sight of them the magnemite begin buzzing angrily, electricity crackling across their bodies.

"Go away!" It buzzes, a call that's echoed by several more as they realize there's an intruder, floating toward them slightly and buzzing louder to ward them off. Amelia grunts as she leans out from behind her partner, looking at the scene.

"Yea, that looks like someone's stuck… hopefully." She mutters, before continuing in a shout.

"Hey! My name is Amelia Joy! I'm here to hel–"" Go Away!" The magnemite buzz even louder, yet more abandoning their attempts to dig a hole and joining the electrified barrier"... Shoot. Uhh. I thought that would work." Amelia stutters.

"Ah. Taillow, I need you to get the attention of as many as you can while Chansey gets close and rescues whoever's stuck." Taillow, who'd also decided to move behind Tanya's back so she's between him and the electric types, lets out an alarmed screech.

"Wh– No! Are you crazy!?" He calls.

"I can't fight–""You just need to distract them. Throw some attacks, make noise, then use double team and dodge to pull them away from Chansey." Amelia interrupts.

"You've got this." There's a few seconds of silence.

"Alright." He mutters.

"Alright!" Amelia shouts back.

"Go Taillow!" There's the rustling flap of wings and Tanya sees the 'mon enter her line of sight, gaining height before dipping into a dive shooting toward the magnemite. As he falls into range, the wall of 'mon flare with electricity in preparation for an attack, but the instant before the fire Taillow flares open his wings and dips below the bolt of lightning before bringing them together again in an air slash that hits two. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen.

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"H-ha!" He shouts with wavering bravado.

"Missed m– Ah!" He tucks his wings and changes directions, forcing another attack overshoot before firing another air slash at them from a distance. Sure enough, as Taillow continues his pestering assault, one magnemite breaks ranks and starts charging after him, followed by another, and another. Then the avian dodges another attack and flies just over the group and about three fourths give chase. Seeing this, Amelia taps her partner on the back.

"I'll stay here, you got this?" Tanya doesn't respond, instead continuing forward toward where the few remaining magnemite are still trying to dig. Slowly making her way around potentially unstable areas, her attention is suddenly drawn to the remaining 'mon around the attempted hole as they flare with electricity in preparation for an attack, and with the surrounding terrain unstable, she can do nothing but push more energy to reinforce her bulk and stand there as the lightning…

Splashes off of her bulk like water, leaving a faint tingling sensation but little else. Ah. That was… More lightning splashes off of her, but the feeling is muted even further as she draws yet energy to the surface of and pushes against the foreign sensation. … less intense than she'd expected. Continuing forward, her eyes flare brighter as a crude glob of psychic energy shoots out and knocks one of the remaining 'mon from the sky.

Steadily followed by another attack in time with each footstep until two remaining magnemite fly away and Tanya comes to a stop at the shallow hole in the stones. Now what? … ah. Focusing, she sends out a large wave of psychic energy until she finds a space beneath her a few steps away where it seems to be weakly repulsed. Almost certainly where the trapped 'mon is. Yet more electricity hits and is almost harmlessly repulsed as she carefully considers the makeup of the rocks on top of her target.

It's loosely packed, but the forces on the rocks are complicated, to do this with minimal wasted energy expenditure… Tanya blinks as she catches the thought, before every stone in a ten metre radius begins to glow a vibrant purple as bright as a small fire then lift into the air all at once. As the stones give way to the bedrock and her target. Tanya's first thought at the sight of the 'mon underneath is that she's glad Amelia isn't here to see it. The 'mon is, in a word, a mess.

Moving yet more rock to create a ramp down, Tanya comes to a stop above the half crushed form of a rather large magnemite, breathing labored and cracks all across its metallic shell. Immediately she reaches out to press a heal pulse onto the 'mon but catches the action as she remembers attempting to heal without removing foreign objects and with the 'mon in an improper shape will cause major problems.

So she gets to work, using a combination of two words medical training and intuition to work through something neither trained her for. With the 'mon being so weakened, she can easily override its natural defence against her psychic energy and find the various pieces of rock lodged inside the body, which are carefully removed. But as the bright red flecks are removed, the 'mon does not respond to the sensation. Which is… concerning. Tanya narrows her eyes.

There is a proper procedure for this, but she's seen enough people dying of major organ damage to know when it's time to ignore best practices and inject someone with all the adrenaline in a medkit. Reaching down, she picks the heavily injured 'mon off the ground and uses a combination of telekinesis and physical poking to get things into approximately the right shape before easing her ironclad control and tapping into the raw power bubbling beneath her skin directly. I love you.

Both herself and the injured 'mon suddenly emit so many green sparkles that Tanya can't see for almost half a minute, but by the time they do dissipate and the spots in her eyes clear from the bright light, she sees her attempted healing managed to seal surface damage at least. Things continue to look up when the magnemite's eye snaps open in alarm and a violent pulse of electricity smashes into her, causing both of her arms to tingle like she'd stuck her tongue on the meanest nine volt battery.

She's using a lot of energy to shield herself from the foreign energy, which is extremely wasteful, but… Another pulse of electricity hits her and it barely even makes a dent in her reserves.

"Stop that." She grunts, carefully keeping hold as the 'mon struggles to free itself as she walks out from beneath the glowing shadow of the levitating rocks and they fly back to their original positions.

"You were injured recently and your compatriots made it significantly harder to assist you. Alert them that you are alright and request they stop attacking." The magnemite buzzes with more energy, but freezes as Tanya glares.

"You– You're really a chansey?" It asks, the question proving that it's in need of more medical assistance.

"But– those eyes–" Tanya rolls 'those eyes' in irritation. It shouldn't surprise her that the 'mon is incoherent.

"Yes. I am. Now I need you to– Oh nevermind." Tanya cuts herself off, turning to her partner across the rocky terrain, where she's calling order to Taillow, and holds the 'mon up.

"Amelia!" Her partner looks back and smiles as she sees Magnemite, then starts waving her arms wildly to get the other wild 'mon's attention.

"Hey everyone! Look! Chansey got them!" She says, pointing at Magnemite.

"Are you alright?" There's a momentary silence, broken by Tanya muttering from behind." Answer."

"I-I-I'm alright!" It shouts, voice panicked.

"Deat– The Chansey healed me! Stop attacking!" At the 'mon's voice, the droning electric buzz of attacks and flight quickly quiets to almost nothing. At this Amelia waves her partner to approach before looking around to the other magnemite and shouting up at them.

"Now! We've helped you! But there might be other'mon trapped under here as well! So I need you to help us!" She shouts, but as she turns her head Tanya sees a singular magnemite charging an attack to hit the trainer from behind. However, before it can even get halfway through charging its electricity, an air slash strikes the 'mon on the side, sending it swiftly to the ground. A second later, Taillow flares his wings out of the dive and comes to rest on her trainer's shoulder as she continues.

"I think you can sense steel and electric types with your magnetic abilities! So you're going to search this area for anyone else who's stuck! Everyone separate into groups of three!" Tanya slowly releases the formerly trapped magnemite and begins to toss ghostly healing eggs at all the 'mon within range as she approaches her teammates, Amelia giving quiet instructions to Taillow and gesturing at the landslide in wide sweeping gestures.