There was no strategy.
No probing.
Only a roar, and the thunder of twenty armored (armoured) bodies slamming into the dry earth.
The Krookodile charge was a storm of dust and teeth.
'Too fast,' was Seiko's first thought, his heart trying to break free from his chest. 'They're here.'
The first Krookodile, one of the smaller but faster scouts, hit the trench.
It happened exactly as Seiko had designed it.
The beast didn't expect the drop in elevation. Its front legs sank into empty space, its own momentum launched it forward, and it landed with a wet, piercing shriek onto the sharpened wooden stakes.
The sound was horrific. The Krookodile's weight drove the stakes deep into its chest and belly. It writhed, spraying dark blood into the night.
A second predator, right behind it, stumbled over the first. It rolled into the trench but managed to avoid the stakes, landing on its back.
Seiko didn't wait. He didn't think. He reacted.
He grabbed his first javelin. His mind calculated trajectory, weight, drop. His muscles, aching from three days of hammering, obeyed.
He threw what he'd been aching to unleash.
The javelin flew in a flat, whistling arc. The forged iron tip, heavy and sharp, struck the fallen Krookodile in its pale, exposed belly. It tore through the softer skin as if it were cloth, sinking deep. The Pokémon convulsed, and went still.
Two down. Eighteen left.
The rest of the pack halted abruptly before the trench, a chaos of growls and confusion. They had shifted from a blind charge to a siege.
The Alpha roared, a guttural command. The pack split.
"They're flanking!" Seiko shouted to Acies.
Ten Krookodile, following the Alpha, stayed in front of the trench, searching for a way to cross, trying to brute-force it. The other eight divided, four to each side, running along the trench perimeter to find a way around the defenses (defences) and attack the cave from the flanks.
"Acies, left side!" Seiko ordered. "Don't let them through!"
'SKREEE!'
Acies became a blur of black steel. It leapt over the main barricade and met the first wave of flankers in open ground.
The first Krookodile lunged, jaws wide. Acies was ridiculously small in comparison, but its speed was otherworldly. The Pawniard didn't dodge, it slid under the jaws, so close that the beast's saliva splashed over its head.
'CHING!'
Acies's Metal Claws extended. Using its own momentum, it slashed upward, ripping the Krookodile's belly open from front to back in a single devastating motion. The Pokémon collapsed, its entrails spilling onto the grass.
The other three flankers froze, stunned by their companion's sudden and brutal death.
Seiko had no time to admire his partner's work. The Alpha had found a narrower section of the trench. With a roar, it jumped.
The Alpha Krookodile was massive. It cleared the trench and the stakes entirely, landing with a THUD that shook the ground atop the embankment.
It was five meters from the main barricade.
Seiko hurled his second javelin.
The Alpha was incredibly fast. It saw the projectile coming. It didn't dodge, it caught it. Turning its head, its jaws clamped down on the wooden shaft, snapping it in two. The iron tip bounced harmlessly off its armor (armour).
'Damn it.'
The Alpha charged the barricade.
Seiko grabbed his third javelin, but not to throw it. He held it like a short spear. The Alpha hit the chevaux de frise, and the wood splintered like straw. The beams tied with rawhide cracked and broke apart.
The barricade, his last line of defense (defence), was falling apart.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Acies was in a desperate fight.
It was battling three Krookodile at once. It was a deadly dance, dodge, slash, retreat. Its steel blades drew bloody cuts, but the Krookodiles' armor (armour) was thick. For every slash Acies landed, it took a tail swipe or claw strike that sent it rolling.
The Pawniard was tough, but its opponents were Ground-types. Every time they struck the ground, the impact rumbled through Acies's body, weakening it.
The other flanking group, seeing Acies occupied, had reached the far side of the cave. They began digging.
Dirt and rocks flew as the Krookodile used their claws like shovels, trying to undermine the pile of stones forming the cave wall.
It was a siege on three fronts.
'Think, Seiko, think!' his mind screamed.
The Alpha roared again and launched a final charge. The barricade collapsed.
Seiko and the Alpha Krookodile were face to face, only the shattered remains of wood between them. The stench of swamp and raw meat hit Seiko's nose.
He stepped back, raising his main spear, the two-meter one. He braced its base against the cave's rock wall. A phalanx tactic, to receive the charge.
The Alpha didn't hesitate. It lunged through the debris, jaws wide, aiming for Seiko's chest.
"NOW!" Seiko yelled.
He ducked at the last second, channeling every ounce of strength, fear, and frustration into that single point of iron.
The Krookodile impaled itself.
The spear struck the softest part of its throat, just below the armored (armoured) jaw. The weight and force of its own charge did the rest. The forged iron tip pierced flesh, muscle, and vertebrae with a sickening crunch.
The spear's tip burst out through the back of the Alpha's neck.
Seiko screamed, not in triumph, but in effort, as nearly a ton of dying predator collapsed on top of him.
The Alpha's jaws snapped shut inches from Seiko's face, a final hollow CRACK.
Seiko was trapped beneath the carcass, drenched in hot, foul-smelling blood, the spear still embedded in the rock wall behind him, holding the dead beast in place.
He had killed the Alpha.
But the battle wasn't over.
"ACIES!" he shouted, struggling to free himself.
His Pawniard was in trouble. The three Krookodile had cornered it against the cave wall. It was bleeding from a dozen cuts and limping. Its Ground-type disadvantage was killing it.
'SKREEE!'
Acies used Feint Attack. It vanished into a fleeting shadow, dodging a bite, then reappeared on a Krookodile's back, stabbing its blades into the joint of its neck.
But as it did, the second Krookodile hit it with Sand Attack.
A cloud of dirt and gravel struck Acies. The Pawniard shrieked in pain as sand hit its eyes. Its accuracy was gone!
The third Krookodile charged.
"NO!"
With a burst of panic-fueled strength, Seiko twisted free from beneath the Alpha. He grabbed one of his remaining javelins, but he was too far for an accurate throw.
The diggers on the far side had broken through the loose rock wall. Seiko's barricade was completely destroyed. The cave was open.
The pack, now leaderless but blood-frenzied, began to swarm.
The Krookodile lunged at the blinded Acies.
And then, the world exploded in a flash of blue and steel.
'ZOOOM–CRUNCH!'
Something moved so fast Seiko couldn't even register it. A blur of blue and gray (grey) slammed into the charging Krookodile with the force of a train.
It was Iris's Excadrill.
It erupted from the ground right in the middle of the fight, its claws spinning like drills. It struck the Krookodile and hurled it through the air.
Seconds later, Iris landed atop the rock above the cave, the same spot where Acies had stood guard. Her bow was drawn, an obsidian arrow not aimed at the Pokémon, but at the swarm.
She fired. The arrow sank into the eye of one of the digging Krookodile.
"People of the Earth!" she shouted.
From the ridge, a dozen figures emerged from the darkness, crying a guttural war shout. They carried obsidian spears and ran with a speed that would shame Seiko's men.
The Krookodile, leaderless, half their pack dead or wounded, and suddenly facing a dozen fresh enemies, faltered. The pack instinct broke.
Panic seized them.
They began to flee, running into the darkness of the plains as fast as they had come.
The battle, which had lasted perhaps five minutes, was over.
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the groans of dying Krookodile and Seiko's ragged breathing.
Seiko finally freed himself from beneath the Alpha. He was shaking so violently he could barely stand. He was drenched in blood, most of it not his own.
Acies limped toward him, its eyes now squinting from the sand. It made a faint ching and leaned against Seiko's leg. Seiko placed a trembling hand on his partner's head.
Iris jumped down from the rock, landing gracefully before him.
She surveyed the scene with a calculating gaze. She saw the javelins embedded in bodies. She saw the trench filled with stakes and corpses.
And she saw the Alpha, nearly five meters long, impaled on Seiko's masterpiece, his iron spear.
Her people, the Earth Tribe, gathered behind her, staring in awe at the carnage and the strange fortifications.
Iris stepped up to Seiko's spear, still lodged through the Alpha. She placed a hand on the wooden shaft, feeling the iron buried in bone.
Then she looked at Seiko.
"Bouffalant's Hoof," she said, pointing at the iron knife Seiko had given her, now stained with Krookodile blood. "The edge… held".
She pulled the knife from her belt, his knife.
"You did this," she said, nodding at the dead Alpha. "You and your… metal thing".
Seiko nodded, unable to speak.
Iris looked at her people, then back at Seiko.
"He has teeth," she declared, loud enough for everyone to hear.
She tucked the iron knife back into her belt.
"The People of the Earth". she said, her voice now formal, "Do not fight the Fang-Torn. We hunt them. And you have just weakened the largest pack on the plains. You have slain their Alpha. You've done us a great favor (favour)."
Seiko was still trying to catch his breath. "They… were fleeing."
"And we'll hunt them till dawn," Iris replied. "But first…"
She stepped closer to Seiko. She saw the trembling Acies at his feet. She saw the blood and soot that covered him.
"You've shown us your strength, Seiko". she said. "And you've shown us your tools. Now… you'll show us how to make them".