Associates

At first, there was confusion. The few teams that were still around didn’t know what was going on. A random gang, looking for Simon for some reason, daring to attack the guild like nothing?

But after that second of confusion, there was determination. The one thing they knew was that they were going to attack back.

Except for Mark, he was still terrified and confused. He quickly hid below one of the tables.

“Mark, what the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you helping?”

Verm was still with him, now camouflaged as a shadow.

“R-remember the amnesia? I don’t know how to use moves! I c-can’t fight!”

“For real?! But Simon said… Ok, now is not the time for that, just stay hidden here, I’ll protect you.”

He had a bit of hope left in him, he saw how Simon and Rose fought, they’d be fine.

…Except they weren’t, the fight was actually very one-sided, and the guild was losing.

“Verm, they’re not going to win.”

The ghost didn’t respond. He knew.

“Who are these guys? What about the type? There has to be something I can do.”

“The leader is an Abomasnow, grass and ice-type. The others… there’s a Poliwrath, water-fighting; Dragonite, dragon-flying; Ariados, bug-poison; and that’s a Houndoom, dark-fire.”

“Shit, they’re rounded…”

And they knew how to fight as a team, too. Whenever a type disadvantage or a specially strong move were approaching, another member would step forward and take the hit so it wouldn’t do as much damage.

It was… chaos.

Mark searched for Simon, he needed to make sure he was okay. Thankfully, he was. Him and Rose were still fighting, but the Dragonite would always get in the way of their attacks and tank them.

“Okay, how do you defeat a team like this…?” Mark thought out loud.

“I don’t think you can…”

And that gave Mark the plan.

“Exactly! You can’t defeat them as a team.” Mark smirked. “Which means we gotta separate them. Verm! You had Poison stuff, right?”

“Uh, yeah.” Verm was a bit concerned about whatever Mark had planned, but the determination in his eyes wasn’t there for nothing, he guessed.

“Ok, cool, c’mon!” And he ran off.

“Wait, what are you doing?!” Verm followed behind.

But the Cubone didn’t listen, instead rushing up to the Abomasnow and whacking it with his bone club. He knew it was going to do nothing, but damage wasn’t what he wanted.

The ice monster looked confused, but smirked. “Oh, you also want to fight, huh?”

Mark ran away, with the Abomasnow following him. Once they were far away enough, he yelled. “Verm! Now!”

The ghost followed through by launching a torrent of a purple liquid to the leader of the gang, making it fall to the ground.

“Okay, keep at it!” Mark rushed to the others. Specifically, he rushed to Simon after the Squirtle was thrown around by the Dragonite.

Mark looked around, Rose was with him, checking on Simon as well. “Rose, help Verm out!”

She nodded and immediately left.

‘Okay, Mark, think. Who’s strong against a Dragonite? I know Simon doesn’t have any ice moves but…’

“Dave!” The Prinplup looked, he was scared, trying to protect himself from the Ariados. “Focus on the Dragonite! We’ll keep them separate!”

“Mark… What are you…” Simon groaned, getting up from the ground.

“No time to talk, you and Alphonse keep up with Houndoom.” He helped the Squirtle get on his feet. “C’mon, dude, you can do it.”

Mark’s mind was running. He took a look to see what was going on. Sanah understood the plan and started to get the Poliwrath away so they could fight one-on-one.

That only left the Ariados, who was being a big nuisance to all of Mark’s allies. He thought for a second and rushed upstairs.

‘How are the guild staff not here yet? Did they really not hear all the noise?’

He would get the answer soon, as when he arrived, the first thing he saw was Charlie completely asleep in the corner of the room. By his position, this wasn’t a thing of tiredness, he was made to fall asleep.

“Charlie! C’mon, we need help!” Mark shook him around aggressively. It took a while, but the Drowzee finally opened his eyes.

“H-huh? What… What happened? Who are… didn’t I see you earlier?”

“There’s no time to explain, there’s a fight downstairs and we need help.”

Charlie’s eyes widened. He clumsily got up and ran.

‘Okay, that should help, I need to check the others.’

As it turns out, both Lily and the Samurott from the training hall were in the same predicament, asleep against their wills. There was no time to take care of them too.

Mark rushed back to the lobby, hoping Charlie would’ve made a difference.

It did, but not as big as he had hoped. With the gang members separated, the fight became much more feasible, but these guys were really strong, having them fight only one or two of the guild members was almost a guaranteed win for the group.

Mark even saw the Breloom gain confidence and fight along Sanah.

Things weren’t going well, until a loud sound came from one of the corners. The main door had opened with a slam, and on the other side, there was none other than Gren.

Behind them? Like three or four more guild teams.

“I don’t remember allowing such a scene in my guild.” Gren stomped forward. They were small compared to the others, but damn if that voice didn’t inflict fear.

The guild members all stopped, which made some of them take a hit from the attackers.

And that was a mistake.

Gren jumped to the Poliwrath and hit it with what Mark could only assume was something psychic. The Poliwrath flew to the wall and was immediately out. Just like that.

“Hey! You’re gonna pay for that!” The Abomasnow shouted before trying to punch Gren, but they dodged by jumping into the air and dropping into the ice monster with force.

That was the cue everyone needed to continue the fight except, with Gren in the picture, the plan to separate the group was off. Everyone jumped on the Grumpig right away.

Mark hid again, not wanting to risk it. The numbers were now in their favor, he would only be a nuisance getting in there.

He wasn’t expecting Simon to crawl below the table with him, he was holding his arm in pain.

“Are you okay?”

“W-what the hell, Simon? You’re the one fighting out there! Are you okay?!”

He chuckled sadly. “No, I’m not…” He looked back to the fight. “Either these guys are really really strong, or I’m losing my abilities. Because they are kicking my ass.”

Simon looked hurt, but not only emotionally. He was full of bruises, and his shell had some small pieces chipped off. Even his mouth was dropping a small trickle of blood.

“Simon, don’t get back out there.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t you see how hurt you are? You have done all you can, now rest. We have more teams now, we’re doing alright.”

He closed his eyes and left out a breath. “Ok, you win.” He slumped down, shaking his head. “Fuck, that hurt…”

Mark was torn between monitoring the fight in case something bad happened and focusing on Simon to take care of him. In the end, he tuned out the battle.

“Does your shell heal?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, it’ll take a few days maybe, but I’ll be fine.”

“Let me see your arm.”

“Mark…”

“Please.”

“I’m fine.”

“Dude.” Mark was staring at him, he wasn’t taking a ‘no’ for a response.

Simon let go of the grip on his arm and showed it. It was bleeding due to a pretty big and deep cut. “That Houndoom tried to bite me. It didn’t get a grip but… yeah.”

Mark took off his bandana and used it as an impromptu bandage to stop the bleeding.

“Mark, that’s…”

“We can clean it off, this is more important.”

Simon sighed, he didn’t like to worry his friend, especially for something he didn’t feel like it was that big of a deal.

While that was happening, however, they noticed that the battle noise slowed down. When they looked, they had already won.

“And that’s why you don’t pick fights with the Supernova Guild.” Gren announced proudly.

Mark helped Simon get out of their hiding spot. The gang was there, immobile and unconscious… except one.

“Where’s the Abomasnow?”

“They ran away. We were going to go after them but the others were still kicking.” Gren approached the two. “Good job out there! I’ve heard from Verm that you helped strategize, Mark.”

“It was nothing, just making sure I did the little I could do.”

“You say that, but I don’t think they would’ve lasted until we arrived if it wasn’t for you. So really, good job.” Mark couldn’t hide the blush.

“Just take the compliment, newbie.” Verm floated beside him and softly punched him on the shoulder. Yeah, Verm was alright.

The teams were all congratulating or high-fiving each other. There was relief in Mark’s mind.

It lasted a grand total of two seconds, until Simon spoke.

…

“Where’s Rose?”