Salsa Spins to Win (Placeholder)

    As the muggy jungle air formed an oppressive blanket, Salsa knew she had her work cut out for her. The guild leaders and the mons from Fernfrond had tasked her and the rest of the guild members with finding any weaknesses of Gilgamarsh’s strange marshoid creations, and suffice to say, these things were annoying. While the other pokemon practicing on the relatively small sample of inert slime monsters seemed to be having much success, the venipede was met with nothing but frustration. To her chagrin, all of her poison and bug type attacks seemed generally ineffective. If only she could just plow through these things like Bou could, but wishing she was as strong as the bunnelby wasn’t going to help them fight the witch.

    She slipped a vial from her bandolier, Menthe’s purification tablets dissolved in pure toxic. Setting it on the wet ground, she put her whole body into a tail slap to send it flying towards a lethargic sliggoo-shaped marshoid. It connected with a shatter of glass, followed by the gooey creature writhing for a second before melting into a green and purple slurry.

    “So, the purification tablets work just fine…” she murmured. She had suspected as much. This would be good to use against GIlgamarsh, but vials like these would be useless against marshoids--there’d just be too many of them. Which meant she needed to test her next theory…

    Setting eyes on another inert sliggoo marshoid in the shallows of the pond, she shook off another vial, this one filled with a gray, opaque gel. With some effort, she got the cap off, letting the viscous mixture spill to the ground; as she had expected, mixing in simple starch from the ground biscuits of trail rations helped the water-dissolved tablets thicken. She dipped her body in it; not the coolest or most flattering way to be seen, but the venipede needed to see if the mixture would both stick to pokemon and enhance their attacks against the gooey bastard and his minions. How it looked didn’t matter.

    Once she was fully covered, Salsa righted herself, shaking the excess of the gel from her exoskeleton. And now for the hard part. Her target hadn’t moved, staring blankly into nothing with green sightless eyes. Charging forward, she leapt, curling up into a steamroller to strike the glorified training dummy. It shook and sputtered, and Salsa could see a bit of a dent in it as she bounced back, but it was nowhere near enough to waste it.

    Salsa scowled, muttering to herself. “C’mon, cabron…” Another full on attack, this time with more gusto, but barely more results. She shook herself, and launched again.

    “I am not…”

    The marshoid only wobbled. Again.

    “Gonna let…”

    It shook and writhed, but retained its shape. Again!

    “That bastard…”

    A dent in its shell, slowly reforming. AGAIN!

    “GET AWAY WITH IT! NNRAAAH!”

    With a fierce cry, she leapt at the marshoid once more, curled up and spinning wildly as she connected with the steamroller. Though the artificial sliggoo didn’t fall, Salsa wasn’t letting up. She spun against the goo creature, faster and faster, slime flying everywhere like she was an insectoid orbital sander. Salsa began to sink into the gooey creature, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t be bested by these things; she knew she could do it. She could feel it, burning within her. Rage against the witch, rage against his creations, rage against all the harm he had done to her family’s home. And as the little insect vanished completely into the marshoid, she knew it was time to use all of that fury.

    An explosion of goo showered the lake as Salsa reappeared. Gone were the short, stubby legs, the small, skittering, ground-crawling body; the form that zoomed through the goo was large, round, toughly armored with thick, dark purple chitin. The gathered pokemon couldn’t help but pause as the newly-evolved dipped into the fetid pond only to spin so fast as to plow through it like a laser through butter.

    It was the best feeling, rolling around at the speed of sound. Finally, she did it! The bandolier had slipped off into the pond during the transformation, but Salsa didn’t care; she’d finally bested an enemy. The strength flowing through the whirlipede seemed to blot out everything, the only thing she could hear being the whistling wind as she tore through the shallow pond.

    And the loud thud when she ran into the tree trunk.

    “Ok, so, as for your report…” Sinclair said, looking down at the bandaged bug like a mother trying her hardest not tell her unruly child ‘I told you so’. “You’ve discovered that bug- and poison- attacks are not the most effective on the marshoids?”

    “That’s correct--owowow…” The wheel-shaped pokemon winced as Eddy rubbed salve onto her bruised shell. “I think they--ow!--they have the properties of a poison type.”

    Sinclair nodded, and continued. “But such deficiencies can be overcome with a large amount of force?”

    “And salt! Don’t forget the salt and--argh!--a coating similar to the purification tablets! Those will overcome their defenses...along with large amounts of force, yes.”

    It was a bit hard to read Sinclair’s expression, but she seemed to accept the explanation. “Very well. Thank you for your report; I shall pass it along to the other leaders. Please try to rest and…” She paused, considering her words. “Do be careful. I know evolution is exciting and powerful, but please do not be reckless and overestimate your power.”

    “Yes ma’am…” Salsa muttered dejectedly. As if knocking herself out by running into a tree in front of everyone like a moron wasn’t enough of a reminder. With that, the Aggron took her leave of the outdoor triage, leaving only the fox and the bug.

    Eddy gave a small chuckle as he finally finished rubbing in the salve. “Hey, don’t feel bad, Salsa. Why when I first evolved-”

    “Aw, shut it.” Salsa shook a bit, feeling for a tail slap that was no longer there. The weight, the balance, the shape...it was much stronger than before, but now that she wasn’t going at breakneck speeds it was clear the awkwardness of her new form. Still, she could still feel some residual energy, so maybe…

    “Hey hey, don’t be like that. Anyway, like Sinclair said, you should get some rest. You took a big hit…”

    “Sorry…” Salsa said, “But I can’t do that, not yet.”

    Eddy tilted his head. “And why not?”

    “‘Cause we still got a witch to catch.” Though she couldn’t face that way, her gaze drifted forward, and Eddy’s followed it. The direction of the cavern, wisps of purple gas flowing faintly out of it.