By the time I woke up, my muscles had finally realized how fucked up they were. Everything hurt like I’d gotten run over by a dump truck multiple times. A bit of stretching helped alleviate some of the pain, but the day’s hike was gonna be miserable.
I had considered trying to call for help so a ranger could come pick us up, but there was zero internet connection. At least Dusknoir was nice enough to have placed us closer to Route 22 than we were before. We could just go south to Route 22 and then east.
Note to self, get a flying Pokemon asap. Sahara would technically be able to fly when she evolved into a Garchomp, but it would be impossible to fly with her until I got some sort of saddle.
Speaking of dragons, I let Sahara and Deino out to stretch while Winnie helped me make breakfast.
Deino either didn’t seem to notice or care that Sahara was the Gabite that injured him and his siblings during her fight with their mom.
He’d slowly approach her, nip at her tail or spew a small stream of Dragon Breath at her before playful running away. This was probably how he played with his siblings back in the cave, but Sahara was not happy.
Judging by her constantly shooting death glares at the oblivious Deino and muttering something about “burying the kid six feet under,” in Winnie’s words, I stepped in and used a Pokedoll to keep Deino occupied so that everyone else could eat in peace.
Winnie and I tried to get it through to Deino that not everyone wanted to play with him he could play with Winnie if he wanted but again, he didn’t know or care. Maybe he was too young to understand?
Once we had eaten and packed everything up, I assigned Sahara to the back while Deino was in the front where I could watch him.
Rotom, whom I had decided not to give a nickname to due to its annoying tendency of zapping me whenever I tried to access my phone, led the way with Deino following close behind. The little dragon was constantly trying to get his maw on the ghost. I had to keep on reminding him that the flying ghost phone was not a toy. Then I had to scold Rotom for trying to bait Deino into biting it by zapping him with little sparks of electricity. I got zapped instead.
The rest of us soon got tired of their bickering, so a warning snarl from Sahara and a quick Hex from Winnie was able to get the message through for them to stop fighting.
Winnie suggested that I return Deino to help keep the peace, but I wanted my entire team to be out walking with me, cause walking with your Pokemon out is super cool and because I wanted everyone to get exercise from the walk.
We were in a rather mountainous an untamed area of Unova, so the less agile of the group (Deino, and I) had a heck of a time climbing up and down winding wildlife trails that were packed full with slippery fallen leaves and gnarled tree roots.
Sahara kept an eye out for anything dangerous. She’d been assigned the role of warding off any Pokemon looking for a fight and had been taking her job very seriously.
Thankfully, most wild Pokemon, even this far from league maintained routes were too weak to challenge her, and those that were foolish enough to try to start a fight were sent running after a Dragon Pulse or two.
“so, should we give the kid a nickname too?” Winnie asked as he hopped over a tall tree root.
I nodded, “Yeah. I think I have a good idea for Deino.”
Deino paused, looking back as I mentioned him and ran back to walk in time with me, tail wagging like a puppy. It was pretty cute.
I smiled at the little guy, “Hey bud, since everyone else has a nickname, why don’t we give you one too? What do you think about the name Kaiju? It’s what people call gigantic super powerful monsters.”
“Deino!” Deino nodded enthusiastically, he hopped and ran ahead, then back to me and then back around heading straight for Sahara.
I grabbed him by the neck and torso and lifted him up, “Nonononononono, we’re not bothering Sahara okay? She’s doing a very important job, so we can’t distract her.”
Kaiju whined in disappointment, but stopped and lowered his head when Sahara shot him her meanest death glare yet. He decided the next best option was to chew on my hair. I sighed and set him down again, ushering for him to go back to the front with Rotom and he happily did.
“oi, kiddo you’d better behave! you too sparky!” Winnie yelled at Kaiju and Rotom, who’d both been about to take more shots at each other.
I chipped in, “Anyone who tries to bite or zap one another will be put in timeout until tomorrow.” They both huffed at that, but listened and minded their own business.
Lowering my voice, I said to Winnie, “Feel free to Hex them if they try to start anything again. I don’t need a broken phone or a paralyzed dragon.”
Winnie in turn gave me a wicked smile, “no problem az, i’ll keep em in check. hehehe.”
----------------------------------------
Despite the sunny day, it wasn’t too hot out thanks to the constant shade of the trees. We kept traveling until midday, stopping in a small clearing to have lunch.
I didn’t know the expiry dates for the stuff in my bag, so I was trying to use up all the perishables first. Twenty miles would’ve been about a day’s walk on nice flat terrain, but with my slow ass and the rough mountainous terrain, it would probably take more than two days.
Winnie enjoyed an assortment of smaller sweet berries while Sahara had discovered the joys of spicy food and demanded that I cover all of her food in chili sauce of jalapenos.
I was able to keep Kaiju occupied with food and a Pokedoll while I ate a sandwich.
The smell of food must’ve attracted some unwanted attention. There was a lot of rustling from the trees, so we all looked up. There were two Emolga sitting in the trees right above us.
They were absolutely adorable. Before I could even say a word, one of them jumped and dived down, landing on my face with a soft thump. It’s so fluffy! Oh shit.
The Emolga released a charge of electricity and I stiffened and fell to the ground, paralyzed. The other Emolga jumped down, stuffing my dropped sandwich into it’s cheeks as the other one detached from my face and ran for my bag.
“oh no you don’t!” Winnie yelled, jumping on my bag and using Extrasensory to pick up the little thief. The electric squirrel shrieked and tried to get out of Winnie’s grasp. Sahara finally stepped into action, blasting the struggling Emolga away with a Dragon Pulse.
The Emolga stealing my sandwich didn’t get far as well. Kaiju got his mouth on the Emolga and was violently shaking it around like a ragdoll with glee, ignoring it’s pitiful squeals and attempts to shock him into letting it go.
By then I’d finally regained control over my limbs. I hurriedly returned Kaiju to his ball, letting the Emolga scrambled away and back into the forest.
I sat down, taking a deep breath and sighing. My head was spinning, I had stood up too fast when I got up to return Kaiju.
“are you okay az?” Winnie asked, putting a paw on my shin. “those stupid rodents should’ve known better than to challenge the mighty winnie!” Sahara snorted at that and commented on what Winnie had said, “Gabite gab gabite.”
Winnie rolled his eyes, “yeah, okay, but iiii was the one who caught it.”
I chuckled at that, “I’m fine Winnie, thanks for helping guys.” Kaiju’s dusk ball shook and he released himself in a flash of red. “Deino!” The little dragon roared and jumped into my lap.
“You did good too Kaiju, just maybe don’t try to maul your victims to death next time.” Kaiju tilted his head, he didn’t get it.
I patted his head as I got up, adding in. “They need to live to tell others about how scary you are.”
Kaiju opened his mouth as if he’d reached an epiphany and nodded with enthusiasm, “Deino!”
We all went silent and glanced up again as a shadow flitted across the clearing. The sunlight glinted off of the razor sharp feathers of a mean looking Skarmory, who circled our clearing before cawing and gliding away.
“That’s our cue to go.”
----------------------------------------
It wasn’t thirty minutes later that we encountered another wild Pokemon while following a path through a ravine full of large boulders.
The yellow and red weasel Pokemon, a Mienfoo, quickly blocked our path, shouting a challenge at us and readying it’s fighting stance.
Rotom flew over to me and activated the Pokedex app, “Bzzt!” I flinched and grumbled in annoyance as I got zapped on the nose but ignored Rotom’s jest.
“Mienfoo, the martial arts Pokemon. It takes pride in the speed at which it can use moves. What it loses in power, it makes up for in quantity.”
“Thanks a lot Rotom. Who’s gonna fight Mienfoo?” I asked my team. My heart beat a little faster at the prospect of actually being able to do a Pokemon battle, even if it was against a wild Pokemon in the middle of nowhere.
“i call dibs!” Winnie shouted, leaping forward onto one of the bigger rocks in front of Mienfoo. Kaiju whined and turned to me, he wanted to battle too.
“You can battle next time if it’s not something that Sahara needs to handle.” I said. He sighed but seemed fine with that arrangement.
The the sound of claws scraping on rock drew my attention back to Mienfoo. The fighting type had taken the time I was talking with my team to boost it’s attack with Hone Claws. I called for Winnie to be at the ready.
“Winnie, you have a type immunity to fighting, normal, and ghost type moves. Mienfoo should only know fighting and normal type moves, but I still want you to dodge them as if they’ll hit you.” It wouldn’t be a good idea to let Winnie build a bad habit of letting his opponents get a free shot on him due to moves and abilities like Foresight and Scrappy.”
“Use Detect, Agility, and Shadow Sneak to avoid Mienfoo’s attacks and move around fast. Torment.”
“got it boss!”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Winnie grinned and used Agility to get close to Mienfoo, muttering a string of insults under his breath. Mienfoo growled, now enraged and lunged at the white fox.
Dodging under a Force Palm from Mienfoo, Winnie dived into it’s shadow with a giggle before reappearing from the shadows of a few nearby bushes.
Mienfoo paused, its flow interrupted as it tried to use Force Palm again but was forced to switch to another attack due to the effect of Torment. It wasn’t able to overwhelm it’s opponent with a barrage of attacks like it usually did now that it couldn’t use one move multiple times in a row.
“Winnie, your species is adept at using illusions against opponents, try using them here. Turn into another Pokemon to scare Mienfoo before attacking to get a critical hit.”
Winnie dodged a Pound from Mienfoo before stopping and trying to focus, but failing to create an illusion. He dodged another attack and this time I could see the air around him waver a bit.
“You got this!” I had no idea how a Zorua’s Illusion ability should work so I wasn’t able to give him any advice on it, but Winnie seemed to figure it out after another repeat of dodging Mienfoo.
As Mienfoo got close again, Winnie jumped and a green-purple light illuminated him as his form shifted to look like Sahara and snarled menacingly at the fighting type. “ahahahaha! i’m a mighty dragon who’s gonna eat you!”
Mienfoo skidded to a halt, eyes wide with surprise as it was suddenly faced with a giant mean looking dragon instead of a little fox.
I tried to hold back a laugh when I noticed that Winnie had only created an illusion for Sahara's upper half. “Use Hex!”
A circle of ghost type energy enveloped Mienfoo and stabbed into it. Mienfoo cried out in pain and cartwheeled back, looking warily at Winnie, who had released the illusion. It seems like he wasn’t able to keep up the illusion and use a move at the same time, but that was fine.
“Try it again but with Kaiju’s mom, then Extrasensory.” Winnie grin only became wider as he charge at Mienfoo, who furrowed it’s eyebrows and yelled out in determination. Its claws grew longer as it charged to attack Winnie with a flurry of Fury Swipes.
Torment had worn off, but unfortunately for Mienfoo, getting back into the flow of attacking didn’t help prepare it for the terrifying sight of mama Hydreigon’s enormous head suddenly lunging for it. To give it credit, it doubled down and slashed at the illusion.
Winnie jumped to the side and sent Mienfoo flying into a tree with Extrasensory.
Sensing that this was a battle it couldn’t win, Mienfoo got up and quickly retreated into the underbrush.
Rotom circled Winnie and played an Umbreon dancing gif on its screen. Where does it keep getting these emojis without any internet connection? Did they come with the phone?
“Haha! did you see that guys? i won my first battle! did you see?” Winnie’s illusion dispelled as he ran and jumped into my arms, wriggling around in excitement. I almost dropped him right into Kaiju’s mouth (he was trying to eat Winnie’s tail).
Sahara walked over and gave Winnie a respectful nod. He hopped over onto Sahara's head as Kaiju tried to hop into my arms too.
----------------------------------------
After another half day of hiking and a night of camping out near a river, we were finally getting close to Route 22. Once we got to a well maintained road where we didn’t have to wind our way through the woods hoping that we didn’t run into any powerful and aggressive Pokemon, traveling would be so much less stressful. I had a new appreciation for people who’d hike in rough terrain for fun.
The thrill of an actual Pokemon battle still hadn’t worn off even now, and I was somewhat hoping for another wild Pokemon to challenge us. Kaiju was still looking for his battle, and even though she pretended not to care, I knew Sahara was looking for a battle too. Winnie had told me that she was grumbling about the lack of any worthy opponents.
We encountered an angry Buizel while we were walking along a riverbank. It didn’t seem pleased to have intruders in it’s territory and was shooting Water Guns as us from the water before jumping out and getting into a battle ready stance.
I decided that this would be the perfect chance for Kaiju to try out a battle. The little dragon was more than ready to take on the water weasel.
It was only then that I realized I had forgotten to scan Kaiju for his moves. The two had swiftly engaged in battle, well, it was currently more like a wrestling match. Kaiju had gotten a hold on Buizel’s tail and was doggedly holding on while Buizel was flailing around in an attempt to throw the little dragon off.
Winnie was egging the two while Sahara was viewing the spectacle with some amusement. If a dragon had the face muscles to smile, she would be smiling.
Rotom came in clutch and scanned the two with a robotic beep after zapping my hair to make it staticy.
“Deino, the irate Pokemon. Lacking sight, it’s unaware of its surroundings, so it bumps into things and eats anything that moves.
Type: Dark-Dragon
Abilities: Hustle
Sex: Male
Known moves: Work Up, Scary Face, Screech, Bite, Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, Ice Fang, Head Smash, Astonish, Hyper Voice, Tackle, Dragon Breath”
“Buizel, the sea weasel Pokemon. It spins its two tails like a screw to propel itself through water. The tails also slice clinging seaweed.”
How in the world does Kaiju know all three elemental fang attacks? I thought the only moves he’d know would be Bite and Dragon Breath.
I shook my head, I needed to focus on the battle. Moving a bit closer so that I could be heard by my Pokemon, I shouted a command.
“Kaiju! Used Thunder Fang!”
Kaiju paused and tilted his head. Buizel took this opportunity to shoot a Water Gun in Kaiju’s face. He wasn’t fazed by the attack and went back to trying to tear the sea weasel’s tail off.
I groaned, before trying another order, “Kaiju! Remember how Rotom zapped you? Try doing that when you Bite down!”
Thankfully Kaiju seemed to get what I said this time and lightning sparked in his mouth. The area was lit up as Buizel was electrocuted.
Kaiju let go of Buizel’s tail as he was surprised by his own move and the water weasel whipped around, growling at Kaiju before lunging at him. Water swirled around Buizel in a torrent as it used Aqua Jet to slam into Kaiju.
Kaiju was thrown back but regained his feet fast enough to duck below another Aqua Jet from Buizel as I shouted for him to dodge.
There was no way Kaiju would be able to get ahold of Buizel again, so the next next move would be, “Dragon Breath!”
Thankful Kaiju seemed to know what that was. He opened his mouth wide and spewed a mass of blueish fire at the oncoming Aqua Jet. Buizel tried to dodge but ended up swerving to the side and crashing into the ground right next to Kaiju.
The little dragon was delighted that Buizel had served itself on a platter right next to him and went straight for it’s throat. And missed. He bit one of the football sized river rocks instead and began trying to rip it apart.
Winnie cracked up, “he’s not the sharpest crayon in the box is he?”
Buizel quickly recovered and chattered angrily at us before diving back into the river with a large chunk of fur missing from its tail.
I was stuck with the task of making sure Kaiju didn’t try to eat the rock he had in his mouth.
----------------------------------------
There were few more incidents of weaker wild Pokemon challenging us, but now that Winnie and Kaiju had gotten a taste for battle I had them take turns battling new challengers.
Winnie further practiced using his ability and I had him work on learning and using Confuse Ray to enhance his ability to use Illusions.
Kaiju was a wild card and would keep trying to eat whatever he thought was edible, which was basically everything that moved, as stated in the Pokedex. This resulted in him getting too excited to listen to my instructions and trying to eat his opponents alive every time he battled. I tried rectifying this problem by giving him extra snacks but he’d still keep trying to eat stuff even if he was full. Quite a few poor unsuspecting Pidove met their ends to thanks to Kaiju.
Note to self, don’t send Kaiju out against small and weak Pokemon during trainer battles until he learns a bit of impulse control.
Sahara wanted to battle too, but none of the wild Pokemon that we encountered were up to her standards. She was very specific about how strong her opponents had to be for her to battle them.
The only exception to that was when an exceptionally tough Seviper attacked, it was double the size of a normal Seviper at around seventeen feet. I was ready to battle with Sahara for the first time, when a bunch of Zangoose appeared out of nowhere and began mauling Seviper to death while the snake in turn tried to kill them too.
I quickly dragged Sahara and the others away while the Zangoose and Seviper were distracted with killing each other. Their hatred for each other was no joke. I kept fast-walking away until we couldn’t hear their shrieks of pure rage and pain faded into the distance.
The next big problem we ran into was at around midday.
The trees branches above were literally growing into each other and the shade they provided made the forest below feel like it was almost night. The ground was equally as packed with chest high thorny bushes that constantly caught on and ripped at my clothes and skin.
The dragons were fine due to their tough scales, though I had to return Kaiju because he kept running into the bushes and out of sight to chase whatever new scent he was smelling. He didn’t have the impulse control to stay on the path that Sahara cleared for us.
To our left was the a particularly deep and fast flowing section of the river we had previously been walking along and to our right was a steep drop into a valley-like area full of even more thorn bushes. There was no path along the river that we could go through and I really didn’t want to have to backtrack to find another way across so going straight forward was the only option.
Sahara lead the way using Slash to cut the thorny branches apart while Winnie found a comfortable seat in my in the hood of my jacket.
We were approaching a clearing with a lot of tall grass, but a warning growl from Sahara alerted us that something was wrong.
“What’s up?”
Winnie hopped up onto my shoulder, “sahara says that she smells mushroom pokemon up ahead.”
“Mushroom?” I took a few steps closer to the clearing to get a better look at it. There were indeed a bunch of mushrooms in the clearing in clusters. The mushroom caps had Pokeball patterns, and a few of them were swaying even though there was no breeze.
“Bzzt, beep beep!” Rotom buzzed and fired up the Pokedex. A few arcs of electricity arced into my hair, making it staticy and puffy.
“Foongus, the mushroom Pokemon. It lures people in with its Poké Ball pattern, then releases poison spores. Why it resembles a Poké Ball is unknown.”
“Amoongus, the mushroom Pokemon. It moves the caps on both arms and does a dance to lure prey, but very few Pokémon are fooled by this. It prefers damp places.”
I swiped a hand through my hair to get rid of the static, “Yeah I know what those are. We’re not going in there. Lets go around them.”
Sahara nodded and began slashing away at the thorn bushes to her left.
We emerged into another clearing, but there was another horde of Foongus and Amoongus sitting there. Their caps all eerily turned to us once they sensed our presence.
“Nope, nope nope nope. Back to the bushes.”
“couldn’t we just blast them all with some long ranged attacks?” Winnie asked.
“I’d rather not risk having them release poisonous spores all over us. We’re avoiding confrontation unless it’s necessary.” I said as I followed Sahara away from the clearing.
We ended up trying countless other paths but had to backtrack each time due to the presence of those stupid mushroom Pokemon. It was like they were trying to surround us. Actually, they were trying to surround us.
From his vantage point on my head, Winnie was able to spot multiple Foongus moving around in the brush, getting closer to us as we tried to get out of that stupid maze of thorn bushes.
We ended up backtracking all the way back to were we first entered the thorn bush trail. The Foongus didn’t follow us out, but it was pretty unsettling knowing that they were trying to hunt us.
I sent Winnie out to scout for any ways around that we may have missed. It would be easier for him to travel by himself due to him being able to phase through objects and use Shadow Sneak.
While Winnie was away, Sahara tried to use dig, but there were too many roots and large rocks in the way for digging a tunnel to be easy. We were also near a large river and I was worried about any tunnels being flooded if we dug in the wrong direction.
We need a way to sneak past them without them noticing us.
“az!” Winnie broke me from my train of thought, he had reappeared from the direction of the river. He was accompanied by a large white cat-dog Pokemon with a large black scythe horn protruding from it’s forehead.
My eyes widened, I was looking at a real life Absol! It was absolutely gorgeous.
“i found some help. there’s another human by the river.” That must be Absol’s trainer.
“Great! Well, lead the way.”
We backtracked through the forest before coming to the spot where Kaiju had battled that wild Buizel.
There was a man with long brown hair in a classic orange and black ranger outfit. He was accompanied by a Sawsbuck with antlers full of green leaves that were beginning to transition to the colors of fall.
The mean looking Skarmory we saw from about a day ago was flying overhead.
Absol trotted up to the ranger with a pleased look and the ranger patted it on its head as he turned to us with a frown.
“Hey you! We’ve been looking for you guys, what are you doing this far from Route 22? It’s dangerous for trainers to come this way unless they have more than six badges.”
The Ranger took a closer look at me as he walked over, “And I doubt you’re old enough to even participate in the gym circuit.”
I recalled the the multiple incidents that landed us here and simply said, “It’s a long story.” I guess it makes sense that there’s an age requirement to participate in the gym circuit, I wonder what it is.
The Ranger furrowed his eyebrows and sighed in annoyance, “Whatever, I’m taking you back to Route 22.” He let out a sharp whistle. Skarmory dove down, crying out a metallic sounding, “Skarr!”, and gracefully landing next to the Ranger. Skarmory lovingly nuzzled its trainer while simultaneously giving us a an extra mean glare.
I shivered and avoided eye contact with the metal bird. I was just glad that we could skip climbing up and down rough terrain for the next day or two.
Once Sahara was returned to her ultra ball, the Ranger whose name I learned was Owen, helped me up into a carrier basket that Skarmory would carry by a handle while flying.
It was kind of like being in a hot air balloon, but the balloon was a giant metal bird. Owen rode on Skarmory’s back because the basket wasn’t big enough for two people plus Absol.
Skarmory may have been unfriendly but Absol was a sweetheart and let me pet it while we flew. It’s fur was coarser than I expected, more like a dog’s fur than a cat’s.
I got a pair of too big goggles to wear for the 20-ish minute trip to Route 22. The flight was fantastic! Being able to see everything below and that awesome feeling of flying, it was a dream come true.
Again, I made a my previous mental note of getting a flying Pokemon or evolving Sahara extra important.
I could tell Winnie enjoyed the experience too from him giggling in my ear and constantly tail hitting the back of my head. Once the initial joy of flying worse off, he and Absol had an animated conversation about Ranger work.
Owen slightly ruined the experience with a rather aggressive lecture about being more responsible and how I could’ve died and that I was lucky I wasn’t attacked by an aggressive Hydreigon that lives in that area. Boi I’ve already died once. Also I wasn’t killed by the Hydreigon I think you’re talking about.
According to the Ranger, tens of trainers have been killed in the area he was patrolling just in the past few years because they wanted to catch a Deino or a Zweilous from this place called Three Fang Cave, where a Hydreigon was known to live with her brood.
I refrained from commenting on that. I knew exactly where he was talking about, and I would have completely avoided the place if I hadn’t been dumped there by a grumpy Pokemon Deity.
He was angry, but in a disappointed parent way. Judging by the descriptive details he put into those stories, he’d probably seen the aftermath or at least heard of from his colleague about what happened to the trainers who met their end because they overestimated their abilities. I really couldn’t blame him for his reaction either way.
I guess this is a bit of the dark side of the Pokemon world. Kids who get mauled to death by angry wild Pokemon. I was almost in that category thanks to Giratina dumping me in a cave with an angry mama Hydreigon.
Route 22 soon came into view. It was a wide and clear sand and dirt path lined with tall grass through a part of the forest that was much less densely packed than where we came from.
There were a few people walking along the path, as well as a one or two other trainers riding flying Pokemon in the distance.
Once we landed, Owen directed me to Humilau, specifically pointing out a sign in the shape of an arrow that said, ‘To Humilau City’. He strongly emphasized that he didn’t want to see me off route again, at least until I was as strong as a seven badge trainer before shooing me off.
Skarmory shot me another glare, so I gave them a crisp thumbs up and booked it in the direction of Humilau city. I was in dire need of a hot shower and an actual bed, and I was sure my team would appreciate something other than berries and slightly burnt campfire food.