Pumpkin Spiced Latte (Lay the Very Best - Chapter 413)

Calcine didn't wait for further instructions. She leapt off the side of the arcade machines and dropped like a meteor towards the giant Polteageist, which was climbing after them.

"Insane move!" the Polteageist cheered, "That's the spirit, no holding back!"

Calcine's fist met porcelain with a loud crack that rang through the warped arcade. The Carkol was almost lost in those giant, statuesque curves corseted in cracked china. Steam bled through the hairline fractures that spread along the Polteageist's chest, the scent of sugar and cream misting through the air. The Poleteageist smiled as she took a shard out of her own chest and flicked out a teapot-lid shield like a fan. Purple and gold liquid flowed in that crack in her armour. The real liquid body of the Polteageist.

"If I weren't all grown up, you'd be helping me pick up my scraps," the Polteageist purred as she pried Calcine off her with the edge of her shield. "Call me Valerian. Val, if you want to be friendly."

Calcine's hands hissed where they clawed at the giant teapot shield, unable to burn through the ceramic.

Brandy liked being friendly, so Val it was, and Val had clearly been hit with Growth before engaging them. Not a move Polteageist got, so she had other friends out there backing her up.

"Valerian has Cursed Body," Morgan warned, wings flared out, ready to swoop to help Calcine. "That exposed bit of her, it's a trick. She'll scramble your brains if you touch it."

Made sense to Brandy. "Calcine, don't touch her, just break her armour down!" Brandy called. "Sparky, we're doing this from range, ready to dunk an Electroball."

"Into the tits of a giant tea lady? Obviously."

"Dani, you stay here and guard me, Morgan, harry her, but keep an eye out for whoever is buffing her." Brandy turned to the two newest additions to their group. "Nibbles, Chew, you going to help?"

"Nope!" Nibbles said, sitting down on the edge of a cabinet and swinging her legs over the abyss. "You fought bigger numbers on the boat over here. Prove it wasn't a fluke."

Chew signed something, ending with a blown kiss to Brandy, and she wrapped herself around Nibbles. Brandy couldn't read sign language and didn't know what she'd said, but she got the gist.

Good luck, but I'm sitting this out too.

Well, Brandy had beaten bigger odds. She wasn't going to disappoint.

Looking over the edge, Val was puffing out a long breath of golden steam. A wave of perfume thickened in the air, and Brandy felt it catch low in her chest. It was a relaxing scent that made the perspective of the Trick Room even worse, until Belt thought they had to be higher than the cloud line. Brandy's Compound Eyes swam, trying to track the real depth of anything. She pushed breath sharp through her teeth and closed her eyes, and held her breath. Her mind cleared just a touch, hearing everyone's heavy panting breathing near her.

Her ears might be fine, but she couldn't fight blind. Brandy needed air that wasn't tainted and knew where there might be a lungful. Reaching out for Dani, Brandy felt her hands sink into plump flesh, and she pulled it closer. Dani squeaked as Brandy went in for a kiss, sucking the air out of her lungs. The sweet scent in her lungs would already be in Dani's bloodstream, and while the air she breathed out had less Oxygen than the air she breathed in, it was still enough for Brandy to clear her mind.

Still, everyone else was zonked out on Sweet Scent, so Brandy held in that lungful and opened her eyes, her vision swimming as her eyes readjusted to the Trick Room's weird geometry. Lungs burning, Brandy picked Dani up and carried her over to Morgan, planting a kiss on the bird and breathing out to try to fill Morgan's lungs.

It got Morgan coughing, but Brandy kept using the Magikarp air filter, sucking in Sweet Scent free breaths and blowing them into Morgan's spluttering mouth.

"Gross, gross," Morgan gasped. "Why?"

"Need Hurricane," Brandy said, feeling lightheaded from the weak air. "Do it."

A flutter of Morgan's wings cleared the air, and Brandy stopped feeling like she was being pulled back down into a puffy cloud. Morgan was still coughing, one wing on the wall, and she doubled over, choking for air.

Dani was still hopelessly pumped full of Sweet Scent, smiling proudly as she nuzzled into Brandy's chest. Stroking the back of her neck, Brandy risked a peek over the edge.

Calcine was still swinging, but the Sweet Scent had slowed her fighting. Val was fending her off easily with her massive lid-shield, balancing Calcine on it and making her stumble about as she adjusted her grip. She was toying with Calcine, waiting for her to try to punch and then flicking her off balance, ringing Calcine's jaw with a crack of a slap that sent flecks of flame spitting out of Calcine's mouth and spilling all over her shield.

Growth was annoyingly powerful, but Brandy had been under the influence of it before. It went away when your confidence was shaken. She had to rattle this lady's china.

"Sparky, get a web line on Calcine. She's too slow."

"How will that help?" Sparky said, "Won't that slow her down more?"

"Trust me," Brandy said, rolling her fingers into her palms. "Get a web on her arm, and I'll do the rest."

Sparky didn't argue further. Her fangs split into a grin as she planted her feet against the tilted cabinet wall and drew in power, crackling arcs dancing up her arms until her fingertips were bright white with charge.

"If she's mad about this, it's your fault," Sparky chirped, snapped her wrist, and fired.

The Electroweb shot hissed through the warped air, a crackling strand that bent under the Trick Room's distortion. Calcine saw it as she spun on Val's shield and narrowed her glowing white eyes. The shot was off target, but Calcine threw out her arm to correct. The thread snapped tight around her arm.

Nobody knew why Brandy had done that, but they'd all trusted she had a plan. Now she just had to see if she really did.

"Gimme," Brandy said, Compound Eyes blazing as she grabbed the electroweb off Sparky.

The web sizzled in her grip, crawling with static, but Brandy's Compound Eyes sharpened into focus. She could see the exact lines of tension, the curves of distortion in the air, where Calcine's swing would land and where Val would try to unbalance it.

Super Luck thrummed in her chest like a second heartbeat. She knew all the factors, and she could put her hand on that pivot and tilt it in her favour.

Brandy yanked on the web line.

The Electroweb flared white-hot as Brandy pulled like a puppeteer, guiding Calcine's arm against its own stumble. Her partner's flaming fist curved on an unnatural arc, smashing into Val's shield just as the porcelain giant flicked it to deflect.

"Wha?" Val's voice caught in surprise.

Brandy snarled and heaved the webline again. Calcine's whole body lurched like a puppet on strings, but the Carkol didn't resist. She trusted. The redirected strike crashed through the shield and slammed into Val's exposed ribs with an almighty crack.

Shards splintered across the tilted arcade, smoking with a purple sweet scent. Purple-gold liquid burst from the fractures, running in rivulets down Val's elegant hip.

"Ahhh~!" Val gasped. She arched against the blow, steam pouring from her mouth in a hiss of pleasure-laced laughter. "You're so strong. I love it."

Calcine planted her feet, breathing heavy. "Want another?"

"Oh, please, yes~" the giant Polteageist grinned. Annoyingly, having her attack pattern broken hadn't destroyed her confidence. If anything, she seemed to be enjoying getting smashed. That was the problem with Ghosts, they all had these impossibly strong urges.

Brandy's arms shook with the strain of pulling the web taut, sparks biting into her palms. She gave the web another tug. Calcine surged forward, shield-to-porcelain, hammering Val back step by staggering step. Each punch rattled the giant ghost's frame, new cracks spiderwebbing across her china skin.

Val's lips curved into a wry smile even as she stumbled. "Mmm, you'd pour me out and drink me dry if you could, wouldn't you? Love it"

Brandy bared her teeth, pulling the strings tighter, locking Calcine's next swing in place. "Morgan, dive and shut her up."

Morgan soared over the edge of their platform, and the arcade's screens burst with static, a black and white grinning face briefly flashing along the rows and rows of monitors.

"Cindy, shoot down our guests' hopes," a staticy voice crackled over speakers.

There was a deafening bang, and Morgan burst into feathers to avoid a streak that whipped across the battlefield. A few more blasts chased Morgan's feathers deeper into the arcade stacks out of sight.

"Tricky bird!" chimed a voice that Brandy could hear the grin of even before Brandy's Compound Eyes found who it belonged to. A shortstack had slipped out of a cabinet's shadow, hips plush, belly soft and smooth, with a lantern glow in her torso, especially bright in two spots, giving the appearance of two glowing eyes on her belly. A leafy stalk tied up some of her dark brown hair in a long ponytail, the rest trailing behind her dramatically like it was a cape. She had her fingers pointed out like it was a gun,

"Call me Cinderella," she said, eyes bright and wicked. "Cindy, if you want to be friends."

"Already did the line," Val grinned.

"Stop stealing my lines!" Cindy screeched and fired her finger guns at the giant teapot lady. Bullets spattered off her armour, and Brandy got to see them pinwheel away in the air. Thick seeds, they weren't as deadly as a metal bullet, but they didn't look fun to get hit by at all.

Brandy felt the web in her hand go slack as a Bullet Seed ripped through the rope. Cindy hadn't just been shooting at Val in annoyance; she'd wanted to cut Calcine free. Sneaky. Had the voice on the screens hinted at her to do that?

This felt like a Trainer fight, and Brandy didn't know where the other Trainer even was.

"Struggling?" Nibbles said, tilting her head at Brandy as she thought. "Hey, just say you suck, and Chew and Nibbles will jump in and help out."

"The only thing I suck at is Poké-dick." Brandy growled, "Sparky new job. Tie me up a sniper. Dani, you good?"

"I'm still pretty woozy," Dani groaned, rubbing her face on Brandy's chest. "But this helps."

Sparky swung off the ledge, and her web was instantly shot with a Bullet Seed, dropping her with a squeak.

"Morgan, catch her!" Brandy yelled. "Fuck, Calcine! Smokesceen!"

As smoke began to fill up the distorted Trick Room, a few more Bullet Seed shots rang out, and something hit the ground hard. Brandy's chest tightened. Had she fucked up?

"Dani, you up for a Tackle?"

"I can't see!" Dani said.

"Well, we know which way is down," Brandy said, hugging the Magikarp. "We can't miss the ground, right?"

Hopefully this'd work. Because if it didn't, this was going to really hurt.