The Clearing of Route 1

[outtahere]

Who: A whole bunch of people. If you want to drop in? Drop in.
What: Clearing the path between Union and the port to create Route 1.
When: February 16 - March 2
Where: Verdant Forest

With a workforce assembled, the clearing of a path between Union and the port can begin. A path has already been plotted out and used by most people traveling between the two locations, so the plan is quite simple: starting at the port end of the path and moving towards Union, trees will be cut down and dragged back to the port, stumps and boulders will be cleared away, and by the time they're done there will be a reasonably wide and clear road through the Verdant Forest. Not paved or perfectly smooth, but enough of an improvement that travel between Union and the port will be significantly faster and easier.

[Feel free to make whatever threads you want. Anyone in the thread who wants to throw some kind of obstacle in the way can if they want to. Go nuts.]

Comments

[victimlessdetails]

"Okay then!"

Isabela was standing triumphantly atop her second-biggest Pokémon, Tyrantrum, which in turn is next to Scolipede, who happens to be tied for that position, at least in standing height.

"Start going to town on these trees, you two. Remember, cut them down in one piece so we can use them for proper ship-building if they're decent. And remember, color inside the lines," she ordered.

With a laugh from their 'captain', the two Pokémon were off, knocking down and pulling aside larger objects without a care in the world and stomping/steamrolling the underbrush flat, happy to show off their strength. It was probably best not to get too close, but you could definitely shout at Isabela.

[conquerorofwaves]

Sinbad was following close after, with Badr slithering next to his side. "All right, I'm going to look around and make sure there's no nests or dens in our planned route - Badr, once everyone's clear, use twister to clear left over debris."

Less clean up they have to do, the quicker the job can be done, he reasoned as he starts to run ahead.

[a_gentle_boy]

Lucas has school and work to attend to today, but after hearing about the project, he had asked his Steelix if he'd be willing to help. So it was that after a farewell pat on the head, the 30 foot long rock monstrosity has been left with directions to do whatever Mr. Banzu said as well as a neatly packed lunch in a picnic basket covered nicely with a blue sheet.

...It's rocks, for anyone who cares enough to check.

Steelix gingerly places his lunch on top of an out of the way tree before rumbling forward and beginning to casually swallow any boulders littering the path. Kind of makes the lunch redundant, but oh well.

[rainsrespite]

Yuuna, after having agreed to help and getting out here to work, is pretty much just sitting around.

Granted she's sitting on the shoulder of her Golurk, directing the automaton as it works. Gentle nudges and taps on Kuroshi's head along with mental requests help the golem go to work, flattening out the ground and crushing rocks that Steelix isn't eating. Not far off, whizzing happily along is Sabakumi, the Flygon bulldozing away, with Kyo the Tyranitar helping out by stomping around on places she's missed, or tearing up trees and such with a few of Yuuna's Fighting types.

"Okay, good! Slash up that brush, Koki! Make sure to get it all, so Saba doesn't get caught in it!"

[outtahere]

Banzu unfortunately still has a business to run along with other things he needs to do so he's not always able to be around. Fortunately he has Pokémon that can help in his place, namely Kerf the Bibarel on tree/stump-gnawing, Erg the Golurk on hauling, and, much to Banzu's annoyance, that Riolu that keeps hanging around on general grunt work as well. When Banzu's around Multi the Smeargle and Variance the Beheeyem are around too, both using Psychic to move things around.

For the moment Banzu's away, but in the meantime Erg is dragging the fallen trees onto a travois and the Riolu is tying them down in preparation for Erg to drag them back to the port. Kerf is feeling a bit inadequate next to all these giant Pokémon knocking over trees effortlessly; the first time in months that her trainer's needed her for doing more than cutting firewood and she's being shown up. She'll just... be over here, cutting down this one tree that the big Pokémon missed.

[victimlessdetails]

"Rip, tear, rip, tear, whooo!"

Isabela's having way too much fun riding around on a dinosaur right now. Tyrantrum, for his part, eyes Kyo and asks the other rocky kaiju if he wants to make a contest out of it.

Her Scolipede does his best to facepalm and then decides to take five, heading over to eat some of the leaves and branches off of the felled trees.

[a_gentle_boy]

Steelix has vanished some ways down the path, quietly crunching down on rocks whenever possible, but at some point, it will rumble back around and glance at the assorted helpers before rumbling over to prod quietly at Erg the Golurk. Ground types gotta stick together. It waits until Erg doesn't seem too busy before pointing with its tail down the path in the distance.

What should they do about the horde of angry plants coming this way?

...
...
...

Speaking of which, Ferro the Steelix has taken so long to report this that the horde of angry plants are now visibly bearing down on them.

[outtahere]

Erg is not sure. Maybe punch them? What do you think, Riolu?

Riolu resists the urge to facepalm at this situation and instead directs the two idiots to try and hold them off while he alerts the others. Riolu begins chaining Quick Attacks together to dart between trainers who haven't noticed that a Horde Encounter is about to start and pointing at the oncoming plants.

[conquerorofwaves]

"Well..." He trails off, noticing the horde of plants coming this way. "Maybe I could see I can talk them out of attacking?" Sinbad suggested, calling out from a tree he scrambled up to get a view.

Badr raises itself up an an S-shape, watching the incoming horde with a wary eye.

[rainsrespite]

"Oh...great." Yuuna looks up thanks to Riolu and groans audibly "Plants don't like to talk much in my experience, Sinbad."

Quick as she can, she nudges her Pokemon back into the group, and does a little switchout in case things go crossways. The Flygon vanishes, along with Mankey, and they're replaced with the Pokemon she'd prepared for guard duty. Dragonite and Avalugg take up positions on either side of the group, both looking kind of surly.

"But you can try."

[a_gentle_boy]

Wow, rude, Riolu. Ferro was just being polite, alright? As the Steelix grouchily rumbles off to inform any of the others scattered around the path, the plant horde becomes more distinct.

It appears to be a family of Oddishes and company! Four or five Oddish, three Gloom, two Vileplume, and a lone tiny Bellossom.

Eyes aren't necessary to observe this, though - their presence is made plainly obvious by the vile smell that precedes their arrival. The plants don't seem to be interested in getting close to the humans, and instead, push the Gloom and Vileplume forward. A disgusting scent wafts out towards the Route 1 Cleanup Crew as they wait for the humans to run away.

[victimlessdetails]

"Blech."

Isabela gives everyone a rare view of her hair completely down as she takes of her bandana to put over her nose, and raises her hand, about to send her Scolipede to roll over the obstacles. She hesitates, though, with her hand in the air, remembering the last time she was involved in one of Banzu's group projects.

"Oi, do any of you talk to Pokémon, or should we just scare 'em off?" she asks, with some irritation in her voice at her self-imposed delay.

[outtahere]

The others alerted, Riolu steps to the front and calls out to the approaching plants, asking if they'd be willing to stop charging for a moment so they can talk things over. Surely they can come to a solution that both groups can live with.

[a_gentle_boy]

Team Stench murmurs discontentedly amongst each other for a few moments before the Bellossom gracefully dances forth, her skirt waving in the light breeze, her expression placid and genial.

She smiles graciously... and waves her arms like a fairy godmother as a tornado of leaves gently materializes around Riolu and attempts to blow him into the next continent.

Haters to the right.

[rainsrespite]

Yuuna almost gags, and her response is to pull her hood around to cover her mouth. Gross dude. That's just freaking gross. But she holds back on attacking until Riolu is attacked. With hostile intent proven, she snaps her fingers.

"Hyozan, Blizzard the group. Aim for the middle, try and drive them off. Suzume, Safeguard."

The Avalugg complies, dropping a pile of snow and ice out of the sky over the group...and a shimmering barrier appears between the assembled construction crew and the aggressive Pokemon. That should help some, at least.

[conquerorofwaves]

"Well-Oh Good Gods!" He gagged as the smell had hit him, and followed by the clearly hostile intent, he sighed. "Guess we got no other choice then..." Sinbad shook his head.

"Badr, paralyze the ones that look like they're about to attack," He called out, as the Dratini started to crackle, unleashing a thunder wave towards the Vileplume.

[victimlessdetails]

"Alright, that's it. Scolipede, keep making a path."

The giant centipede roars and curls up, Steamrollering over as many of the Grass-types as he can hit. Isabela and Tyrantrum move in behind, the latter attempting to whack that Bellossom out of the fight entirely with his Dragon Tail.

[outtahere]

Riolu hits the ground and rolls, ending up in a crouch. He stands and starts running back, but he was thrown pretty far so it'll take him a bit to get back into the action.

In the meantime, Erg charges forward and uses Dynamic Punch, boosted with its Iron Fist ability, on the nearest attacker.

Kerf flails mightily at the sudden battle - she's more a lover than a fighter (Bidoof got added to the Starter list for a reason, you know). She's also weak against Grass-types, so she'll just stay behind this stump and... use Yawn in the general direction of the enemy.

[a_gentle_boy]

Team Stench is well prepared for this eventuality. In the blink of an eye, the skies open wide as harsh sunlight floods the area; in the next moment, the ground around them has transformed as lush green grass shoots up in every which direction.

Grassy Terrain superpowered Sunny Day instant proc Solarbeams running off Chlorophyll supersped plants slam into every Pokemon on the field.

...Not from Bellossom, though, she's still trapped into Petal Dance. Dragon Tail smashes her into the sky, but she seems at peace with this as she serenely blasts away into the sunset.

The rest of Team Stench has lined up to form a wall in protest against the environmental travesty of bulldozing through their forest.

[rainsrespite]

The solar beams don't seem to bother the giant iceblock and the dragon much. They take them, and yeah...it stings and melts a bit of Hyozan's ice, but they're big and tough, they can take it.

So, the counterattack comes in the form of an Avalanche from the iceberg. And the Gallade that'd been kind of chilling off to one side counters the Grassy Terrain with a Misty Terrain of his own, a wash of rolling pink fog creeping out to cover the entire battlefield.

[victimlessdetails]

Tyrantrum roars in pain slash annoyance while Isabela takes cover behind his crest ridges. He no longer cares how bad these things smell, he's going to Crunch them. See how they like his Ability.

Scolipede, meanwhile, doesn't give a crap about the Solar Beams or the smell and continues steamrollering over the line of wild Pokémon.

[outtahere]

The Solar Beams take out Kerf in one shot, and leave both Erg and the just-returned Riolu staggering.

Erg recovers and charges at the nearest enemy, putting its weight to good use with Heavy Slam.

Riolu recovers and goes in with a Force Palm on the nearest enemy.

[a_gentle_boy]

The Battle for the Terrain quickly ensues as an Oddish overrides the mist with grass once again, following this up by stomping up to Gallade and bouncing up in place while grumpily shaking its leaves.

This probably will not work out well for Oddish.

The rest of Team Stench is surprisingly bulky; while the Oddish are sent sprawling by Avalanches and Bulldoze and Heavy Slam such, the Gloom and Vileplume can manage to withstand a hit or two. Beside the ridiculously bright sun now, a pale moon appears overhead as Moonlight restores their energy. This is going to make news somewhere.

Force Palm does not do terribly much and the last Oddish runs up and begins Tickling Riolu with its leaves.

[rainsrespite]

Well, this does not work out well for the Oddish, who is hurled back into his fellows with a Confusion attack. Sorry, but this knight has no time to play fair!

"Suzume, sweep a Hyperbeam through the group. Let's just get this over with."

And the Dragonite shrugs her shoulders, opens her mouth, and...fires her layzar!

[flying_chains]

Morgiana did not rely on pokemon, which was good as her one bonded friend was not particularly useful for this kind of work, and was currently chilling out at the habitat. Her job today: stump clearing.

She walked up to one particularly large stump from a very old tree, cracked her knuckles, then gripped the stump and pulled.

It was an absurd sight; the stump was bigger than she was. But after a few seconds of nothing happening, the stump started to come up from the ground from raw strength.

[conquerorofwaves]

"Nice work!" The young man called out from a tree - searching the upper branches for hives and nests. "These trees are clear, so there should be no issue in felling them."

[flying_chains]

She glanced up at Sinbad.

"I don't think I want to try uprooting WHOLE trees..."

[reincarnationception]

Fei's Snorlax was cutting a path through the forest by way of giant plow. With its headband firmly in place it was barreling through like a force of nature, with Blaziken at its side taking care of any tough obstacles.

[outtahere]

Banzu's Golurk is following this trail of destruction and gathering up the fallen trees in preparation for dragging them back to the port.

"Lurk, lurk."

However, some of these trees seem a bit... less intact than the others. Snorlax? Blaziken? Do you think that you might be able to leave the trees you knock down in fewer pieces? Golurk thinks that its trainer wanted to use them for something later.

[reincarnationception]

Blaziken and Snorlax look at each other before nodding. It resumes much slower than before, but more meticulous in the clearing, preserving the trees with greater care.

[makeitquick]

Melaka could help with the whole plowing down thing - actually, she would, and had a few pokémon such as her Donphan rolling around to do minimal flattening help there. But for her money, most of what she was doing was keeping watch over the proceedings, crouching in trees with some of her others next to her, or having yet more (such as Sneak, her Trevenant) stand at attention.

They were changing a habitat here, after all. And even if she had given a plan to Banzu, there might be some rough pokémon who made things a little harder and perhaps most damningly, the path is meant to curve to avoid it, but they are very close to a Beedrill hive at about a halfway point, a very big one.

Still.

Ranger, watching, keeping tabs, making sure it seems to be a familiar thing people are plowing. She doesn't have authority - that's Banzu's job - but she can try to keep track.