Chapter 39

She remembers an epic fight between the Red Skull and Steve happening, but she doesn't know if it already happened or it will happen. She can't ask Steve, as that would be too strange. Instead, she barrels into anyone by using telekinesis alongside Thunder Wave and other electric moves to cause paralysis to their opponents. That way, the people behind her can grab their weapons. When the bullets start coming and are too much for her electric moves, she uses Wide Guard and Iron Defense. It doesn't last long, but she wants to only use Protect for when they really need it, as she knows how it can fail after using it in succession.

When they manage to go outside, there's panic all around. She can see the destroyed gate and two different groups of people fighting against each other. She knows instantly who is part of HYDRA by the clothes. So, knowing she can no longer protect the Americans with her Defense form as there are too many for her big self to cover.

So, with a last use of Recover, she changes into her Attack form, because as she's now found out, Deoxy's Defense Form increases the defensive type of moves. Her Telekinesis also improves, or more like Psychic is easier to use.

It made her a tank, but there's no need of a tank at the moment, but of a weapon.

Attacking with Zap Cannon and Toxic Spikes, she tries to give the other guys a reprieve from the bombardment. It works, but the next moment there's despair tinted with determination coming from the enemy as the sound of the alarm that has been sounding until now changes its tune. She can guess that the self-destruction is going to start soon. And if she can guess it, the others can, too.

She needs to be fast.

Changing into her Speed Form, she grabs everyone who doesn't feel the same despair-tinted determination mixed with fanaticism in her Telekinetic hold and uses Agility, hoping they're not part of HYDRA. Or if they're part of it, they are not totally brainwashed into believing their ideals so as to not commit suicide as soon as they realize they're in the enemy's hands.

Maybe they can get some information that way.

When she has almost everyone in her hold, she floats them up above the trees, causing the men to scream. She doesn't care at the moment, but she knows she'll apologize later. However, there's nothing she can do. This is the only way to stop her from making them stumble across the trees and injure themselves.

She uses Extreme Speed at the same time the bomb inside the HYDRA facility explodes. She can only think of using a Protect to cover the men and herself as she flies away.

The wave of heat hits them the next second and she's glad her Protect lasted as long as it did or there would be men with burns by the end of this. The explosions last for only five minutes, but they are the longest five minutes of her life.

Not only because of the stress, but because the screams of the men are giving her a massive headache.

She stops and is careful when putting them down. Though she still feels petty enough to let them go when they're a couple of centimeters above the ground.

'Oops, sorry,' she says in their minds, trying to make her mind voice sound as dry and exasperated as possible. Going on by their grumbling, she's managed.

She spreads her senses and is glad to find more than a couple of hundred people around her. She remembers Steve only brought about a hundred back, or at least that's what she remembers from the movie. She doesn't know how much weight to give to the movies when she's clearly living in the real thing.

(Maybe there weren't enough actors, and that's why it seemed to be fewer people than it actually was. She doesn't know.)

So she only takes what she's seen with a grain of salt. Well, not exactly grain as she gives it more credit than that… Maybe a spoonful of salt?

She shakes her head. Anyway, she goes to where she senses Bucky and Steve are, with Steve being one of the first to shake off the vertigo and helping Bucky to stand up. She returns to her Normal Form and floats closer. They snap their heads up in her direction, slightly tense now that their adrenaline is going down.

She tilts her head to the side. 'Are you okay?'

"Fine, thank you," says Steve with a light smile as he sees the men standing up. However, when his gaze sets on her, it hardens. "Though I wish to know why you helped us?"

'Shouldn't I have tried to help?' When she sees his firm expression waver at her seemingly innocent question, he adds, 'Did you know your friend and those other six men you found me with were being brainwashed? Quite effectively, may I add.'

Those words seem to shake him. He turns to Bucky, and his friend is quick to put a hand on his shoulder in reassurance, silently telling him he's fine. Steve relaxes and when he turns once again to look at her, his gaze filled with gratitude. He opens his mouth, ready to say something, but another person interrupts him.

"What I want to know is why you are talking to him as if he's our leader, instead of the others that have been entrapped for a longer period." He looks at Steve and holds his gaze. "Not that I'm ungrateful, or anything. I'm just curious about it."

Shit. How does she say that she talked to him first because he's one protagonist of this world? Also, why did she think it a good idea to make her voice known to the others, instead of just communicating with Steve and Bucky?

When she sees the other men start looking at her, she realizes the silence has lasted a second too long. So, bullshitting time it is. Alien or not alien?

When she looks at some men tightening their holds on their weapons while looking at Steve and her, she decides to go for alien to be be her go-to choice. After all, it's not like it's a lie, right? Even if Celebi said she's part of this world, she has not been born here.

'Are people of this world not governed by the strongest and wisest of souls?' she asks, trying to sound as confused as she can in their minds.

The man with the amazing mustache narrows his eyes and tilts his head towards Steve. "We do not. Besides, how do you guess he's the strongest or wisest of us?"

This she knows how to answer.

'I sense he is the strongest physically.' She then looks at him, at what she senses coming from him. She's the genetic Pokémon, so she can also feel how he's been altered, strangely. 'Also, his soul has been tempered by pain and molded into something new. He's… more. Aren't you?'

Steve stares blankly at her for a long moment. When he notices the mustache guy giving him a look over, he coughs in his hand. "I was genetically modified, yes."

She looks at mustache guy with smiling eyes. 'See? Though, my apologies if I offended you. I was merely following the guidelines I knew of. May I know your name, sir?'

He receives another hard stare before the man sighs and scratches his cheek. "Name's Timothy Dugan, but everyone calls me Dum Dum Dugan."

Oh. She's familiar with the name—wasn't he one of the Howling Commandos? Anyway, not wanting to space out, she gives him a nod and says, 'Nice to meet you, Mr. Dum Dum.'

If she had a mouth, she knows she would have smirked at his sour look.

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Why Dum Dum, does anyone know?

Want to read 10 chapters ahead? Go to my p@treon, then c: