I Want To Lay the Very Best!

178 – Improptu Training Session

Walking into a trap was better an idea than it sounded. It came with some valuable perks.

Pokémon fought better when worked up, and the anticipation of a tough fight was almost as powerful for getting their blood racing as a short skirt and stockings. It also meant everyone was on high alert. Eventually, they'd have run into a trap by accident. At least this way, they knew it was coming and soon. Calcine and Tansy worked together to sense along the rocks, trying to find Noibat using Roost to hide above them. Sparky clambered onto Brandy's back and acted like a second head so nothing got overlooked.

Inheriting Sparky's eyes kept paying off; Calcine's fire lit up the tunnels, but her eyes turned that light source into almost perfect clarity. It was like she was outdoors, except even brighter and more vivid. Brandy was seeing a few colors that didn't exist before. Morgan's wind had been barely visible before, but now it was highlighted with a green that was also white?

It was hard even to describe how something could be two colors simultaneously. Like explaining what orange is to someone who'd only ever seen red and Yellow. There just weren't words that'd properly describe it.

Elizabeth, the Noibat, was walking ahead, leading them down a mine shaft wide enough to walk two abreast. The wooden supports were rotting on the walls, missing pieces that'd probably fallen off and been removed. They'd all been replaced by smooth stone pillars from Pokémon who didn't want the place coming down on their heads, which made Brandy wonder something.

"Why don't you just clear all this old wood away?" Brandy said, "It just makes the place look old."

"That's the vibe!" Elizabeth grinned. "A dangerous place for adventurous and sexy ladies."

"But it's completely safe," Brandy said, "It's a fake danger."

"Well, we don't want our humans getting hurt," Elizabeth said, "It still works. If you make something look rickety and old, people will think it is. Even if it's tough enough to take big hits."

"Yeah, humans are pretty stupid," Sparky nodded, her weight shifting on Brandy's back, forcing her to stop. She gave Brandy's cheek a peck of a kiss. "With exceptions."

"Right!" Elizabeth cackled. "With exceptions."

Pokémon using the environment to lure humans. Brandy had done classes on how to lure Pokémon, the particular things that attracted different types, like how Poison Types couldn't resist a competition or Flying Types a lady on her own. No one had ever mentioned that lures could go both ways. It was an intriguing idea. Wouldn't that mean Noibats love the adventurous and fearless sorts if true?

The shaft turned and opened into a vast cavern. The ceiling was high and craggy, with stalactites hanging from above and stalagmites rising up below. An old rusting minecart track cut a path through the room and out either end.

Morgan and Calcine didn't even wait. It was such an obvious ambush spot they jumped right to lighting up the ceiling. The jetstream of fire from Calcine's hand spread around with Morgan's winds to form a fiery tornado. Maybe they could have used the stalactites to hide up there, but Brandy was watching real close, and she didn't see even a whisper of movement amongst the flames.

The cave air was getting hot when Brandy clicked her fingers to signal a stop.

"Oh," Elizabeth shrugged, her bat wings scrunching up as she turned back to look at them guiltily. "Honestly, I thought they'd be here. Promise."

"Kind of an obvious spot to use numbers. You could swarm us here from all sides." Morgan suspiciously stared at Elizabeth from under the brim of her hat, "You're not just wasting our time?"

Tansy sniffed the air, her fluffy tail wagging as she walked into the cavern's center. It was fun to watch her work. She stretched tall to smell things, which showed off her gorgeous stomach muscles. "They were here. I can smell Nova."

"You can track by scent?" Calcine sighed. "Why didn't you do that earlier?"

"No!" Tansy planted her hands on her hips, ears flattening as her tail whipped behind her. "Just because I look a bit like a dog doesn't mean I have a dog nose! Nova's blasts have a sharp smell to them; even you could smell it."

Brandy sniffed, and it just smelled musty. It sounded like Tansy had a bit of a dog nose to Brandy.

"She can't be far then. We should wait here." Brandy said, "Set an ambush of our own?"

"How sure are you she's coming back?" Calcine said, just as a roar of clattering metal sounded down a corridor. Like a rollercoaster at full tilt, parts clacked together as they approached. "Well," Calcine shrugged, "That answers that."

"Sparky, it's big web time. We can catch this minecart." Brandy said, "Calcine, Tansy, make a pillar on either side of the tracks for Sparky."

The pair working together made two pillars of rock crash up out of the ground and nearly topple over. Calcine quickly smoothed off the bases with a run of her hand, the sheer heat of her touch melting the rock under her fingertips like clay and letting her thicken the base. Sparky bounced between the two, running webs back and forth to make a crisscross pattern like a sticky chainlink fence. It was a denser pattern than her regular webs; a runaway minecart wouldn't be easy to stop; she'd need the extra strength.

Morgan faded into the shadows, leaving Brandy with nothing to do but hide behind one pillar. Her head peeked out to look down the tracks to glimpse the approaching cart. The light on the front of it was blinding, but squinting past it, Brandy picked out a few figures riding it. Way too many for one cart.

Because it wasn't just one cart.

"Ah fuck!" Brandy yelled over to Sparky, who was still pulling her web tight. "Sparky, forget it, it's a whole train!"

Too late. The long chain of mine carts crashed over the tracks and smashed into Sparky's webbing.

The webs stretched as they tried to hold back the cart, but it had so much mass behind it that the webs were beginning to snap.

It would all collapse in just a few seconds and let the carts go sailing on, so Brandy had to take the situation in fast.

In the lead cart, a tall Pokémon with dark blue skin grunted as the webs hit her back and snapped off an impressively sturdy set of back muscles. She had long, messy waves of even darker blue hair that the webbing got stuck in. One long quiff of hair cradled her round face and hid an eye from view, the other poking out from behind it a bright yellow and craggy like it was an inset jewel. She had an intense punkish look and a snarl on her face as she shook her head to tear the webbing free. It was throwing off her aim briefly; the colorful, glittering beams coming from the red gems that coated the back of her fingers were raking a wall.

She was standing over someone who'd fallen back into the cart, only their dark-skinned hands visible on the cart's edges. A Noibat had some glitter spread over her chest and had been slashed out of the air mid-flight. Her wings spread, ready to break her fall, as she flew out of the cart. Not that it was taking the pressure off. There was a whole swarm of them clutching the rest of the carts, clambering along the sides and over the tops of carts already scored with glittery lines.

Standing tall and calm at the back was a woman with Noibats clinging onto her like a living cape. She scratched one of them under the chin with her long, slender fingers. It was hard to see much of her around the Noibats, but she had a pair of red-tinted glasses that had big circular lenses and some gorgeous long black hair tied into a ponytail with a little bell clasp on the end. Her eyes were closed, and she had the kind of serene expression that just didn't suit the crazy situation she was in.

"Nova!" Tansy yelped, "High five me babe!"

Tansy dashed to the side of the passing cart in one bound, and the blue-skinned Pokémon snatched her hand and lifted her off her feet as the speed of the cart caught up to her. Sparky's web had broken, but Sparky was holding onto it, the strands of it wrapped around the cart, dragging her so fast she flew like a kite about it.

Brandy could have let it pass, but Tansy was a sweetheart and she wasn't about to let her fight this battle alone. She had time for one command before it all rolled past.

"Sparky, web me!"

Sparky twisted and shot a sticky line to Brandy, her boots scraping along the ground as she began to be dragged. Calcine's eyes shot wide as Brandy jumped for her.

"Slick the floor up. Slide time!" Brandy called and hit Calcine like a bowling ball, clinging onto her formidable partner as the air slammed out of her lungs. Calcine knew her well enough to guess the plan; thankfully, the ground under her became a sheer slide that dragged her along in a groove behind the mine cart. Calcine was tough as hell, and her boots matched Brandy's own. They could handle this, at least briefly, until the soles ate away.

The mine carts crashed through the room and into the tunnel beyond, Calcine smoothing out the floor and walls so they could ride after it like they were water skiing. Morgan chased them, wings beating madly as she tried to keep up without smashing into a wall.

I was working; the problem was they had a weak link now, and she wasn't happy at all.

"This is going to pull my arms off!" Sparky yelped as she acted as the link between the web attached to the carts and Calcine. "New plan quick, please!"

"Morgan!" Brandy called as she grabbed Calcine's cape and fanned it out in her hands. "Give us a boost!"

The Murkrow's wings shot forward as she sent a blast of bracing wind racing down the corridor. Brandy caught as much of it in Calcine's cape as she could, and, like an Umbrella in a storm, it nearly drove it right out of her hands. But she kept her grip tight and let the wind give them the wings to take off briefly. Glittering lasers nearly sliced their tether to Sparky as two Noibat piled Nova up front and tried to drag her down, her wild shots missing them and causing trouble for everyone else.

She and Tansy would just have to handle it for a minute. Brandy was still busy back here.

"Rapid spin us in Calcine!" Brandy said as her arms ached from holding onto the cape slipping between her fingers. "We're a yo-yo!"

It was a horrible, dizzying experience to be wound in like that. The world whipped around in circles as the web bound them together and picked up Sparky halfway, squeezing her into the spinning mess. But it worked, a thump as they spilled over the edge of the back minecart and into a pile of screeching Noibats.

"Oh!" the woman with the red glasses said, genuinely surprised. "I wasn't listening out for you. You sound simply gorgeous. Girls, Double Team our new guests."

She smiled down at Brandy, and Brandy couldn't help but notice the chompers on her. This bat-loving lady had fangs. Of course she did.

Hot. Crazy but hot.

Brandy didn't get to enjoy the sight. The rolling mass of fur and limbs around her suddenly coordinated to turn on her, hands squeezing and lips kissing her. Fangs nipped at Brandy's skin and ripped at buttons. Fuzzy ears flitted against her skin and tickled her flesh. Added to the already dizzying entrance, it was a lot to handle, and Brandy was thankful it was at least warm in this pile-on.

Now, if the world could stop spinning, that'd be great.

They'd more thrown themselves into the trap than walked into it. But at least they were here! Now she had to work out how to get out without becoming a Noibat chew toy. She wouldn't let a horde of women just worship her with little bites and excited, giggling tongues. She had a fight to win, and Trainer's to impress!  But. Well. She could take a moment to straighten her head. So maybe a few tactically necessary bites. It was no fun falling for a trap if you didn't get at least a little scuffed up.