Chapter 38 – Fiercest Warrior

Lexxi, Rickety and Iron Valiant remain still and motionless, staring each other down, waiting for the other side to strike. The ticking of Temporal Tower echoes overhead, the rumbling of the floor slowly, gradually growing more intense in waves. It was almost like a staring contest, two sides fiercely staring each other down.

Suddenly, Iron Valiant’s position shifts, and at the speed of sound it lunges forward towards Lexxi and swings its blade, the two of them quickly dodging out of the way. But Iron Valiant wasn’t done. Charging up its blade, crackling with electricity, it plunges its blade into the stony floor of the tower, electrical shocks transmitting through the floor.

Rickety goes into his flow state, necklace activating, his surroundings slowing down, giving him just enough time to run up to Iron Valiant and strike him with-

Iron Valiant reacts fast, frighteningly fast, even through the slowdown. Its body, while moving not as fast as it could be, still reacts too fast for Rickety to reasonably counteract. It grabs Rickety with its free hand, breaking the flow state and causing time to go back to normal. Gripping the Riolu tightly, it throws him back, sending him crashing back into a pillar.

Lexxi tries to catch Iron Valiant by surprise, running up behind it and getting ready to smack it with her tail, jumping into the air and winding up to strike at it, but just like it did with Rickety, it swiftly turns around to counteract her intended attack. It grabs her by the face and thrusts her down against the ground, keeping her held down as the electric shocks from its halberd continue to spread throughout the floor, sending fiery bursts of electricity throughout her whole body.

Growling angrily , Rickety quickly gets back up and rushes towards Iron Valiant. But this time, he anticipates Iron Valiant trying to come back after him. He pretends to get ready to strike to throw off the machine, which works to mild success.

Iron Valiant reaches out to grab Rickety, but Rickety had already dodged to the side by the time Iron Valiant had tried to grab him. This doesn’t exactly stop Iron Valiant though. The machine merely course corrects, turning its body in the direction that Rickety had turned to. The Riolu manages to get a blow in, causing a strained beeping noise to emit when his fists collides with the machine’s face, but the machine pays this in turn by grabbing Rickety’s face as well.

Lexxi, still on the ground, takes advantage of her position despite the searing pain she’s in. She wraps her tail around Iron Valiant’s leg tightly, coiling around it and giving it a quick, firm pull!

Iron Valiant promptly falls to the ground with a thud, dropping Rickety from its grip, giving the Riolu time to recover. But Iron Valiant, despite being downed, wasn’t one to dismiss an opportunity when it saw one. Its metallic foot kicks Lexxi right in the stomach, causing her tail to unwind and send her skidding back against the floor.

What Iron Valiant hadn’t realized was that during this time, Rickety had grabbed its halberd out of the ground, trying to wield it for himself. Rickety swings on edge of the halberd down at Iron Valiant, the machine pushing itself back up to its feet, the metallic sound of the blade scraping against the floor as Rickety tries to lift it back up for another attack.

The weapon was too unruly for Rickety to use properly, though, the weight of the two blades severely threw him off balance, leaving enough time for Iron Valiant to grab the halberd midswing, knocking Rickety away with the other end of the blade, grazing his arm, causing him to yelp out in pain as he skids across the floor, clutching at his arm.

Iron Valiant, now reequipped, starts making its way towards Rickety, but a tiny little object plinks against its metallic body. It was a seed, allure seed from the looks of it. It turns to face the direction it had been thrown from, its eyes landing right on Lexxi, who seemed a bit confident at first, but her expression drooped into worry when she sees the seed had no effect. _{Right, robots can’t hallucinate.}

The machine starts charging straight at her, swiping its blade at her, dodging out of the way in just the nick of time, Iron Valiant’s blade momentarily becoming embedded into the stone pillar she’d been standing in front of. Iron Valiant, as strong as it was, had a difficult time pulling its blade back out from the pillar.

This left it wide open. While it was struggling to pull its blade back out, Lexxi and Rickety strike it at the same time, Rickety striking it with a strong, firm force palm and Lexxi going with the good old strategy of giving the machine a smack with her tail.

Iron Valiant lets out another series of beeps as its body is impacted twice, its eyes briefly appearing as Xs as its knocked to the ground, pulling its blade out with it, but also slicing the pillar in half, sending it tumbling down towards Rickety and Lexxi.

They dodge the actual pillar, but are struck with some of the debris flying out from the collateral damage crashing out over the arena. And when an opportunity presents itself, Iron Valiant, as always, takes advantage of it. It starts winging at the debris with its blade, sending chucks of rock and stone hurdling towards Rickety and Lexxi.

Rickety, able to enter a flow state and dodge out of the debris in time thanks to the powers of his necklace, at least manages to make it out unscathed, but Lexxi isn’t so lucky, getting pelted by rock after rock, sending her stumbling down to the ground, trying to shield herself from the oncoming debris with her tail.

Little did she know that this too was leaving her open for an attack.

Iron Valiant, having reattached its blades to its arms, charges for Lexxi once again, firmly gripping her around the base of her tail. Lexxi tries to swat the machine away, but it just grips her more firmly, swinging towards the keystone, knocking her into the wall with a harsh impact.

Rickety is enraged by the sight of this and rushes towards Iron Valiant without thinking, ready to strike it with all his force he can muster. Iron Valiant turns around and swings at him, Rickety having gotten used to swiftly moving and entering a flow state, but not even activating his necklace this time, driven by pure anger.

He clenches his fist tightly, ducking under Iron Valiant’s armblades as it swipes at him, sending a firm, powerful uppercut straight into the bottom of the machine’s mouth- Or lack thereof, more accurately.

The machine lets out another series of irritated beeps, having had enough of this little mutt. Swiftly recovering and standing its ground, it spreads its arms wide and swipes at them, the blades detaching from its arms and quickly spinning around its body. It hits Rickety, and it hits him hard, one of the blades striking his chest with a large cut going straight across, sending him crashing back against another pillar, breathing weakly, body trembling, but still trying to stand back up.

The necklace around Lexxi’s neck begins to beat, her heartbeat growing louder in her ears as it beats rhythmically in her chest. She can’t let it hurt him like that, she won’t! Gathering all the strength within her, leaping towards Iron Valiant, getting ready to strike-

Before its bladed arm swiftly swing back, swiping down across her chest in a much harsh tone than it did Rickety’s, sending her plummeting down to the ground to the ground, limp. It cut deep, possibly having struck a nerve, or something even worse… Her whole body is searing and she feels incredibly lightheaded, panting heavily, too weak to move.

The Iron Valiant stares down at her. “Target neutralized.” It says in that cold, monotone voice, turning back in Rickety’s direction and leaving Lexxi for dead.

The Skitty tries with all her might to push herself back up onto all fours, but she can’t feel her limbs. Everything feels too tingly to do anything, and she sees darkness creeping around the edges of her vision. She needs to get back up. But she’s so… Tired…

Her heartbeat begins to sound dull and muffled in her ears as she lays on the ground, breathing weakly, shallowly. Her eyes close, her vision growing darker, darker, seeing Iron Valiant slowly walking towards Rickety, getting ready to finish him off as well.

Everything goes blank…

But suddenly, she feels a surge of energy rush through her body!

The Wonderbag lights up, the revival seed floating out of the bag, being absorbed into Lexxi’s body, healing her of the wounds she’s sustained from the Iron Valiant. But not only that, she felt invigorated, strengthened, fully healed.

The beating of her necklace makes her feel stronger, more determined than ever. She sees Iron Valiant closing in on Rickety. She won’t allow that. She charges at Iron Valiant with all her might, rushing towards him.

It’s head tilts to the side, clearly not having expected her to get back up. It tries to swing its bladed arms at Lexxi, but with her newfound power, Lexxi is much, much faster than Iron Valiant. Her tail reaches for one of its arms, wrapping around it and tearing it clean off, a mass of wires and cables dangling out from where its arm once was, electricity crackling.

Another series of beeps emits from the machine, clearly trying to find a way to function without the use of one of its arms, but leaves itself wide open during this state of dysfunction. Lexxi lands hit after hit on the machine with her tail, smacking its face straight into the stone pillar, cracking one of its visored eyes.

With one last smack of her tail, she knocks the machine away, sending it clattering to the ground, along with the weapon in its hand. Its still functioning eye socket displayed a bright, flickering X, before finally, Iron Valiant shuts down, the glowing, pink neurachem in its body fading out.

Lexxi pants heavily, sweat covering her body as the beating of the necklace slowly fades out, going back to normal. She wants to collapse right then and there, but of course, they’re not done yet.

She turns back to Rickety, rushing over to him as much as her body will allow, rushing over to his side. “A-Are you alright?! H-He didn’t get you too bad, did he?!”

Rickety smiles weakly, shaking his head unevenly. “N-Nah… He kinda got me good here, but,” Rickety points to his chest, a deep gash, some of his fur stained red, shakily pushing himself back up. “I-I should be fine… Hurts bad, but I’ll be fine, I’ll be okay… Oogh-” Only to then fall right back down against the pillar. _“Ow.” He groans, shaking his head. “L-Lexxi, hand me an oran berry, please?”

He doesn’t even have to ask. She’s already reaching for the oran berry by the time Rickety fell back down, quickly handing it over to him, practically shoving it into his mouth by the time he’s finished talking. “Muuuagh- Mmnhh.” _Chew. “Oh, come on, I can still feed myself, heh…”

“You take care of me, I take care of you.” She smiles softly at him, glancing back at the now deactivated Iron Valiant. “It’s over, though… We won.”