And a fight he would receive. There was a dozen trainers for every Tangaroa. Fortunately, a Tangaroa was worth a hundred League foot soldiers.

Thus the mercenary laughed. As he did so, trainers fell by the droves. They fell and his Alolan Exeggcutor danced on their bodies. Howard, meanwhile, looked up from his phone with a mix of horror and outrage. The delicate operation was up in smoke, and a battle was on their hands.

Damn. He hated field work that required him to fight. That's why he had brought Tangaroa to begin with.

"Fuckin' muscled brute..." The muscled man reminded Howard of Hitoshi Inoue , Rocket's dog and sword. The issue was that Hitoshi had a sheath. He was a blade with finesse, wherein the Alolan acted as a sledgehammer. Still, he couldn't let the mercenary fall. "Alright, go!"

As a Machoke near the Alolan raised a fist to strike the man down with a Hammer Arm, the admin's Aerodactyl latched onto it and began tearing at it with Psychic Fangs.

It did not take long for the Machoke's movements to become twitches. Eventually, twitches became nothing.

---

Tangaroa Emzar

Fun? Fuuuuuuuuck.

Howard hated fun. He had wanted to break rocks and extract Dynite Ore today, not shatter skulls.

"I'm coming!" The admin's Sygna Suit activated as the Reflects were triggered, creating a wall of light that split the mercenary from his employer. Howard tapped it, hissing in annoyance as he did so. Channeling his Aerodactyl's power, he flew over the walls of light. "Hunu, do not-"

Ranger bodies fell as the Alolan trampled them under his massive form. Every act that the Tangaroa took made the admin want to scream.

"This is your idea of fun? Seriously?" The admin ducked over a body thrown by Shirley, before kicking another Ranger in the shins with Strength. "Try not to kill the rangers. I hate writing coroner reports."

As the rangers fell, Shirley barreled into them with Iron Head.

---

Tangaroa Emzar

Instinctively, the archaeologist ducked as a ranger flew over his head. When he stood back up, another ranger barreled into him. The admin stumbled to his knees, before using his Sygna Suit to send the man flying towards the Exeggcutor, which battled him into the stratosphere.

Howard squinted as the ranger disappeared into the distance. He grimaced as the man thudded against the ground, unconscious.

"Fucking Hanu, I swear to Arceus above." Howard grunted as the last of the rangers fell. Soon, there was only one left. Hanu looked like he had lost a fight with a hurricane, but he was surrounded by fallen rangers. "Not bad."

If anything, Hanu's performance was impeccable.

"Last two." Howard took a deep breath as he fell in line with the collapsing Alolan. The man weighed a ton. "I'll take the left. You take the right."

The one on the right had a Golem. A fair fight for Hanu. the one on the left had a Pidgey.

A fair fight for Howard.

"GO!" The archaeologist lunged forward.

---

Tangaroa Emzar

Of course the man had grills. Expensive ones, from the looks of things. He wondered how many skulls Hunu had cracked together to plunder enough gold for their forging. How many jobs had the Alolan taken to afford such a display of wealth? How many shallow graves had been dug for such opulence?

It was wealth with a purpose, but the extravagance made the archaeologist's stomach churn.

The ranger with the Pidgey fell quickly enough, the small bird hardly needing much of a tap to bring down. The ranger, meanwhile, had proven much more brazen. Until his confidence had been shaken by an Aerodactyl's open, snarling mouth. The roar that followed echoed off into infinity.

"Fun? You thought that was fun?" Howard turned to look around. Blood. Mangled Pokémon. Marred rangers. It was a bloodbath. There was so much that the archaeologist risked slipping in what remained of a Machoke's intestine. "When an entire platoon of rangers goes missing, Lilycove is gonna lock this place up."

The Ancient Tomb wouldn't have much to offer if the League turned it into the fortress. The archaeologist took a deep breath and sighed.

"We'll move fast. You good?"

---

Tangaroa Emzar

He had an Ursaluna that shat in the woods, but the admin didn't mention that. Hunu was almost as large as the massive bear, and Howard didn't like his Ursaluna's chances against the wall of flesh, meat, rage, and golden grills that the Alolan possessed.

"Yeah, my fun is smoking and drinking and watching basic cable. Yours is..." he gestured at the bloodstained field of corpses where the moans of the dying rang from the ground. They reminded Howard of the final moans that a dying old man offered up to the air before passing into dust. "...this."

Hunu was a bloodstained brute. Strong, though. Alolans really were something else.

"Lilycove is our port, somewhere over there." He gestured east. "I want to hustle before someone realizes you killed an entire platoon. Chop chop."

He started running towards the Ancient Tomb.

---

Tangaroa Emzar