Better Gardening 12 (Patreon)

Better Gardening

Chapter 12

-VB-

I looked over the combatants who were frozen in their tracks, looking at the dead animal in horror. I couldn’t tell whether they were horrified by how easily Umma had dispatched the beast or for some other reason. 

Despite the outwardly angry and dismissive appearance, I was more fascinated by how the locals were using these animals as tools of war. It was, of course, a fact of life that if an animal had anything worthwhile, humans will take advantage of it. To see such a variety of animals with so many abilities… The sheer amount of discovery one could make here would make this place a zoologist’s worst paradise. Or was it best hell? 

Either way, for someone like me, it was definitely a worst paradise because even if I were pick up a few of the weakest animals, they were sure to dominate any ecology I added them to just because of the fact that it would be impossible for a normal animal from most universes to even compete with these creatures. 

I stopped my rumination when I saw how shell-shocked and horrified the invaders still looked, and I felt more than a little concerned. 

“Oi,” I snapped out loud, making them jolt and turn toward me, including the young man who had tried to impress me into his military’s service. “Soldiers normally run away when they face overwhelming od-.”

“SHUT UP!”

I reared back from the sheer vitriol that came from the old man, who had let his dead companion down and glared up at me with the ferocity of a man who just saw his child die. 

“YOU DARE-?! YOU DARE …!” And then he started weeping.

I glanced at the first man I encountered (Giovanni or something), and even he looked sympathetic, though I could definitely see his eyes sparkling with the opportunities he could make out of this situation. 

… Okay. There was definitely something I was missing here.

“It’s a companion,” I said out loud even as I stroked Umma’s head, making my elephant guardian trumpet lowly, making everyone shuffle by reminding them all that the one who actually killed their animal companion/soldier(?) was still here. “And it’s war. All of you are acting very unwarlike.”

That finally got them to react normally, but my guardian’s guns were still out and pointing, and if there was something I could do, then it was learning a few things from prisoners. Or exchange prisoners with either side for information on the local ecology. 

Because if half a dozen people was considered good enough for a skirmish against one person in defense of a town, then the local polities couldn’t be powerful enough to make me do anything. 

And if they were foolish enough to wage war in the first place when they had animal companions who could probably solve all of the problems that would drive most conventional civilizations to bankruptcy trying to solve, then they really weren’t people I needed to concern myself with communicating and interacting. 

But all of that would ultimately depend on what happened after the current situation in front of me was dealt with.

“And in that vein, you attacked me first but I proved to be much stronger. I highly suggest that you all get on your knees, put your hands behind your heads, and surrender. Lest you don’t and end up like … that,” I said as I gestured to the dead animal.

It was just a big bird as far as I was concerned. A big bird that could somehow manipulate the air to send killing attacks, but then again, so could my Umma. 

“You fuck-!” the old man shouted as he reached for more of those white and red balls and -.

BTZZZZZZZ.

It should have been loud. It should have been bright. And it was. 

And the old man was also a smear on the ground with bits of his flesh plopping into the rice field behind him. The balls were in tatters, and there were flashes of light as whatever was inside came out. It was more birds, but they were different from the ones the old man (corpse) had pulled out before. 

In fact, I never saw a bird with multiple heads before that were not artificial!

The two such birds, which looked like ostriches, looked around before they caught sight of the bloody ruins of their master and other companion. 

They squawked and thrilled before they spotted me and the literally smoking guns on Umma.

Then they blitzed toward me. 

They moved faster than my eyes could track -.

And then slammed into the energy shield. They looked dazed after running into an energy barrier at speeds that should have killed them but only left them a little scoffed and dazed.

And Umma pointed her rotary guns and turned those two into fine red mists as well. Only their feet were left untouched with bits and bobs of feathers.

“Last chance to surrender,” I yelled loudly as the red mist spread out from where the two three-headed ostriches had stood before briefly settling down.

The rest of the attackers quickly got to their knees and surrendered. 

-VB-

A/N: … I have never read any pokemon fanfiction where pokemons get gunned down like this. Has anyone else read something similar?