Pokémon Legends: Court of Kings

[Jump Einatz]

Salieri's first reaction when seeing a nightmarish ghoul over her shoulder was to scream and try to punch it in the face. Of course, her fist would phase harmlessly right through the Ghost, but what was more alarming was that Zack was now holding onto her other hand. She tried, very hard, to let go. It didn't work.

"Zack." Sal leveled a glare in his direction. "Let go. Of my hand."

The Chatot distracted her from the matter at hand. Now on closer inspection it seemed like a robot, something Mia's tinkering got Sal familiar with. It could be why it had the ability to replicate human speech. Sal wouldn't know for sure without her Pokedex.

"I'll expand your face with my boot you a** clown, what the HELL is going on?!"  

[Marsuru]

'Temper, temper,' Zack could almost hear the finger wag through the Chatot's transmitter. At this point it was obviously some kind of robot, though the only way to make sure would be to trash it and see what was inside. 'You children have been naughty. Very naughty in some cases, Sally. Consider this your time out.'

The voice was soft and dainty like warm ice cream, like listening to a creepier Neverland-era Michael Jackson. Easy to speak with smooth confidence when you were hiding behind a proxy. Zack could feel Cofagrigus in the cold prickle on the back of his neck. Better late than never, he guessed. For now it wouldn't attack. Seemed it had concluded its business once their hands were bound.

'Great, I knew being an a*****e would catch up with you, One Shot.' Zack shifted his address to the bird. 'Why don't you just glue both her hands together and leave me out of it?'

'Because you're both-' the man in the bird caught himself, took a breath, then continued calmly. 'Because you're both buttholes, Zachary. This is your punishment, and it'll end when I say so. Or when one of you dies. They both sound fine and dandy to me.'  

[Jump Einatz]

"SALLY?" Sal shrieked at the name. It had already been a long day and it wasn't even dinnertime yet. The urge to grab the bird by the neck and put it through the wall was fierce, oh so fierce, but Sal held herself back by a thread long enough to ask questions. Many questions.

"Who are you? Is this thing a robot? What's with this hand gimmick, you have the lamest gimmick of anyone I know. What do you mean I'M very naughty?" That last question raised more questions, and made Sal think that whoever this was could be one of her many enemies. She stepped in front of Zack, awkwardly since their hands were stuck together. "Did Ska send you? Jullien? Nicolette? That security guard from Parfum Palace? Math's friend? Faust? Ratio? No, why would Ratio use a parrot...is Ratio using a parrot? Mia, is that you? This is the stupidest prank, Mia, I'm gonna dropkick your parrot in five, four, three..."  

[Marsuru]

The Chatot looked from Salieri to Zack, back to Salieri. As Salieri went on and on, Zack could feel himself getting ticked off too. 'Shut up already before your brain overheats. If that thing's a robot, all we gotta do is catch it and find out where it's getting its signal from.'

Zack wasn't especially tech-savvy, but that sounded more or less correct. Still, he added a tentative '...right?'  

[Jump Einatz]

Salieri looked at Zack like he was dumb. "Yeah. Duh. We just need the GPS thing or whatever the main computer thing is." She flexed the fingers of her free hand, which cracked them. "The wings aren't important."

As if to prove her point, Sal made for a mad grab at the Chatot, trying to latch onto one of its wings and pull it off by pressing the body against the wall with her foot as leverage. Making that motion would drag Zack along for the ride.

While she did that, she dropped a random Pokéball to the ground in order to deal with the Cofagrigus. Biz Marquis materialized. One look at the madly grinning Ghost and he'd scream just like his trainer had while also trying to punch it in the face.  

[Marsuru]

A half second after rushing forwards, Salieri would feel the sudden drag of Zack's bodyweight. As much as Zack hated being pulled along, he wanted that Chatot captured and fighting against Salieri wouldn't help that, even if she was being stupid.

The Chatot may have been a robot, but Zack knew it was just as agile as the real thing. It flapped backwards, effortlessly avoiding Salieri's grab attack.

'Idiot, use a pokémon,' Zack snapped. He would do it himself, but with one arm strapped up, and his good hand glued to Salieri's, he couldn't release any of his pokémon by himself. 'Zap it with something before it gets away!'

Meanwhile, Cofagrigus maintained its spooky grin as it slid its shadow hands through the ceiling and fiddled with the wiring to the lights again. The hallway would flicker in and out of darkness. As soon as there was light again, Cofagrigus used Scary Face, projecting a ghostly image almost as wide and tall as the hallway. It would sweep through anything harmlessly, but leave living things slowed down, like they were wading through tar. Even though Zack and Salieri weren't looking at the projection, they'd feel its effects unless they managed to outpace it.

Since Biz was on the front lines, it'd be unlikely that he'd manage to avoid it unless he fled the hallway. If he didn't abandon his punch, he'd definitely be caught in the Scary Face, allowing Cofagrigus ample time to ensnare him with its ghost arms, rendering his punch harmless, open its sarcophagus lid and stash him inside. After a few moments of tumbling about, it would spit Biz back out, wrapped up like a mummy.

Chatot zoomed backwards, spiraling along the hall in a display of speed, its controller's radio voice cackling slowly with a 'Ha ha ha ha ha.'  

[Jump Einatz]

Salieri's sharply annoyed exhale may as well have been a burst of steam. The rebel teen was used to using her fists to deal with weaker Pokémon all the time. She believed if she didn't have to lug Zack around she could take care of Chatbot no problem. Except she probably couldn't because it was far quicker than her and could fly, which only served to make her madder.

"Quit backseat training!" Sal snapped back while taking a Pokéball off of her belt. Before she could release it, she suddenly became slower from the Scary Face she could not avoid. "Ohhhhh greeeeeaaaat," she drawled at half speed.

Before Biz could so much as utter a protest, he was engulfed in the living coffin. Seconds later he was tossed out, wrapped head to toe in spiritual bandages. He felt much itchier and not so Bulletproof. In slow motion, he shrugged his shoulders. [I feeeeeel dryyyyyyy,] he stated, surprised at the slowness of his own voice.

Salieri released Durendal, and the Pawniard took a second to make sense of the situation. He could not. Not at all. "Stooooop thaaaaaat biiiiiiiird aaaaaand hellllllp Biiiiiiiiz wiiiiiiiith theeeee-"

Dune wasn't going to wait for Salieri to give a slow motion order. He got the jist. The Pawniard fired a Thunder Wave down the hallway at the wily Chatbot on his way over to the Chesnaught. He raised up a knife hand to cut the bandages open, when suddenly Salieri remembered something she learned about Cofagrigus a long time ago. "Noooooooo-"

The moment Durendal's hand touched Biz, more wraps sprung from the original wraps and wrapped themselves around the Pawniard in an identical manner. He looked down at the bandages and tried tugging at them, but they weren't going anywhere. Like Biz before him, the Mummified Dune also just shrugged.

Meanwhile, Salieri slapped one of Zack's Pokéballs off of his belt and onto the ground to release a member of his party at random. She was speaking too slowly to want to ask for permission, and she was going to make damn sure she didn't carry both of their weight.  

[Marsuru]

Dune's Thunder Wave caught up with the Chabot as it reached the mouth of the hallway leading to the lobby, soaking it in electric blue and rendering its mechanisms less effective. Luckily for it, it had been designed to withstand some degree of attack, so it maintained its flight, albeit in a loopy, uncontrolled manner, where it nearly crashed into several people before Salieri could get around to releasing one of Zack's pokémon.

He was just thankful that Salieri was stuck on his left side, or she might have released Fatass. Getting crushed by a giant set of glutes while holding Salieri's hand in slow motion was not high on Zack's list of preferred ways to die. Instead she called out Serene, who stared at the fleeing Chabot, then back to Salieri and Zack like the two events were wholly unrelated.

Another shriek came from the lobby, this time as Chabot finally smashed its way through a window to escape. Footsteps thundered, and as Cofagrigus carried itself backwards at relatively high speed, slipping away through an open door, the receptionist appeared at the end of the hallway, furious.

'No fighting in the pokémon center!'
Zack sighed, annoyed at how long it took to be annoyed. 'Grreaaattt gooiiiinnnnnggg, Onneeee Shhhoooottttt.'  

[Jump Einatz]

Biz Marquis shuddered as Cofagrigus crawled backwards on all fours. He wasn't going to sleep easy tonight.

"Meeeeeee?" Salieri returned Biz to his Pokéball. The process took forever. Before she could do the same for Durendal, the Mummified Pawniward just opted to do it himself, and hopped into his Pokéball on his own. He wasn't catching up to Chatbot, not like this. He had seen a zombie movie once at Gotengo, and rule one of being infected was quarantine.

Sal slowly pointed a finger at Zack. Slowly. "Aaaaaatttt leeeeeaaaassst Ididsomethingabout-AGH!"

With the encounter being over, her normal speed returned to her. Salieri had been trying to speak so fast that when she finally could she accidentally bit down on her tongue. "Ouch."  

[Marsuru]

The receptionist, who watched at least ten seconds of Salieri trying to recall Biz and decided she wanted no part of it, went back to her desk while the trainers finished up. Serene seemed perplexed, and stared intently at the room where the Cofagrigus had escaped to. Not at the door, but the wall, as if she could see through it.

Zack burst out laughing. 'Wow, you're your own worst enemy, One Sh-.' He stopped when a second later he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his own tongue. He instinctively tried to hold his hand to his mouth but couldn't, not with Salieri's hand in the way. 'Okay, whath theh futh.'  

[Jump Einatz]

Salieri had a fit of schadenfreude when Zack did, laughing about...nothing? Certainly not biting on her own tongue. That was weird. Weirder still was Zack's tongue going through the same pain as hers. Did he bite his tongue too? She'd laugh at him, but this needed testing.

So Salieri pinched herself in the arm, hard, to see if Zack reacted. "Ow."  

[Marsuru]

Zack's arm was, luckily for him, quite anesthetised while it recovered. Salieri just looked like she was trying to wake up from a bad dream. He couldn't really blame her but it was still dumb.

'What the hell do you think you're doing?'  

[Jump Einatz]

"You didn't feel that?"

Sal looked at his right arm, still in the sling. It could've been numb and it was possible her pinch corresponded with the same part of his body. If they were indeed sharing sensations, he wouldn't feel anything that happened to her right arm. Time for more testing.

Salieri pinched her nose. "Ow."  

[Marsuru]

'Ow!'

Zack then understood what the hell Salieri thought she was doing. He bristled, realised he couldn't pay her back in kind with both his arms useless, so he did the next best thing and bit himself on the shoulder. It hurt, but it'd be worth it.  

[Jump Einatz]

"Ow!"

Sal's nose wrinkled in annoyance as she raised a hand to slap Zack in the face, already forgetting this would result in her getting slapped in the face.

That's when she saw the shallow bite mark on her sleeveless shoulder and stopped herself. "Merde!" It wasn't just the sensation of pain they shared. It took on physical form. What started as an amusing side effect to a terrible and specific torture actually had dangerous implications.

A wave of dread came over her. Not only could she not leave Zack's side, she couldn't hit him without consequence either. It was like something out of a myth. Or a comic book. "This is my nightmare..."