Chapter 14: A Clean Cut, Part 2

“Take cover!” Shannah ducked Alec down, with Ontario quickly following suit. The next cut attempts whizzed by their heads, but Shannah could hear them slowly descending in on the team. 

Shannah ran by the options in her head on what Pokemon could produce this type of an attack. Bisharp isn’t this quick. Scyther and Scizor aren’t this small. And Air Cutters don’t draw this much blood…

Shannah knew that she needed to stop whatever this was in its tracks to identify what could be assaulting them. While surveying the area, she shook her feline teammate. “Alec, get one of your barriers out.” No response. When she looked over to him, Alec had a thousand-mile stare, almost hyperventilating. 

“Alec! Get a grip Alec!” She continued to shake him. No response. 

“What’s holding you two?” Onterio cried out, narrowly rolling away from another cut. 

Shannah’s blood ran cold. Alec was helpless as long as he was in this state. They had to think of something, and quick.

Fwing! Another cut, this time on the right side of her body. Shannah grunted while she crumpled a bit. Though, this did bring something to her attention– these attacks were alternating the different sides of their bodies. Once they struck from the left, they struck from the right nearly seconds later. 

Fwing! Shannah side stepped merely fractions of a second in time, this time the cut barely making contact with her left leg, only scratching the surface of her metallic scales. She then began to count down in her head. One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight…

After the 8 second count, she ever so slightly felt the breeze shift on the right side of her face. Instinctively, she dove forward, with the Fwoosh! Zipping right past her. 

She counted again. One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… Seven… Eight…

Once again, the air shifted, this time to the left side of her body. The air cutter flew right overhead, not taking into account the change in position that Shannah had taken. She had figured out part of the assault.

“Onterio!” She cried out. He was erratically dodging the cuts, with a mixed success rate. He was starting to get more tired, and blood loss was more than likely setting in due to the movement. “Onterio, it’s every 8 seconds! They’re trying to tire you out!”

Onterio shot a look at Shannah and nodded. Shannah added: “they’re alternating right and left!”

With this information, Onterio looked over to his right, and then stepped a second before the cutter flew by. From that angle, Shannah caught a faint glimpse– a small orange flash dashed by Onterio.

“How are we gonna figure out what they’re targeting though? One time it was my cheek, the next they damn near took my arm off!”

Shannah took a second to think about the strikes so far. First, it was her ear. Then, it was her torso. After that the leg… and then back to her face. 

“Coordinated body strikes. They are focusing on hitting different parts of the body so that we become more vulnerable overall. Which means the next one will be…”

Shannah formed an icicle in her hand, and the minute she felt the current change by her right leg, she slammed the icicle down, causing it to shatter into several crystalline shards. The whistle of the cutter was interrupted, causing it to spiral deeper into the woods. Shannah started to run towards the location she saw the leaves tumble, about 20 feet away.

The cutter began to levitate off of the ground. Shanna noticed that this was similar to the folded paper object that Alec was observing earlier, except this one still had its color embedded into its yellow crystal-like centerpiece, replacing a traditional face. Orange accents dappled the Pokemon’s inner folds, with bright yellow strips of paper sticking outward from its chest. Its arms were thin as the rest of it, but had a deathly sharp edge. Speckles of blood ran across those arms. Despite it being an inch tall, its threat level was incredibly potent. 

Shannah was at a loss for words. She had never seen anything like this before, let alone researched or even told about. This creature was otherworldly, and was almost certainly the culprit behind Alura’s death.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Shanna cried out, preparing another icicle. Despite her bravado, her arm was shaking with fear. 

The papercraft creature didn’t respond. Instead, it simply floated to the side before dashing away in an instant, immediately cutting into Shanna’s left arm, causing her to fall to the ground. 

She rolled back over to where Onterio was, who was fighting another entity of the same nature. “There’s two of them!” She cried out. Shannah threw down another icicle to cover his feet. Her aim wasn’t quite on point this time, but it still caused a small spinout of the creature.

“It’s nothing like I have ever seen before,” Shannah grunted. “But they’re quick as all get out. We need to find a way to stop their forward momentum. They’re small enough that one solid strike should be all we need, but–”

Onterio, in an instant, threw out a punch to the left of his head. Despite being slightly off, it made contact with the creature, causing it to spin out and dig itself into an unfelled tree. “Like that?” He smirked.

Shannah, dumbfounded, just looked at her teammate, mouth agape. Suddenly, her mind snapped to reality. “Alec!” she ran over to his limp body, still hyperventilating. 

The papercraft creatures got a few swipes on him, but he still was hanging on. Shannah had to think of something– the emergency escape option of their team badges wouldn’t work, as this place stopped being a mystery dungeon as a whole. Alec’s item sack wasn’t filled with any escape options either (“Of course he didn’t think of that, why would he?” Shannah thought to herself), and daylight was running thin. 

Whizz! Another cut came from the remaining creature, nicking Shannah on the right side of her back. She winced in pain, slowly getting more and more tired from the assault. 

Onterio came running up to Shannah. “I got a plan!”

“Better make it quick farmboy.”

“I need you to make of thems ice trails, but curve it up.”

Shannah glanced at him with an exasperated look. “You know I can’t just ignore gravity?” 

“You can jump! Sure you can!” 

Shannah felt the pressure of the situation weighing down on her. This ice trail power was only a recent development. In fact– the first and only time she has had to utilize it was that fight with the Pangoro from earlier. 

“What if it doesn’t work like that? It can’t work like that! It just wouldn’t make any–”

“Quit yer bitchin’ and just go! ” Onterio pushed Shannah forward, instinctively curling her into a ball. While this put her out of harm’s way for the next attack, Onterio took a direct hit across his back. He screamed out, falling forward. 

While curled, Shannah noticed the cuts on her body. And the adrenaline from the fight made her forget one crucial detail– the blood. 

“Oh no. Or Arceus no. Oh Arceus no.” She started to panic. Her head felt lighter than it ever has. Seeing the cuts on her normally durable body add up… she was convinced that this would be the place she would die. 

Tears welled up in her eyes, but no cries came out. She kept hearing the whistling of the creature overhead, closing in on her to finish her off. She wanted to run, scream, or do anything to break through this nightmare, but she couldn’t find any strength in doing so. 

This was it. This was the mission she failed. Not even 3 missions in and she is about to die. What would her father think? After going through all the efforts to protect her?

Fwing! Another small graze across her back. 

Here she was, held hostage simply by the presence of what is normally inside of her. Why did she fear this so much? Why was she frozen?

Frozen…

Fwing! Another cut.

Shannah focused every bit of energy she had left into her roll forward. She could feel the trail of ice follow her, but as she envisioned the path in front of her, she saw it curve upward. Before she knew it, she had swung herself through the half pipe, and then channeled the frozen energy of her bracelet into her. She slammed all of her weight down onto the ground, sending out a large, freezing shockwave of ice. The creature zoomed into her for one final blow, but was slightly slowed by the frozen aura surrounding the Sandshrew. It tumbled in the air, off balance, and hit the ice slope that Shannah had created. 

She immediately threw an icicle at the stuck creature, adding to the frozen mass and freezing it in place. 

Shannah went to check in on Ontario. She nearly threw up at the sight of the blood, but he was ok. 

“What, this ain’t nothing compared to the tassels I’d get into with my big bro. Or are you scared of somethin’?” Onterio was dusting himself off. Shannah was still fighting the tears in her eyes.

“Will you quit the jokes for one second and help me?” She went over to pick up Alec, still in shock. Onterio’s eyes widened, and spouted “Sorry, sorry sorry!” as he helped Alec onto his shoulders.

The trio began to find their way out of the woods. “What a mess…” Shannah breathed. “I can’t believe that you all roped me into this.”

Onterio chuckled. “It’s not like you would have let us go by ourselves. You’re kinda like our mama!”

That struck a nerve in Shannah. 

“Well maybe if you actually thought about the consequences of what you do for a second, you’d actually not be mothered by someone who never knew hers. A simple apology really is what I am looking for, but it appears that is too much to ask for.”

Onterio’s normally chipper demeanor quickly drained away. “Oh lordie, my dearest apologies–”

Shannah wasn’t done. “And you’re only saying that because someone actually decided to call you out for once in your life. Welcome to the real world Onterio! Not everyone is going to just adore you for everything you do because you’re the son of one of the greats. Respect is earned, not born into. It’s something I had to learn and it definitely will be something you will too.”

Onterio struck back at this. “Hey now, ever since you first laid your eyes on me you have had a real stink about how I do my thing. I know that I’m a bit hard to get along with, but if there is one thing I know a thing or two about it is respect, which is something you haven’t shown a lot to me.”

“Maybe it’s because you simply just don’t let things–”

“Look out!” Alec’s voice suddenly shouted out. He jumped from the arms of his two teammates and summoned a combined barrier to hold a fallen tree. He groaned at the weight of the trunk as it was being held up. “A-Alec!!” Shannah cried out as she supported her struggling team member. 

Ontario redeployed his thorn braces and gave a strong punch to the tree, causing it to roll away from the group. Shannah noticed that another papercraft creature was floating near the stump that the tree had fallen from. 

“It got loose!” Shannah exclaimed, referring to the one that Onterio had punched. “We need to find a way to let me freeze it!”

Alec, barely standing, limped forward. “I’m… the easiest target…”

“Alec stop! You can’t go further!” Shannah stepped forward to support him on her shoulder. 

“Shannah… you have to let me… get hit… and then freeze…” 

“Now’s no ripe time to be a martyr! We need ya here, Alec!” Ontario yelled, stepping between the whooshing cuts. 

Shannah glanced at Alec. His eyes slowly become milky in color, dried blood caking the surrounding fur. He did sustain the most damage, making him the easiest target, but…

“You have to trust yourself Shannah… let me handle this part…” Alec summoned a small barrier, barely holding its integrity together. 

Shannah was paralyzed in fear. All the blood, the unknown opponent, and her limited combat experience was becoming too much for her to handle. 

“Stay with me Shannah! Aghh!!–” Alec crumpled further to the ground. Another laceration had appeared on his back. “I… need you to… throw an icicle onto my barrier… on my cue…”

“Alec… I-I can’t let us…”

“You will. Because… you’re Shannah.”

These words struck a chord in the Sandshrew, invigorating her with confidence that she never knew she was capable of. Almost as if the words that Alec imparted onto her were blessed by some higher being, imbuing her with the courage needed to proceed.

She stepped back from Alec, trusting his word. He held one digit up with a barrier in the other hand. Without much of a warning, Alec raised up the barrier in the sky, pointing at Shannah. In a moment’s notice, she threw a lobby of icicles at the barrier, which frosted it’s edges.

“If my barriers can absorb the amount of kinetic energy that is applied into them… then it’s only reasonable to believe that I can borrow other attributes of the molecules that follow… right?” Alec commented as his barrier gained a bluish hue.

The air current was picking up towards the party again. Shannah couldn’t breathe.

Fwing! Another cut to Alec. Shannah screamed as he crumpled further. Was she too late? Did she miss him?

“Just… what I wanted…” Alec muttered.

The air current picked up again. Shannah began to ran over to Alec, until the flying creature had sunk itself into the muddied forest floor below, struggling to move.

Shannah was left in disbelief. How did it miss? Its aim was peerless before.

“The arms… before were bloodied…” Alec muttered. “If… I passed along… the attributes of solid molecules onto the creature… then… the blood would freeze… weighing it down.” 

The creature was wriggling itself to attempt freedom. 

“All the cuts… it got on us… led to it being trapped before us…” Alec gave a wry smile. “And now… we can take it back to the guild.”

Shannah blasted the cutter with ice. It shuddered within its icy prison, but was ultimately trapped. Shannah grabbed it and placed it into her bag. “We better hurry. I know this is Nevermeltice, but still–”

Without warning, Alec collapsed onto the ground. “Oh Arceus– Alec!” Shannah exclaimed, turning him over onto his back. While labored, he still was breathing. He still had a cut or two that was still wet with blood. 

Shannah couldn’t take the sight of blood much anymore, and with all her confidence gone, collapsed onto the ground herself. 

“Oh shit!” Onterio ran up to his team, both lacking the consciousness they were holding mere seconds ago. “We need to get y’all to some medics and quick!” He hoisted both of his team members on his shoulders and walked his way out of the woods.