2 Weeks Later
The day started the same way I had been starting all of my days the last two weeks.
30 minutes of straight meditation. Of course, I never really believed in meditation before. I believed in peace. I believed in clarity. Both of those were great for the mind. I, however, never really seemed to benefit from it. All I did was daydream when I tried.
This meditation was done for a different reason. Well, kind of different. It certainly helped me recenter myself, especially if I had been wracked with nightmares. That had been happening too often recently.
I sat cross legged in the middle of a nest of flattened brush and sticks. It was homey. It felt a little odd, knowing that it had previously been occupied by a giant spider, but I felt safe.
Yes, we had ended up just moving into the Galvantula nest.
They had been cleared out, so transporting all the webbing to another location to set up would have been unnecessary work.
To be fair, that wasn't really the initial thought. That day scarred me. I didn't have the energy to lug it all over. So I got Zuko to bring Hurricane over, with Tristan, and we set up shop for the night.
When the morning came, we realized we had no reason to leave.
Across my lap lay the spectral dao swords, held loosely in my grip.
Over these two weeks, I'd really tried to activate any sort of connection with the twin blades. Right now, I seemed to be able to heaten the metal up to slightly higher than room temperature when I focused on my connection with Azula. However, when I focused on my connection with Zuko, small flickers of electricity had begun to form along the length of the blades.
So, small progress.
Oblivion served as a conduit. At least for things like this. So while I was holding the swords, this was primarily an exercise to try and focus my aura. Trying to get Oblivion to work with me was a secondary but also kind of important task.
After my meditation, I went to my map I'd carved into a particularly flat and thick trunk.
I'd been exploring the nearby area for quite a while now. Hurricane and Zuko were helping too. Now that food wasn't a problem, we could bide our time.
That being said, something needed to change soon. Hurricane spent the entirety of the day laying next to Tristan now. I think it was the only thing slowing the spread. He refused to leave Tristan's side, even for food or water. I'd been bringing him meals every day, but this wasn't healthy for him.
Tristan's condition had been getting worse and worse. His skin was becoming gaunt. His cheekbones jutted out. His eyes were sunken. He'd gotten to the point that even if we tried to make the hail mary trip south, hoping to make it to civilization, Tristan wouldn't be able to survive traveling on Hurricane's back. Well, unless we walked. Then it might be slow enough to survive. But then, the trip would likely take over a week, where we would have to fight for our lives every single night. To be fair, I'd already thought he was in that poor of a state since the first night. Any regular human from my previous world would have died by now. I don't know if it was the aura connection with Hurricane, or some other bullshit. Maybe because of his martial aura? Fighting did resist both dark and poison. That still didn't explain how he could go this long without food or water.
I again looked at the electric webs around me in wonder, grateful for shelter.
On my tree map, there were a lot of areas marked out.
I'd made a giant circle around where I knew the Venomoth Colony was, and labeled it a death zone. That was South East from the Galvantula nest, where I was now.
East of the death zone was a Mightyena Pack, and if you went further East you'd find a Gliscor Colony, and then reach the river.
The river was one I had dubbed Gator Rapids, after the two Feraligator I had seen swimming down the wide chaotic stream. It was going far too fast for me to try and swim across, especially since it was over a hundred yards wide. It had, however, become a good water supply. Now that I could properly cook food, I could also boil water, so food and water weren't a problem anymore. A particularly large Shellder had served as a great meal, while its shell now served as a very effective bowl that I could boil water in.
Oh yeah.
That whole dilemma with the food. Despite the fact that I had moral qualms with the idea of having to kill and prepare the food myself, I eventually had to get over that fact as my stomach churned into a raging abyss that demanded sustenance.
The calorie bars had lasted three days. I'd used them all. I'd also given Zuko two, just because I had no idea how much food he needed after his evolution, and we didn't get around to figuring out where to cook until the next day.
Evolution didn't quite make sense to me yet. I wanted to see it with my own eyes, but the whole issue with the conservation of energy and mass is something I'd try and figure out.
I hadn't let Hurricane eat any calorie bars. Not out of selfish reasons. But because he's a dog. And the calorie bars had chocolate. I don't know. I can't afford every single one of Tristan's pokemon to be deathly sick.
But yeah, cooking was now on the table. I'd actually gotten quite good at it. Well, at cooking the food so it was edible. Not at making it taste good. To be fair, I didn't really have anything to season or marinate any of the food with. I did make an amazing Swellow stew yesterday though. Mixed in some wild radishes, a bit of fire root to add spice.
I'd been cooking in the Stantler field. For one, it was one of the few places where the light wouldn't be too noticeable. However, there was also the smoke. Anywhere else, the smoke would struggle to make it past the canopy and out into the sky. In the field, the smoke could rise into the air unhindered. So free smoke signal, that hopefully any Ranger in a couple mile radius would be able to see.
There had been no takers yet, but the field served multiple purposes.
It was also the one place I was comfortable with Azula training. I was okay with letting her out at base camp (the Galvantula nest), now that we had proper shelter. Hell, it would sometimes just lure in random wild pokemon, prompting them to incapacitate themselves on the electric webbing. So hey, free meals.
That being said, I was surprised with how seldom things would actually get caught in the webbing. Very few things were dumb enough to get close enough to trip a wire.
I guess that's why the Galvantula and Vikavolt had been living together. The Galvantula served as protection, somewhere where the Vikavolt could always return to, knowing they would be safe, as well as somewhere where they could leave their offspring when they went hunting. Then the Vikavolt, a very effective predator with long distance stuns and powerful attacks, could easily hunt enough for the entire nest. The Galvantula didn't move very much, so they probably didn't need to eat very much, even despite their size.
Which, that went back to evolution energy, and the fact that I really want to understand it.
Today, I will be heading north. Despite the Ranger camp being south, I could only explore so far during a given day. I would leave at the break of dawn, well, you could barely tell while under the forest canopy, and I'd have to be back before nightfall.
I'd bring Zuko with me, so I didn't really have to worry about wild pokemon, but surviving a night out there is not something I want to have to do again anytime soon.
The Ranger Camp is probably a 3 day walk from where we are now. Hurricane had really booked it out of there, and we had kept running for hours. Hurricane happened to be a little faster than me.
The return trip had several problems. We didn't quite know where the Ranger camp was, for starters. Plus, that hadn't been a permanent base, just a temporary camp for the training. So, even if we found it, it would likely be an abandoned patch of grass.
Then, even if we made it past that, we'd have to navigate our way out of the Endless Forest. The way that we had come in, which was somewhat close to the Ranger temporary camp, had been through the Valley. So that could have its own host of dangers.
But, even if all of that was feasible, Tristan doesn't seem like he's in any sort of shape to be handling the kind of speeds that Hurricane would need to get up to for us to be able to make it out of the Valley in any sort of reasonable time. That means we'd have to endure at least a day in the sweltering heat, with potential sandstorms, and not to mention the wild pokemon. Nightfall in the valley dropped to frigid temperatures, so there was that too.
No; for the meantime, we were stuck out here.
That meant that I had to try and find something here that could help them.
I didn't remember which berries in the games healed poisons, or status conditions, but I'd been searching high and low for any kind of berries.
I'd explored everywhere within a day's walk of here, thoroughly exploring the radius, except for north. A little bit north was where the Ferrothorn and Stantler field was, but I hadn't explored much farther than that.
That would change today.
I whistled, letting Zuko know I was ready to leave.
I walked through the webbing, seeing two teacup sized spiders trying to put electricity into the webbing in front of them. Another small yellow spider was drooping down from above them, creating its own small line of webbing. Next to them was a caterpillar like creature with two large protrusions on the front. It was shooting off waves of electricity into the tree next to it, slowly charring a bit of the bark.
"I like the work boys. Brain, Roger, really focus on conducting the charge through your mandibles. I've been giving you those extra iron supplements. I know they'll pay off. John, I like the effort. Your webbing is already looking more durable than it was last week. Freddie! Great work on discharge, try to keep your pincers together as you build it up, it'll help build a bigger charge for a stronger release."
The Joltik hanging from the web, the one dubbed John, chittered excitedly. The other two Joltik, as well as the Grubbin, remained focused on their work.
Honestly, I had no idea if they could understand me. Hurricane understood me, Zuko and Azula could understand me. But Zuko and Azula I had strong ties to. Hurricane very well could have had supplementary training with the Rangers in communication so that he could take orders and understand information given to him by anyone other than Tristan.
Either way, I was proud of the little bugs. Even if they couldn't understand me, they revered Zuko. And so I could help give them tips through Zuko, who could relay the information by going through the motions, actually demonstrating what I was saying so that the Joltik and Grubbin could try and copy it.
They were the only survivors that had been left by the Venomoth. Given that the whole ordeal was my fault, I would protect the little fuckers. And help them. They would have to rebuild their colony once I was out of here. I could help them grow until then.
Besides, despite fully grown Galvantula being giant scary spiders, Joltik were tiny. And cute. I don't know why something so little moving its legs so fast made me feel so warm inside, but honestly I think I might have gotten to the point where I'd lay down my life for these tiny fuckers.
I heard Zuko approaching, and we set off.
I took a closer look at Zuko as we walked through the brush.
He had changed a lot with his evolution. While not as big as Hurricane, who was taller than me even on all fours, Zuko now rose to my shoulder.
His physique kind of looked like mega-Swampert, albeit less beefy. His muscles were defined, clearly showing even through his scales.
The red fins on his back were flattened out, but they would twitch as we passed electric webbing.
I don't know how abilities would work in the real world. If I had to guess, his ability is lightning rod. He doesn't seem to take any damage from electricity. Plus, he has the red electricity sacs that seem to work the same as a Pikachu's. They seem to boost his power, although since he doesn't really use any special attacks I guess lightning rod doesn't work the same as the games.
Besides, he might be developing a sort of electroreception, hence the fins on his back tingling in response to the electro-magnetic fields of the Galvantula nest.
As we walked north, I checked on the traps that I had set nearby.
Some were basic snares, using some Galvantula webbing as rope, using bait to try and capture unsuspecting prey. I was experimenting with different traps after all. I needed to get some more data to find what could work against my food thief. Whatever creature was somehow sneaking into camp to steal portions of the food would be caught. I couldn't think about that right now though. Maybe after this excursion.
I experimented with using charged webbing versus uncharged webbing.
The uncharged webbing seemed to catch more, but they could escape by gnawing or cutting through the snare. Even though the webbing had some metallic threads, with enough time most wild pokemon seemed to find a way to get out of it.
So, hunting has continued to be the most reliable way of getting food.
Zuko prowled along. He had an air about him. Before, his confidence had been more of an arrogance. He would have been willing to challenge anything, no matter the stakes. Now, he knew he could challenge anything. Better yet, he knew he could win.
He'd more than doubled his battle experience through these last few weeks.
It was frustrating that Azula couldn't be doing the same, but some of these battles were life or death. So maybe it was for the best that she couldn't participate. She would always come through when I needed her to, but pitting her up against some of these wild Pokémon seemed in poor taste.
Zuko did fine since he could not only match their aggression, but also surpass it.
Not to mention that as a Starfallen Charmeleon, there were few things that could contend with his physicality. He'd recovered some of his speed now that he'd gotten a hang of his new form, but he still wasn't anywhere close to his top speeds that he reached as a Charmander.
Before, he had been a yellow blur. Now, you could actually see his individual legs as he moved.
He struggled to fight against enemies with good range, since he couldn't really run up and jump off trees like he used to. At least unless it was one of the incredibly thick redwoods that rose a couple hundred feet into the air.
Now, he could simply run up and leap, jumping high enough in the air to incapacitate even quick flyers like Crobat with his tails.
Whether it be a quick pulse of lightning into their system, or simply batting them out of the air, Zuko learned how to make every Pokémon in the forest fear him.
At this point, I think if we ever ran across that Slaking from that night again, he'd be eager to challenge it. And at this point, he might even win. His stuns had done effectively nothing to the Slaking before, but his output was magnitudes higher now.
I began to hear the roar of the river as we approached the Gator Canal. The Canal ran as far as I could see, and walled me off from exploring farther east. In terms of ways to explore, especially in search of any sort of organized civilization, walking along a river is always a good start.
I looked at the water pokemon in the river, contemplating how I was going to build a team.
It'd been over two and half months since I'd come to this world, and I still wasn't anywhere close to getting another pokemon.
I'd considered just trying to train up one of the ferals that Hurricane or Zuko had stunned, but there was a very small chance they would ever listen to me. Besides, I was planning on training these things to be able to operate without me. That meant making smart decisions even if I was unconscious. A fully grown wild pokemon lacked that sort of mental flexibility that I wanted. It would be far easier to train something up from a younger age, building the right neural pathways more efficiently. Not to say that it couldn't be done.
I'd still very much considered just catching that Decideuye that I'd seen stunned on the ground. However, there was also a personal bias there.
A fully grown pokemon had already lived a lot of its life without me. Assimilating to the idea of being on my team would take some serious work. It also felt like tearing them out of their own lives, rather than them starting a new chapter.
So, I'd rather catch something in its first stage. Second stage at the most.
Probably.
At least for now. Maybe when I had a bigger, more rounded team, I would consider trying to catch a fully grown wild pokemon. It would be interesting seeing how their psyche would have developed from living out in the wild for all their lives.
The Joltik and Grubbin were options too, but I still felt guilty about the whole Galvantula ordeal. It was my responsibility to help them rebuild. Taking them with me kind of defeated that purpose.
Besides, I kind of had the electric type spot of my team filled out. That being said, having a special attacker like Vikavolt to supplement Zuko's physicality wouldn't be a bad idea.
In my head though I already saw Azula as the perfect support to Zuko.
Once they could both fly, I couldn't imagine what could possibly challenge those two in the air.
The Gator Canal held far more pokemon than just Feraligator. I'd seen a Seismitoad hanging around a mud bank, trying to push a Gastrodon into the water.
Neither could really damage each other, so the Seismotoad had been trying to push the Gastrodon close enough to the Feraligator, who could actually do some damage.
Zuko and I finally reached the Gator Canal. It might have been a trick of the light, but I swear I saw a lone Mudkip swimming through the water. It had been a blue blur, racing along the riverbank heading downstream to who knows where.
I think stat spreads worked very differently here than in the games. Maybe speed stats were different in the water than on land, or maybe being able to swim fast in water counted as swift swim, but either way it's an interesting prospect.
It was mainly because of something I'd noticed with Zuko. His speed had been nearly unrivaled when he was a Charmander. Sure, Hurricane could beat him in a straight line, but he could bounce around trees at almost the same speed he ran straight.
Now that he evolved, his speed had nearly been halved.
I wonder if the same holds true for that Mudkip. As the primary stage, living in a callous world of survival of the fittest meant that you can't really challenge a lot of the predators. However, if you can run fast enough, that means you can escape enough encounters, eventually getting to the point where you can evolve. Then, you have enough power that running away isn't the only option.
Hence, primary stages might generally be faster than later stages, simply as a circumstance of natural selection, where pokemon who were faster in their first stage tended to survive far more often than those that weren't. Eventually, the "baby" stage pokemon being faster became more and more common.
Well, that was the theory anyway. I really wish my pokedex was working so I could research all of this. It'd also be interesting to talk to Oak about this sort of thing.
But yeah, back to my main point, Mudkip would be a great addition to the team. Swampert has a really powerful typing. Water and ground would both provide some good coverage. Not to mention the access to ice moves being a huge boon.
The quad weakness to grass would be covered by Azula.
Again, not that weaknesses and resistances carried over consistently, but I'd still consider it a good baseline for initial analysis.
I turned my head as Zuko was challenged by a Poliwrath that erupted out of the river, eager for battle.
Zuko roared, accepting the challenge. He easily could have made quick work of the muscled tadpole pokemon by utilizing any of his electric techniques.
However, Zuko had come to be annoyed with how powerful his electric moves were since his evolution. While weak opponents before had only taken one stun to be incapacitated, bigger opponents, namely fully evolved pokemon, had usually taken an actual fight to take down. He would have to weave under attacks, baiting out his opponent to overextend, having to search for and utilize weak points. Just like I'd taught him to.
Now, if he charged up his electricity, even powerful grapplers like Heracross and Primeape had been knocked unconscious in a single blow.
It had been fun at first, but two weeks later, Zuko was bored.
He didn't have to try in any of his battles. Despite the decrease in speed, he was still faster than most opponents.
The most fun I'd seen him have since his evolution was against a Boltund. While he would have been faster than it as a Charmander, the Boltund could now consistently dodge his attacks. Besides that, even if he got a stun to hit, the Boltund could shake it off.
Zuko had actually snarled with glee as he had to utilize actual strategy, boxing the Boltund in by knocking two logs to both of its sides. He'd then closed the distance, curling his tails together and whipping his body around to hit the Boltund with a devastating tail whip.
I realize that's not what tail whip is in the games, but Zuko used his tail as an actual whip, using his body's momentum, circling in the air, to create an incredible amount of force near the end of his tails, where he'd curled them together to have the highest concentrated mass he could for his tails, knocking the Boltund out instantly, shattering its ribcage.
It had been Zuko's first time using such a maneuver, so I had let the excessive force slide.
So, for fights like these, Zuko actively avoided using his win conditions. He'd learned that he now had access to some fighting energy, energy that this Poliwrath was using right now against him, and this was one of the best ways he could learn to utilize it.
The Poliwrath was big. Its arms were bulging with power. They were thicker around than my head. They were attached to a giant circular torso. It looked like a bodybuilder that never hits legs. The little stubs that it used to hold itself up looked like they weren't ever used. Hell, this thing probably only used its arms to swim around.
The Poliwrath swung forward in a mach punch, hoping to catch Zuko off guard. Zuko ducked low, dropping his body to the ground so the fist would sail over his head.
Zuko jumped forward, swinging his front left arm in an arc towards the Poliwrath's exposed eyes on the top of its head.
The Poliwrath coated its hand with brown energy, swatting Zuko's swipe aside. It then chopped its arm down, capitalizing on Zuko being knocked off balance.
Zuko twisted, taking the hit on his shoulder rather than his head. He then reared up on his back legs, coating his hand with brown energy, copying the chop that the Poliwrath used.
Poliwrath caught the karate chop, however, and punched Zuko in the ribs for the attempt.
Zuko snarled, clearly pissed now, and ducked down. His legs coiled up before launching forward, ramming his head straight into the Poliwrath, sending them both flying into the middle of the river.
Shit.
Poliwrath was probably the king of grappling underwater. With its water manipulation and brute strength, there was no way Zuko would be able to outpower it. He'd have to…
A flash of light lit up the Gator Canal, electricity surging through the flow. The water sizzled as bubbles rose to the surface.
Within seconds, Magikarp, Qwilfish, Basculin, and even a Staryu floated to the top of the water, burnt and lifeless. The large form of the Poliwrath followed, large black electricity burns all across its form.
Zuko washed up to the shore a couple hundred paces back, looking at me with embarrassment. His head was ducked down. The red fins on his head and back were fully deflated, like a cat's ears fully bent back in shame.
"You dumbass! I'm not letting those lives go to waste. Go collect all the fish. Leave the Poliwrath, it's too big. Also the Qwilfish, I don't know how to get rid of the toxins."
Zuko snorted, sending out a blast of air from his nose in frustration, but jumped into the river without hesitation to follow through.
This would be good training for him anyway. Swimming against a powerful current would be good cardio while also helping him train his coordination in a good way.
Since I was choosing not to move from where I was standing, he'd have to try and chart the most efficient path to all of the fish, having to find a way to carry them all, and get back to me.
I took the makeshift pack off of my back. I'd coiled some of the Galvantula webbing together to make a net. The pack is something I'd fashioned together from Hurricane's saddle. The packs for storage attached to the side of the saddle had been easy to cut off.
With my back healing, I couldn't spend every minute of every day exploring the area around me. With no charge in the pokedex, and really nothing else to do, I'd spent most of my free time tinkering with everything that I did have.
I came from a world with fucking cell phones, letting me fill every second of my day with mindless entertainment. A man gets bored. Sue me.
So, making things like a net, which I could use to drag whatever I was making for dinner, far easier than carrying it, tended to come in handy. Well, sometimes. It depended on what environment I was dragging it through, and how uneven the mon was to carry.
Plus, I'd figured a net would be great for fishing. Something I hadn't quite gotten around to yet.
I guess it'd be holding fish today though.
Zuko returned to shore, running up the length of the riverbank to me, depositing two Magikarp and the Staryu.
I shook my head. "I remember a Basculin. Green fucker. Sharp teeth."
Zuko snarled again, scrunching his nose and baring his teeth at me. I stared back at him, arms crossed.
Finally, Zuko gave in, jumping back into the water to search for the Basculin that he'd fried. I sat down putting the fish into the net and looking closer at them.
I tapped on the Magikarps scales, admiring the toughness. These tiny red fish somehow turn into massive sea serpents.
How in the fuck?
Admittedly, they were only tiny in comparison to a Gyarados. This thing was like an oversized goldfish. One that had grown for years, and now could swallow a Roomba with ease. Their evolved forms could swallow a Camry whole.
Evolution was bullshit.
Twenty minutes later, a much more exhausted Zuko came running from very far downstream.
I had only been slightly worried. The only thing that could actually contend with him in the water was a Swampert. Nothing else would be able to shrug off his electricity. With his physicality, I would say that he could hold his own in a grappling match, but being tired from swimming could change things.
However, given the slim chances and the necessity of the lesson, I figured it was worth it. Besides, in the worst case scenario, I trusted that even while tired, he would be able to muster the force to knock away any assailants. And while most battles he would stay and fight, if air was an issue, because it was underwater, it would actually teach him the valuable lesson of retreating. He was arrogant. Strong headed. But he wasn't stupid. Fighting a battle he thought he could win happened to be every single battle. If he saw a single way he could win, he would keep fighting. A battle underwater could actually force him to accept a loss, since the extra addition of air supply would narrow down his options significantly.
I'd learned that the fastest way to get Zuko to trust and respect me was to put him into situations where he was forced to grow. He lived for moments where he had to push himself.
In Zuko's mouth was a flopping fish, almost 6 feet long. It had white fins that looked like clouds, or smoke. Yet its head had teeth very similar to that of a Basculin. He clearly hadn't been able to find the Basculin. Hell something else might have eaten it already.
So he had opted to just grab the first green fish that he saw, hoping I wouldn't notice.
"Okay that's definitely a different fish. And it's still very much alive, so it couldn't have been the one you shocked. Toss it back, it's too big. We've got plenty already anyway."
Zuko turned towards the water, then looked down at the fish in its mouth. He tried to give me his best puppy dog impression, trying to emphasize just how much work he went into catching this thing.
I shook my head, and then flicked my head towards the water.
Zuko slowly trotted up to the river, and dropped the Basculin(?) into the water. I'm still not sure what that pokemon was. It looked like a Basculin, but had some other features that Basculin didn't have. Maybe it was an evolution? That'd make the most sense.
I really had to be careful about this sort of thing.
What if something that was already dangerous, like an Absol, had also gained an evolution that I didn't know about? That could spell disaster if I wasn't ready for it.
I picked up the net of fish, slinging it over my back, and started walking back north.
"You know Zuko, we're gonna have to work out a better way for you to work on your fighting moves. I wish we had Siba around. While randomly mimicking wild pokemon using fighting moves is a start, having professionals teach you the trade would be huge."
Zuko bobbed his head in agreement. He was clearly frustrated at how his battle had gone. Having to resort to using electricity would definitely be counted as a loss in his mind.
"If you're that close to the river, you should try baiting your opponents farther inland. Especially when you know their strength is tied to the water. Even on your first swipe, that Poliwrath could very well have just grabbed you and thrown you into the water."
Zuko snarled, walking a little faster so he could pretend I wasn't talking. I laughed, catching up to him.
"Right. Rubbing salt in an open wound. We can talk about everything you did wrong later. For now, let's see what the north has to offer us." I added.
Zuko looked up to me, nodding, and set his head straight as he continued walking forward. We really had come a long way. He understood me. I understood him. We were shaping up into a team.
Sticking with that mindset, I let Azula out. She was too big now to ride on my shoulders, so she had to walk in next to me as Zuko stayed a couple paces ahead. She was just happy to bask in the sunlight as we walked.
No more water pokemon tried to attack us. I wonder if they could sense Zuko's frustration. Fighting a dragon was already a bad idea. Fighting an angry dragon, that was essentially committing suicide.
Plus, his tails whipping through the air angrily, sending off random waves of electricity probably helped.
No water pokemon would challenge that.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, that was, until I saw something really interesting. Something that could be a game changer. In fact, it would solve nearly every single problem that I have.
A Braviary dropped down from the sky, wind contrails behind it from how fast it was, and then dipped under the tree line for a couple seconds before rising above again.
Then, a Pidgeot did the same thing, in the same place, just a couple minutes later.
We traveled along the river until we were close enough to head back through the trees to explore.
What we found was bug. There was a pack of Parasect, holding up what looked to be a Manectric that they had incapacitated with stun spores. They lifted it up in the air, where there was a gap between the trees.
The trees were parted, almost like a tunnel.
Then, it happened.
I heard a whistle. The screech of the air as something ripped through it at nearly the speed of sound.
A Skarmory dropped low, zooming through the wind tunnel, waves of air blasting out as it dipped under the canopy, and then rocketed back up into the air as it flapped its wings.
The Parasect moved forward as the Skarmory had gotten closer, easily noticeable by the whistling sound getting louder and closer.
As it zipped past, the force of the Skarmory shoving air aside creating a pocket of lower pressure behind it, the air all around rushing to fill in that gap.
So, the toxins the Manectric had been drenched with were sucked out by the vacuum, the Parasect having to strain to hold on as the Manectric was pulled in the direction of the Skarmory's wake.
Then, the Parasect moved on, ready to eat their prey now that it wasn't coated in dangerous powders.
This could change everything.
I had one potion left.
There was a certain pokemon that I currently couldn't heal due to the toxins and powder that riddled its system.
If I could get the all the spores of out Gallade's system, or at least enough, and then tore out the razor blades and healed the wounds, Gallade could wake up.
Bullshit psychic type that knows teleport.
Hell yeah.
The return trip back to base camp was the fastest I had traveled in days. My back was feeling slightly better, so my speed walk was unrivaled by any humans in a five mile radius. I realize Tristan was the only human within a five mile radius, but hey healing has its small victories.
This could change everything.