"What? You want me to hold him?" I asked, shaking my head in confusion.
Hurricane raised his eyebrows at me, as if shrugging. As a quadruped, his paws didn't really have the greatest gripping ability. His only other option was to lift Gallade up with his mouth, gripping onto the scruff of his neck like a mama cat with her kitten.
Gallade didn't really have the extra tough and stretchy neck skin/fur for that kind of maneuver.
"I don't think you understand. The vacuum is crazy strong. I can't muster that kind of strength right now. Plus, I physically don't think gravity would do me any favors here. I'm going to get pulled in, same as Gallade, unless we bolt my feet into the ground."
Hurricane and I were at the wind tunnel. There were no Parasect around. Zuko was back at base camp, defending Tristan. Azula was in her pokeball on my belt. Gallade was in the ultra-ball in my hand, ready to be released.
Of course, there was now the dilemma of how we were going to hold Gallade in a way that we could get the vacuum to siphon the toxins out of his system.
Too far to the side and it wouldn't work.
The Parasect had timed it so they got behind Skarmory right as it flew in, digging their claws into the ground so as not to be blown away, gripping the Manectric held up so they were properly in the vacuum.
We needed to get as close as possible, but not so close that the flyer would get distracted. Hurricane was kind of big.
"Okay how about this. You dig two divots here, so that I can pivot my feet against them. Then, you're going to lay down with Gallade resting against your head. I'll be in front, pushing against the divots, essentially facing the flying type head on." I waved my hands through the air, miming what all we were going to do.
"So, I'll be in front of you pushing Gallade into you. You're heavy enough that while lying down the vacuum shouldn't budge you at all. With Gallade's head in the air, the vacuum should be close enough to start pulling the toxins from his mouth and lungs."
Hurricane nodded.
We got into position, flat against the ground so the birds wouldn't be scared off. To be fair, with how fast they were going, even if they did see us I don't think they could alter their trajectory to go anywhere but through the wind tunnel at that point.
Then came the wait.
Ten minutes of laying in the grass, feeling the eyes of Hurricane looking at me.
Gallade was barely breathing. Before setting up, we'd hastily pulled out the razor leaves, used the potion on the wounds, with a little bit to spare.
He was huffing up small puffs of powder with every breath.
Hurricane was glaring daggers at me.
"No I swear. There were like three birds that flew through here within five minutes yesterday. They'll come." I spit out.
I really hoped they did. Not only would this be really embarrassing for me, it would also essentially be a death sentence for Gallade if we didn't return him in time. Then, we'd be out of potions, and Gallade's only hope would be us making it back to civilization and healing him there.
What it did mean was that Tristan would die. No potion. No Gallade. No teleporting. We'd gotten no closer to being rescued.
Tristan's condition had only been getting worse and worse. Hell, even with the chance of Gallade being saved here, it had taken some serious convincing to get Hurricane to leave Tristan's side.
And now, Hurricane was fucking pissed. At me. Because no goddamn flying types were using the wind tunnel.
Finally, three more excruciatingly long minutes later, I heard the whistling of something getting closer.
I couldn't help but let out a massive sigh of relief.
Hurricane shuffled, reorienting himself. This was the tricky part. Hurricane would sit up a bit, putting Gallade's head higher. My job was to push against the divots in the ground, making sure Gallade wasn't pulled away. The pushing motion let me keep the force in my chest and arms, avoiding upsetting my back.
The whistling sound got louder and louder until finally a plume of red and gold feathers rushed past me, a golden blur sending ripples through the air as the air molecules were forced to the side.
Then came the vacuum. As the Pidgeot zipped past, I could feel myself getting pulled back by the pressure difference.
I had to tuck my head in as a cloud of powders was pulled out of Gallade's mouth. I kept my hands steady, waiting for the wind to die down.
Then, the absence of air sent Gallade into a coughing fit.
Holy shit he was awake.
The psychic fighting pokemon dropped to his knees, coughing up more of the toxins onto the ground. After a couple more seconds, Gallade looked up to both of us, and then promptly passed out.
Well shit.
That was promising. Well, until he passed out. But still, he had been conscious for a couple seconds there at least.
I checked Gallades pulse, noticing that it was much stronger than before. Awesome. I returned him to his Ultra Ball, ready to head back to camp. Gallade could rest up as much as he wanted. His job would be very important.
Hurricane and I shared a look, and I quickly jumped onto his back. The forest didn't blur away. He had been eating less than he was supposed to, and not moving as much, so he couldn't reach his top speeds right now. Plus, the forest floor didn't let him reach his top speeds anyway.
In any case, we made our way to base camp in a hurry, but without rushing.
Hurricane actually had a jump in his step, looking excited for the first time since the incident. For these last couple weeks, he'd just had to deal with a whiny rookie and his novice pokemon. Finally having one of his own team members back was huge.
Plus, Gallade was our win condition. Once he woke up, all he had to do was teleport us out of here. My only worry was that I didn't know how developed Gallade's psychic prowess was. At least in terms of teleporting. I'd seen that he could teleport himself just fine, using it rapidly during battle, but that didn't let me know anything about how far he could teleport, or how much mass he could bring with him.
Admittedly, I could return all the pokemon to their balls, and Gallade would only have to teleport Tristan and I, which I think would be within his ability, but the range might still be an issue.
However, even if we had to make multiple rests, that was likely only defending positions for a couple hours at a time, which was doable, as compared to having to defend positions for an entire night, for every night of like two weeks, had we had to make the trek.
We slipped into base camp. I lifted one of the charged webs up, keeping its voltage from leaking out by focusing the aura in my hand, and let Hurricane slip under the gap I'd made. I then followed him, walking through the tunnel of electric webs that I'd been temporarily been calling my home.
The thrum of electric webbing no longer made me wary. In fact, it was comforting.
I released Gallade in the little lip that we'd dug out for Tristan. The dirt was soft, and Hurricane could lay down with room to spare so he could warm him up. Heat seemed to be helping Tristan the most. Probably. So we'd made it as warm as possible. I'd also wrapped him up in some Galvantula pelts that I had been careful to hide from the Joltik. I couldn't just let all those lives go to waste. They would help out in any way that they could. I'd also taken the Vikavolt pincers, with the goal of making arrows that could hold an electric charge. This was because of that Honchkrow, and the fact that throwing rocks only really seemed to piss it off. I wanted a proper way to deal with opponents in the air.
My attempts at making a bow had all failed so far, however, so that was still just an idea at this point.
Hurricane retreated back into the den like enclosure, and snuggled back up with Tristan's prone form, releasing heat. Gallade was now next to him, passed out.
Now, all we had to do was wait. Every second seemed excruciatingly long, and I tried to think of what I could do to pass the time.
I decided I would pack up whatever materials we could in the meantime. I grabbed some webbing, coiling it up onto a spindle.
I passed the pile of smoked meats I'd laid out on a rock. I wasn't worried about wild pokemon catching the scent of the food. If anything, it might lure them into the electric perimeter.
However, there were some pieces missing again.
This had been happening the last couple of days.
The laid out food, whether it be slabs of meat or gathered fruits and vegetables, always seemed to have decreased over night.
This was interesting.
These days, since the wild pokemon of the night were now significantly less of a present threat due to the shelter, we would switch off in shifts during the night for who stayed up.
The missing food could very well be Zuko wanting a midnight snack, but I've confronted him about it. He simply narrowed his eyes.
The fact that the food that went missing the most were fruits confirmed that it wasn't Zuko, however. Zuko ate the rare fruit or vegetable every couple days, but he usually just stuck to eating meat.
It wasn't Hurricane either.
Something was sneaking into camp, at some point during the night, and stealing tiny portions of the food.
I, ever the diligent trainer, had begun to set traps. This was only partially spurred on by the fact that further review had shown the food only went missing during my shift. Hence, whatever this creature was, it had dubbed me the weakest link. It chose to steal during my shift, avoiding the ire of Hurricane or Zuko. It confidently assumed it would be able to continue stealing food that I had collected.
The basic snare that I had set had been tripped, during my shift, but didn't catch anything. I'd been watching the pile of food intently. I made the snare with a line of webbing that I had dunked in the Gator Canal so it wouldn't stick randomly to things. Well, besides the loop that would snag the leg of the unsuspecting mischievous deviant that was stealing my food. I'd tied it to a branch above, bending it so that once weight was put on the notched stick in the ground, lifting the snare into the air, the open loop would close around the leg of whatever stepped inside.
Five seconds.
That's all it took.
I was distracted, hearing the sounds of something nearby. The cracking of twigs, a little too close to the camp. When I went to investigate, sword in hand, it turned out to be nothing.
When I came back, the trap had been tripped, all the fruit were gone.
That was cruel, by the way.
Normally, only like a couple berries went missing. Not any of the special berries from the games. I still hadn't found any of those. This time, every single berry, every single apple, all the fruit. It was all gone.
Whatever this thing was, it wasn't doing this because it needed to. There wouldn't be a giant spike in how much food it needed, just in a day. Granted, I could think of a couple reasons why that might be the case. Some kind of hibernation. It needed to feed its kids, and this had become its only source of food. Maybe it was about to undergo evolution, or it just had undergone evolution, and therefore needed significantly more food.
However, the likelihood of any of those things happening the same day that I first set a trap for this thing was highly unlikely.
No, this was about sending a message.
The next day I had dug three giant pits into the middle of the Galvantula nest. I'd moved the pile of food into the middle, putting giant rocks in convenient locations so that any path to the food would require walking over at least one of the pit traps.
The night came, and I waited. I'd laid the bottom of the trap with some of the Joltik's webbing. It didn't have high metal thread composite ratios, and wouldn't hold much of a charge, but it was sticky. So anything that fell in would get stuck, or at least stuck long enough for me to investigate.
Then came the pitard.
It turns out that digging three massive holes, especially during the healing process, tires one out. In this case, one was me.
I fell asleep not even five minutes into my shift. I really should've seen it coming. I'd had to take so many breaks during the day while digging those holes. Every time I felt like I was going to strain my back, I would take a water break. Then the water break turned into an hour long break where I would rest up against a tree and munch on some carrots I'd found and washed, speculating about why vegetables were one of the few things consistent between my world and this one.
And yes, falling asleep during my shift was very irresponsible, and very well could have spelled all of our deaths. However, this was a week and a half since we had moved into the Galvantula nest. In that time, not a single pokemon had made it through the perimeter of the electric webbing.
If Hurricane or Zuko were napping during their shifts, I would have no idea.
Granted, the thing stealing the food maybe also could have killed us, in this moment. That is a possibility.
That would be a pretty pathetic way to go. Die due to negligence and excessive hole digging. After surviving everything I had so far.
Well, possibilities aside, I woke to every single pit trap now hosting a collection of rocks. The fruit I had collected was gone.
And the game continued.
I hadn't had fruit in a couple days, since the damn thing had stolen them all, so it had begun to steal some slabs of meat.
This prompted Zuko to stay up an entire night, ready to murder the thing that was stealing his protein, but the mysterious thief did not act that night.
So now, I'm pretty sure Zuko is convinced that I'm the thief, and I was gaslighting him into thinking it's some other creature by accusing him first, clearly distancing myself from the blame, and then simply eating as much as I want during my night shift.
I think my constant snack breaks while digging the holes didn't really help my case.
The game had continued, but none of my traps had caught the mystery thief.
I guess now, the game is over. Once Gallade woke up, we could get out of here. The mystery thief would remain a mystery.
I rushed over as I heard a sharp bark.
I knew what that meant.
I passed Zuko, who was nestled up against a tree. The bark had been torn apart from Zuko rubbing his body against it, choosing it as his scratching post. His rough scales had done a number on the bark.
I rubbed his head, letting him continue napping.
I also passed the Joltik, who likewise were napping. The Grubbin, Freddie, chittered angrily as I passed by. I didn't have time for his antics, so I continued past him.
Turning the corner, I saw a very sleepy eyed psychic fighting pokemon.
The giddy smile on my face melted as I saw the distraught look on Gallade's face. And it wasn't from seeing Tristan.
No.
Gallade was staring at his hands, pink energy dissipating instantly whenever called upon. Small tendrils of black lightning replaced them immediately, making Gallade flinch with each attempt. He kept trying, forcing himself to endure the pain.
Hurricane dropped his head onto the ground between his paws, letting out a sad whine.
Gallade turned to look at him with a terrified expression.
He couldn't use his psychic powers.
Goddamn it.
I ducked back, letting Gallade and Hurricane have some space. This was actually really worrying. I wonder if the residual effects of the Starfallen Ivysaur poison really had that kind of detrimental effect. Hopefully this was just temporary. Hopefully Gallade just needed a day or two to get back on his feet.
Damn it. This was so frustrating. I really wish I had read up on all of this stuff before I had left. I mean seriously, reading about how Starfallen Ivysaur and Bulbasaur have a unique kind of poison that is potentially the first poison with the properties of a dark type move? That's cool. Granted, I don't know if stuff like the details of poisons are actually open to the public, or how I would stumble onto potentially obscure details like that, or if they even had details like the catologued.
So many unknowns.
Okay. So Gallade could not use his psychic powers. There's some kind of void poison in his system, either supressing those powers temporarily, or having caused a permanent debilitation. If it was temporary, I could help Gallade out by drawing up a very hot bath. The hot water would open up his pores, hopefully releasing more of the pent up toxins. If it was still in his bloodstream, I couldn't really think of anything to do besides give him lots of water and time.
I scrambled my brain to try and think of everything I knew that could be helpful. Ranger Layton had said that typically nobody survived Saurian poison. Especially heavy doses.
Yet Tristan and Gallade had made it through, even if they were not in great condition. Survival was way better than death.
So, what made them special?
Tristan's aura was really focused into fighting and fire, however I feel like with Gallade being his starter, as well as from seeing him in action, fighting was the predominant foothold of his aura.
Fighting resists dark in the games. Poison does neutral damage to it, while psychic is super effective against poison. Though an advantage over something doesn't mean it resists it.
Gallade also seems like he's focused more on his martial powers, his fighting prowess, only really using his psychic powers for defense and mobility.
So if their aura was the thing keeping the dark poison at bay, that would explain everything I was seeing right now.
Was there anything else that could also explain everything? I can't think of anything off the top of my head, so I'll work with this theory for now.
Okay. If Gallade can still use his fighting moves, lacing his attacks with the martial aura, then its safe to say the poison is only counteracting his psychic affinity. That's good and bad. Good in the sense that Gallade isn't completely crippled, and also the fact that it would point to the poison causing a temporary condition, and enough time would let his natural biological systems get rid of the rest of the poison while his aura made sure it didn't kill him. Bad in the sense that Tristan was still in the same condition, and we wouldn't be able to teleport out of here. Given that I had no idea how long the poison could stay in his system, and how long the recovery would take for his psychic abilities after, I'd have to try and think of other potential solutions.
I made my way back around the corner. I really needed to try and get Gallade's input on all of this. Plus, I just now realize that Tristan is next to him, looking very sick, as well as not having either of his legs. He'll probably want an explanation.
When I got there, however, I was greeted with a perplexing sight.
Gallade was kneeled down, next to Tristan, with both of his hands against Tristan's chest. Both of their forms were covered in a light brown silhouette. Every couple seconds, Gallade's silhouette, which was deeper and more powerful, would pulse. Then, the silhouette around Tristan would respond in kind, pulsing. The silhouette around Tristan seemed to get stronger with each pulse. The brown light became more pronounced. It felt warm. It felt kind.
I looked towards Hurricane, checking to see if it was okay for me to see this. Hurricane was laying down, eyes downcast, but he gestured with his head for me to come over and sit next to him.
I put my back against the trunk of the tree in the side where we'd carved into it and sat quietly, letting Gallade continue his work. His eyes remained closed in focus, and he didn't even notice me.
Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes turned to hours. The forest around us got slightly darker. It was hard to tell, since there were no sunbeams that leaked through to begin with, but my internal clock told me it had become nightfall.
Hurricane and I simply sat and observed, basking in Gallade's aura.
Finally, the brown pulses came to a stop. Gallade took his hands off of Tristan's chest, and opened his eyes. They were very tired and weary, yet spoke volumes. Those eyes were eyes of understanding. Of acceptance. Eyes that had seen tragedies, and lived through them. Eyes that showed experience. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened. It was likely the worst, but Gallade wasn't the type to be shocked or angry. He was a fighter.
I don't know if it was just my optimism speaking, but Tristan looked better. Not by much. In fact it was such a small difference that I was probably imagining it. His eyes looked just a little less sunken. His skin looked a little less gray.
"No psychic powers?" I asked Gallade, scrunching my eyebrows in worry. I might as well get straight to the point.
Gallade met my eyes for a second. Then he looked down, shaking his head.
"Can you tell what it is?" I asked. "Like, if its a poison in your bloodstream. Or if its leftover from whatever was coating the razor leaves. Or if there's still powder in your lungs." I explained, noticing Gallade's confusion.
Gallade's eyes shot around as he thought. He experimentally stretched his arms through the air. Then, he took some deep and controlled breaths. He continued after that by taking very quick breaths. After that, he closed his eyes in concentration, sitting cross legged, and meditated for five minutes. He was probably using some kind of aura trick for further analysis.
Finally, Gallade turned back to me. He simply shrugged his shoulders.
Damn. No easy answer there.
I frowned. "Okay. I bet you're exhausted, so rest up. We can talk more tomorrow. Hurricane, you rest up too. I'll have Zuko and I each take some extra time to cover for your shift."
Hurricane turned to me, shaking his head. I rolled my eyes, gesturing to how Gallade had already passed out.
Hurricane got the message. I wasn't doing this for him. For friendship reasons, I would also do it for Hurricane's health. However, now knowing more about Hurricane, I knew he would absolutely never accept that sort of thing. I'd learned that lesson. So this was not for Hurricane's health. This was because Gallade had just woken up to a very shitty situation. His psychic powers were gone.
Hurricane wasn't the kind to get nightmares. Or maybe he was. Maybe that's why he refused to sleep unless he needed to. But that's besides the point. Gallade might very well wake up at any point tonight, and having Hurricane's support could make a world of difference. Hurricane was a rock. He'd been the most reliable thing I had in this shitty situation. I bet he'd been the same for Tristan and Gallade for many years.
I could easily take a couple extra hours watch so that Gallade could rest better, knowing Hurricane was next to him.
I heard Zuko coming around, and saw as he peeked his head around the tree to see what was going on.
I stood up, giving a final nod to Hurricane and one last look at Tristan and Gallade.
After Zuko and I had walked out of earshot, I let him know the situation. Zuko grumbled at hearing that Gallade had lingering effects from the poison. Finally, I let him know that he would be taking first shift, and that it would be longer than normal. He took that in stride. I think his nap went longer than expected anyhow.
I was about to head to bed when I heard the faint sound of dirt being kicked up.
The food thief.
I really couldn't afford for any of the food to be taken tonight. This was on the tail end of the reserves. I was planning on doing more cooking tomorrow. The remaining stores would have been enough to feed all of us plus Gallade, but if we lost any of the food that wouldn't stay true.
My eyes met with Zuko's. I flicked my eyes left and nodded forward, letting him know the plan.
The basic gesture just meant that he should take right, I'll take left. We both started circling around.
Tools. Tools. I grabbed a spindle of web that was next to me. I randomly had some lines of webbing collected in different spots around base camp. Whether it be for making certain things, or just one of the Joltik practicing their web spinning, there was plenty all around.
I stalked forward, careful with every step as I made a wide circle towards the food pile. I made a loop with the webbing, creating a lasso. I also did the button release on Zuko's ultra ball. Just in case. I didn't have the time to grab the other ultra ball from Tristan's pack. I could always reassign it to Zuko later.
For now, I wanted to be ready for anything.
I heard commotion. Zuko snarled, kicking up dirt as he closed the distance. I sprinted forward, stopping at the sight of Zuko holding a small brown furred creature. One of his tails was wrapped around its torso, holding it up to his face.
The brown furred creature was small. Smaller than Azula. The Eevee had a slice of jerky that I'd made sticking out of its mouth.
Zuko turned towards me, unsure of what to do.
"Interesting. An Eevee. I honestly wouldn't have expected one of them to survive out in the wild, let alone the Endless Forest. I'm impressed." I continued walking forward. The Eevee turned towards the noise, but seemed completely unimpressed.
Despite the fact that the Eevee's life was currently in Zuko's hands, the Eevee didn't look worried in the slightest. It simply finished munching on the Stantler jerky, swallowing it down happily.
Then, half a dozen bright stars made of light shot out from behind a tree, all of them hitting Zuko's nose in succession.
He barely flinched, taking the blow, but was startled as not one but three more Eevee came out of the shadows to defend their comrade.
One jumped onto his back, latching onto one of his red fins, eliciting a pained snarl from the dragon.
Zuko threw the Eevee in his tail into a tree trunk in front of us, twisting to try and get the other Eevee to let go.
I opted to throw the lasso of webbing at one of the other Eevee's. Surprisingly, my throw held true and it circled over its head. Then, the line passed straight through the Eevee, as if it had phased through it, and dropped to the ground below.
What?
How?
Ghost type Eevee?
The Eevee gave me a mirthful smirk, and then bounded away into the night. Zuko continued jumping around, trying to get the Eevee on its back to let go. Finally, he reached up with his tails to smack the little furred pokemon away, but noticing the danger the Eevee let go before the scaled appendages could hit.
I looked around hastily.
Shit.
I could only see one Eevee left. It was the one Zuko had thrown into a tree. The bark had cracked somewhat, showing just how hard he had thrown the small creature. The Eeevee was shakily getting onto its feet. However, it seemed to be torn between running away and trying to steal more food, shown by the trembling of its lower lip and dripping saliva as it stared at the pile of Stantler jerky.
Oh no you don't.
I grabbed the empty Ultra Ball from my belt. Zuko's ultra ball. Or what used to be Zuko's ultra ball, at least. It was untethered now.
I whipped my elbow, throwing the ball forward.
It collided with Eevee's back leg, eliciting a surprised squeak. The Eevee condensed into red energy, and was subsequently sucked up into the air, funneling into the falling ultra ball.
One wiggle.
Two wiggles.
The blinking red light over the middle button of the ball stopped. The ball stopped moving.
I had just caught my very first pokemon.