Pokemon: Criminal Life

Chapter 226: 226-Crabhammer, General

The problem was not whether he could win.

Three Elite-rank Pokémon against one, even accounting for the level gap, was an engagement Sieg could resolve. The problem was the cost. Braviary was the specific category of opponent that turned every win into a question of whether the win had been worth it, a Pokémon that absorbed damage and used it as fuel, that would trade hit for hit at full output until either it stopped moving or everything on the opposing side did. Fighting it cleanly meant accepting significant casualties in exchange for a result, and significant casualties in the middle of an active mission in unfamiliar terrain with no medical support within reasonable range was not a trade Sieg was interested in making.

There was always something tougher. And at the top of that chain sat the ones who simply didn't care whether they walked away. Braviary was that thing.

He spotted the clearing through the trees and made the call.

"Honchkrow, land."

Fighting in the air against a Pokémon that lived in the air was the wrong ground. Crawdaunt and Sharpedo couldn't contribute from altitude, which cut his numbers advantage entirely. On the ground, he could deploy the full roster and dictate the terms. He dropped from Honchkrow's back as it descended, hit the grass running, and had the first set of commands in his mouth before Braviary had finished arresting its dive.

Braviary pulled up forty meters overhead, tilted its head, and studied the clearing below with the patient, sharp-eyed attention of something that had not yet decided to stop. Then it began Hone Claws, circling slowly while its talons worked against each other, methodical, treating the moment of preparation as an advantage rather than a delay.

First strike.

"Honchkrow, Tailwind, then Dark Pulse. Crawdaunt, Swords Dance. Sharpedo, charge and hold Ice Fang. Umbreon, Helping Hand on Crawdaunt. Sandile, Rock Blast, now, break its setup."

The commands went out in a single breath.

Honchkrow's wings swept outward, and the air shifted, a favorable wind moving through the clearing that every Pokémon in it felt as a sudden looseness in their limbs. Crawdaunt's claws were already rotating. Sharpedo accelerated in a tight circle, water pulling across its teeth as the cold built.

Sandile did not wait for anything to align. It slapped its tail against the ground and fired, multiple stones in rapid succession, the trajectory angled upward, each one a flat and accurate projectile aimed at the space Braviary was occupying. The first two forced a broken turn. The third connected. Braviary lost the smooth arc of its circle and banked hard to shed the impact, which brought it directly into the line Honchkrow had already prepared.

Dark Pulse hit it square.

Braviary staggered in the air. Not a large stagger, the kind that a Pokémon at its level absorbed and processed in under a second, but enough to confirm that the opening combination had registered as intended.

Sieg reached into the dimensional ring and pulled out two Pokéballs.

Pelipper and Mantine materialized in the grass, looked at the situation, looked at Sieg, and found the combination sufficiently discouraging to comply.

"Pelipper, Drizzle, maximum output. Mantine, Signal Beam on Braviary, then Helping Hand on Crawdaunt."

Pelipper spread its wings, and the sky darkened. Rain followed within seconds, not the gradual onset of natural weather but the sudden, dense downpour of Drizzle at full activation, the drops hitting hard enough to flatten the grass and reduce visibility at a distance. The clearing filled with the sound of it.

Overhead, Braviary shook water from its crest and screamed at the assembled Pokémon below with what could only be described as enthusiasm.

Five Elite-rank Pokémon in a coordinated defensive formation. Sieg noted the reaction with the private irritation of someone whose threat display had just produced the opposite of the intended effect. Normal wild Pokémon would have reversed course. Braviary's idea of the appropriate response to being surrounded was to be louder about it.

A pale light gathered around its body. The spectral outline of something vast and bird-shaped materialized at its back, wings extended, the whole projection radiating the specific quality of a move at full charge.

Brave Bird.

Sieg recognized it the same moment he recognized that Honchkrow used the same move, the identical white light, the identical phantom shape. The technique was built into Braviary's lineage the way Dark Pulse was built into Honchkrow's, and seeing it from the opposing side was instructive in a way he noted and would return to later.

"Crawdaunt, Crabhammer."

Crawdaunt stepped forward. It did not appear to feel urgency about the incoming dive. One claw came up, surrounded by a tightening shell of water drawn from the rain falling around it, everything Sieg had stacked feeding into the single point of the strike: the rain multiplier from Drizzle, the doubled STAB from Adaptability, the Mystic Water amplification, the two stages of Swords Dance, the Helping Hand boost from Umbreon and then from Mantine arriving in sequence. All of it converging in one claw.

Braviary hit terminal velocity.

Crabhammer went through the Brave Bird like it wasn't there.

The sound of the collision reached the treeline and came back as a flattened echo. The rain thinned the smoke before it could gather, leaving the scene immediately visible: Braviary on the ground, one wing folded at an angle, wings did not fold, blood bright against the white and brown of its plumage, feathers scattered across the wet grass in a radius around the impact point. It had been driving toward Crawdaunt at the moment of contact. The force had redirected it straight down.

Sieg looked at Crawdaunt.

The claw was still extended, the rain running off it in clean lines.

That, he thought, was what proper stacking looked like.

Braviary climbed to its feet.

The broken wing dragged. The feathers that remained were plastered flat by the rain. It leaned to one side, and the motion it made was not quite standing. None of this appeared to have reached the relevant decision-making center. It looked up at Crawdaunt with the same bright, direct attention it had brought to the entire encounter, and the low sound it made in its chest was not pain.

It was a challenge.

"Again," Sieg said, and he meant it without pleasure.

"Sharpedo, Ice Fang. Crawdaunt, Crabhammer."

Sharpedo was already moving, Swift Swim carrying it across the clearing in a burst that the rain intensified further, the frost building along its jaw as it closed the distance. It hit Braviary from the flank before Crawdaunt's follow-up arrived, jaws clamping down and leaving a streak of frost damage across the already-damaged wing. Braviary swung its free wing into Sharpedo and opened three parallel cuts across its side that were immediately washed pale by the rain.

Sieg's expression shifted.

Crawdaunt saw Sharpedo's injuries from three meters away. Something in its posture changed, a settling, a specific alignment of mass and intent, and the claw came down.

The second Crabhammer hit Braviary from above.

The ground accepted the impact. Braviary did not.

It lay in the divot the hit had made, half-submerged in the mud and water collecting in the depression, wings completely still, feathers scattered around it in a bloody halo that the rain was slowly diluting into the soil.

It tried to stand.

One leg found purchase. Then the other. The broken wing is trailing. It turned its head toward Sieg, and the eyes had not changed, still bright, still forward, still reading the field for the next angle of attack.

The irritation Sieg had been managing since the moment the first crack of displaced air announced Braviary's approach resolved into something colder and more deliberate.

"Crawdaunt," he said. "Last one."