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Though we were well outnumbered, standing with only two against about twenty bandits that were visibly not interested in letting us go in exchange of our money, neither Aku nor I were intending to flee. After all, our opponents were nothing but simple humans, far beneath what I would consider a threat. Aku seemed to think the same.
I threw my Shadow Ball at the tree an archer was perched on, but Aku landed the first hit. His victim was one of the front-line fighters with a repurposed woodcutting axe and some boards cobbled together into a shield, which provided little protection when the shogun opened his eyes wide and burnt a hole through his head, disintegrating everything above the chin in an instant. The headless body dropped to the ground, carried by its momentum, and landed at Aku’s feet. This display put a good damper on our opponents’ morale and they slowed their charge down, but then one shouted a battlecry, raising the spirits of the others, a second one joined in, and soon they screamed, charging forward at full force.
“FOOLISH HUMANS”, Aku shouted as he clenched his fists and again fired a beam. A second man fell to the ground screaming in pain and clutching a singing hole through his chest. “YOU ARE WASTING YOUR LIVES! LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS AND I MAY YET LET YOU LIVE!”
“These humans will not back down until we cull their numbers some more”, I told him. “Can you handle the ones on the ground? I’ve got the archers.”
“VERY WELL. TRY NOT TO KILL TOO MANY, THEY MAY YET MAKE FINE MINIONS IF LEFT ALIVE.”
I raised my hand, activating my barrier just in time to stop a volley of arrows. The blue bubble blocked the deadly projectiles but its surface cracked, much to my surprise. Had my abilities weakened that much? This was unsettling. Thinking this I retaliated by throwing another Shadow Ball, blasting apart a tree that two of the archers were on and sending them falling down – whether to their death or just out of action was to be seen.
That said, my motivations for suggesting that Aku handle the melee fighters had another motive; it would have made more sense strategically for him to use his light-speed eye lasers to snipe the archers while I flew out of reach and bombarded the fighters from above. There were about fifteen combatants on the ground, even Aku could not take them all before they reached him. And most were armed with swords and other sharp steel weapons – weapons which I suspected might be his weak point, by his own words. After all he asked me if I could bend swords. I flew out of the way as the archers loosened their bowstrings and tossed another Shadow Ball, but kept my attention mainly on Aku.
As he had culled the bandits down to half, one finally reached him and angrily roared as he slashed his sword at Aku’s legs with both hands. It cleaved through his body like paper, but the cut closed right back up, as if the swing had merely parted a liquid that was now flowing back into place.
“HAAAAHAHA! DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?” Aku asked as he picked up the man by his collar and raised him up. “YOUR SILLY WEAPONS CANNOT HARM ME!”
Now they hesitated. They needed just a little push, I figured. So I raised my hand and formed a Shadow Ball as big as I could – although, it was all theatrics; it didn’t hold any more destructive power than any other. But it didn’t fail to make an impression. The six remaining melee fighters and the two archers I had not hit dropped their weapons. Two tried to flee but Aku jjust threw the bandit he still held at them, knocking them over. “BOW TO ME AND YOU SHALL LIVE.”
And they bowed. Several prostrated themselves even.
Aku grinned with great satisfaction. “I AM AKU, AND STARTING TODAY I AM YOUR LORD AND MASTER! YOU WILL HENCEFORTH FIGHT IN MY NAME AND –”
“Oi! When you’re done talking, mind giving me a little help over here?!” a squeaky voice interrupted his sermon. Though it came from somewhere near where the archers had been, I could not see who it was from.
“WHAT? WHO… Mewtwo.” He beckoned to me and I floated closer. Thankfully, he spoke in a lower tone once I was close. “Go check out who that is that dares interrupt me. Teach him a lesson while you are at it. I’ll whip these mortals into shape in the meantime.”
“If they held someone captive, it may be worth leaving them alive”, I pointed out. “Humans are loose-tongued when grateful.” Without awaiting his response I floated over the heads of the remaining men and to the treeline where the voice had come from. A little into the forest, amidst the remaining smoke from the smokescreen earlier, stood a dwarf of some sort in a green suit and with a red hat. He was tied to a tree, which explained his cries for help.
“You there, big purple! I’m right here!” he called out when he noticed me. I floated down and eyeballed him. “What’s the matter? Can’t you understand me?”
“I speak your language just fine, human. I am wondering why I should release you.”
“What do you- oh. You’re one of ‘em, aren’t you. Look, I’m one of Santa Clause’s helpers, an elf if you must know. If you free me now your record’s gonna get a nice, fat ‘good deed’ tally mark next to it. Maybe enough to push you out of the naughty list. Possibly.”
“Why have you been restrained?” I asked.
“Those gentlemen”, he said and nodded towards where Aku and the bandits were, “wanted to force me to gift them items they have no right to. The lot of them are getting coal and I told them, so they tried to get the gifts with more brute methods. It’s put me way behind schedule, too.”
“Schedule. You deliver gifts?”
“Not while I’m tied to this tree.” He pushed against the ropes, to no avail. It was then that I noticed the sleigh further into the forest, with a large bag and a few more items on its bench. So in this world it was ‘elves’ who did the gift deliveries, not Delibirds? Interesting.
“Very well”, I said and opened the knots with a flick of my wrist and some telekinesis. However, before the elf could make off I lifted him up by the back of his coat and floated into the air.
“Hey! What are you doing?!” he promptly yelled.
“Silence.” I flew back to where Aku was, noticing how he was strolling back and forth in front of the bandits, telling them something with a smug ‘proud-of-myself’ smile plastered across his face. When he noticed me however, he stopped.
“YOU ARE DISMISSED. GO FORTH AND DO AS I INSTRUCTED YOU TO, AND YOUR EFFORTS SHALL BE REWARDED WHEN THIS PLANET HAS ME SEATED ON THE THRONE. NOW, WHO IS THIS YOU HAVE BROUGHT, MEWTWO?”
“Do you know the legend of Saint Claus, the Bringer of Gifts?”
“WELL OF COURSE I DO. BUT UNDER MY REIGN THE LEGEND HAS IT THAT IT IS LORD AKU THAT REWARDS THE NAUGHTY AND SMITES ALL WHO ARE FRIENDLY AND NICE.” He snickered.
“This elf claims to be working for the Saint Claus of this world. I also found a sleigh with gifts in it.”
“HMM…” I could see his mental gears turning as he stroked his beard and eyed the elf out of narrow eyes. Then he snapped his fingers. “WE COULD USE THE SLEIGH TO SPREAD MY- Oh.” He put his hands together and leant in with a smile that obscured his teeth, then spoke in a tone of comradeship: “I mean of course that we could help you getting all those presents to the children everywhere.”
“Well I could use the extra hands”, the elf murmured. “But you fellows don’t seem trustworthy.”
“I have freed you from your bindings, while my… associate has subjugated these men”, I pointed out. “Without our help you would have much more to worry than being behind schedule.”
“Yes, but… ugh, very well. But only because we’re seriously hurried. Bring me back to the sleigh!”
As Aku followed on the ground, shrunken to a more manageable size again, I returned to where I had found the elf and put him next to the sleigh, before sitting down inside it. Just so that he might not pull a fast one on us. Once we were all in, the elf clapped his hands and the sleigh took to the skies on its own, without needing any Stantler to pull it apparently.
“Put these on”, the elf said as he handed us both hats not unlike his own. “The winds get chilly once we reach cruising altitude. Oh, and these.” He next produced two pairs of goggles that we also took. “They will allow you to see who deserves presents and who gets coal.”
I stuffed mine into the hat and put that on. “Are there any Pokémon trainers in this world?” I asked. “Do we deliver to them too?”
“There are Pokémon that we deliver to, as well as some people who have them as pets. In fact, our zone includes a town where people like this are common.”
As pets. I resisted the urge to toss the elf off the sledge and just balled my fists. “That's... interesting. I would like to see that town for myself.”
