Mothra/Butterfree, Seb/Nidoking, Gaia/Nidoqueen, Moka/Crobat, Horus/Xatu, and Gwen/Gardevoir were the ones currently by my side, and it was quite the coincidence that the group could be considered a poison killer one. I mean, more than half were pretty resistant to poison, with only Gwen having a weakness to poison, and nearly all of them had a type advantage or the other.
Truly, they were not something a group of poison Pokemon would want to mess with, and that was exactly the impression I/we needed, so even if it had not been a fully conscious act on my part, it worked out perfectly in the end.
Anyway, during our walk to the Arbok nest, I noticed that we were being observed by a few Pokemon. There were Rattata, Zigzagoon, and Sentret among them, but I chose to ignore them all since it was normal for species like that to keep an eye on this area, considering that they had a predator/prey relationship. Not to mention the present higher activity of the Arbok tribe.
Once we were less than 100 meters from the area Horus and I had observed, I gave Mothra a mental picture of the area she had to target, and she began releasing as well as accumulating the knock-out cloud made up of Stun Spore and Sleep Powder. Once Mothra felt that she had gathered enough to affect the all areas we wanted to target, we moved closer and she sent the cloud over using Gust.
We could hear the cacophony of hisses coming from in front of us at the sudden appearance of Mothra's move, but it did not take long for the noise to get quieter, and less than 10 seconds later only a few hisses and roars could be heard. No doubt coming from the boss Arbok, the subleaders, and the few strong enough to resist the effect of our preemptive measure.
Regardless, I gave the signal and we moved forward, striding into the other party's home ground. While none of the six were deliberately radiating their presence, they did not stop the passive release of their (high) gold stage prowess, so it could still be felt if one bothered checking.
We directly came across a heap of unmoving Ekan's bodies, and a quick sweep showed that there were such unmoving Ekans everywhere, along with the occasional Arbok. Mothra's act proved devastatingly effective since I could see no Ekans that were still capable of moving, only Arbok were among those still "standing", and that was not true for all of them.
From what I was seeing I would guess that there were still 90ish Arbok that could move, but more than half of those seemed to be having trouble hanging on. Truly, only a dozen or so seemed to be free of any negative effect and seeing how those were the ones that hung around close to the boss and subleaders, I could guess that the big shots dealt with the cloud approaching them and the weaker ones around them benefited from that.
Naturally, our arrival did not go unnoticed, attracting the gaze of all Arbok. I noticed the big 5 looking at Mothra for a moment, no doubt correctly associating the previous cloud with her, before looking at me.
"Human!!!" Boss Arbok roared after looking at me. "How dare you sneak attack my home? Are you trying to start a war with us?" Arbok demanded while still roaring full of anger.
The sub-leaders fully straightened up at that, flared their presence, and glared at me and mine threateningly, apparently completely ignoring the fact that our side not only had more gold-stage Pokemon but that aside from Gwen, each one was stronger than the supposedly strongest gold-stage Arbok.
I could not help but wonder if they were this daring because of their dark gold stage boss, or if they were just too stupid to try and check the strength of the Pokemon on our side. I mean, that was usually something everyone did first.
It was also how I confirmed that the boss Arbok was at the (low) dark gold stage and that two of the sub-leaders were at the (mid) gold stage, not one as we had previously gathered. Still, I ignored that bit of misinformation and chose to state the purpose of my/our visit.
"On the contrary, I was sent here to investigate why the area is in upheaval," I began, but before I could continue I was summarily cut off by another roar.
"Bullshit, you've attacked us," he hissed before he directly chose to return the favor. He belched out a dark green cloud in our direction, which I idly identified as Poison Gas. That was surprising since I did not know the Arbok line could learn that, or rather, I was pretty sure that the move was not in their natural move pool.
As if his "sudden" display of aggression was not enough, the poison gas suddenly lit up, turning into a poisonous gout of greenish fire. Mothra stepped or rather flew forward and easily stopped the fire with a Hydro Pump. I could see the surprise and confusion of the boss Arbok how his improvised Toxic Flamethrower got stopped by a Butterfree of all things using Hydro Pump.
Mothra being Mothra aside, I knew for a fact that Flamethrower was not part of the Arbok-lines natural move pool as well, but I had already worked out how he did it. He used Fire Fang to light up the Poison Gas, but that was not hard to deduce seeing how I noticed the dying sparks inside his mouth.
Arbok's anger was obvious, and he lost no time to attack again. He repeated his previous attack, but this time the Poison Gas cloud was bigger. Furthermore, his four gold stage minions joined in as well, so the toxic fire heading towards us was no longer a cone, but a veritable green/toxic fire wave.
This time Mothra did not try to douse the fire, but Horus and Moka flew to her side before all three released a Hurricane, that joined into a bigger Hurricane. Their super Hurricane sucked in the green fire, turning into a burning twister of toxic doom, that headed straight for the Arbok, and I was actually a bit worried about what the attack was going to do to the weaker silver stage Arbok in its way since I did not want them killed as collateral damage.
"F**K OFF," boss Arbok shouted before releasing a Dark Pulse at the approaching super Hurricane. His Dark Pulse was swiftly joined by another 4 Dark Pulses, and all 5 began counteracting our Hurricane. The Hurricane kept advancing toward them, but they finally managed to stop/resolve it less than ten meters from their position.
However, that was mostly because Mothra and her two partners, along with the other three just watched the Arbok try to stop their counterattack without interfering. Still, their struggle aside, I began calling out Optimus/Butterfree, along with 20 of his fellow Butterfree minions since I noticed that quite a few of the Ekans were starting to stir, which was a sign that Shed Skin was starting to trigger for a part of them.
Furthermore, I also called out Tatsumaki/Alakazam, Luna/Clefable, Thor/Raichu, Abzu/Milotic, Tiamat/Milotic, and Hashirama/Venusaur since they were the best for crowd control and for confronting large numbers of enemies. Not only could they help Optimus and his aides deal with the mass of Ekans if too many began stirring, but they could also deal with the silver stage Arbok that would no doubt start to act up soon enough.
I also chose to call out Manami/Lapras, and Nyx/Umbreon in case one of the gold stage Arbok managed to slip through and tried to attack my silver group. Anyway, focusing back on the boss fight, I saw a few holes in the path the Hurricane passed but no Arbok bodies, hurt or otherwise.
Apparently, all Arbok managed to escape by burrowing underground thanks to the time bought by their leaders. The boss released another roar before releasing a freaking Hyper Beam at us. I noticed the sub-leaders vanish underground, while Mothra blocked the Hyper Beam with a Protect, which was quickly joined by another one from Moka.
Meanwhile, Horus ignored the attack, leaving it to Mothra and Moka to resolve it in favor of counterattacking. He released a barrage of Air Slashes at Arbok in hopes of potentially cutting him in twain, but Arbok dodged that by going down under as well. His fast reaction time showed that he had not invested much of his strength into the Hyper Beam, which explained why the Protect had such an "easy" time blocking it.
Nonetheless, even if I was keeping an eye on the boss exchange, I did not forget to keep an eye on the overall situation, and I could not help but wonder if those sub-leaders were really planning to approach us from below considering that they had seen a Nidoking and Nidoqueen among us.
Still, just in case they were that stupid, I gave Seb and Gaia a reminder and told them to attack if they noticed them coming close. I then saw the silver-stage Arbok reappear on our left and right, most likely to attack us from our flanks, so I told Optimus to take care of the right, while I left the left to Abzu, Tiamat, and Thor.
I could not help but give a quick prayer for the Arbok on the left before I told Tatsumaki and the others to continue keeping an eye on the Ekans. I told them to send anyone stirring back to sleep. That was just a moment before the gold-stage Arbok were forced to resurface by Seb and Gaia, who decided to act preemptively instead of waiting for the opponent to act.
The two send out a focused Earthquake that spread mostly in a 20-meter radius around us while ensuring that its might/vibrations were mostly focused downwards, so the shaking above ground was minimal compared to what those below were feeling.
Naturally, the effect of their Earthquake could be felt past the 20 meters as well, and seeing how the Arbok came out just a bit before that point, they had been unwilling to risk entering the Earthquake zone while moving underground.
Still, as soon as they reappeared, I gave my side the signal to act. Gwen teleported in front of one of the (low) gold-stage Arbok, grabbed ahold of its tail, and teleported just a few meters to the side before it could resist, ensuring that they could fight one-on-one.
Seb, as well as Gaia, ran at the two (mid) gold-stage Arbok, and Seb kicked the remaining (low) gold-stage Arbok to his left, where an over-excited Nyx had bound to join in on the fun. I called out Hera/Pidgeot to take her place in keeping an eye on the overall situation together with Manami.
Further ahead, Mothra and Moka were fighting the boss Arbok while Horus was overseeing the battle. He was also looking over the whole battlefield, and it seemed he felt that something was off, which was why he was not actively participating in the fight and acting as an observer instead.
At least, that was what Horus shared with me over telepathy, before he requested that I call out Stan/Gyarados as well, preferably Ignis/Gyarados too. In fact, he suggested considering simply calling out the whole Slythering Six.
Considering that Horus was a Xatu, a species with a pretty expansive sixth sense, renown for their prophecies, and capabilities regarding future sight, I decided that being careful would be prudent, so I called out Stan as well as Ignis and told the other four to be on standby.
I saw the boss Arbok and the sub-leaders flinch at the appearance of Stan and Ignis, but that did not stop them from fighting, especially after they noticed that the two new arrivals were not joining in, but keeping an eye on the situation. The battles continued raging for a few more minutes, and it started to become apparent that we had an overwhelming advantage.
Nearly all Arbok on the right flank had succumbed to sleep, while the few that managed to stay awake were being ganged up on by the Butterfree. The Arbok on the left flank on the other hand were twitching on the ground. More specifically, they were soaked and twitching after Thor gave them the shocks of their lives while they were submerged in water courtesy of Abzu and Tiamat.
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