CH15 (537), Military (10)

The swarm gave off mixed signals. The buzz they released was in parts excited, in part angry, and in parts indignant, but for the most part, the swarm's reaction was relatively subdued due to the pressure released by Parvati/Beedrill and her golden guards.

Meanwhile, the swarm leader seemed to be struggling, not particularly with the pressure Parvati and her group were releasing, but with indecision. Still, that seemed to only take a moment, because Boss Beedrill released a determined shriek, that made it clear that he did not want to simply give in to Parvati.

He mustered all his power, released his might to the maximum, and tried to rally the whole swarm to act with him against the intruders, which was us by the way, and ultimately he succeeded in rallying most of the swarm, which pressured the rest into acting along with them, even though a part of the Beedrill appeared reluctant to face Parvati.

Seeing all 1700ish Beedrill getting ready to face off against our side, I wondered if I/we should help Parvati's group, but while I was still considering if I should let Parvati's 100-strong company face Xerxes' horde, sorry the opposing swarm, alone, Horus/Xatu took the matter into his own non-balding wings.

He appeared above Parvati's group and displayed his might, surprising as well as intimidating the other side. Seeing Horus' action, Mothra/Butterfree naturally had to join in on the fun, so she appeared at his side and releases her might as well, scaring the poor Beedrill even more, and leaving only Stan/Gyarados with me at the back.

The presence of two dark gold stage Pokemon naturally cowed the opposing Beedrill quite a bit, even if one of them was a mini Butterfree since Mothra was still in her chibi form. Impressively enough, even under that pressure, the boss Beedrill managed to muster enough courage to question Parvati.

He accused her of relying on others to subdue them, which made her unworthy of becoming their queen, which in my opinion was a smidgen hypocritical since he had been planning to rely on the vastly superior number of his subordinates to face Parvati's group.

Though one could argue that they were part of his swarm, and more importantly Beedrill. Yet, in that case, we could counter-argue that Horus and Mothra belonged to the same family as Parvati.

Hypocrisy and what-ifs aside, the boss Beedrill seemed to realize that he would have no way to capitalize on his/their number advantage with Parvati's support around, so he changed his approach, and proposed to use single combat to settle the matter of her claim over his swarm. The 5 gold-stage Beedrill on their side against the 5 on our side.

What he did not know was that he had already lost as soon as he made that proposition, he just did not know it yet. There was literally no way anyone on the other side could beat Parvati in a one-on-one battle. Heck, even if they ganged up on her, I would still bet on Parvati coming out as the winner of their 5-on-1 battle 8 out of 10 times, and I felt that I was already generous with those odds.

Forget, about Parvati, I was sure that Prime/Beedrill could sweep through all 5 of the gold stage Beedrill on the other side if he fought them in single combat, boss Beedrill was no exception to that. Naturally, Parvati was totally confident in her/their chances as well and agreed to his challenge.

It appeared that she wanted to establish her dominance since she, in a surprising move, directly sent out Prime to face the first gold-stage Pokemon on the other side.

Our Beedrill company cheered Prime on, but the other side just had the number advantage, so their cheers somewhat drowned out ours. Naturally, those cheers got stuck in their throats when Prime took his opponent down in under 2 minutes.

Prime first dodged the opponent's opening volley and blocked the Poison Stings he couldn't dodge while using an Agility to boost his speed. As soon as Prime found an opening, he caught his opponent in an Electroweb the other party couldn't dodge.

Once he had the other Beedrill temporarily pinned down, Prime fired off a few String Shots to tie down the other Beedrill's wings to prevent it from flying unless it got rid of the strings he just released, which was easier said than done since a mastered String Shot was no joke as far as durability and tenacity were concerned.

While the other Beedrill was struggling with its bind, Prime nailed it with two Iron Lances in quick succession. That ended up being enough to knock out his target, and no one in the Beedrill swarm could believe that one of their champions had lost that quickly/easily. Their disbelief was palatable, and I could not blame them.

Frankly, Prime could not have won this swiftly if his opponent had not been so unprepared/lax, whether that was because it was underestimating Prime or overestimating itself I did not know, but I was sure the next one would not make the same mistake.

Well, or at least I did not think it would unless it was stupid as hell, and reality showed that it tried to avoid its predecessor's mistake, but while it managed to stop/dodge the Electroweb and String Shot, it went in for a close range fight which quickly proved to be a mistake as well.

Prime locked its lances down with his own after it tried to use a Fury Attack on him before he released a point-blank Hyper Beam at its head, that it had no chance of dodging. The Beedrill got blown/hurled away, and while it struggled, trying to get back up, eating a point-blank Hyper Beam to the face proved to be too much for it.

It failed to recover fast enough to do anything before Prime had recovered from his use of Hyper Beam, so he was able to pin it down with an Electroweb. He then did something smart, he first used another Agility, as well as an Iron Defense before sending his foe to Lala-land using Fury Cutter.

After Prime's second win the unease of the other side became rather obvious, and the swarm began to stir. Even Prime's next opponent hesitated but the swarm swiftly calmed down once Parvati pressured them with her royal aura, so it had no choice but to step up since surrender was not possible unless the boss Beedrill did it first.

Seeing how charged Prime's Fury Cutter was, the fresh meat, sorry I meant Beedrill, chose to snipe at him from afar while keeping a distance until Fury Cutter's charge was lost. Prime dodged the various Poison Stings as well as Pin Missiles using his speed and steadily approached the fleeing Beedrill.

Prime steadily came closer to the other Beedrill, and once he was within just 10 meters of it, he did something that took the opposing Beedrill off guard. Prime fired a bunch of String Shots at it, effectively giving up on the charged Fury Cutter.

Not having expected that Beedrill only managed to dodge the first string, but got caught by the other strings. Prime swiftly followed that up by releasing two Electrowebs to bundle the Beedrill up, and once it was strung up like a pinata, he proceeded to hit it until it revealed its sweet inside.

Okay, he did not go that far, since we were not trying to kill the Beedrill but taking them in. Still, Prime hit it with a few Iron Lances before finishing it off with a Fell Stinger, and considering that his Commander's Spirit was in effect, it was no surprise that Fell Stinger was much stronger than usual, same with his Fury Cutter.

I really had to get that steel affinity for Prime since his Iron Lance could have benefited from Commander's Spirit as well if that had been the case. Still, I was working on it, and I was hoping that it would appear on his status screen in a few years/decades, or during his breakthrough to the dark gold stage if we were lucky.

Anyway, Prime had managed to take down 3 of the opposing Beedrill, and I had to say the battles were a bit easy since the Beedrill seemed to lack proper fighting acumen despite being at the gold stage.

Still, after thinking about it, that was not as surprising since they probably used to be something like foot soldiers. That, along with the fact that the go-to strategy/method of most Beedrill was swarming their targets/opponents, a lack of one-on-one experience was no longer as surprising.

Nonetheless, they were still gold-stage Pokemon, so it took some effort to take them down, and after beating 3 Beedrill "officers", Prime was visibly tired. It was not to the extent that he could no longer fight, because I was sure he could take down another officer without any problems, but if he continued to face the fourth/last minion Beedrill, he would have difficulties facing the boss Beedrill.

However, Parvati told Prime to keep going, so he did. This fight took a bit longer, and Prime ended up on the receiving end of some Poison Jabs, but in the end, he won even if he was panting at the end of it, and yet, he collected himself and stood ready to face Boss Beedrill, who appeared eager to take down Prime.

Unfortunately, at least for him, Parvati called Prime back to let him rest before going up herself, which was even more unfortunate for Boss Beedrill. Before Boss Beedrill could say anything to rile Prime up, she said that the officers had fought and that it was now time for the leaders to battle, taking the wind out of Boss Beedrill's sails.

Parvati then declared the start of the fight and she used Agility while dodging Boss Beedrilll's Pin Missiles. She kept dodging while using Agility whenever she could. With each successful use of Agility, she sped up, and dodging became easier. Yet, she did not go on the offensive.No, she first used Focus Energy and Laser Focus, once she did that, I knew what she wanted to do.

As soon as those two moves were done, she blitzed up to Boss Beedrill and began her strongest combo, the Lance Dance. The combo move that combined her two earliest combos, Furious Cutter and Iron Lance, resulted in her performing an unending dance of ever stronger-growing Iron Lances.

Her first hit resulted in a major blow, which resulted in Boss Beedrill having no time to stop her unending wave of chain attacks since each successive blow robbed him of the chance to interrupt her.

It was honestly a bit sad how helpless Boss Beedrill was in front of Parvati, but it was not solely his fault since her strategy and her Iron Dance combo were rather nasty to face, especially if one did not know about its existence in advance.

Still, Boss Beedrill's tenacity and grit were quite impressive, since he managed to hold on for close to two minutes despite being hit by more than 30 Iron Lances in that time. That might not appear like much to some, but these were Iron Lances that got stronger with each successful hit, at least until Iron Lance/Dance's power reached the maximum Parvati could handle.

Also, in comparison, the Beedrill "officers" went down after 6 or fewer regular hits of Iron Lance by Prime. Though that might have been because they were not as invested in the fight as Boss Beedrill was since he was the one who was losing his position to Parvati.

Nonetheless, his grit/stubbornness had a price, and it was a rather big one. After suffering through so many of Parvati's attacks without giving up, Boss Bedrill was full of wounds, and he was leaking blood like a faucet.

He might have successfully held on, but in return, he got beaten half to death. A regular/less determined Pokemon would have long gotten knocked out, or even died. Still, his determination managed to impress everyone present, including Parvati, and she finally hit him on the back of his head, which might have been a bit brutal considering how powerful her Iron Lance was at this point, but it successfully knocked the boss Beedrill out, so it did its job.

Besides, as soon as Parvati knocked Boss Beedrill out, she turned to Mothra and asked her to use a bunch of Pollen Puffs to heal it up a bit to prevent Boss Beedrill from dying since she wanted to make it one of her attendants. That she freely and unhesitatingly asked Mothra for help showed just how much ex-boss Beedrill managed to impress Parvati.

When she saw that Mothra did as requested, Parvati turned her attention to the swarm, before asking if there was anyone else that had something against coming under her. When no one made a buzz, she declared that they were now part of her swarm, which made all Beedrill release a buzz of approval.

Parvati looked satisfied at their reaction, and she ordered them to move closer together and touch the body of the Bedrill next to it to ensure that all of them were touching another Beedrill. She then turned to me and asked me to move them all along with her group inside Utopia, and I naturally complied since that was why we came here in the first place.

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