Molly Learned Magnet Bomb!

Rebelle moved around the edge of the store room beneath her house, leaning sheets of scrap metal against walls, setting empty cans on surfaces, and hanging bits and bobs from the rafters with bits of wire. To each improvised target she added a crude bullseye made with a few quick sprays of red paint from a mostly empty rattle can she had found in one of the piles of junk. As she was adding the last bullseye to one of the targets the paint ran out and she paused for a moment before shrugging and setting the empty rattle can on another surface to serve as another target. With the impromptu shooting range set up, she turned to Molly and smiled.

“There we go; we're all set. That should be plenty of targets for you, don't you think Molly?”

The Ferreanie nodded in agreement as her partner walked over to stand behind her, out of the line of fire. Rebelle wasn't sure how exactly Molly would manage to create some sort of explosive bomb, but her partner seemed confident that she could manage it and she didn't want to be in the blast zone when she got it right. With her trainer out of harms way Molly began to experiment, mixing different toxins and chemicals inside the bright purple spike at the end of one of her tendrils in an attempt to create a mixture which was volatile enough to detonate and cause damage. The first concoction was a complete failure, resulting in a completely inert dud. Rather than wasting the spike, however, Molly used it as an opportunity to practice her aim in delivering the spikes. Shifting the magnetic fields within the metal-covered tendril that the dud was attached to, she waited until she could feel the metallic thorn being pushed away from her and then increased the strength of the field until the magnetic push overwhelmed her grip on the spike. A loud crack echoed through the room as the bright purple projectile shot across the space and embedded itself in the metal of the defunct fridge's door a couple feet above the bullseye that she had been aiming for. Grunting in frustration Molly scowled and began mixing another concoction in another spike while a replacement grew in to replace the one she had just fired.

The next several mixtures were failures as well, with some more duds as well as mixtures which, while not inert, lacked the explosive punch they were looking for. Some were caustic, leaving melted metal and stone where they landed as the chemical mixture corroded the material. Others didn't explode with enough energy, or just leaked toxic chemicals out of the projectile once they impacted a target. After over an hour of testing, Molly was starting to get frustrated as she made another mixture in one of her spikes and gave it a little shake to mix the contents before holding it up in front of her to look at it. At first it seemed inert, like so many others had been, and Molly began to sigh when she felt pressure rapidly growing inside the projectile. Blinking as she processed the sensation, the small Pokemon began to say something.

“Fer-?”

Her voice was cut off as the thorn suddenly detonated in her face, hurling her small, spiked body back towards her trainer. Acting more on instinct than any sort of rational thought, Rebelle desperately raised a battered garbage can lid in front of her body in an attempt to protect herself before the impact slammed her against the wall behind her. Shaking her head as the ringing in her ears faded, Rebelle began frantically looking around for Molly before her eyes fell on the garbage can lid in her left hand with a large purple spike poking through the thin metal and several smaller purple spikes radiating out from it. Carefully tilting the improvised shield so she could see the front, Rebelle found Molly's dazed, soot covered body stuck to the front of the lid. With a cough and a shake of her body the Ferreanie shook herself out her shell-shocked state before looking up at her partner with a sheepish smile. Laughing, Rebelle pushed to her feet and began walking towards the ladder which led to the main floor of their home, still carrying the garbage can lid shield with Molly stuck to the front of it.

“Come on. Let's get you cleaned up and then we can come back down and work on your aim some more now that you've clearly got the mixture correct.”