CH38 (268), Hopefully, The Last Mission (2)

It took me three days of searching and observation before I was confident that I had managed to spot all possible exits, at least those that could be found without having to spend another few weeks thoroughly combing the whole area around the cave.

In the end, I managed to locate another large-sized opening wide enough for a Golbat or Crobat to easily pass through. Besides those large-size openings, I also found 3 medium-sized openings which a Golbat would fit through, along with 17 holes that Zubat would fit through if they were trying to escape.

As soon as the sun of the fourth day rose on the horizon, I woke up and prepared for the last step of my operation. I called out everyone and went over our battle plan with them while stressing that we were going with lethal force from the start.

Roughly an hour after sunrise I had Horus/Xatu teleport me and Osiris/Marowak to each of the openings. Osiris used his ground energy manipulation along with a weak application of Earth Power to close all openings, rendering them useless in case the Zubat tried to escape from there.

It took us over three hours to cover all openings without alerting the occupants of the cave, which was why I had started so early. I had expected this part to take pretty long. Unsurprisingly, the large and medium-sized holes were the ones that took nearly 70% of the time.

Once we finished closing all escape routes, I had Horus bring us back to our spot beside the main entrance. I called out all my Pokemon except for the Gyarados, from their group only Stan got the chance to appear. After I made sure everyone knew what to do, we moved into the cave.

Mothra/Butterfree and Horus spearheaded the group since they were the ones that were going to be fighting the boss Crobat and its second in command. Moka/Crobat, Optimus/Butterfree, Parvati/Beedrill, and Prime/Beedrill were directly behind those two.

They would be responsible for keeping the silver stage Golbat from reinforcing the boss and his deputy, so they had to split their focus between fighting the silver stage Golbat and keeping an eye on the others to make sure no one slipped through.

Seb/Nidoking, Gaia/Nidoqueen, Hera/Pidgeot, Kun/Azuraid, Stan, Abzu/Milotic, and Tiamat/Milotic were going to be purely focusing on the silver stage Golbat until all of them were dead. Thankfully the inside of the cave was wide enough to allow Hera and Kun to fly around somewhat, which made sense since the Golbat would be unable to fly as well if that had not been the case.

Enji/Arcanine, Thor/Raichu, Nyx/Umbreon, Manami/Lapras, Tatsumaki/Kadabra, and Hashirama/Venusaur were going to be dealing with the bronze stage Golbat and Zubat as quickly as they can before reinforcing the rest of us who are taking on the iron stage and stage less Zubat.

The reason these 6 were given this task was that they were the best equipped to deal with large crowds, so I wanted them to deal with the second-largest group because they could have actually caused a problem if not handled swiftly enough.

Anyway, as I said Mars/Ursaring, Tyson/Machoke, Ali/Kirlia, Luna/Clefable, Shino/Yanmega, Hades/Haunter, and Saphira/Swablu were going to face the iron stage and stageless Zubat with me. Yes, I was going to be fighting as well since there was minimal risk fighting Zubat at this stage, and it would give me some all-out experience even if it was against weaklings.

Oh, and Drowzee requested to help as well, so he was also joining our group. Finally, there was Osiris who would be entering the cave as the last individual. He would be collapsing the entrance behind us so that no one could escape from there.

I was not worried about the air, since there was enough air in the cave for hours. Furthermore, there were enough really small openings from which fresh air could enter, so I was not worried about suffocation.

Once everyone was inside Osiris did just that and the cave fell into near-complete darkness, so I pulled out a few light marbles and threw them all around the cave to bring out some light. I didn't want anyone to be distracted because they had to keep up Flash.

The light marbles gave off a slightly reddish light and the roughly 40 marbles I threw out were enough to restore the visibility inside the whole cave.

That along with the noise caused by the collapse is enough to get the attention of all Zubat and Golbat inside the cave. I start hearing the sound of fighting coming from further down the cave, so Mothra and Horus had probably already engaged the bosses.

The buffer group was nowhere to be seen as well, having already headed deeper to do their job, and I saw the silver group heading towards their targets, so I gave the others the signal to start their attack before the Zubat and Golbat began attacking us.

Following their example, I pulled out my twin swords and then teleported toward the ceiling in such a way that I was positioned in between 4 Zubat which I cut by twirling in place using a psychic platform beneath my feet. I applied a bit of aura on the swords, so I actually managed to cut the Zubat in half, which honestly surprised me a bit.

Still, it made sense considering how strong I was and that they were either stageless or at the iron stage. I was not holding back after all, so being able to kill them using a sword was not that surprising all things considered.

I directly teleported back to the ground and took stock of the situation. I could see Zubat being burned, electrocuted, frozen, cut, mashed, and everything in between, and the number of dead Zubat was probably already over sixty despite the clash having only started less than 10 seconds ago.

Regardless, after seeing that everyone was doing well, I began abusing my short-range teleportation, aura, and psionic platforms to kill one Zubat after the other. Occasionally, a Zubat took more than one or two slashes with my swords, which meant they were probably at the (high) iron stage, but they all ultimately fell before me within seconds.

After killing what had to be my 50th Zubat I took a few seconds to take a look at the overall situation. Surprisingly, or not, my group seemed to be nearly done with their targets, despite there supposedly being over 600 of them.

Well, taking into consideration that I had taken out 50 on my own, it seemed less surprising. The swarm of bronze Zubat and Golbat seemed to have become half its previous size and considering that the others had not come back, it would seem the boss fight and silver group fight were still ongoing as well.

I did the best thing I could in this situation and went back on taking down the rest of my group's targets. There were only a hundred or so left, which we managed to finish in roughly a minute or so. I did not really bother looking at my watch to time it after all.

Anyway, after we saw no more Zubat flying around us I told my group that we were reinforcing the bronze group. With our addition, it took us only a few minutes to finish off the roughly 20 Golbat and 60 or so bronze-stage Zubat that were still alive.

I took a look at everyone and saw that most of them were still good to go. Still, I had to recall Drowzee, Hades, Saphira, and Ali. While they only had a few scratches that could be quickly dealt with, they were pretty exhausted, so I saw no reason to keep them out since we were going to be going against the silver stage Golbat next.

At least, those that had not been dealt with by the others yet. So, once I placed those four inside Utopia, I and everyone else moved further into the cave. We quickly came upon the scene of Seb, Gaia, Hera, Kun, Stan, Abzu, and Tiamat fighting against 17 Golbat, while Moka, Optimus, Parvati, and Prime were blocking another 5 Golbat.

There were 9 Golbat carcasses on the floor, showing that my Pokemon had already managed to take out 9 of them while facing 31 Pokemon/Golbat at the same stage.

We directly moved into action and the situation turned from our side being outnumbered to the Golbat being outnumbered. I chose not to interfere this time and focused on the sounds coming from further down the cave instead. Based on the noise that I was hearing the fighting there still seemed to be in full swing.

Hopefully, Horus was winning against his opponent even if it was at the gold stage. Scratch that, I knew that Horus was winning, I was the one who supervised his training after all.

Still, I could hear the cries belonging to all 4 fighters, which was why I knew that both battles were still ongoing. While I was listening to any sounds I could hear from Horus and Mothra's side, the fight on my side was starting to die down.

There were only 9 Golbat left and my Pokemon were ganging up on them, just like I had instructed them to do before we began, so the last few Golbat got taken down pretty quickly as well. A quick look at the number of Golbat carcasses confirmed that there were 31, so none had managed to hide or escape.

Once I was sure no sudden ambush would happen, I focused on everyone's state. Those capable of using healing moves had already started healing themselves and the others, while the others were vigilantly checking the surrounding area to make sure they did not get ambushed while they were recovering/healing from the fight.

I was really happy with their behavior. They were acting just like we had trained and planned, so seeing them successfully turn that into reality made me proud.

Anyway, after confirming that no one was badly hurt I considered if I should move towards the boss fight with everyone in tow or not. After a moment of deliberation I decided against it, instead, I sent Osiris along with Tyson, Mars, Hera, Abzu, Tiamat, Thor, and Nyx back to the entrance.

I did this so that they could guard the place to ensure no one entered or left from there. They could also confirm whether anyone managed to hide or not. Hashirama, Seb, Gaia, Enji, Shino, and Manami were asked to remain in our current position to guard it as well for the same reason.

Meanwhile, the rest began heading towards Horus and Mothra. When we arrive at the scene we saw the extent of injuries on both sides. Crobat looked to be on its last legs, or wings, while my darling Mothra seemed relatively unharmed. She had a few minor wounds here and there, but that was to be expected seeing who she was fighting against.

Besides, that was nothing compared to Crobat who seemed to be missing one of its lower wings, along with the severe bleeding it was experiencing due to the multitude of small and large injuries on its body.

On the other hand, the Golbat was looking half dead, but unlike Mothra, Horus seemed to be hurt quite badly as well. He was no longer flying but levitating using his psychic abilities since one of his wings was broken. He was also bleeding quite a bit.

Golbat on the other hand looked ready to keel over with its body bleeding like a faucet and parts of its body being twisted in different directions. Normally, I would let Horus finish this battle, but was not a regular battle but an extermination mission so I had Stan deal a surprise finishing blow at the Golbat.

It never saw the Aqua Tail coming that swatted it out of the air like a fly, crashing it onto the floor. I saw it still twitch a bit so I teleported above it and shoved one of my aura-clad swords through its head.

Crobat got distracted by that for a moment which Mothra used to Air Slash one of its wings off, taking it out of the sky as well. She followed after it and nearly split it in half by chaining an Aerial Ace with Steel Slash.

She then double-tapped the Crobat by using Psychic to make sure it was dead before ignoring the falling carcasses to happily fly towards me instead. I welcomed her with open arms and hugged her while praising her for her great victory.

I then turned to Horus and waved him over. I softly leaned my forehead on his before praising him as well. I would have hugged him, but that would have only hurt him due to his injuries so I left it at praises for now.

I then asked Luna to heal him as much as she could while I called out Ali so that he could help her. After he got healed for a bit, I gave him a once-over before I moved the three inside Utopia so that they could continue the treatment there. Meanwhile, I stored the two carcasses before heading to Hashirama's group to do the same there.

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