Open Era of Escape: Days of the Damned

Nodding at the ecstatic blue eevee, she set to work on her next task. She had to melt off the many chains of the so called vaporeon. At this point, she doubted it was a pokemon and was going only by the dusknoir's judgement that it in fact was so.

She walked over to the thrashing mash of chains and bindings, muttering a meek 'hi' to it before saying, "I'm going to use flamethrower, okay? It shouldn't hurt that much, since you're a water type and all," she explained.

Taking a deep breath, Celesta breathed out a terrifying and beautiful steam of fire (she was still a contest pokemon and as such had a penchant for showmanship, after all) that engulfed the chains and danced on the metal while it turned molten. The arcanine smiled at her creation, being just a little of a pyromaniac.

The fire brought heat and light into the dark and cold room, and she could finally see everything properly. It was finally at her preferred temperature, as well. As she could now see, there were more pokemon here than she thought. To those extras and the dusknoir, she asked, "Hey, dusknoir? Do you think that the vaporeon will be able to get out by herself, or should I try and help?"

Zrantox chuckled. "Go ahead and begin freeing the others, Arcanine; between the weaker chains and her own strength, Avsa's freedom will certainly be closer than ev-"

A sudden blast of water went skyward, striking the ceiling. Avsa had taken advantage of the sudden looseness of the chains over her mouth and blasted a stream of water in the first direction she saw. She grew visibly stronger following this blast; most likely the feedback from the chains had healed her thanks to the Water Absorb ability.

This in turn only encouraged her; she generated another stream of water and blasted it, this time at Struve. The three heads grunted as the stream of water struck them, but it did not deal any significant damage to them or their restraints.

"This could be a problem," Mohtrek noted, "Avsa does not know the meaning of the word 'subtlety,' and if she continues to go on such a savage rampage, the enemy will be drawn to the cell. If they arrive to the cell and see our escape... and if we have not escaped in time..."

"The results aren't going to be pretty," Jutlin grunted, sending a Stone Edge at Zrantox. A visible crack appeared in the chains as the stones struck them.

Struve, perhaps we should wake Ccapac, Chacu or Aslla, Supay offered, Their abilities could be of great assistance to us in this escape attempt.

"We agree," the three heads nodded.

"Aslla!"

"Ccapac!"

"Chacu!"

"One of you wake up!"

The Mandibuzz was the first to stir. She made two attempts at taking flight before shrieking in frustration.

Welcome to the land of the imprisoned, Aslla, Supay greeted, Struve is here, as are several pokemon belonging to other imprisoned trainers.

"Imprisoned trainers? That means Myles is-" Aslla shrieked again as water struck her. Shaking droplets off her (as best as she could) the Mandibuzz looked at Struve with concern in her eyes, "that means Myles is imprisoned here? What did he do to... whoever did this to him?"

"There is little time to explain," one head of Struve said, "and we're trying to break free of here before anything permanent can happen to Myles."

At this, there was a cry of triumph from Zrantox. Jutlin had launched another Stone Edge, and this one had caused a huge crack in the chains. With a mighty push, Zrantox snapped the broken chain off his arm. Another push snapped the chain around his other arm. All that remained was the chain around his midsection, which Jutlin hadn't focused on.

However, Zrantox had anticipated this. "Avsa, I think you-" and before he could finish, Avsa had turned to him and blasted him with water in her frenzy. The water struck Zrantox with the force of a cannon, knocking the wind out of him, and it also snapped the chain around his stomach.

Panting, the Dusknoir had to wait a few moments before he could use an attack. While this was happening, Aslla, at Struve's instructions, flapped her wings, which were now looked like they were coated in metal.

This is going well, Zrantox thought, it is only a matter of time before we can save Caitlin and this Myles...
----
"This is going well," Caitlin grinned, "it's only a matter of time before I can get out of here."

After freeing her left arm, she had searched around the floor for the dislodged bolt. Once she found it, she had decided to use it as improvised leverage against her other imprisoned arm by placing it inside the ring that connected her other set of chains to the wall.

So far, it was slowly working. It wasn't going as quickly as her previous attempt, but she could hear the chain slowly being inched out of the wall.

She looked back at the kid, who had made only a few futile attempts to escape since she'd gotten her own arm free. Every time he tried, the twisted leg would get hit, or pressure would be put on it, and he'd have to readjust it so it wasn't being hurt.

This display was making Caitlin rethink her entire opinion of the kid. His careful attempts at avoiding putting pressure on the leg suggested that this wasn't the first time he had his leg put into such a painful position - either that, or he was smart enough to know the exact areas that one shouldn't put pressure on when their leg was twisted.

It was all futile to escape with his twisted leg, unless he wanted to put constant pressure on it, and even Caitlin wouldn't be able to do such a thing for a long enough time (and there was no guarantee that it would even be successful.)

"Perhaps I should... well, I'll do that once I find Zrantox," she decided, "or when I find Kadin, since Zrantox might not feel a need to help another human..."

~Hytanix~

A clank of metal, and a small bang are the only identifiers of Hastion removing the door and gently resting it against the wall. Hytanix looks in the cell where the butterfree was, seeing he was free, and an Arcanine was loosening the others' chains with her fire.

"Need any help." Was Hytanix's short, and semi-amused inquiry, as Hastion begins working at removing their door. Ricolan, Clde and spatz were prepared to attack any who came through the door, as avery stretched his wings, having them been severely cramped from being straight-jacketed.

-------
~Nanka~

'Best not forget the rest of us once your free enough." Nanka said, loud enough so the denziens of the other cell could hear him. His trainer card had been sipped back into his shoe, and he was fidling with the chain near his hands, more or less to no avail, but to keep him distracted as he waited for the others to be free.

Helen looked at Hytanix.

"Would you mind helping me out? I'm still stuck." She looked down at the metal harness that was chained to the wall, frowning.

Okay then. Now that nobody was currently asking for her to melt their chains off, she could get to work on the pokemon who were unconscious and therefore unable to ask.

Oddly, most of them seemed to be her team. A banette in the shadows there, a feraligatr restrained almost as much (he was still recognizable, though unable to move anything except her mouth) as the vaporeon over in that direction... her team was almost fully unconscious except her. The only other member of her group that seemed to be unrestrained was the weird froslass of Liza's, Tundra, who was nowhere to be seen.

However, the weavile Shard was restrained just to her right, Celesta she used to be. How she neglected to notice this before was left unanswered. She went over there and tapped the dark type on the head. She stirred immidiately, set in a paranoid frenzy over the attack. She lashed out with an instinctual fury swipe; Celesta was scratched in the face but managed to back away before there was any more damage. "Hey! Watch it, Shard," she protested. "It's Celesta. Do you know where Tundra is?"

The irritated ice type answered, "No. Why would I? Just because we were captured on the same route doesn't mean that we have some psychic connection or something." Shard looked around, seeing the cell she was imprisoned in with full alertness. Attempting to walk around, she realized that there were shackles around her hands, chaining her to the wall. "Great. We lost to those grunts, didn't we? I can't believe this."

"Yeah, we did. Now let me burn your chains off."

There was a shocked look on Shard's face, and then furious and fearful protest. But by then it was too late. The ice and dark type was engulfed in flames, her expression being that of pure agony. By the time Celesta realized this it was too late, and while trying to melt off the chains Shard might just have two more scars on her wrists to match to match the one on her eye.

The fire was put out, of course, mostly by an intervention from Icestar, who had been woken up during the scare. The water from the hydro pump had partially rebounded against her, and soon enough all of the trio was tired, irritated, and angry. The freeing of the feraligatr was much easier, luckily. When half of Liza's team was ready to go, they set out to do something.

The fire type went to the shadows, where a small, shriveled up looking doll-ghost was chained only by a single leg to the wall. The poor banette smelled much of the candy bar it was named after, and when the arcanine woke up Twix, he seemed to be on the crash part of a sugar high. The confused banette simply asked where Liza was, and Celesta replied with a sad sigh. The arcanine then called out to the rest of the room, "Is anyone here still chained up?"

Shard and Icestar, though, had walked over to the large group with the hydreigon and mandibuzz. Not being one for subtlety, the weavile asked rather rudely, "When can we break out? We really should get going. Lance's followers might come soon."

((Sunny and Tundra were left out specifically. Hopefully when Tundra gets approved I can do something with her. Also, argh this is so rushed and vague. I know.))

Zrantox had called ghostly energy to his hand and was currently using it to slice through Mohtrek's restraints. He looked up at the Weavile's question:

"Once I free Mohtrek and Kadin-" Jutlin gave a small grunt of annoyance "-freeing the others will be much simpler. Until that point, Arcanine, why don't you free Struve and one of his comrades? That Cofagrigus, for instance."

Avsa thrashed about again, and this time managed to blast a few chains off her midsection. At this, Zrantox finished slicing through Mohtrek's chains.

"Good," Mohtrek said, "now then, perhaps I should try and find Caitlin and the other trainers. It would make our escape that much easier."

No sooner did he say this then was there a victorious shriek from Aslla, who had managed to Steel Wing her own chains off.

"We can wait for that," Zrantox replied, sending ghostly attacks at the restraints of Kadin, who was still unconscious, all while Aslla was hitting Ccapac's chains with another Steel Wing barrage, "if the enemy comes in and finds us all like this-"

"You finish freeing Avsa and sic her on them," Jutlin cut off, "Mohtrek doesn't need to wait for the rest of us to find Caitlin."

"You are missing the point, Jutlin," one of Struve's heads said, "the enemy must know how dangerous Avsa is, and it would be almost required for them to take appropriate security measures."

"Several platoons of the enemy could be waiting just outside of our cell block, and the moment they suspect an escape, they'll all burst in," a second head chimed in, "and one of our number will be far too busy telepathically scanning to make an attack."

Jutlin grunted again. "You're overthinking this, both of you. No harm would come in a telepathic scan of this place. And if the enemy would charge in, I'm sure that all of us together would be enough to hold them off until Avsa would wipe them out."

"No, he's right," Mohtrek conceded, "after all, if all else failed, they could always use Caitlin as a hostage again."

A sudden hush fell over the pokemon of Myles and Caitlin. The only sound among them was Zrantox and Aslla's continued attacks.

"Wait, they used Caitlin as a hostage before?" Jutlin growled, "those green-backs really are dirty cowards."

"Just as I've been telling you all along," Zrantox gave a harsh laugh as he finished off Kadin's chains. "Time to wake up, Kadin. After all, there is much to be done, and very little time to explain it."
----
Myles, watching this girl continue to try and free herself (and so far, having a partial success,) could only shake his head in amazement and disappointment.

He was amazed that so many people still had an ounce of fight in them. From what he could gather from the conversations nearby, Lance and his supporters were the ones that had caused this all to begin with, and if this was anything to go by, they weren't being anywhere near merciful to those that they thought were in their way. He was surprised that even one, let alone two (and likely even more) were making active attempts to escape from what looked like a hopeless scenario, and it was working.

The disappointment was in himself, and it was all in his own failures to escape. Myles didn't realize that anyone with a leg like his would have a genuine reason to not be able to do anything while locked down - not after the scathing rant the girl had delivered.

As far as he was concerned, a capable person could escape, even while crippled, and wouldn't have to hope that another inmate would be the ones to free them. He couldn't, and thus he would have to hope that the inmates didn't go for an "every man for himself" scenario.

Because if they did, I'm as good as dead...

~Hytanix~

Hastion removed the door to the cell in which Struve, Zranto, and the rst of the pokemon were, and Hytanix set to work slowly and carefully removing Helen's restraints. Everyone else were pretty much released thanks to the Arcanine, and were soon ready to set out, the few injured being tended to be carrid until they could be returned to their respctive pokeballs. a small couple of torchs allowed the lock to soften and be torn straight off, allowing the chains to fall off of Helen.

"Now that everyones free, what say we look for our trainers, as I'm quite confident any resistance we meet won't have much a chance..."

Helen nodded her thanks to Hytanix, and said after him, "I agree. We need to help them, since they're porbably in the same situation as we were."

B bounded to her and nuzzled up the Hel, rubbing against her and purring.

"It feels so good to be free! I don't ever want to go back into my PokeBall ever again!"

Flut took to the air, floating over to the cell door. He started beating his wings, faster and faster. Eventually he got a nice Whirlwind going, and a small tornado started around the door. But unfortunately, it did nothing. The Butterfree turned to the other captive Pokemon.

"I think it's going to take more than one of us to break down this door."

Kadin shook her head a few times before realizing where she was. "So I take it we lost that battle to the green-backs?"

"Indeed," Zrantox said, gathering ghostly energy in his hands, "and it is a mere matter of time before our enemy discovers our attempts to escape. I can only thank whatever divine power that exists that we haven't been discovered yet. Until that happens, focus on freeing Jutlin, while I go free some of our newer allies."

"What about Avs-" Kadin jumped back as a stream of water whizzed by. This of course came from Avsa, who was almost completely free of her chains. Chuckling, Kadin added "Question answered," and started to breathe flames onto Jutlin's restraints.

Zrantox floated over to Struve, and began to blast his restraints with Ghost energy, even as Aslla was almost finishing off the chains holding down Ccapac.

"Are you sure..."

"that this is..."

"a good idea?"

"Why not break down the door, then free us?" All three heads asked.

"I feel that your trainer will need help," Zrantox gave a heavy sigh, "I know that his leg will make him a target of humans - they always go for the weakest enemy first. He will have a better chance at surviving if you are with him."

"Well, we are thankful, Zrantox," the three heads bowed, "I do hope we have a chance to speak again following the end of this crisis."

Zrantox gave the faintest hint of a smile. "As do I, Struve. As do I."

After receiving no response, Hera sighed. There had to be a way out of here, she had the inhibitor off... Her blue eyes glowed with concentration; not on her own bindings, but on those of another nearby. A sleeping Liepard, clearly unaware of his situation. The bindings unlocked and slipped off fairly easily... and for once in a long while, Hera smiled.

"Yes... they only resist the type the Pokemon that's chained down is. Perfect..." She started on the others of her team that she saw strapped down now, who dared not say anything in this furor.

---------------------

Angel made the rounds after freeing herself, unlocking most of the prisoners in the cell... except Azurra.

"Ma'am... are you sure you don't-"

"Yes, I'm sure... the guard out there has the keys, I'll wait for that... now, you... red-haired lady..."

Vera turned to give her a glance. "Yes'm?"

"He'll be coming around to check soon... you're strong. Take him down and get everything you can from him. And... one of you, get the keys from her and unlock everyone in the other cell... I can wait until you're done with that..."

Vera nodded and positioned herself as she heard footsteps from down the hallway outside the cell...

As Aslla finished off the chains on Ccapac, Kadin's flames melted the last of Jutlin's restraints. With that done, all of Caitlin's pokemon sans Avsa had been freed, and All that remained was for Supay, Struve, and Chacu to be freed before Myles' pokemon would all escape.

After being briefed on what was happening, Ccapac started to punch Struve's chains with all his strength. While giving the chains a decent amount of dents, this did nothing to free the Hydreigon.

"We might have to go with even more brute force, my friend," all three heads decided, "hit us with everything you've got."

Ccapac paused, and then asked: "That would be dangerous if we hit you, wouldn't it? You could be seriously hurt, you know."

"We know, but..."

"if we aren't freed soon..."

"Myles will be the one hurt."

"All three heads finished: "Is that what you would want?"

The Rhyperior shook his head, and then prepared an attack. "You do realize that you have nobody to blame but yourself for whatever happens next," and before any of Struve's heads could retort, Ccapac smashed the Hydreigon's restraints with a Rock Wrecker.

Even though steel is resistant to rock, Rock Wrecker was Ccapac's signature and strongest attack, and he hadn't been weakened too much from the previous battle (thanks in no small part to his Solid Rock ability.) Hit with this brute force, the chains snapped as if they were made of aluminum.

"Th-thanks," a head coughed as it shook off the remainder of the restraints, "but if I ever as-k-k you to do that again, r-refuse."

"Duly noted," Ccapac grunted, and started to pull at Supay's chains. This took far less effort, since they were designed solely to hold back energy (since Supay could not move without energy,) and it wasn't long before the chains were pulled free. The moment this happened, Supay promptly generated four spectral hands, and then used two of those hands as impromptu legs, and walked in a matter similar to a gorilla to the door.

Do we have a plan of completely breaking out? Because I suggest either Ccapac or Aslla free Chacu while the others-

"I'll free the Sharpedo," Zrantox offered, "the rest of you focus on blasting out of here."

Supay grunted, but did not give any other obvious signs of objection as Zrantox floated to the restrained Sharpedo. As he did so, Struve saw something which he hadn't seen before: a scar at the back of Zrantox's neck.

One of the heads opened its mouth its mouth to ask the Dusknoir about it, but before it could, a blast of water from Avsa cut it short. The Vaporeon's strugglings were becoming even more vicious, and with a final, triumphant roar, the Vaporeon shattered the final chain.

Mohtrek immediately moved in front of her. "Avsa, I would not suggest making further attacks in this area. I know you wish to avenge your last defeat, but you must wait for a more opportune moment, when there are no visible enemies."

Avsa did not look convinced. Mohtrek gave the closest thing he could to a shrug, and added: "if you don't, I can ask one of our newest comrades to immobilize you until we find Caitlin, who could put you back in your poke ball until we figured out what to do with you. Would you want that?"

He was bluffing, of course, but Avsa didn't realize this. Growling, she paced towards the door and took a combative stance nearby.

"That is fine," Mohtrek conceded, "I trust you to not do anything more until I or Zrantox gives the signal. Do not make me take that trust back."
----
It seemed that fortune was smiling on Myles, however briefly, as one of the other inmates had somehow managed to free herself completely and proceeded to free both him and the girl opposite him. Before he could say anything, the freed prisoner moved on to others in the cell, even as the girl opposite him muttered something about a waste of her own attempts to escape.

"Why are you doing this?" He asked as he saw the girl opposite him stand up, "wouldn't it be easier for you to escape immediately and leave the rest of us behind."

The girl opposite him spoke before their rescuer could: "Kid, that would be the stupidest thing anyone could do in this sort of time. Lance and his green-backed supporters are completely rooting out anyone that they consider to be their enemy. They consider people like you and me to be their enemy, and so they'd want us dead, and leaving him with less supporters. Does that make sense to you?"

Yes, it made sense. If they were freed now, there would be more of them to face this enemy of theirs. Leaving anyone to the wolves would decrease their chances of winning.

"Fine," Myles sighed, "but you have nobody to blame but yourselves and me once I inevitably fall."

With that, he struggled to stand on his good leg. When that went (relatively) well, he hesitantly started to stand on his bent leg, which promptly collapsed from under him the moment he thought it was well-supported.

"Well," the girl opposite him muttered, "I can already tell that this is going to go great."

Wait... she wasn't free. The froslass tried her best to get over to the large aggron that was offering to eat the chains off, yet she was unable to get close enough to alert him. Her teammates hadn't noticed her either; why was she so invisible?

Hopefully her attacks wouldn't be, however. She created a glowing ball of light and sent it towards the large steel type, hoping that she made the light simple enough for it to not work exactly as the move was normally supposed to. The (hopefully not confusing) confuse ray hovered in front of the aggron for a few moments, then head slowly towards her. Tundra looked at him with a pleading expression, hoping that this maneuver would work.

________________

Celesta tore off Twix's chain with yet another fire fang. The banette was still quite tired, however, and the arcanine had to end up carrying the small ghost type in her mouth. Despite the fact that being perched in her teeth like that should have been more than uncomfortable, the ragdoll's apparent lack of internal organs (it's possible to turn a banette inside out naturally, so it really wouldn't be good for there to be a lot in there) seemed to save him some pain.

By the time she had got back over to the largest group of pokemon, Shard was rudely asking when she could leave. "Now, Shard," she said condescendingly. "That's rude."

The weavile brushed her off and just shook her head impatiently. Celesta was beginning to wonder why she freed her.

As she began to absentmindedly torch the cofagrigus's restrainsts as the dusknoir had asked her too, she began to wonder where the to missing members of her team were. Twix was lying around and fighting against a headache, Shard was being her normal cocky self, and Icestar was just looking sadly at his futility around here. He was always a battler, what if he was sent to find Tundra? "Hey," she commented, temporarily stopping the stream of fire that came from her mouth to talk (and at first choking out a few flames),"Why don't you see if you can find Sunny, Icestar?"

The feraligatr nodded and wandered off. Celesta just turned back to her project of melting the chains, as she was almost done.

~Hastion~

Hastion watched as the last of the pokemon helped each other free themselves, when suddenly a small ball of light, a slight feeling of confusion hit him, he looked over, and with the slight glow coming from Ricolan's hand he saw a Froslass in the corner. A few heavy steps was all it took for him to get to her, and grab the chains. He then pulled with an immense amount of force, and they tore straight from the wall.

"You coulda just said somethin'." Hastion grumbles, shaking off the minor confusion. He then looks to Hytanix and asks, "Are we almost ready to bust the door down, me'n Clyde could do'it with no problems..."

------------------

~Nanka~

Nanka watches as all those around him were slowly being freed, and awaited his turn with a slight, but unnoticed impatience.

"Don;t forget about me please." He mentions, a slight grin on his face.