The rest of the day was spent celebrating, and using a fair amount of the prize money to spoil Arthur's Pokemon. The pair of Pokemon were more than happy to be spoiled, even if Zangooses was getting a groomer to brush her fur for an hour. Nuzleaf got lessons on how to play a variety of strategy games, it's species' natural leadership and strategy skills showing through. Arthur made sure to buy a few different strategy games to keep Nuzleaf's mind occupied. The battle seemed to have also calmed Zangoose somewhat. While she was still vicious in battle, fighting as if her life depended on it, outside of battle she seemed a lot calmer and less on edge. It may have something to do with the brushing.
Once the sun had set, Arthur took his Pokemon back into his room, informed the receptionist that tonight would be his final stay, and paid for the time he had spent at the Pokemon Center. Upon returning to his room, he called May.
"Hello?" May's voice rang out from the speakers, and the sounds of waves gently crashing in the distance could be heard.
"Hey May, it's Arthur." The boy said, a tinge of worry in his voice that she had forgotten about him. They had only spoken once on the phone and met once in person.
"Oh, Arthur! Did your Nuzleaf finally evolve? I expected it to happen a bit sooner." May questioned, sounding distant from the phone for a moment as something made some noise in the distance.
"Yeah, it happened a while ago actually. I just wanted to beat Roxanne first before I told you about it so that Nuzleaf would be ready for a rematch." Arthur replied, starting to get worried about all the noise coming from May's side of the call.
"That was smart, had you done it right as he evolved then I would have won handily. Nuzleaf learns a lot of new moves while forgetting some of its old ones, so it can take some time to adjust, while Combusken only learns new moves, meaning it can rely on old strategies while it adapts to its updated moveset." A crash could be heard from the other side of the call. "Combusken! Stop using Feather Dance on literally everything!"
"Are you ok?" Arthur asked, unsure of himself. He did manage to learn one of Combusken's moves apparently, though he had no clue what it did.
"Yeah, Combusken just evolved like yesterday, a bit later than I expected, but well within the predicted timeframe. I've gotta go, but meet me in the Petealburg Docks in like 3 days, we can have a battle before I head out to Dewford Island. Devoncorp asked me to deliver some stuff, and I was going that way anyway, but it's a little time sensitive, so I can't wait any longer than that." May said, clearly getting more and more distracted by her excited Combusken.
Arthur agreed and the pair said goodbye while May yelled at her very energetic Combusken. With a fire lit in the pit of his stomach, both for a rematch to avenge the loss to May and to just see her again, the young trainer got ready for bed so he could rise bright and early to get a headstart on the day. The faster he moved through the Petalburg forest, the sooner he could see May again.
Morning came quickly, and Arthur was already up and moving. As the first rays of light from the dawn pierced the window of the Pokecenter, the young trainer was leaving the doors, a very tired Nurse Joy waving him goodbye and wishing him well. The streets were near empty, the only people and Pokemon up this early were those with jobs that required it, or those out for a run. Arthur ignored them all and headed directly toward the city limits.
From there, it was a light jog across the bridge, past the trainer's lodge, and into the forest once more. Arthur was loathed to admit it, but the two hours it took to jog the distance took the wind out of his sails. He considered himself relativity fit compared to those around him, the last few months of playing with Seedot and light training before the Gym season started have done wonders for his body. But that run showed how much he could improve, not just his Pokemon. Arthur made a mental note to add his own training regimen to the daily agenda.
Entering the forest once more, the young trainer knew he would have to slow down. While he could move quicker than last time, rushing through the Petalburg forest was a great way to end up off route, and unlike route 116 where you could just walk in one direction and find your way back, Petalburg forest's rote twisted and turned way too much for that to be a viable strategy. Once you were off route, it was unlikely you would stumble back on it.
The bug pokemon mostly stayed clear, much like last time. They were naturally wary, being at the bottom of the food chain for most of their evolutionary line. However, there were always a few bold bugs that wanted to become stronger, as well as those who wanted to be caught, but Arthur had to reject them all. He really wasn't too interested in bug Pokemon. He knew their status effects could be very strong and was almost tempted to catch a Dustox that hung around for a bit but decided against it. He wanted to keep focusing on the two Pokemon he already had.
The darkness of night fell upon Arthur very quickly, and with the help of his two Pokemon, mainly Nuzleaf due to Zangoose having claws for fingers, the tent was set up and the group went down for the night. However, after a few hours, something awoke the young trainer. The nocturnal Pokemon went quiet. The sudden change in atmosphere awoke the trainer, who instinctively reached for his Pokeballs as a soft rustling could be heard from outside.
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A purple light struck the side of the tent, ripping it to shreds, barely missing Arthur. His Pokemon reacted quicker than he did, releasing themselves from their balls, Arthur rarely kept them locked for this very reason. The canopy of trees kept what little light there was from filtering down to the ground, yet the light from the attack showed who it was. A massive Seviper covered in scars, half again as long as a normal fully grown Seviper was attacking them. It seemed that the Survipers that Arthur and co beat before had gone and told their boss, who was now out for revenge.
Arthur would be a liar if he said that he wasn't terrified. The sight of such a massive, and clearly angry, pokemon shot a kind of primal fear into him that he didn't know existed. Luckily, he had Zangoose. The cat Pokemon threw itself at the clearly stronger Seviper, its claws shining with the Hone Claws Metal Claw combo they had been practicing for Roxanne. While it got a few strikes in, it was quickly flung away by a strike from Poison Tail.
As the Seviper turned back to Arthur, clearly thinking the Zangoose was done for, Nuzleaf stepped in its way, taking up a defensive stance between Trainer and wild Pokemon. Its body shined once with what was clearly a Harden, while it said something in the Pokemon language that seemed to infuriate the massive Mon. The tail came down to strike Nuzleaf, however, the energy that surrounded it and made the attack into a Poison Tail flickered and faded away. Nuzleaf had used Torment. The tail still struck the defending Nuzleaf however, who simply crossed their arms and took the attack head-on. Without the empowering energy of Poison Tail, Nuzleaf kept standing.
Zangoose was soon back into the fray, the energy surrounding their claws was that of Fury Cutter this time. While it may be weak to poison, the damage build-up would quickly surpass that of Metal Claw. The elder Seviper however knew its way around a battlefield, and turned on Zangoose, hitting it with a Glare, slowing it down. Luckily, the Stun effect did not trigger, or else it may have spelled the end for Zangoose.
Arthur had begun to move at this point, the fear that was holding him in place finally losing its grip just enough for him to remember to breathe and back away. Nuzleaf stayed with him, clearly unwilling to join the battle with Zangoose and leave Arthur alone. "G-go!" Arthur commanded, the word getting caught in his throat and coming out as barely more than a squeak. "I'll be fine. I wasn't hurt. Help her." Arthur found he couldn't speak too well, the fear that still rang through him at the near-death experience chilling him to the bone.
Nuzleaf nodded, trusting his trainer, and ran off to help Zangoose, hitting the massive snake with a Razor Leaf as it ran. The training they had done was clearly paying off as Zagnoose and Nuzleaf worked together to keep the giant snake's attention divided. While it clearly attacked Zangoose more, its natural hatred of the species getting the better of it, Nuzleaf kept just enough of its attention that the cat Pokemon could stay up and fighting.
Try as they might, the giant Seviper was clearly stronger and more experienced than them, changing up its moves and using status-inflicting moves much more often than a normal wild Pokemon would. It hit both Pokemon with a Screech, twice, greatly lowering their defenses as their internal energies were disrupted. It also constantly used Feint to strike at odd angels, one moment coming from the left, then suddenly from the right. If it were not for Zangoose's abilities, Immunity and Toxic Boost, the cat Pokemon would have fallen much quicker.
Immunity was something all Zangoose had, literally allowing them to be immune to the poison status effect. However, Arthur didn't know that Zangoose had developed its hidden ability, Toxic Boost, meaning whenever it did get poisoned, it received a huge buff. The extra physical damage kept the massive Seviper on its proverbial toes.
Nuzleaf was not slacking either, even if its damage output was much more minor than that of Zangoose. He stayed mostly at range, to prevent getting in Zangoose's way. It had powered itself up with multiple uses of Growth and peppered the snake with Razor Leaf, swapping to Absorb whenever it took some damage. All the while directing its Leech Seed to heal Zangoose. The pair worked amazingly together, however, it was not enough.
The raw power difference became obvious when it hit Nuzleaf with a Feint Poison Tail. The attack looked like it was going to hit Zangoose when it suddenly changed directions and slammed into Nuzleaf. He had gotten lucky until then, avoiding the Poison effect, but it finally took hold. Then the Seviper hit Zangoose with a devastating Venoshock, dealing twice as much damage on an already debuffed Nuzleaf, knocking him out of the fight. Arthur returned the starter Pokemon, not willing to let it get any more hurt.
Zangoose didn't last much longer, with the full attention now on her, she went down in two strikes, the final one clearly being critical, as a loud snapping noise could be heard. With shaking hands, Arthur returned Zangoose as well, right as Seviper was going for the killing blow. The red light barely reached the fainted Pokemon as its Poison Tail struck the ground. The heavily wounded snake turned on Arthur, slowly and methodically moving closer and closer.
Arthur looked around for something to help him and saw his bag laying only a short distance away, having been thrown around in the fight. Desperately, he crawled towards it. He knew that it would be faster to run, but his legs didn't have the strength in them to support him. The injured snake was getting closer, he could hear it starting to speed up. Reaching the bag, Arthur ripped it open and grabbed exactly what he was looking for. Turning, he threw the object at the snake, whose tail was now shining brightly with poison energy.
In a bright flash of light, the Greatball clicked shut. Once it wobbled. Twice. Three times. It stood still for a moment. Then it clicked. Arthur had caught Seviper. He had no clue what to do with it. But he knew one thing, he wasn't keeping it.