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Giving off a pained grunt, Lucario struggled to sit upright, finding it difficult to move his body. The noise of laughter surrounded him as his head bobbed back and forth, his sense of balance in complete shambles.

"Lucario! What happened!?" Zerobi shouted out in terror. The battle had been going in his favor for once, but the crack following his one failed dodge sounded unexpectedly nasty. She could not tell if he had suffered an unlucky injury, and in the corner of her eye she noticed a few of the Mankey moving closer.

"H-He...! He broke my...!" Lucario stammered with a panicked expression while laying his arm across his upper body for support. The Mankey cheered, laughed and howled as the Primeape brushed some dirt out of his fur.

"Mnngh, nice nice nice! What'd you break, boss!?" a Mankey chewing on a pair of sunglasses asked with excitement.

"His arm! His leg!" a second Mankey insisted while pulling the aforementioned Mankey's tail.

"His ribs! His ass!" a third one shouted while frantically jumping up and down in place. The Primeape shrugged, not sure if it mattered. He fastened his intimidating eyes on the previously smug Lucario leaning up helplessly against the tree.

"Like it matters! I'm going to twist him into a pile of bone and meat!" the Primeape roared as he lunged, thinking there was no need to hold back against an undefended opponent. Lucario weakly entered a crouch, but wobbled and almost fell over in a failed attempt to dodge. All he could do was close his eyes and ready himself for the blow.

As the Primeape came upon Lucario, the blue wolf suddenly rose up and struck the surprised monkey with an uppercut like a rocket. Although he could not pinpoint the vital spots of a creature with no head, the mighty strike was enough to halt the Primeape and force him to step back. Lucario tried to punch him in the eye but the Primeape was quick enough to block the attack by grabbing his hand. Showing a confused expression, the Primeape attempted to retaliate, but Lucario's completely unimpaired movement allowed him to kick the primate in the gut and force them to separate. A moment of calm appeared as the two of them caught their breath, and Lucario held up his clenched fist.

"Branch," he said with a sinister grin as he opened his hand and a thick twig in two pieces fell to the ground, "You broke my branch."

It took Zerobi a few seconds to realize where the cracking noise had come from, and the Primeape soon figured it out as well. The Mankey were all completely dumbfounded and unable to comprehend what had just happened, wondering if Lucario had some kind of rapid healing powers. But there was one that stood out from the rest.

"Well played! A devious feint for a devious fiend, I would say," one of the female Mankey spoke in a very eloquent manner. So eloquent, in fact, the scene seemed to come to a temporary standstill before the entire pack suddenly erupted into pure chaos. Taking a risk by breaking eye contact with the Primeape and trying to spot the cause of the tumult, Lucario realized that the regal voice had not come from a Mankey at all.

Sitting on top of a branch was a vaguely humanoid lizard, thick and short with brown scales covering her body. The first thing to strike Lucario as unusual about her appearance was that she was wearing another monster's horned skull as a masked helmet. The mask's eyes and mouth were hollowed out, and the head that lay underneath this exterior of bone seemed to match the macabre headgear in both shape and size. Her tail was nearly as thick as her torso and was seamlessly melded with her white underbelly, a subtle ridge of spines tracking up her back.

"Thief!" a Mankey shouted, voice stricken by annoyance rather than fear, "It's the thief!"

Twiddling a pale, thin and misshapen tree growing right next to the one she was sitting on, the Marowak crossed her stubby legs in a surprisingly limber action.

"Mmhmhm... You boys having fun?" she asked softly, looking back and forth between Lucario and the recovering Primeape. The latter seemed rather unamused by her presence as a violent snarl flashed through his hairy face.

"... YOU!" the Primeape roared angrily while waving a threatening fist towards the new arrival, "If you're here to steal from us again, I'll-"

"Oh my, no," the Marowak interrupted while shaking her head, "We both know the only content of your 'secret' stash today was a pair of underwear, a newspaper dated five weeks ago and three peeled chestnuts... Well, zero peeled chestnuts as of now."

Zerobi could not stop herself from snickering as the Marowak slightly lifted her mask and picked at the side of her sparkling teeth. The Primeape's mouth fell open in despair, but Lucario was still having a hard time getting a grip on the true nature of the somewhat draconic creature. Her aura was notably weaker than that of the Pokémon she was mocking, and if she really was a thief, her appearance was neither sneaky nor particularly nimble.

"How... How did you..." the Primeape repeated quietly before raising his voice to a fearsome bellow, "I'll kill you, you rotten Viddrer!"

"Yeah!" a Mankey on the other side of the meadow agreed with a cackling laughter, "This is our turf, bitch!"

Lucario was about to say something, but stopped himself as something very surprising happened. In a hasty motion, the Marowak ripped the thin tree next to her out of its roots and lifted it up with both arms, fluently bringing it nearly horizontal. The ivory stick stretched across the entire meadow, a whooping five times as long as Lucario, its sharp end pointed directly at the mouth of the Mankey that had just spoken up, so close he could probably lick it if he wasn't so busy choking on his own spit in terror. It had not been a tree at all, but an absurdly long pike.

"What was that, dearie?" the Marowak asked sweetly as the Mankey scrambled to back off, the impossibly lengthy spear following and jutting in his direction.

"B-B-Beauty? Beautiful beauteous beauty!" the Mankey stammered fearfully, having suddenly gained the eloquence of someone drinking tea with a queen. Moving ever closer, he could feel the spear brush his facial hair aside, before it suddenly lifted above him and lightly smacked upside his head before withdrawing.

"Mmhmm... Oh, I could never stay mad at a cutie like you!" the Marowak exclaimed with glee, entering a fit of giggling. While she was busy stealing all the attention, Zerobi and Lucario exchanged a few looks that suggested this was a good time to get the hell out of there.

"Yet still..." the Marowak continued as her laughter stopped and she secured the grip around the weapon, "... I suppose I am feeling rather peeved that you had nothing of value for me to steal."

Her eyes turned towards the Primeape, who was uncharacteristically deep in thought. Putting on a strong appearance, he remembered how they had just barely chased off the Marowak during earlier encounters while understanding the Lucario was no pushover either. Fighting both was a bad idea, but he could not back down without losing face lest he was ready to open up questions to whether he was a proper leader or not.

"... Insolent woman!" the Primeape yelled as he pointed up at the Marowak, "You dare interrupt an honorable duel between men!?"

"... More like a dishonorable murder-robbery..." Zerobi muttered and crossed her arms, not too convinced by the Primeape's sudden sense of chivalry.

"... There's such a thing as an honorable murder-robbery...?" Lucario whispered but found himself in the unusual predicament of thinking along the same lines as the Primeape. The two of them looked at each other, both sure that they were certain to win if the fight continued uninterrupted. The Marowak sighed as she sat down and leaned her spear against the equally tall tree.

"Wouldn't dream of it, my dear," she said softly as she reclined and waved her hand around, "Go on, show a lady a good time! Winner gets a kiss from the lovely moi!"

Lucario's shoulders dropped, and he was suddenly not too keen on winning. Any further lamentations would have to wait however, because the Primeape used this opportunity to catch him off guard. Apparently very eager to receive that kiss, the Primeape struck first with a straight punch which Lucario sidestepped. The Primeape followed up by spinning around with arms outstretched, Lucario narrowly avoiding the fierce clothesline by ducking. Previously the Primape had employed a fighting style not unlike a berserking humanoid, but now it was becoming apparent that his fighting style was just as foreign as that of an overgrown canine. However, he was not as weird as the ghastly Darkrai, and Lucario was finally getting used to fighting something he was unable hit normally.

"C'mon!" Lucario shouted as he stepped back and taunted, the Primeape doing the lethal mistake of coming straight at him. Commanding his hung over mitochondria felt a little harder than usual, but with only four seconds of preparation he managed to fire off an Aura Sphere. The Primeape made an attempt to jump, but the speedy aura sphere was impossible to dodge and struck him head on, making him instantly crash to the ground in pure agony. Not taking any more chances, Lucario sized the moment and ran up to the hulking beast, rapidly kicking him in the side before he could get up.

"Fuck! You! Piece! Of! Shit!" he articulated a war chant as Zerobi nodded in agreement, thinking chivalry did not need to apply to an ass like the Primeape. The Mankey booed as the Marowak held her sides with laughter, and the Primeape struggled to get up for a moment before successfully blocking and grabbing hold of Lucario's leg, halting the assault. Wasting no time, the Primeape roared and lifted Lucario above his head, slamming him down hard on the ground. A painful cough escaped Lucario's lips as his back ached and he desperately tried to twist his leg away, before suddenly reaching an epiphany and stared blankly at the Primeape.

"Oh no. I'm restrained," Lucario squabbled ironically before shooting another Aura Sphere, the blue fire licking every part of the Primeape's cranial nerves as his brain exploded with pain and he was forced to let go. Released from the grip, Lucario got up and spun around with a kick so fierce it sent the Primeape flying back several feet. As the hit connected, a cracking noise distinctly different from that of a branch echoed throughout the forest, and it was quickly followed by a united wail from the Mankey. Not getting further than to his knees, the Primeape clutched his face in agony, blood streaming out of his snout and matting down his fur.

"Heh. Heheheheh," Lucario snickered as he admired his handiwork. He had been feeling a bit sluggish after his drinking binge and was worried he had lost his fighting abilities along the way. Zerobi's gaze affixed on the blood-soaked face of the Primeape, but not for the reasons she had initially assumed. Something had changed in the fiend's expression.

"Hey, boss..." a Mankey with a far too big cloak wrapped around his stomach said out loud. A shiver ran up Zerobi's spine as she noticed the Mankey were suddenly unusually quiet, and she could feel many of them eyeing her with a different intent compared to earlier. Her fears were verified as the Primeape lifted his arm in an obvious signal, and without warning the pack of Mankey were upon them.

Fuzzy primates rained down from every direction, nearly blotting out the sky. But these were merely the distraction. As Lucario reacted to the sudden shift in events and covered his head, two Mankey crawled towards him at amazing speeds and grabbed a hold of his legs, holding him in place. A similar attempt was made against Zerobi, but her sharp vision alerted her to their presence and she kicked with her clawed feet, drawing blood and forcing the two sneaky Mankey to back off. However, the same could not be said for the Mankey coming down from above - Their first action was to restrain her left hand, one Mankey clinging to her arm and weighing it down with his full body. In desperation she tried to slash at him with her right claws, and but attack merely nicked him and she soon found her other arm held in place by another filthy ape. Lucario held out a little longer, punching the Mankey at point blank range as they crawled over his body, scratching, biting and being a general nuisance. He tried charging up a focused blast of aura, but the sheer onslaught against his vital points made it difficult to concentrate. Someone was banging away at his eyelids and another was chewing down on his calf, while Zerobi found the critters rasping both her back and chest with incessant scratching.

"STOP!" a mighty shout filled the air. Lucario slowly opened his eyes as the assault ceased, feeling weighed down by the Mankey still clinging onto his legs and the other one sitting on top of his head. Reflexively wanting to shove them off, he was instead trying to locate the origin of the command.

The Primeape had his back against a tree. A mere centimeter from his left eye balanced an obelisk of bone, held horizontally in place by the Marowak who had finally decided to come down from her tree. Using her knee for support, her elongated weapon was held as still as a building.

"Naughty, naughty," she said in a sing-song voice with a hint of malice apparent, "This does not look like a duel to me. I was rather enjoying the outcome, too..."

Gulping loudly, the Primeape stared at the tip of the spear while Lucario proceeded to shove off the Mankey from his body. Zerobi tried to do the same, but one twitch of her awful claws gave them the message and made them jump off her on their own.

"W... What do you want...?" he muttered with a dejected voice, eager to fight but not at all eager to lose an eye. What seemed like a simple shakeup had turned into a fairly nasty situation, and he could sense his pack being just as ready to give up on it as he was.

"Nothing you can offer me, I'm afraid," the Marowak said while examining the beast and rubbing a hand over her chin, "But it seems to me that you've had enough fun with our guests. I suggest you let me handle them from now on."

The Primeape's mouth twitched, hiding the faintest of smiles. After a moment of silence, the Marowak withdrew her spear and the Primeape got to his feet, jumping up into a tree. He glared down at Lucario with a stare of intense hatred, Lucario answering it with his own.

"All of you, get the fuck out of my forest!" the Primeape shouted angrily as he turned around, "Next time, bring something worth all this bullshit!"

Seeing their leader leaving in an awful haste, the Mankey followed suit and dispersed back into the woods. One of them tried a last attempt at grabbing hold of the plastic bag which lay forgotten on the ground, but stopped and fled as Zerobi noticed his intentions and blocked his way. Lucario humored the notion of chasing down the Primeape and finishing the process of beating the tar out of him, but was busy being amazed as the Marowak lifted her weapon, moving it in a humongous arc across the sky and firmly resting it against her shoulder.

"Come," she said with a nod and a wave, "I will guide you two sweethearts out of these woods."

"Who... Are you?" Lucario asked cautiously, still not sure whether he was talking to a friend or a foe.

"Mhmmhmm... Just a stranger snubbed on a date with destiny," she replied cheerfully, restlessly moving up and down on her toes and putting the massive pike into motion behind her, "You may call me Melinia, or simply Marowak if you please."

"And... What are you?" Lucario continued asking, wondering what kind of Pokémon he was talking to. This was not made apparent to the Marowak who tilted her head in confusion before clearing out some dirt from the eyesockets of her mask.

"Poor dear, surely you're not worried about an alleged thief with nothing but a book and a present in your belongings?" she assured him as her green eyes shone beneath the helmet, "Merely a reputation I've developed around these parts after liberating those ethically impaired Mankey of their ill-gotten loot whenever I pass by. And helping those in need, of course."

"Precisely! And thank you for helping us out too!" Zerobi said out loud, wondering why Lucario was being so rude before carefully brushing aside a trickle of red from just underneath her throat, "Is there a river nearby? I'm thirsty, and not a... Big fan of running blood."

Zerobi cast a glance towards Lucario before hastily turning away. On her back were two long sores from fervent scratching, bleeding lightly. Looking down, Lucario noticed a stinging bite-mark on his right calf from which blood was still flowing freely. He crouched down to cover it up, before realizing he now had blood on his hands and would do well to not go near Zerobi for the time being.

"... Well, I suppose a quick stop couldn't hurt," the Marowak stated, surprised to see them both so squeamish over a little blood. Quite a bit more prudish than the Pokémon she was used to, but she decided to show them the way nonetheless. She guided them through a relatively easy path through the thick foliage, constantly forced to adjust the positioning of her long lance to avoid getting it stuck between the branches. It was not long until they came across a tiny river, Zerobi making a dash for it and slurping up some water. Lucario went two meters downstream to wash off his blood, keeping his pants on just in case some thieving Mankey got any ideas.

"What, you're not getting in?" Lucario asked while scrubbing his arms, noticing that Melinia was just standing nearby and watching.

"I wish I could join you, my dear, but I fear it would ruin my skin," she answered while twisting around uncomfortably. In truth it did not bother her that much, but unlike blood, the fluid she commonly avoided was potentially harmful.

"Marowaks are, PFFFFT," Zerobi said before accidentally getting a bit of dirt on her tongue and spitting it out, "Weak to water."

"Weak to... How can you be weak to water?" Lucario asked with mild curiosity, rubbing his hands together as a string of deep red ran down the river, "How do you drink? Bathe?"

"Ah ha ha, my oral cavities are... Excellent," Melinia admitted with a subtle wag of her hip, Lucario suddenly reminded of the herbivore teeth she had shown off earlier, "And people underestimate the hygienically beneficial effects of a proper mud bath. If you need proof, you can feel how smooth my skin is once you dry up."

She reached out a hand towards Zerobi who promptly looked away, feeling more awkward than usual. She angled it towards Lucario instead, who eyed it pensively and wondered why on earth she kept talking about skin when her body was clearly covered in scales.

"Alright, check me for blood," Lucario said as he moved closer to Zerobi and spun himself around in a bored, unglamorous way. She wondered why he always insisted on making sure, it was not like they made physical contact that often.

"Looks good," Zerobi replied, most of his soars coagulated and a cause for neither bleeding nor temptation on her part. Melinia shrugged and sighed, still surprised to see them so thorough.

"Right. Worthless Mankey, told you they wouldn't be an issue," Lucario muttered as he got out of the river and starting wiping off the water from his body with his hands. It was an inefficient method, but if there was one thing he never bothered to bring on his travels, it was something as situational as a towel. Zerobi looked at him for a moment before blowing a cold wind on her arm, causing the water on it to freeze. She then ran a claw across her arm, cracking and sweeping the ice off her now dry appendage.

"Whoa!" Lucario gasped in amazement, Zerobi flashing him a proud smile. Melinia rolled her eyes and signaled for them to follow her. Somehow they actually managed to end up on a real path this time, likely what was used by larger Pokémon, humans and carts alike. A dead, half-eaten Weedle lay on the side of the road, eliciting a disgusted noise from all three of them even though they had definitively seen much worse things in the past.

"So. Why did they call you a Fiddler?" Lucario asked Melinia, trying to get the cadaver out of his head as quickly as possible. She looked at him in silence and confusion as Zerobi cleared her throat.

"Viddrer... It's a nickname for Victory Roaders," Zerobi corrected him before giving their new party member a wary glance, "Natives of the... Single most dangerous area in the world."

"... What? The insides of a volcano?" Lucario suggested, although he secretly imagined the most dangerous place to be wherever Miltank originate from. The hellish landscape he envisioned demonic Miltank roaming in turned out to be not so different from an active volcano after all.

"No, just a regular cave... But it happens to be one that leads up to the Elite Four," Zerobi continued explaining, trying not to offend the Marowak with some of the less flattering things she knew about that place, "To live there and not be captured, you would have to be powerful enough to defeat trainers a heartbeat away from becoming champions on a daily basis. Those Pokémon... Are unreal..."

As the last words left her mouth, Zerobi suddenly looked down at the ground with a harrowed expression. Half expecting something bad to happen, Lucario looked at the two of them and noticed they were being oddly silent. That is, until Melinia suddenly burst out laughing.

"Hahahaha! Oh, you foreigners from Sinnoh have such funny legends about us in Kanto!" she laughed, leaning her head back and never breaking her stride.

"I'm from Kanto, too," Zerobi clarified while her head snapped back in place, realizing most of what she knew was hearsay picked up by word of mouth or in magazines. Many of the legends found in the occult magazine had their basis in the Victory Road, since it was a place unsafe to explore and thus had a mysterious atmosphere to it.

"Splendid! Where, exactly?" Melinia asked while walking a bit ahead and leaning past Lucario.

"Cerulean Cave," Zerobi replied earnestly, deciding to clear up why she was feeling bothered, "I... Thought about moving to the Victory Road once, but I wasn't really up to it."

"Oh my, the Cerulean Cave..." Melinia whispered in an impressed tone before sizing her up, "Gives reason to your exquisite figure. I was about to ask you what kind of workout you do to stay in such good shape!"

Unable to stop herself from smiling, Zerobi quickly turned her head the other way. She was astounded by her own bashfulness, but she had not gotten any compliments she did not have to force out of somebody in a very long time. The Marowak laughed a bit more at her reaction before moving back and sizing up Lucario next.

"And what manner of dangerous soil did a hunk like you come out of?" she inquired while reaching a hand inside her mask for some unknown reason.

"New Bark Town," Lucario replied firmly, feeling like he had to make up for Zerobi's irregular meekness.

"New Bark Town... Yes, I know where that is..." the Marowak said to herself before adjusting her helmet and sighing out in disappointment, "... Not far from Victory Road. How unfortunate that we did not meet earlier!"

Lucario shrugged in response. He looked over at Zerobi who had regained her natural deadpan expression. She shrugged as well.

"So, uh... Are you a Viddrer?" Lucario asked warily, realizing the Marowak had yet to outright answer his original question. The road split into two ahead, both directions going directly right or left. However, Melinia did not stop but instead carried on straight ahead into the forested upslope.

"Yes, honey, afraid so..." she said with a hint of melancholy while signaling for them to come, "But I fear the legend is a bit overstated. Stay low and there is no need for brute strength. You know it has to be silly superstition when everyone is so intimidated by a harmless lady like me."

"Maybe it's that freakish mask you're wearing?" Lucario pointed out, thinking she was also doing a really poor job of hiding the pike which was six times longer than she was.

"This old thing?" Melinia responded while tapping the side of the helmet with her weapon, "Nothing special! It is only the skull of my dead mother."

A big frown spread across Lucario's face as Zerobi involuntarily cringed. The Marowak kept up her facade for a moment before cracking up.

"Mhmmhmm, well, I assume she was SOMEONE'S mother," she giggled while letting her tail playfully run along the ground, "I found it underground. Fantastic for skin treatment, have to look my best, no?"

She kept up her merry chuckles as she went inside the forest. Lucario scratched the side of his head before following her, Zerobi moving closer and lowering her voice.

"If she really is a Viddrer..." she whispered, "... The scars under that mask must be grotesque. I don't care how good you are at keeping out of trouble, that place is a battlefield that never rests."

Their worries that the Marowak was leading them down a bum road were stilled as they came to the end of the forest just one minute later. Melinia sighed as she set down her spear into the ground and leaned up against the last tree before the hilled grasslands that lay ahead.

"Ah, finally," Lucario said as he stretched out his arms and turned towards Zerobi, "Do you know where we are?"

"Um..." Zerobi mumbled quietly as she looked around, not seeing any recognizable landmarks at first. However, there were two familiar mountains off in the distance which she could use to determine her location, and she used her claws to draw a crude map in the soil.

"I must say, it has been refreshing to speak to intellectual equals for once," the Marowak said with a discontented sigh, "Where are you heading to?"

"Nomad's Land," Lucario answered but was met with only confusion, "You know, some cold place? Where the revolutionaries are?"

"Ah. Yes, I'd heard about that," Melinia said with a nod before pointing off towards the mountain to their left, "Past that one, should be easier to find from there. I fear this is where we part ways, though."

"Guess so. Thanks for all the help," Lucario said before giving her shoulder a pat, Melinia closing her eyes and nodding again.

"... Wait, which mountain?" Zerobi asked as she suddenly got up from her makeshift map.

"That one," Lucario said, pointing at the designated peak. It was easily recognizable, possessing a very slanted ridge and an almost flat cliff sticking out of its side. She looked at it and then looked back at what she had drawn, moving around it to examine it from different angles.

"Revolutionaries, you say...?" Melinia spoke up with curiosity as she moved away from the tree and stood up straight.

"Yeah," Lucario replied before catching the subtle hint in her statement, "Oh yeah, you're pretty strong, right? Are you thinking of joining them?"

"Do you think they would accept me?" she asked, "I mean, I am a Victory Roader, after all."

"I could put in good word for you, if that's what you want," Lucario suggested, suddenly wondering why he was acting like a recruiter. Melinia was about to say something, but their conversation was abruptly interrupted by a loud crash. Looking up, they saw the ground in front of them open up into a wide chasm.

And with a shrill scream, Zerobi was gone.