Cassidy might still be worked up over Morgan, but she'd learned from st time that she couldn't just barrel over Brandy's team even with her numbers. Calcine and Sparky were both strong against Flying types and Calcine, especially, was almost untouchable. If Brandy's team could go on the offense, they'd win easily, and that's exactly what'd happened st time.

  It wouldn't be an easy win this time.

  A second set of rolling waves of wind came rushing down the bridge. People were already scattering off it to watch the fight from afar. Calcine's walls were thick enough that she had time to add a curve to the top so the hammering winds passed harmlessly over them. Only a little wind spilled into their shelter as the two Tailwind waves crashed together, blowing in the gap she'd left for them to escape.

  "The Corvisquire doesn't have the wind Move," Sparky said as she bounced on her heel. "Why doesn't she go 'round to attack?"

  "Morgan said they work as a tight team," Brandy said as she held onto Calcine. "She's probably there to defend them from attacks. This would be a solid py if we didn't have such a good counter. I could see a lot of Trainers going down to just this."

  Calcine couldn't entirely hide her small self-satisfied smile as she lowered her hands. "I can hold all day. How are we going to get them to come down?"

  Good question, they could just wait until they tired out, but it's more likely they changed their attack angles to try to knock them out of Calcine's shelter. They had a commanding position at range and wouldn't give it up without reason. Harper and Basih's tail swishes were quick and powerful, with the little Fletchling slightly behind in trying to add her strength to the sweeps. Morgan had never mentioned her, and no one had called her by name, so maybe she was new to the team. Fresh Wild Pokémon often took a while to settle on a new name.

  "Sparky, try to pepper them with Electroweb. We need to disrupt their formation. Calcine shield off the whole bridge so they can't just sweep us if we get distracted."

  As Calcine turned her wall into a bowl for them to stand in, Brandy had to admire her talent with Rock Polish. Calcine used it much more than any of her other moves, and it never let her down. General Trainer Wisdom did not consider it all that powerful, but perhaps other Rock Types just needed to be more creative. Battlefield control, Entrapment, and Calcine was even using it right now to steady herself with some of the bridge's stone melted up to anchor her feet to the ground.

  Their hair blew about as another wave of wind crashed over them. Then Sparky bounded up Calcine's smoothed walls, jumped off the top, and stabbed her arms out towards the Flock. Thin streams of web shot crackled with electricity as they arced out of her fingertips, and the four fliers nimbly darted to avoid them.

  "Catch me!" Sparky called as she jumped back off the wall, wrenching her arms around with her and turning her web lines into a sweeping net. Brandy ran forward, arms out as she watched Sparky's body twirl and wrap her up in her own webs. The sharp pulls as they wound over Sparky's body made the webs snap so quickly that the Flock all got snagged, a loud round of screeching as electricity crackled along the net and into the fliers.

  Brandy didn't have time to slow down, so she caught Sparky at full speed, their bodies crashing into each other. Brandy wrapped her arms around Sparky to protect her from the impact as Brandy hit the edge of Calcine's arena-like bowl and bounced off. Brandy staggered to keep her footing with Sparky in her arms.

  "Success," she said. Voice muffled by Brandy's chest. Her face had gotten stuck right in there, and she wasn't making any move to get out.

  Heck, she'd earned it. Brandy wasn't going to kick up a fuss.

  "Not quite," Calcine called from behind them. The Fletchling's feathers were burning, and she was fpping madly to batter the webbing off her, flecks of fme from her wingtips also slowly freeing the others. "They're going to get out."

  "Calcine," Brandy said, breath still short from running into a wall. "Sparky's trick. Grab the web and Rapid Spin."

  Calcine didn't hesitate, grabbing the electrified webs into a bunch and wrapping it around her arm. Crackling power ran over Calcine's skin as she gave the webbing a firm tug. It didn't wrap around her; instead, she span in pce like a hammer thrower, her feet dug into the ground as she tried to whirl everything attached around.

  The Fletchling had got Harper free with her Embers, which also freed Cassidy as she clung tightly to her Swanna's back. But the Braivary and the Corvisquire weren't so lucky and tried to use their wings to ride out Calcine's wild ride as she used them like kites and threw them about the sky. A few of the on-looking crowd cpped, making Brandy falter for a second. This was her first battle with an audience, and she'd barely paid them any mind till now.

  It wasn't just the crowd watching. Brandy was hoping Morgan hadn't run off entirely. Banking on it even, because if Morgan had fled, there was no way Brandy would ever cool Cassidy off.

  "Sparky, Infestation up the webs!" Brandy said as she tried to keep everything above her in sight. Cassidy may not have made it hard to follow the action, but Brandy's pn to split them came with some downsides. Harper had grabbed the Fletchling and was using her speed to chase down her whirling teammates, fmes blowing off the Fletchling's wings and crackling in the air. It wasn't nearly as strong as Calcine's Incinerate and seemed more for peppering a wide area with fmes. A thick cord of webbing was proving a challenging target for her, no matter how much she scrunched her face in concentration.

  Sparky was happy to make it a lot worse, cmbering up Brandy and reaching over her shoulder to stretch her hand towards Calcine. A wave of fuzzy yellow biting bugs spilled out of her fur and coated the filing webs. A few fell off, but the rest raced up the crackling rope and merrily dove on the already no doubt quite dizzy pair who were being whirled around.

  Brandy couldn't hear what Cassidy was yelling, but the snap of her arm toward them was clear enough. The web rope in Calcine's arm went sck as the Corvisquire and Basih dipped their wings and dropped down towards them. They were twitching madly, Sparky's Infestation making their descent erratic as their limbs jerked about, but they were still coming in fast, the Braivary's fingers shining as long white cws made of light stretched out of her fingers.

  "Impact coming!" Brandy said as she put Sparky to the ground, "Calcine, meet them with fme. Sparky, lead me!"

  Sparky's Agility meant she could definitely dodge this, but Brandy wasn't nearly as quick on her feet. She let herself go light and tried to follow Sparky's quick steps as she danced about, picking out where the two erratic fliers were coming in for a nding. The Corvisquire tried to spin into a drilling sm, bands of wind spiraling around her to a point in front of her descent, but the biting mites all over her had her completely fluff the nding as Sparky pushed Brandy back firmly with her shoulders. The Corvisquire nded short, her drill Move cracking into the bridge's rock and spraying them all with stone chips before Calcine bsted her with a jet of fme that put her down hard.

  Basih came after her, the huge bird dy was easily a head and shoulders taller than even Brandy, and she used all that weight to sm into Calcine and rip her feet from her anchor in the bridge. The impact was hard enough Brandy actually felt her bones shake, but far from being hurt, Calcine moaned so sweetly it made her remember that wonderful bath they'd shared. It must be a Dark Move. Hone Cws would make sense; Nico had done almost exactly the same thing.

  If Basih thought she would win round two, she'd really misunderstood her opponent. She ran Calcine right up to the wall and pressed her up it, cws digging into her side. Usually, making a Pokémon insensibly horny was a good move, but Calcine was special. Brandy could actually see the fmes curling behind her lips as she spoke.

  "Oh, I'm going to love breaking you again," Calcine growled. Her voice was a susurration of fmes that made Brandy's skin itch. Goodness. That's a side of Calcine she'd really kept buried.

  "Not this time, hot stuff. But I love the attitude," Basih ughed, squeezing her hands harder against Calcine's flesh. Calcine didn't seem any more affected than she already was at first, but as Basih's cws glowed a brilliant white, that boiling energy sank into Calcine's skin. There was a loud snap that made Brandy's blood run cold. Cracks ran out of Calcine's skin where Basih was squeezing.

  "Crush Cw!" Sparky yelled, calling out the move as Calcine tried to pry herself free, her filing weakening. "Get the fuck off my friend!"

  Sparky sprayed out another wave of biting mites, but the burning Corvisquire dove in the way of her shot. Her bck feather cloak had lit afme, and she was using it to shield herself from Sparky's Infestation, crisping the mites with it as they nded. "We'll have our Morgan back," she coughed as the smoke curled up from her wings, "Focus on me, little bug. Face me and show your worth."

  "Sparky web shot Basih. Ignore her." Brandy called, but Sparky wasn't listening. Her blue eyes locked tight on the Corvisquire's as she rolled an arm.

  "I'm a big deal. You're going down."

  "Sparky!" Brandy called again, squeezing the Joltik's side, but it was useless. The Corvisquire was her whole world now. Some kind of trick had her locked into a duel. "Fuck, Calcine Rock Polish Basih!"

  No use there either. Calcine was squirming under Basih's grip as the mix of Cw moves crushed her defenses, turning all that pain into thought-robbing pleasure. Brandy had never felt so useless. Without a Pokémon to listen to her, she could only try to distract them. The Corvisquire only had eyes for Sparky, and if she got anywhere near Basih's cws, she'd be a moaning mess too.

  She had to protect her own, but she only had moments before the rest of Cassidy's team would capitalize on this. There was nothing left for it but hope.

  "Basih. Feint attack."

  Basih snorted. "I don't have that Move, and the only thing I want to listen to is this Rolycoly cumming her brains out." She turned and smiled at Brandy, her fan of white feathers around her head fluttering in the heat of Calcine's excited breaths. "I'll teach you what I can do next,"

  Basih blinked as a bck feather drifted down and spped right into her face. Smaller than the Corviknights, she didn't have time to guess where it came from before a hand grabbed the white feathery mane and pulled hard, dragging the Braivary down to eye level.

  "She wasn't talking to you," Morgan said with an evil smile before smming the shocked-looking Braivary's face down onto her knee. The colossal bird bounced right off it, freeing Calcine from her grip as she colpsed into a spluttering heap.

  "You look a mess," Morgan tipped her hat at Calcine. "Have a lie-down, and let me win all this for you. You look better on your back."

  Morgan disappeared again in a flurry of bck feathers before Calcine could reply.

  "I'm going to fuck that attitude right out of her one day," Calcine growled as she got up, smoke pouring out of her mouth. She coated Basih in rock with a foot stomp to the enormous bird's feathers and then turned her baleful gre on the Corvisquire. "I'll get Sparky. She's been Taunted."

  "No," Brandy said, "She'll win the duel. Can you pin down the Swanna?"

  "Easy." Calcine ughed. Fmes glowed in the cracks in her skin, but she didn't seem to pay it any mind. Pokémon could take a ridiculous amount of damage before they were actually wounded, and even the most frenzied stopped when things got that serious. Didn't make the damage any less worrying to Brandy. If she needed a reminder Calcine wasn't invincible; this was a painful one to see.

  "I want to get the Fletchling alone. Keep Cassidy and Harper occupied for just a little while. Asking a lot, but do that for me, and we got this."

  Calcine cracked her knuckles and looked at the Swanna soaring in. "Fuck a trainer and her best Pokémon for you? Yeah, I can do that."

  Not entirely what Brandy had asked, but it'd do the trick. A fired-up Calcine was kind of terrifying.

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